Victory points

  • German
  • Spanish surrender – 50
  • Capture government – 10
  • Government goes into exile – 5
  • Terror bombing – 6 (3 hits)
  • Hits on Naval units – 72 (9 hits)
  • Enemy losses – 34 (3 elim air units – 12, 7 aborted air units – 14, 7 REs in repl pool, 1 c/m – 8)
  • Territory – 60 (6 major city hexes) + 60 (12 dot cities) + 40 (20 reference cities) = 160

Total: 337

  • Allied
  • Allied ground units present in Spain from Jul I – 400 (8 turns)
  • Territory – 100 (Gibraltar) +70 (Canary Islands) +10 (Ifni & Spanish Sahara) = 180
  • Enemy Losses – 12 (3 aborted air units)
  • Exile forces – 24 (3 task forces in play) +4 (1 air unit in play) +102 (51 REs in play) = 130

Total: 722

Result: Allied decisive victory

Commentary

As the scenario is hypothetical, it is obviously difficult to compare the game as played to any potential real-world events. However, with the materials at hand, I have the following observations about this game

  1. It is rather one sided, and quite suitable for solitaire play. In my view it is similar to First to Fight, as the Allies have few chances to attack and only one real strategy – delay.
  2. The forces available to the Germans are not the right kind of units and are insufficient in number for the job at hand. Considering the terrain in Spain, there should be a lot more mountain, jaeger and other specialised units as part of the invasion force. Also, the Spanish have roughly one division for every German division, a ratio which is difficult to quickly overwhelm, even with strong air and armoured assets.
  3. It would have been interesting to see an option for Italian involvement via the Regia Marina. A case could be made that the Italians could have been promised Vichy territories in return for their participation, and it would have made life for the Royal Navy a bit more challenging, at least in the Mediterranean.
  4. The victory point table is rather unrealistic. In the scenario as played, the Germans did not take Gibraltar, but they conquered Spain with minimal losses, and would have been able to significantly impact naval traffic through the straits of Gibraltar. However, the scenario result was a decisive Allied Victory. There are two VP awards that seem out of place – points for controlling off map areas that the Germans can never reach, and the 50 points per turn after Jul I that there are supplied Allied units on the Spanish mainland. This is a very high penalty, and seems to imply that the Germans have somewhere else to be. If they are still planning to launch Operation Barbarossa after attacking Spain, then I view that as extremely ambitious. Nonetheless, it is very difficult for the Germans to make the Spanish fall over in a hurry due to several factors – terrain, the surrender rules and the supply rules
  5. The supply and rail conversion rules are a big impediment to the Axis. They cannot use the Iberian rail net for supply until they have 10REs of capacity on that net. This is difficult to achieve, since they must capture at least Madrid, Barcelona and 6 dot cities, plus use all their resource points to permanently increase capacity up to 10. The other problem is that they have only two RR engineers, and they can only regauge 2 hexes each per turn to European gauge with the rules as written. It has been pointed out to me that these rules are in fact in error, and the FitE rules should be used, but I had already started the game so kept going with the RAW.
  6. Partisans are very effective tool for the Allies, who receive 3 attacks per turn. The only restriction is that an attack cannot take place in an enemy occupied hex. Without any security troops, the Axis is very vulnerable to these operations.