How to invade Britain as France

[Verlish]

I've been playing 40 hours straight to invade Britain with Fascist France. I got lucky once when there are none on the island. But when i try to do it again, the same thing doesn't occur. I've tried to invade in 1937, 38, and 39, but i always have the same problems:

1. why can only one general do a naval invasion? Other generals will bring up "no division selected/no transport" or something like that
2. I can't launch paratroopers at all
3. even if I can land, my troops can't move at all. The battle results show that I have a 90% lead, but I still can't move. The British troops keep coming until my troops are destroyed by attrition.
4. Supplies don't arrive even though I managed to secure the port and control the surrounding seas.

I know this is probably a classic mistake, but I'm really a beginner. All the videos on youtube seem irrelevant because the invasion can be carried out smoothly without any significant resistance from the British.

[General WVPM]

Paratroopers require transport planes and air superiority. Note southern england has good aa defences that will kill your paratroopers.

As for generals not being able to invade, probably you are at the naval invasion division limit. Research naval invasion tech to increase it.

Some general advice:
Scout with ships along the coast to find weakspot.
Land next to a port as ports tend to have coastal forts and defenders.
Ensure your convoys make it through. Enemy subs can delay or destroy your invasion forces.
Hit the enemy with cas to support the landings.
Put your battleships on invasion support for shore bombardment bonus.
Once you land, push fast and hard. Take ports, airfield and supply hubs. Keep the enemy pinned while your reinforcements organise themselves.

Keep in mind reinforcement land with 0 org. You can set up reinforcements as a naval invasion to land with org.

[HappySack]

Same way you invade as Germany only this time you have an actual navy you can compete with instead of only relying on air.

For sure you need to secure some ports to get supply to your landing troops and push quickly before they can respond and contain you.

[Verlish]

Originally posted by General WVPM:

Paratroopers require transport planes and air superiority. Note southern england has good aa defences that will kill your paratroopers.

As for generals not being able to invade, probably you are at the naval invasion division limit. Research naval invasion tech to increase it.

Some general advice:
Scout with ships along the coast to find weakspot.
Land next to a port as ports tend to have coastal forts and defenders.
Ensure your convoys make it through. Enemy subs can delay or destroy your invasion forces.
Hit the enemy with cas to support the landings.
Put your battleships on invasion support for shore bombardment bonus.
Once you land, push fast and hard. Take ports, airfield and supply hubs. Keep the enemy pinned while your reinforcements organise themselves.

Keep in mind reinforcement land with 0 org. You can set up reinforcements as a naval invasion to land with org.

My landing was smooth, i have 30 division ready to spread out. However, my movement were blocked by 2 or 3 UK division, i don't get it. It's always green but i'm the one that pushed back. Perhaps it;s because of air superiority, i only have 140s but the UK has 1000+, truly ridiculous.

[Verlish]

Originally posted by HappySack:

Same way you invade as Germany only this time you have an actual navy you can compete with instead of only relying on air.

For sure you need to secure some ports to get supply to your landing troops and push quickly before they can respond and contain you.

I never use Germany. I want to master France before move on to another country.

[Zerian VySil]

It is possible that you are suffering from a very similar issue as the one posted on Jan 4 by Nesano, "Why do divisions just stop attacking for no reason?"


Are you using Attack Orders? Or Micro-managing ?

Units under ai control set to 'attack', will not advance if they don't fill all of the criteria that the ai wants.

Is your army set to execute battle plans, Carefully, Balanced, or Aggressively ?

Carefully, will have them standing there until they reach full Org, and they won't attack without supporting troops.

Aggressively, will have them overextending in a hurry and getting themselves encircled.



Best practice for any attack is to setup the Battle Plans to start ticking bonuses, but Micro everything, unless you have overwhelming forces and want to just run on speed 5.



Thoughts based on your numbered questions :

1) why can only one general do a naval invasion?
As another noted : Transport technology is required to increase the number of Divisions that can be set to plan Naval Invasions. Default for the first Tech is 10. If you want to increase this without researching advanced tech, you can do so by researching Marines, and then investing Naval XP into Marine Doctrine. This can bring you up to 15 for first Level, and if you complete the tree, up to 25. That's more than a full Army.

2) I can't launch paratroopers at all
Paratroopers are insanely complicated, and against the UK won't perform that well anyway, thanks to Anti-Air. But if you are struggling with 50% naval superiority in a sea zone, they are a viable alternative.
You require:
50 Transport planes stationed at the airport you wish to Drop from for every x amount of weight you want to drop. (The base 3 Battalion Para should work). The more groups of 50 planes you have, the easier a time you'll have getting over there.
70% Air superiority in EVERY air zone that you are flying From, Over, and Into.
Paratroopers in an army with orders to drop, from that same airfield that your Transports are stationed.
Your Transports should just be sitting there, they must not have any orders or zones that they are set to fly over. That causes them to do Resupply missions, and will not be available for your Paratroopers.
The UK is a Plane making machine, and have the best starting fleet, which is why it is hard to invade them, but the army is spread across the world, so once you do land, you have the advantage.

3) even if I can land, my troops can't move at all.
My original comments above.

4) Supplies don't arrive even though I managed to secure the port and control the surrounding seas.
This is most likely a compounding issue of your not being able to advance.
If you have landed on a single Port, with a very low build level, eg. a Lvl 1 Port, then you don't have the throughput to sustain your forces, and if they are all standing on the one square, then you'll suffer stacking issues too.
You should launch invasions to multiple ports, and support tiles beside those ports. As you land, instantly tell your troops to start marching. Go around enemies, not through them. At that same moment, send your other forces in small groups to different ports you have secured. (sending an entire army across the channel to a single port makes that giant transport fleet easy to sink, stop, or delay, by a single submarine)
This last thought seems obvious, but I've overlooked it with smaller nations... You need Convoys ! Convoys can be eaten up by all manner of things, and the more invasions you plan with larger divisions the more Convoys you need. Sure, I'll take those free guns! Wait, what do you mean it requires 150 Convoys??? And they are all gonna be sunk by the UK en route to be delivered... No thanks, I'll decline those ones.



The new ai fixes have really boosted the UK's defenses, but it's very doable if you move quickly and outmaneuver the ai, as it has trouble dealing with a collapsing front line as it tries to cover everything and can't really predict what you're up to ;)


Best of Luck !

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Verlish:

1. why can only one general do a naval invasion? Other generals will bring up "no division selected/no transport" or something like that

That is incorrect. You can do as many naval invasions as you want, but each invasion has to be a separate army.

Originally posted by Verlish:

2. I can't launch paratroopers at all.

You need air superiority in all regions crossed in order to launch paratroopers. Which from France to England would be 3, France, Channel, England.

Originally posted by Verlish:

3. even if I can land, my troops can't move at all. The battle results show that I have a 90% lead, but I still can't move. The British troops keep coming until my troops are destroyed by attrition.

Basically what happens is you have enough opposition that they will continuously swarm you at the port then as soon as the units run out of orgination they get overrun because they have no place to auto retreat to.

To prevent this you need take a portion of the troops that land and take another piece of land next to the port so you have pales for units to retreat to.

Also at any point in time the unit in the post (whether in combat or not) can board a transport and retreat back to one of your ports.

Originally posted by Verlish:

4. Supplies don't arrive even though I managed to secure the port and control the surrounding seas..

Supplies are going to suck in a newly captured port unless you managed to get a high level port.
- Use a Mulberry port when invading (possibly have a second small force to do it agian in thirty days.)
- Immediately go to the build menu and repair the infrastructure and port if it took damage in battle along with upgrading the port.
- Toss up some bunker walls to help ensure not getting pushed off the continent.

When it comes to England I have always found it best to invade at multiple ports at once. This makes the AI spread it's defense force on the continent over all three ports rather than them focusing on one port.