BOB a mistake ? --- The Battle of France

[tools4fools]

Originally Posted by Rama

I quite disagree with this.

For main French fighters, we got:
- Morane MS406, used by Luftwaffe (Training), Finland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy and Switzerland (ok.. the last didn't saw much fights)
- Dewoitine D520, used by Luftwaffe (training), Italy, Bulgaria and Romania (and a bit by Free French in North Africa)
- Hawk H75, used by Finland, Norway, RAF (Mohawks IV), Siam (fighting against French MS406), and USA (a few P36 did fight in Pearl Harbor)
The only remaining main fighter is the Bloch MB152, who could be AI only

For main French Bombers, we got:
- Loire et Olivier LeO451, used as light transport by Luftwaffe, and by Italy (the less used plane outside BoF, but important for BoF)
- Glenn Martin 167F, used by RAF as Maryland MkI in Egypt and Malta fights, and who was followed by Martin 187 (RAF Baltimore), widely used in North Africa theater, and who is not very different from 167F.
- Douglas DB7, used by RAF as Boston, and who was further developped under designation A-20... widelly used by Allies.
Most of other bombers weren't largelly used by French and can be ignored, or only AI (for the Breguet 690/693 for example)

Other than these, it stay only the observation planes (Potez 63x and Bloch MB.174) who could be AI.
That's 6 flyable planes (5 of them usable by other nationalities on other theater) and 4 AI... certainly not a small deal.... but also not THAT large.

Of course you could add a lot of crapy/largelly unused (even during BoF) planes... but there's no good reason to.

Spitfire, Hurricane, Me 109, Me 110 still are much more important than French fighters and much MORE USEFUL in future add-ons after SoW.

Same goes for the bombers. He 111, Do 17, Ju 88, Ju 87, Blenheim, Wellington, all more important than any of the French bombers and more USEFUL fo rfuture add-ons.

French planes did see some service afterwards but minor compared to above. None of the 5 planes mentioned by you would be a major player in any other add-on (apart from MS 406 in Finland).

Planes for BoB are much smarter to start with because next add-on will have many major players ready already.
If you start with French planes and go to second add-on it is almost as starting from scratch...because you will need LOT of new planes as French will afterwards play only MINOR role.

I mentioned that some planes can be used in some other theaters albeit mostly only in MINOR roles (except for MS 406).
So resources for first scenario of SoW series are much better used in planes that will be MAJOR players in many, many possible add-ons.

I love the French planes, in particular the bombers, the less 'ueber' the better for me, but spending a lot of time and resources to build planes which have only minor use in the future would be plain stupid seen from a business view point IMHO.

Just think going from BoB to the med, how many new planes needed for Allieds?
Going from France to med, how many new planes needed for Allieds?

To me calling BoB a mistake is...well...a mistake...
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