Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Now I know next to nothing about the distribution of industry across France, but I'm fairly certain it's not all located in one convenient to hit with a nuke location and therefore I can see relatively widespread destruction. Not perhaps on the scale seen in belligerent countries, but destruction all the same.
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And, then, we are back to the old issue: is France party to the war or not. Unlike US, France has little in term of large industrial centers except if you count the large civilian centers to the north, Strasbourg, Toulouse and the Rhone Valley. Then, to really destroy it, you must use quite a lot of nukes as Industries are much more scattered.
Large French cities are administrative and trade centers, rarely industrial centers (a nuke on Paris will not destroy one single industry). Paris is ten times smaller than NYC (3 times smaller than Detroit) but the area containing the industries around Paris is ten times larger than the same NYC.
Ground weapon industries are scattered in the small and average cities of the Massif Central valleys. If you take Roanne where most current tanks are being produced, the city itself is 35.000h with an urban area of 100.000. Basically, it is Burlington (Vermont).
If you use the needed amount of nukes, France get into the war or to his knees (fine with me but if it's so, it can't manage to retain any sort of government, the Union Corse is an urban legend, it can't move to the Rhine and secure the borders, It never invaded Belgium, Germany or Netherlands).
The game has been quite good when locating most destruction to the Atlantic coast. If you hit a number of location to the Atlantic coast you deny to France the capability to trade with the outside. First, you destroy half of its oil production. Second, you destroy its main harbor facilities (Bordeaux, Nantes, Le Havre, Dunkerque and Saint Nazaire) with the exception of Marseille. If I'm not mistaken, Marseille is still working and that could be because an eventual nuke hit the "Etang de Berre" instead of the city (one more quarter of the oil production capability). If inland cities are hit, these should be Lille, Strasbourg and Toulouse. You can add Lyon but it is simply not fun.
If you take the case of Belgium, the problem is quite the same and targets should be Antwerp and Brussel. Ostende Might be on the list as well but I tend to spare it because it, then, allows France to support Quebec. Liege could indeed be a target but most arm indsutries and the FN might survive a hit on the city. It will depend on where the nuke hits. If it hits to the north, the FN is destroyed. If it hits to the center, little factories if any are destoyed. If it hits to the south, the Sart-Tilman is demaged. Liege itself is at the bottom of the Meuse Valley and surrended by a large plateau. If you hit the city, the plateau might not suffer much.