The Diplomatic Pouch


The Holcombe Position

Ted Holcombe

((By now you should have a good feel for what constitutes a stalemate line. I recommend the next pair of articles as an exercise for the reader. Get out the board, set up the pieces, and make your own judgment. --- Mark Berch, Diplomacy Digest 10--11 (April-May 1978). ))

Much has been written about the English locked-up position of A StP, A Nwy, A Den, F Por, F Mid and F NAt which, assuming no fleets behind the line, locks up eight supply centers (Lon, Lvp, Edi, Nwy, Swe, StP, Den and Por) with only six units. However, very little has been said about the corresponding French locked-up position, which is even stronger once obtained.

They key is the land blockade of A Bur, A Ruh and A Kie, where Kie replaces Den in the English locked-up position. (Note that you could get by with Holland and Den in place, but this would require one more unit for one less supply center.) If Germany is still alive and capable of building fleets in Berlin which could attack Scandinavia through Lvn and Ber, the addition of F Bal & F Bot would suffice for 100% safety in the North.

The Southern half of the French position is a little more difficult. The minimum would be F Mar, F Spa(sc), F Lyo with F Wes and F NAf. This provides a total of 15 centers for 10 units (12 with two fleets in Bal and Bot). By replacing NAf with Tunis, we obtain 16 for the same 12 units.

Position 1

Position 1

Centers:
StP, Nwy, Swe, Den, Kie, Hol, Bel, Edi, Lvp, Lon, Mar, Bre, Par, Spa, Por. (15)
Units:
U StP, U Nwy, U Kie, A Ruh, A Bur, F Mar, F Spa(sc), F Lyo, F Wes, F NAf, F Bal, and F Bot. (12)
Orders:
A Nwy S StP; F Bot S Bal; F Bal S Bot; A Ruh S Kie; F NAf S Wes; F Spa(sc), F Mar & F Wes S F Lyo.


Additional expansion could add Ven, Rom and Nap by replacing the above 5 units with A Pie, A Ven, A Tus (or Rom), A Apu, A Nap, A Tun and F TyS. This provides 19 centers (StP, Nwy, Swe, Den, Kie, Hol, Bel, Edi, Lvp, Lon, Mar, Bre, Par, Spa, Por, Tun, Ven, Nap, Rom) "locked up" with only 14 units maximum (U StP, U Nwy, U Kie, A Ruh, A Bur, A Pie, U Ven, A Rom, U Apu, U Nap, F TyS, U Tun, F Bal, and F Bot). If you think that the position is unobtainable, I'd refer you to 1971P (Erehwon) where, if I elected to do so, I could easily conquer Scandinavia and obtain the above position ((1971P was won by Holcombe --- Mark Berch, Diplomacy Digest 10-11 (April-May 1978). ))

For those to whom the orders are not obvious, the locked orders would be:

Position 2

Position 2

Centers:
StP, Nwy, Swe, Den, Kie, Hol, Bel, Edi, Lvp, Lon, Mar, Bre, Par, Spa, Por, Tun, Ven, Nap, Rom. (19)
Units:
U StP, U Nwy, U Kie, A Ruh, A Bur, A Pie, U Ven, A Rom, U Apu, U Nap, F TyS, U Tun, F Bal, and F Bot. (14)
Orders:
A Nwy S StP; F Bot S Bal; F Bal S Bot; A Ruh S Kie; A Pie & A Rom S Ven; A Nap S Apu.


The key to it all is the "Holcombe Line" of A Kie, A Ruh and A Bur. Any English-French alliance which can establish this line would become virtually impregnable in the North and would have all kinds of units to play around with in the South. Similarly, it should be noted that a French-Italian alliance wherein France controls the Northern seas, would be equally powerful. It goes without saying that an English-French-Italian alliance would be extremely hard to stop.

Reprinted from Graustark 315, August 1974.
Retyped for email distribution by Mark Nelson ([email protected]), June 1994.
Converted to HTML by Matthew Self ([email protected]), December 1995.