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The Hapsburgs have 3 DN's and 3 PDN's with a collection of coast defense ships to back them up but only 4 modern cruisers and a few DD's/TB's. Right now the French can keep them bottled up fairly effectively. France also has a good collection of PDN's themselves; 10 in total as a I recall and those are only the most modern ones with mixed 12" and 9.4" batteries. They have a number of older ships.

The real question is what can France hope to do if they do move their ships north?

The HSF is shot up but they would need to send a strong enough force to achieve something. Which would be their entire force of DN's (6 ships) and Semi-DN's (10 ships) and even then would it be enough to defeat the German fleet if they run into without GF support? That would leave the scrap metal brigade to cover the Med which would provide a strong temptation for the Italians let alone the Hapsburgs to do something. My own thought is the Germans would cut the French fleet to bits because of the French lack elevation on their guns. Worst choice would be to send only a partial force and have that run into the Germans and whiped out while at the same time giving the Hapsburgs something like parity.

At the same time the French face economic starvation with shipments from the UK. It is a damned if you do and damned if you don't choice. The more prudent choice would be to offer the British a squadron of French ships under French command but as part of the GF. That or nothing or start ordering supplies form the US and convoy them with some PDN's.

Michael