Did the French capitulate at the end of the Spring 40 turn? It looks that way. Did the French/Brits attack the large German force on the Spring turn? It looks that way also.
Yes, they did surrender at the end of Spring '40. Only the French units attacked the German stack. The same reasoning as the Italian situation that we were talking about in the other thread. The UK units bugged out.
Did Germany declare war on Russia in the Spring of 1941 and not invade?
No. He didn't want the USSR to be able to use his regular build numbers.
The earliest Russia can declare war is Summer 1941 - the "declare war" phase comes before the "place units (factories) on the board phase - so the Russians can't declare war until the turn following their last factory placement (which at the earliest is Spring 1941).
Our count comes up with the USSR being able to place the second set of factories at the end of the Winter '40/'41 turn. Which would allow the USSR to declare war on the beginning of the Spring '41 turn.
USSR starts with 2 factories in the "2" Build Box on the Production Chart. That means if it is paid for that turn it moves to the "1" box and then to the "0" box in the Winter '39/'40 turn. The next two factories then come into the "3" box in Spring '40 and are placed at the end of the Winter '40/'41 turn.
Now, if you are trying to say that the USSR factories (and any other units that are preplaced on a production chart- example: Yamato) are not moved forward that first turn, then I see what you are trying to say. It is not spelled out as such.
Again, it may be that you just assumed people would understand that your placement of the factories on the "2" box was you moving them forward instead of them having to be paid for.
We wondered why you would have it set up for the USSR to be able to declare war in the Spring of '41.
I'm assuming all that German stuff in the Holland blow-up box is actually in Poland!
We need some of those marshalling cards that you had at Origins.