Fall Gelb campaign - historical or play-balanced?

[Luminary Crush]

Hi,

I think the starting forces and economics in the Fall Gelb scenario are a bit off & I'm wondering if it's play-balanced that way or if it's meant to be historically accurate.

One example is the underarming of the Allied forces in some respects. Germany starts with three tank units and none for the Allies. Historically, the Germans brought 10 armored divisions west (most of their effective tank forces at the time). The French had six armored divisions and many "independent tank battalions" attached to infantry divisions. In summary, the French hard more modern tanks fielded than the Germans (not counting old FT-17s used in territorial brigades).

The BEF fielded one armor division, and the Belgians had about 250 tank destroyers of good quality.

Certainly this merits the inclusion of at least one tank group in the west? Actually I think the French should get two full tank groups, and the Belgians, who outnumbered the BEF 2:1, should have an army and not a corps (they fielded 22 divisions which gave a good account of themselves).

Properly modelled is the allied aircraft inferiority and lack of leadership of the French forces. This lack of leadership was a large reason the French were defeated so easily, not the lack of modern weapons or numbers of troops (both sides were surprisingly equal in fielded divisions).

The second concern is the relative economic output of the nations, most particularly with respect to Italy.

The Italian economy was completely unprepared for war, and was at a significantly lower output level than France, but in SC those two nations are equal. Italy is "on steriods" in this game, IMO.

Interestingly, France produced more tanks, aircraft and arms in late winter/spring of 1940 than either Britain or Germany did over a similar period, though this is not a direct measure of the overall economy (which Germany had a superior output).

If you remember the old DOS game "High Command" you can see a good representation of the relative economies of the major combattants.

Of course, if the game is play-balanced to ensure a French/BEF defeat early on these historical points are moot

[Aloid]

Greetings Luminary...

Do a search back to the beta demo days. The reason for not having independent armorded units in SC has to do with unit organization at the time of the invasion.

The old posts go through it in detail, but basically, the French/Brits were using tanks in a support role (at this strategic level), not as large scale units of maneuver.

Aloid

[Augustus]

Good point, and historically accurate. However, given the scale of the game (both chronology and geography) I think the AI works fine with the assigned units. Otherwise...the Axis player could get stuck in France till '41.

[Luminary Crush]

Hi Aloid,

I wasn't involved in the beta so I can only approach this from what I see in the game now and what I know of the 1940 campaign.

Actually, that's not entirely true and is kindof a modern myth to describe the French tank usage as you mention (support role) entirely.

The DLMs (cavalry divisions) were used exactly as a German panzer division was -- in fact, the composition was very similar with a good balance of tank strength (S.35/H.35/39) and motorized infantry.

The DCRs (armor divisions) were composed slightly differently, being too armor-heavy and without any significant attached motorized infantry, making it impossible to hold any ground taken.

The "tanks used as support" stereotype used to describe French tank usage is largely emphasized in history because had France not parcelled almost half of their tank force outside of the DLMs and DCRs to infantry divisions (independent tank battalions) almost double the number of divisions could have been fielded (~12).

The actual 6 armor divisions (7 if you count the 4eme DCR, DeGaulle's mixmosh division) were used, maneuvered, and fought as bonna fide tank divisions. They were not, however, concentrated into one place and used in a massive breakthrough attack as were the German tank divisions.

But that's more of a strategic deployement issue than a structuring one. In any event, the 3 DLMs were operated fairly cohesively as part of the Dyle Maneuver into the low countries and were unfortunately caught in the Dunkerque pocket.

Moreover, the extremely cumbersome chain of command and tardiness of acting on orders in an extremely dynamic battlefront, combined with almost non-existant land-air coordination, was the cause for the defeat of French armor.

In other games, such as High Command, the French are given one tank unit to begin with. I stand by my statement Fall Gelb should have at least one French tank unit if this campaign is to be somewhat historical in makeup.

In addition, the 22 belgian divisions form more than a corps, and should be an army unit.

I also think the Germans should start with one bomber unit; certainly the large numbers of He.111s and Do.17s were not part of any close support role and were as capable as any British 'strategic' bomber force in early 1940.

Numerically, the opposing forces were basically equal in all but air power and strategy/leadership.

Please understand that historically it's almost impossible for things to have gone better for the Germans in 1940 (history is a tough act to follow) and very likely could have gone much, much worse.

To play balance the game such that the unlikely but historical outcome is closer to the norm is less interesting IMO.

Hi Augustus,

I think with the current economic model it's fairly unlikely that the French could hold out until '41 with their income/production capacity; the addition of 1-2 tank unit(s) and the bumping up of the Belgian army wouldn't make a significant difference.

Also, with the Italians as currently modelled, the conquest of France is a certainty in a limitted amount of time. I've played both sides of the campaign and France falls quite easily in 1940 (though rarely by the end of July); as Allied the only way I could hold France longer was to strip the colonies of all troops and making some naval sacrifices (thus making the colonies very easy to capture).

[Augustus]

Hi Luminary:

Good points...and I partially agree...though if memory serves me correct, a couple of AFV units on the French side could turn the battle in their favour. I believe some of Char and Souma tanks of the Fr. armoured corps significantly outgunned and outclassed the Pz. armour divisions in the spring of '40. The Pz. I's and II were essentially mobile machine guns, while the Pz III was not yet widely distributed, and the Pz. IV was pretty much just off the assembly line (as was the Stug. III). Would SC recognize the better armour of France? Or would the better armour be insignificant without a high-calibre HQ (which the French did not have in the spring of '40). The fall of France in '40 was greatly attributed to German initiative, which the French did not have. Everything is circumspect, though I would like to think that additional French armour would, from a purely enjoyment perspective, drive me nuts if I could take France in a couple of turns.

Cheers

Augustus

[Krikke]

The French tanks were stronger then the german ones conciddering guns and armor, but they lacked turets, and had a small range, they had to be refueled all the time, the germans just blew the fuel trucks to pieces. Furthermore, the french made only one realy succesfull tank attack, with the forces of de gaule. And altough this attack was succesfull, cutting of the forward german units, they didn't took advantage of it, and retreated.

[pzgndr]

France could start with a tank group in 1940. Although not employed that way, they *may* have been. Considering the relative doctrinal differences between the French and Germans, giving the French level 1 heavy tanks may not be appropriate. An option is to give France a research point and let them develop tanks. Giving the Germans a strategic bomber in lieu of one air fleet also makes sense, even though bombers were integrated into the Luftflottes. Another discrepancy between 39 and 40 setups is Britain has 2 carriers in 39 but then has 1 carrier and a cruiser in 40. This implies they've lost a carrier and built a cruiser, along with everything else to get to the 1940 setup, but the MPPs aren't there. So that could get looked at for consistency. Good thing about the scenario editor is that we can tweak these ourselves.

The economic issue regarding Italy at the same level as France is something to watch. Ditto for the whole economic model. I played the 41 scenario as allies yesterday and had the Soviet steamroller in full gear by 43. The US and Britain were struggling to keep up. And when France was liberated, Britain got some MPPs but then France reentered the game and started collecting MPPs. (Btw, why doesn't Vichy France go away when France is liberated??) Meanwhile, the Soviets are scooping up everything in eastern europe and growing by leaps and bounds. Perhaps Soviet industrial tech should start lower and US higher, or something. We can't edit the resources on the map yet, but we can tweak the starting research levels and MPPs available at scenario start. It's certainly something I'm considering, but I need more game experience before I start messing with the provided scenarios. But again, this is something we can do ourselves and experimenting is half the fun.

[Canuck_para]

Bill,

Good question. Why does Vichy stay in the game when France is liberated? I think Vichy should fall back under Paris.

[Krikke]

For Vichy, it might depend on when you start the game. The allies were at war with them at a sudden point in the war. US and Britain had attacked algeria, and the French actually defended it.

[Norse]

Originally posted by Krikke:

For Vichy, it might depend on when you start the game. The allies were at war with them at a sudden point in the war. US and Britain had attacked algeria, and the French actually defended it.

Same in Syria. The commonwealth attacked Iraq, and the Germans sent an airfleet to Syria to provide airsupport for the Iraqis. After Iraq had fallen, then the commonwealth hit Syria and fought a brief battle with the Vichy French troops there. The airfleet operated away

~Norse~

[pzgndr]

For the record, I played the 41 scenario yesterday as the Allies and did not declare war on Vichy France at all. US and Britain invaded western France in 43. Upon liberation, France had two french flags - one for France and one for Vichy. Under these circumstances, Vichy should probably go away and its territories converted to France proper. I could understand if the Allies had declared war on Vichy and made it an Axis minor ally, but even then Vichy's political survival independent of France would be doubtful.

Related to this is a question about country surrender rules in general. Italy surrendered prior to the Allies taking Rome, Romania surrendered prior to Soviets taking Bucharest, Finland cut a deal, etc. It's one thing for countries to move their government and keep on fighting after the capital is lost. But it's equally true that some governments collapsed prior to the capital being taken, like Denmark and the other examples above. So shouldn't this be possible?

Perhaps Hubert can tweak the political model some more in a future patch to address these issues. Some sort of optional surrender rule or something for random surrender under certain conditions and removal of a country's units from play. (Of course, some Italian units continued to fight with Germany after surrender and this complicates the issue, and maybe this could be considered also.)

[danscan]

I too am a vetern of the high command days or HiCom. The reason I see for not including the armour units is simple.

1. Hexs are too big in scale

2. No unit staking.

These two things are my biggest pet peives about the game.

Doctrinally the allies did not form huge units of armour and concentrate them in multi-divisional units. The germans did.

If the hexs were smaller in scale(more hexs on the board) and there was the ablitity to unit stake then the french should have some more armour but as the game plays I think it is pretty accurate.

[Krikke]

Even when the allies left Vichy alone, thier governement could make troubles. After all they colaborated with the Germans, and they were guilty of war crimes. The Vichy governement even condamned de gaule and the free french, calling them traitors. I don't know what the people in Vichy would think, but the governement couldn't just go back to france.

[winkelried]

Looking at France / BEF performance in May '40 I think that the defeat was caused by a number of factors:

1) The Allies believed that Germany would try to attack with a second edition of the Schlieffen plan (the so called "Sichelschnitt" - sickle cut) of WWI (Get around the Maginot line through neutral Belgium). Therefore the Allies launched their troops into Belgium after the German attack on the Netherlands and Belgium to pre-empt this attack.

2) The German plan (Manstein's work) built on this behaviour of the Allies and set the focus for the armored attack in the Ardennes forest and on an inversed "Sichelschnitt" (sickle cut). The Allies did not believe that this could happen. I think that the plan was rejected by the German HQ which favored a more conservative approach, but was then accepted by the gambler Hitler himself.

3) Poor communications, intelligence and leadership on the Allies side ignored the German attack in the Ardennes too long.

4) Strong leadership of German generals like Guderian and Rommel led to the success of the breakthrough. More conservative German generals wanted the Panzer's to halt at the Meuse river to wait for the infantry to catch up. But the Panzer generals got over the Meuse river and pushed in the back of the B.E.F. and the French armies in Belgium.

5) The French amored counterattacks (as in Sedan) were successful locally but didn't play an operational role. Something the Germans would also see in Russia in '41. There the Soviets (sometimes) fought quite well on a tactical level, but committed big blunders on operational level.

Playing Fall Gelb with SC I feel that you can run it from the German side quite well using the Manstein plan.