jtcm Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 Read an interesting article in the French magazine "Batailles" (www. bataillesmag.com, but their site is down). Winter 39-40, the French and Germans waged a vicious winter outpost war, in the no man's land between the Maginot line (and other MLRs) and German lines-- often dense forest and abandoned villages. German superiority in fieldcraft and close combat tactics (SMG + grenades) quickly told. The French responded by forming ad hoc, plt to co size "groupes francs", "corps francs", hunter killer patrol teams.Uniform adapted: greatcoat dropped in favour of jackets (vareuse, canadienne), helmets covered with burlap or replaced by knitwear, rubber boots favoured; at same time, try not to be taken for "franc-tireur" (guerilla), immediately shot if captured rather than taken POW. Equipment: long rifle exchanged for carbines (mousqueton). Multiplication of LMGs (fusils mitrailleurs) [ 2 per squad ?]. Mutiplication of grenades, including WP grenades for village fighting. Pooling of SMGs-- usually from stores of SMGs confiscated from Spanish Rep. refugee troops in 1939, or taken from Germans. Finally, splendid touch of French systeme D (improvisation): liberal use of moden "Hammerless" shotguns, presumably loaded with buckshot ("chevrotine", as in the movie "Le Vieux Fusil"), to break contact in ambushes-- apparently highly efficient in woods and brush. Not enough winter cammo. The groupes francs seemed to have done well; some members fought with Free French, and later in Indochina and Algeria. What's interesting is the development of short range, multiple LMG+ SMG + grenade based tactics-- a while before the Eastern Front fighting. Probably part of post WWI culture of all major Europaean armies ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Count D'Ten Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 I've often tried to simulate early French. I've always been more interested in Sedan than Stalingrad. Do you have any tips on setting up 1940's French QBs or even Operations in any of the CM games? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tagwyn Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 Follow the established French tactics of WWII - Run like heck!!!!!!!! Tag 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 cough Bir Hakiem cough 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renaud Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 cough Bir Hakiem cough Not to mention the thousands of desperate early war small unit actions. At the CM-scale 39-40 early war would be just as hard-fought and desperate as actions in the CMBO/BB/AK timeframes. It would be so cool if BF would throw together a CM-Crescendo of Doom (nod to you old-time Squad Leader players there...) early war release. Using the CMAK engine and combining models, textures, weapons, sounds and nationalities from CMAK/CMBB could make it fairly quick I would think. Heck, you would have people beating down the doors to do textures for FREE. Not gonna happen...and no chance as a CMx2 module. [ November 23, 2005, 10:14 AM: Message edited by: Renaud ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk2drive Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 Hans made quite a few May 1940 battles and ops including some what ifs. I have two battles at TPG, one is a "what if" for Sept 1939 and the other is in Stonne. Every mod you need is at cmmods and Andreas' site for 1939-1940 and Sealion. QBs can't be done properly and you have to substitute Brit armour for the French. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 Btw. where has Hans been lately? Wasn't he working in one of the smaller Gulf states? Wonder if they finally cut his internet connection... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtcm Posted November 24, 2005 Author Share Posted November 24, 2005 Alas, the shotgun blasts are probably just below the level of CM-style resolution. Va-s-y Dédé, balance-s-y donc d'la chevrotine à ces Boches m-poum, m-poum 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 Originally posted by Sergei: Btw. where has Hans been lately? Wasn't he working in one of the smaller Gulf states? Wonder if they finally cut his internet connection... Howdy Sergei Alive and well A tale of woe I was a happy go lucky teacher who had lots of time to do scenario.... then I got sucked up into the Ministry of Education....I barely have time to play the game now. I did 12 early war scenarios. Most from the campaign of the 1st Panzer division in June 1940, plus a few Brit vs German. I don't think three of those were ever released due to the failure of TSD. At some point the projects I'm working on will be completed and I'll get back to design. I still collect books and materials for CM scenarios. Most recently I've been gathering "background" from my Syrian colleagues who have military experience - getting operational trivia (they all hated the auto-loader on the T-72) and names of bases - where there boot camp was, etc. Oh J2D did gather up an excellent book on Vietnam armoured battles - in a second hand book shop in Kish, Iran last month. What an odd thing to find! Good info for Vietnam scenarios - If I ever get back to THAT too. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 Here is a list of the 1940 based scenarios I did these are just the Brit vs German and German vs French. There were also ones for German vs Dutch, Danes and Norwegians. German vs French SB 1 Pz Div 10 June, 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Celery 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Risque 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Copse 125 1940 SB 1 Pz Div le Petit 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Faux Pas 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Factory 1940 SB Generals Aide,1940 SB Montcornet, 1940 SB Crecy what if, 1940 SB Crecy-sur-Serre 1940 SB Je t’aime!, 1940 SB Coup de Main, 1940 SB Montcornet, 1940 SB Near Sedan, 1940 Small Operations, May 15, 1940 Germans vs British (in France) SB, First Blood 1940 SB, Sigh Bridge 1940 SB, Bonfire 1940 SB, 3RTR at Calais 1940 SB, Les Attaques, 1940 SB, Row at Coulogne, 1940 SB, Deception, 1940 Three scenarios for the German vs French that were in play testing when TSD went down SB 1 Pz Div Heavy 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Obscurity 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Touche 1940 A dozen or so others in partial production SB 1 Pz Div Helvetia 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Voila Tout 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Struggle 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Fer-de-Lance 1940 SB 1 Pz Div St Hilaire 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Stuippen 1940 SB 1 Pz Div MON DIEU! 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Chaumont 1940 SB 1 Pz Div Du Swine! 1940 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fußball Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 A CM expansion/game for all those early war lovers would be something dreams are made of! Maybe one day there would be such a thing... Tschüß! Erich 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patboy Posted November 27, 2005 Share Posted November 27, 2005 Originally posted by Fußball: A CM expansion/game for all those early war lovers would be something dreams are made of! Maybe one day there would be such a thing... Tschüß! Erich In response to your request I'm trying to give to CM community a CM expansion as DavidI already done with CM ETO & CM Normandy, and Junk2drive done with CM Pacific or Operation SEALION. This expansion need CMBB reinstallation and some mods I'm working on, since several months. This CM expansion is ambitious and fastidious work I don't thought when I started the project, that's why I request some help from CM community "Scenarios builders" and modders. This CM expansion called "Fall Weiss" use some scenarios already done by Mike T with CMBO game ; converted by me to CMBB game. IIRC there are not so much scenarios built about Polish campaign. Some scenarios existing need to be converted to CMBB game, but I think after release, I'm sure "Scenarios designers" could give us some Operation(any existing) & battle scenarios. If anyone is interested by CM "FALL WEISS" Polish campaign "expansion", you can email me or talk about on this forum. Cheers Pat [ November 27, 2005, 06:28 AM: Message edited by: patboy ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Count D'Ten Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 Sorry, lost track of which forum I'd posted to. Very interested by the comments and the "Expansion" in the works -- though I really don't know what that would mean. For my own amusement, I tend to run Romanians as Poles in CMBB. I don't know what the early Polish TOE was like for infantry, but I imagine close to Romanians (a shortage of SMGs, etc.) I then use R-2's as being very similar to the Polish 7TP. (I also do Romanians as French using German Souma's and H39's.) The obvious problem in that I can't oppose them with Germans. So I was conducting an imaginary campaign against Russia in the late thirties. If only there was a magic tool for moving forces from Allies to Axis, etc. Ah well, the rigors of real-life. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 I did a few Polish based scenarios for CMBB Small Battles, Corridor.cme Small Battles, Polish Spoiler.cme Small Battles, Noose.cme I used the Soviet Polish with a mix of early war equipment to act as the early war Polish. Seemed to work. I had previously worked out a 5 game historical campaign following the 1st Panzer Division in its invasion of Poland. Beyond working it out on paper I never made it to production (CMAK showed up a bit too soon) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Count D'Ten Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 Originally posted by Hans: I did a few Polish based scenarios for CMBB Small Battles, Corridor.cme Small Battles, Polish Spoiler.cme Small Battles, Noose.cme I used the Soviet Polish with a mix of early war equipment to act as the early war Polish. Seemed to work. Hi Hans, I actually have the Spoiler, but not the other two. Since the demise of the Scenario Depot, it's been much harder to find things. Do you know what sites have these? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 Send me an email with CMBB in the subject line and I'll send those to you direct Wayne100@emirates.net.ae 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Count D'Ten Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Originally posted by Hans: Send me an email with CMBB in the subject line and I'll send those to you direct Wayne100@emirates.net.ae Thank you. Will do. I didn't recognize your name until I took a closer look at the "spoiler." Just wanted to add for the public record that I've played and appreciated several of your games. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Noted! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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