1939 and the French tank group (demo)

[SittingDuck]

So I am using the v1.00 demo (only one available).

I see the French have a tank group, which strikes me as ahistorical. Shouldn't the armour's capabilities be distributed about the various French inf armies themselves to mirror the French armour doctrine?

Or has this been addressed by either v1.03 or the awesome (I hope) new scenarios put out by Blashy and Kuni and others?

This is the type of thing that keeps me holding back from forking out the dough right now.

[Retributar]

SittingDuck:

Unfortunately im not well versed on French Tank Group's. They definetely had Tank Unit's with their Army Group's, but as i recall, they were segmented into smaller support unit's to directly augment the regular army, instead of being a wholly indepenent strike force!.

Now at the end of the Campaign for France, Degaulle was able to marshall Tank Unit's together to form a Tank Group or Tank Group's, and did have some local success with it!.

Again, im not aware of any French Tank Group's in and around Paris at the beginning of the assault on France.

[stoat]

I think that it is representative of the research and development France put into their armored forces rather than an actual armored concentration. Most of the time French armored units were dispersed amongst the infantry units, but when massed they were equally effective as teh Germans, and at times more so. Look up the battle of Gembleaux (sp?), Belgium, as an example.

[SittingDuck]

Right, yes the DeGaulle thing is of course correct.

Of course when it comes to wargames you have to have some type of universal unit parameters, so that is why we get into tank groups and armies and corps and all that, with them all being defined differently by each nation. So it is up to the game designers to go about whatever they are trying to convey for gameplay's sake.

However, in the case of the French (and Brits, I think, early on), the armour was very dispersed in an infantry support role. So there would be no equivalent to a SC2 tank group for the French. I would rather see off/def capabilities of the French armies reflect this. The DeGaulle moment - and that is a good phrase to use, I guess - isn't IMO significant enough to warrant a full tank group existing.

It is almost a way of saying, 'hey, the French had tanks, too, so we should at least have one tank group'.

Same issue for the Polish, although in the demo there is no Fall Weiss so I can't see what they have. But if they have a tank group, it's off. A few really great light tanks and they caused some problems, but not significant enough to warrant a full tank group.

Man, I hope someone is attending to this stuff. Or at least it is alterable by the editor.

Let me ask this - can France's army stats be altered by themselves, or does it affect all armies for all nations?

[Iron Ranger]

No tank group for the poles, they are meat.

You could give france lets say, Anti Tank L1. To show they had tank support in thier infantry units. But I'm not sure this would work out the best.

[SittingDuck]

Actually, it just hit me.

This issue arises because we have only one armor unit in the game. If we had a smaller unit for tanks, such as a corps equivalent - which was more often the case for several nations, then it wouldn't be so odd.

You could certainly rationalize the French having one or two armor corps equivalents. Ahhh, the constraints of game design.

[Retributar]

SittingDuck:

If we had a smaller unit for tanks, such as a corps equivalent - which was more often the case for several nations ,

For Example: CZECHOSLOVAKIA

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/pzcz.htm

The article doesn't say anything about how many Tank's that the Czech Army had when the German's invaded, but it does show that, after the German's took over the Czech Factories that... 'Approximately 1400 PzKpfw 38(t)s were produced in 8 different variants (Ausf A/B/C/D/E/F/S/G) with various modifications, improved armor protection and armed with Czech made 37mm Skoda A7 vz.38 guns designated by the Germans as 37mm KwK 38(t) L/48 (L/47.8).'

Also: http://www.military.cz/panzer/index_en.htm

Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer / Panzerjäger 38(t)

So are 1400 Czech-built Tank's worth being represented in the game?. I think perhap's they are already integrated into the Tank Force Equation for the German Army!.

POLISH ARMOUR:

http://derela.republika.pl/armcarpl.htm

Polish armoured formations of 1939

Tankette (small reconnaissance tank) TK (also known as TK-3) was the Polish design based upon Polish-improved Carden-Loyd tankette chasis. About 300 were produced (including 18 TKF, with TKS engine).

TKS was the improved model - about 260 were built (24 armed with 20mm gun).

Armament: one 7.92mm Hotchkiss wz.25 MG.

24 TKS tankettes were armed with 20mm wz.38 FK-A gun.

Location of Polish armoured units on the 1st of Sept. 1939

http://derela.republika.pl/7tp.htm

7TP light tank

7TP tank was Polish developement of Vickers Mk.E tank licence. Main new features of 7TP were: better diesel engine, very good 37mm gun and a bit thicker armor. Only 132 were produced, plus 4 iron prototypes. Of those, 24 were early twin turret version.

http://www.military.cz/panzer/index_en.htm

I probably didn't cover all the tank's that the Polish had, but i hope i caught the idea of what they had for heavy tank forces ['HEAVY'...for the time period].

[ August 27, 2006, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Retributar ]

[SittingDuck]

Yes, I am aware of all that information. What was the main point about it?

[Retributar]

The main point as you stated , was that many countries like Poland and so on had for example armoured forces, of course, not as substantial as the major powers and that the current unit sizes used for the Major's were making it difficult to size the Minor's.

So, all i was trying to do was to show that in-fact , for example that the Czechoslovakian Armoured forces were not so insignificant as to entirely rule them out of the game. That they and other's could benefit from your suggestion, so that they could be represented as well!:

Originally Quoted by Sitting Duck :

Actually, it just hit me. This issue arises because we have only one armor unit in the game. If we had a smaller unit for tanks, such as a corps equivalent - which was more often the case for several nations, then it wouldn't be so odd.

[SittingDuck]

yes, I can see what you are saying. good point

I guess it comes down to oobs and what most accurately, by the constraints of the game, gets the job done.

I wish we had a smaller unit size for armor.

[Liam]

The French had superior armor to the Germans though they didn't have them as the Germans had them. I suppose the 1 tank represented in the game mirrors the sad arrangement of their tank units. Infantry support weapons.

[SittingDuck]

I wouldn't say superior, just heavier armor, which was good. Until they ran into a 88 I wonder what all the former French armor commanders would say about the comparison between their armor and the Germans???

Anyhow, I don't know why the unit exists as it does. I am just looking for consistency, I guess.

[SeaMonkey]

I don't know about you SD, but my premise has always been that a Tank Group in SC was an armored corps, representing maybe 3 divisions, perhaps more, like 3 to 5 depending on the task and the stage of development.

Think about a level 5 HT teched TG with additional motorization and elite reinforcements to a strength of 13 or 14. That is a mighty powerful force and if that represents the epitome, then the initial TGs are kind of small in combat power or TO&Es.

If you want to compare the beginning multi-national tank forces to one another, I think that you would want to ponder the doctrinal attributes which those types of forces operated under.

When you enter that into the equation, then it becomes fairly obvious, at least to me, that in comparison to the German's use of armored forces(at least initially), the other belligerents were in the rudimentary stages, thus they don't rate a SC TG, irregardless of the numbers.