Free France Campaign

[bru888]

Quick look => Basically two first impressions:

-> This translation mixes the combined times of the present and the past. Of course, it is ancient history, but the whole French text has passed into the present... in spite of the ancient dates. It is an immersive way to relive the past, as if you were there...

So, to remain faithful to the French text, all verbs must be conjugated essentially in a form of the present tense.

(But, is this the way this text will be used in the future?)

-> Secondly, to be (or rather "stay" ) honest, I don't really like the way the dates are presented, like for example "the night of March 13-14, 1941". I would prefer a version closer to French, maybe something like "the night of 13-14 March 1941" or even rather "the night from the 13th to the 14th March 1941". But then I think it depends on convention, like - if I'm not mistaken - the English don't indicate dates in the same way as the Americans, etc. I think it's much a matter of convention here.

Then there would be some small details here and there to improve the text, to make it more fluid (even in the French version)...


So, let's clarify my mission a bit, shall we?
1. Would you like to have an English version fully using some present forms (as in French) or not?
2. Would you like to have a slightly improved English version here and there (in terms of fluidity - even compared to the original French text)?
3. Should I be concerned about the dates and their "format" or not? (If so, according to which convention?)

To answer all three questions at once, please do as little or as much as you want to do. It is not a formal document, so it doesn't have to be overly polished. If you want to correct such things, then please go ahead. I'm just looking for some additional background on the ship that I can work into the scenario. And take your time; this is just planning well in advance. In the meantime, I will go back to your comments on Operation Exporter.

[ColonelY]

Okay, it's clearer now and I'll take my time on this one. Perhaps making some complementary research about this ship, I'll see.

[...] In the meantime, I will go back to your comments on Operation Exporter.

Good.

And it's true that there are still a few comments about this scenario that await you - damn, I've indeed written a lot!

A workhorse, you said, eh?! ( )

[bru888]

A workhorse, you said, eh?! ( )

Says the fellow who compiled six stanzas of “La Marseillaise!” earlier in this thread.

[bru888]

I tacked a mention of the No. 11 (Scottish) Commando unit onto the "Crossing the Litani" trigger. I like the truly varied composition of Allied forces in this campaign (including Czechs, Aussies, New Zealanders, Indians, and now Scots), not to mention the various nationalities on the other side. This is what appears when the player clears the Litani River:

Screenshot 1.jpg (104.38 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

Screenshot 2.jpg (100.58 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

Screenshot 3.jpg (116.21 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

But I decided not to include a British commando unit to represent them. For three reasons: 1) It's already busy in that area; 2) that commando unit is really weak in combat, excelling only in "the ability to attack an enemy without taking damage in return" and usually just in the way otherwise, and; 3) the book that you linked to says the No. 11 Commando unit was so beat up that, when they were overtaken by the Australians, they retired to the rear and then returned to Cyprus. (Note: I subsequently changed the second message title to "Crossing Rivers" because otherwise it may be taken that what is being shown is the location of the bridge mentioned in the first message. Obviously, there was no bridge at that location. All I am doing is explaining that bridges are being blown but Allied forces will be crossing rivers as normal. No engineers needed to rebuild bridges.)

[bru888]

Other units:

I don't like submarines in this game. They are tedious both to fight with but especially to fight against. So while I am aware that both sides had submarines in the area, I have chosen to omit them. This scenario is already big and busy enough.

I also eliminated any German “Brandenburger Commando” either in a message or as a unit on the map. I have found no confirmation of any German ground units in Syria and Lebanon at this time; only German aircraft which are well-represented.

I should mention this, by the way: One important lession in scenario designing is to not make it tedious if possible. This means not including a bunch of superfluous units in a scenario that already contains over 200 units.

But the Palmach tickled my fancy (here is a picture of this bevy of Palmach beauties - they are not in the scenario, though, because I doubt that any females were in the fighting in Syria):

PikiWiki_Israel_782_Women_of_the_PALMACH_at_Ein_Gedi_בנות_הפלמ'ח_בעין_גדי.jpg (62.34 KiB) Viewed 1954 times

and my sense of fairness in that, yes, the Arab Legion is in here. So here they are, as you suggested, Colonial Infantry '41 with a bit more experience to make up for the discrepancy in years and to reflect their elite status:

Screenshot 4.jpg (306.11 KiB) Viewed 1954 times

Screenshot 5.jpg (327.09 KiB) Viewed 1954 times

[bru888]

Here is a typical designer dilemma.

You, and Mascarenhas indirectly, have expressed the opinion that needing the dual secondary objectives of "Disrupt Beirut AA defences" and "Capture Beirut coastal guns" to be completed in order to deal with the Vichy fleet is too tough. The Australian ground forces need to advance fight northward, approach Beirut within range of the naval guns, and deal with AA guns and coastal guns before they get any relief from the Vichy fleet. Not fair, nor realistic.

So how do I change things? The Allies could use bombers to deal with these objectives, but then the "Destroy 8 fighters first" stipulation goes. What do I say to the player, then? A popup message saying "delay the Australians until your bombers are released"? Besides, those British bombers are strategic, not tactical, with shock effect but little destructive power.

I could introduce some Allied ships earlier but then that upsets the balance. Plus, if I include the British sub Parthian, then I must add the Vichy subs, further upsetting the balance and making a mess.

Ugh. Well, I will figure something out because, based on your and his feedback, this does not work.

[bru888]

Here are my preliminary thoughts:

• Get rid of the Coastal guns and AA guns objectives. (For the latter, I should have looked ahead in the thread before I altered this module. Oh well, c'est la vie.)

• Allied fleet to appear in the beginning, in the south. Only historical Allied ships on record, but I will leave the fanciful additional Vichy ships in place for a challenge.

• RELUCTANTLY, since it now is a real sea battle, include the submarines on both sides.

• The "Sink the French coastal fleet" will be for surface ships only. As I said above, hunting submarines is a pain in this game.

• Release the Vichy fleet from its bondage to Beirut as soon as the Allied fleet gets near. Or let it roam a bit but still within range of their coastal guns.

This is more realistic, aside from the larger Vichy fleet which I want to be a competitive opponent. Don't forget the 803 Naval Squadron which will be introduced at some point; I want to keep that module while keeping a balance in the naval action.

I'll get started on this tomorrow. If either of you have any suggestions on this, please make them soon. Colonel, I already have my eye on your previous comments in this regard.

I want to wrap up OE and return to Bir Hakeim, which is almost finished.

[Mascarenhas]

I can't evaluate this scen properly after so many modifications you introduced since the last version, but I suspect that, if you warn the Aussies not to be so aggressive en route to Beirut, wait at the second river's left margin until the other columns approach Lebanese capital, it would do without problems. You provided a lot of time ( more than necessary in my view) so that, Australians need not to hurry to Beirut. It gets hard only if player expose the Australians to naval fire, which is triggered by crossing the second river. I'd like to try it again, before my last verdict, recognizing already that this one is a very beautiful scenario.

[ColonelY]

'Looks like a complete modification on this sea battle side.

Few things:

-> Perhaps our whole fleet can then be spawned in the South once the SW town has been taken and only then?
So it's less likely to unbalance the early fight in favor of our Australians.

-> Spawning our torpedo planes sooner will make more relevant their aerial escort.

-> Perhaps this may still be considered:

05OperationExporter:

[...]
7. Spawn few enemy fighters at some point. ( )
It’s a relatively long scenario and if the enemy doesn’t get any aerial reinforcements then, once (absolute) air superiority won, there is no more challenge (at all) in the skies…
I made once a research. During Operation Exporter (without taking into account the losses here), the Vichy French had 90 planes from start... but they received 3 groups from the Vichy France and the Vichy French empire in Northwestern Africa (the German let them pass by Greece, I believe, at least for the majority of them!)... so that they’ve had in total 289 planes at the end!
=> So, because it’s based on History and to offer more challenge/action in the skies, here’s what I suggest:
Triggers:
1. Conditions -> “check turn” > 20 & obj “Decimate Axis air forces completed” (as if this is not even successful, don't bother to add another layer!)
2. Effects -> spawn 3 or 4 experienced Vichy French dogfighter units & add an event talking a little about this historical aspect & shut off this trigger when that happens.

[...]

And this won't be a problem with the apparition of our bombers, as it will anyway happen after that our bombers have spawned (thus the check whether "Decimate..." is completed).

-> Removing these two sec obj may make room for another secondary obj: have you considered the side-story of French tanker Adour? (Watch out, I talk about it in two different posts.) That would be nice, I think, and historical, so... And it would definitely be better as secondary than primary objective.

-> I haven't told it before, but the Vichy French there and at that time were known to have relatively weak AA defences on overall (as a consequence, historically, most of their planes have been destroyed on ground!), so less emphasis on this directly may be not a bad idea anyway...

[ColonelY]

Ideas about "when?":

-> Finally, better make our ships appear once first shot taken by Vichy's warships against our land units (Australians).
(So let them live their own fight basically up to the 2nd river, as said Masca, thus avoid unbalancing this part!)

-> Their ships start moving towards ours (AI Setup team) once first shot taken by one of our ships against theirs.

-> Spawn the torpedo bombers and their escort once perhaps on overall 10 damages has been made to our ships (by enemy ships and by coastal guns)... so let the battle progress a little, let the player feel he'll need some extra mean here before releasing them...

***
Ideas about naval "AI Teams":

-> Leave the Vichy gunship (useless for a real naval battle anyway) doing what it does now near Beirut, like some naval garrison or something, "together" (same AI setup, same behavior) with a new named DD being added in the port of Tripoli, in the North. (Do not put all the eggs in the same basket. Make the player search a little to achieve this sec obj about enemy ships, even if not counting subs, which is perfectly fine by the way.)
***
With all these changes, and those already made and the few others still to be made, you can be sure now that I'll replay this scenario for another check/control.

[bru888]

Well, I took a sober look at the situation. Definitely, you fellows were correct in calling attention to that death trap that I had set up in Beirut. Not only is the scenario out of balance in that aspect, it was not realistic, either.

So, to begin with, I am going with these confirmed Allied ships (no FF navy, sorry, based only on that vague reference in Wikia.org):

LC HMNZS Leander
LC HMAS Perth
DDE HMS Isis
DDE HMS Ilex
DDJ HMS Janus
DDJ HMAS Stuart
SUB HMS Parthian

DDJ HMAS Stuart is a bit of a stretch in that I only know that she was in the area (Tobruk) at the time. Also, I needed an optional British light cruiser that could be withdrawn if the player had lost HMS Devonshire at Gabon, so I selected HMS Ajax. The cruiser that I was using, HMS Gloucester, was sunk a couple of weeks before Operation Exporter began! A definite anachronistic no-no.

And if I am adding the Parthian, I needed to also go with Vichy subs Souffleur and Caïman. That's enough subs.

More to come . . .

[bru888]

Colonel, I have another hopefully quick request. If you agree to comply, drop the La Combattante translation and do this instead! Because I need it right away, please.

You mentioned "the French tanker Adour, which was carrying the entire fuel supply for the French forces in the Middle East, was attacked by British torpedo aircraft and badly damaged." I am thinking of making this a minor secondary objective but I hesitate to proceed on the basis of one line in a Wikipedia article.

However, after extensive search and a bit of confusion (apparently there was a French-flagged tanker ADOUR hijacked off the coast of Togo in 2013!) I found this reference to the WW2 L'Adour: http://warsailors.com/forum/archive/for ... 12735.html

There is a link on that page to a PDF pamphlet that discusses the incident. It is called "Combats Sans Espoir ("Hopeless Fights," I believe) en Syrie." I have downloaded it (and checked it for viruses) and attached it below. The web site says that, on document pages 120-124 (PDF pages 121-125), the L'Adour is discussed.

It's in French, of course. The PDF file is apparently protected so that one cannot copy and paste text, so I cannot even run it through Google Translate. When you have time, would you be so kind as to read those five pages and give me a short synopsis as to what they say? In English, of course.

combats_sans_espoir.zip

(656.48 KiB) Downloaded 1118 times

[bru888]

Meanwhile, thanks for that French lesson. Good tip on the difference between “1er” and “1ère” or “1re” depending on the gender of the noun. Like an annoying pupil that every teacher of some experience will encounter in their careers, I ask the following two wise-guy questions:

1) How is it possible to remember the genders of thousands upon thousands of nouns?

2) Say, teacher, why is “un bataillon” masculine while “une division” is feminine, and only men are involved in any case?

[No disrespect meant, of course. I studied French in high school because I thought it was a beautiful language; I still do. But thank goodness “2e” and “3e,” etc., are all the same from that point on! ]

So, all “1er DFL” have been changed to “1re DFL” in the text file, thanks. Also corrected are “1er Bataillon de Chars X / 1re DFL” and “Régiment Mixte Colonial.”

[bru888]

Susan Travers standing in front of the staff car, with General Koenig looking out at the top at Bir Hacheim :

pic23.jpg (287.91 KiB) Viewed 1886 times

pic23.jpg


Another video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr9RhZq ... Q&index=14

Thanks, Mr. T. I had seen that photo but I rejected it because, frankly, Ms. Travers looks like a skinny man in shorts in that one. However, I was able to snag this screen print from the second video that you posted and this will replace the first Susan Travers photo in her message queue. It's an improvement. Thanks for this:

Susan_Mary_Gillian_Travers_1.png (388.42 KiB) Viewed 1886 times

[bru888]

-> Add one British unit, a Oerlikon 20mm Portee AT/AA (deployed on AT mod, let's let the player switch it to AA mod) together with the British and Indian group in the South, in the center... and with some cool and immersive name.
As Damascus will now have a huge amount of planes, bombers, etc. And like this, it will make a total of 3 AA units (if I'm not mistaken): 1 with the Aussies in the SW, 1 with the Brits in the E and now one mobile "in the middle"...

I did this, only I also give the British another with the NE group: 3rd and 6th Royal Horse Artillery. Now 4 AA guns total for Allies. Penalty: Two more Vichy French tanks.

[Mascarenhas]

French/ Neolatin substantives

Bru,

Just to let you know, every language derived from Latin, as Italian, Spanish an Portuguese have the same gender and number variations as French.

[ColonelY]

[...]
1) How is it possible to remember the genders of thousands upon thousands of nouns?

2) Say, teacher, why is “un bataillon” masculine while “une division” is feminine, and only men are involved in any case?

[...]

1) It's just a matter of habit.
Besides, it would be worse (if I dare say so) with German, where there are masculine, feminine and... neutral genders!

2) Good question. No idea.

[ColonelY]

[...] I did this, only I also give the British another with the NE group: 3rd and 6th Royal Horse Artillery. Now 4 AA guns total for Allies. Penalty: Two more Vichy French tanks.

Nice.

And I like this kind of penalty if it's enhance the challenge. (By the way, at that time, the Vichy French had much more tanks anyway that the Allies, so... )

Two units of French tanks?! Well, well... it gives me an idea, as there are two models of French tanks that we haven't seen yet within this campaign... Have you put one unit of Somua S35 and one unit of Char B1?
(Those are two stronger models of tanks than the Renault or Hotchkiss tanks. )

[ColonelY]

[...] I need it right away, please.

You mentioned "the French tanker Adour, which was carrying the entire fuel supply for the French forces in the Middle East, was attacked by British torpedo aircraft and badly damaged." I am thinking of making this a minor secondary objective but I hesitate to proceed on the basis of one line in a Wikipedia article. [...]

Yes, it's worth a sec obj and yes, there are more info available.

Yes, I'll gladly study this document and produce some (hopefully good) synopsis...

But, I'm sorry, "right away", that won't be possible.

I've had a crazy day, almost ten hours of work, plus travels, snow, etc. Yeah, it was a crazy day. Now I've just got home, I've got about 3 hours of sleep ahead of me before I leave... I've just quickly checked the forum right now. I won't be able to start anything serious until tomorrow afternoon anyway, so for a good work from five pages...

But if you give me an extra day or two, no worries.

Anyway, we aren't in a real rush, are we?

In the meantime, you can always prepare the rest.

[bru888]

No worries, Colonel. I have already moved ahead with L'Adour, based somewhat on your recommendations. I believe that, as long as you are satisfied that the pamphlet corroborates the L'Adour's actions and significance as described in the Wikipedia article, it will be alright. From what I have seen, I think it will.

Guys, this is going to be good. I really like how this is being re-developed.

But yes, I am feeling the urge to pick up the pace even more. I want to finish this campaign before: a) I die, or b) the game changes dramatically or becomes obsolete. Whichever comes first.