Slitherine

Actually ,I do agree to give Axis an easier job in France so that Axis will have more room to survive longer . UK can give Germany extra casulties in France in 1940 especially by RAF . The loss of British can be easily recovered within several turns after France campaign . But the loss of Axis is expensive & will even effect the scale of Barbarosa ......

The French garrison is not awful，It can only delay，The horror is the French attack aircraft, tank, cavalry，They can kill the German unit completely，This is not in conformity with history.

flybird wrote:The French garrison is not awful，It can only delay，The horror is the French attack aircraft, tank, cavalry，They can kill the German unit completely，This is not in conformity with history.

Especially the French tank ! Actually France only had arm division at most , never a tank army there .......

Look here for the French OOB:
http://france1940.free.fr/oob/oob.html

1re Armee:
http://france1940.free.fr/oob/1armee.html

- 1re DCR Armored division
- GBC 515 Armored brigade
- 2e DLM Armored division
- 3e DLM Armored division
- 1re DIM Motorised division
- 2e DINA Infantry division
- Gpt Soubeyran Armored recon brigade
- 15e DIM Motorised division
- 1e DM Infantry division
- Gpt Jaquelin Cavalry battalion
- Gpt Arlabosse Armored recon battalion
- 12e DIM Motorised division
- 5e DINA Infantry division
- GBC 519 Armored brigade

Quite a lot of armored firepower

Similar German panzerkorps at the same time:
XIX Motorised corps by Guderian:
- 1 Panzerdivision
- 2 Panzerdivision
- 10 Panzerdivision
- Grossdeutschland motorised regiment
- Lehr Armored recon battalion
- 11 Motorised MG battalion

France had a substantial tank force in WW2. They just implemented them in a wrong way and spread their precious tanks too much. Germany had a much better doctrine with concentrated armor formations.

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/f ... _Tanks.php

The French armor unit in GS means that the Germans will have to be a bit careful when invading into France. A good strategy is to harass the armor unit with tactical bombers to keep it down on morale.

Remember that what doomed the Allies in May 1940 was not lack of equipment, but a poor military strategy and morale. Once Belgium was overrun it was panic in France. Lots of refugees etc. The Allied High Command sent troops into Belgium with the risk of becoming surrounded. They didn't anticipate the German armor breakthrough in the Ardennes.

Many historians claim that a regular German invasion of Belgium and France would have ended in a stale-mate ala WW1.

This has always been the big problem of strategic WW2 games. How to ensure the Germans can capture Paris within the normal time frame without depleting the French OOB way below the historical level. In some games you start with a fixed OOB where the Ardennes area is not defended at all. That feels a bit fishy to me. However, we can't expect players to repeat the Allied strategic blunder so you often see a war of attrition to crush France.

Before we had 2 French Mech units instead of one armor. Then some players complained about these as well. The French army had quite a bit of offensive firepower. It's up to you as the Axis to ensure they can't use them. E. g. I always repair my Axis units when below 8 strength. When I attack I try to make sure the front line will be occupied by corps units after my turn. This way my armor units won't be as exposed. It takes maybe a bit longer to reach Paris, but I lose no units in the campaign.

Some of the players I've seen in AAR are way too aggressive with their units compared to my play style. E. g. they attack with units at 5 steps and push hard forward with depleted units. Probably a good strategy to gain ground fast, but you will take more losses.

Thanks a lot for your great explaination ! In fact , the game engine rebuilds French forces , but the Allies player won't make the same mistake as the Allies commander had made in real history , & Axis does quite difficult to copy the surprise attack from Adon forest & hard to take Paris before June ( not including against a newcomer)

We must admit that many of our players will do better than the French commander of the year. So French tanks will be a serious threat to the German army

I was thinking about this some more. I completely agree with the observations about French strength, which if anything is slightly under-represented in CEAW to factor in poor use of its significant material in terms of armour and air. I don't think I'd suggest significant modification. But, if testing and play shows there are balance issues, one possibility would be a 3-5 turn PP gain to Germany (i.e., Germany gains 20 PP every turn for 5 turns) following French surrender to account for the vast amount of captured equipment that the Axis was able to put to use in subsequent campaigns. This wouldn't throw off 1940 balancing too much, would help the Axis going into '41. I've always thought this was an overlooked aspect in terms of most games modeling of WWII. Again, not suggesting it at this time. But wanted to throw the idea out there.

German campaign in France in 1940 was much of a gamble that could well have ended quite other way. It has been much attributed to the military genius of Manstein and his modifications to the original Schilieffen Plan as probably decisive factors for the German victory.

To that it would have to add the really low French morale (already simulated in the game). Remember that no one wanted another war that early after WW1.

Regardless of all of that, we shouldn't forget that the French had quite an striking force and not a purely defensive army. This is what has to be considered in a wargame: to represent the forces as they really were. I mean, you just don't make the French sigmificantly weaker just to represent the German victory as it happened.

Finally, there is this thing of players sending virtually all UK and Commonwealth forces to France in 1940 just for the sake of bleeding the Germans. This is a risky move since Allies might face a successful Sealion operation from the Axis. But it appears that sometimes that strategy works and Germans have to face a rather lacking Barbarossa operation.

UK doesn't need to bring everything to France . Just several units （4-6）including the Canadian Gars & the RAF . The RAF can even stay in UK (at the coast of English Channel). So BEF is not the problem , the problem is the French power is too strong . Just return to the original France set up ( no arm & calrary , one more mech instead ) will be much better .

Maybe should cut Allied morale a bit more after Belgium/Holland invasion, or even better, have it recover more slowly. One thing I don't understand is that the French armor tech is actually better than the German: equal blitzkrieg (really?) and better armor.

If you want to hit the Allies with a higher morale loss when Belgium falls in one turn the you change this value in general.txt for both players:
DOW_MORALE_LOSS_FRANCE 20

I suggest trying with 25 and see how it goes.

If you also want to increase the Allied morale loss if Belgium falls on more than one turn you alter the following in General.txt
MORALE_LOSS_TWO_TURN_BELGIUM 10 /* Morale loss to Allied units in France if Belgium falls on the turn after Belgium was attacked */

Increase it from 10 to 15 or so.

As a matter of fact the French armor units were better than the German panzers. The british armor units were better protected as well. The main reason the Germans did so well with their panzers was how they were deployed. Germany concentrated their armor units to make a bigger punch through. Their panzers also had radio to coordinate communications.

The German invasion of France took the Allies on surprise and they responded the old fashioned way by sending their best units into Belgium. They didn't know the German main attack was through the Ardennes. So the best Allied units got cut-off from the rest of France and was nibbled up until the remnants evacuated at Dunkirk.

When you had clashes between armor units then the Allies did actually quite well. However, such victories weren't followed up and there they fizzled out.

When I play the Axis I usually hit the French armor with some airstrikes to keep the morale down. I can get it down to orange or even red just by airstrikes. Then it can't do much offensively. Before when we had 2 French mech units it was a bit harder since you need to hit both of these. The Allied player usually put a mech unit in Paris to make it a bit harder to take the capital.

Players have always had issues with Case Yellow in CEAW and GS. It's almost not possible to recreate the historical outcome without stripping the French of units. However, if you do that then you risk seeing the norm that the Axis invade France in 1939 since they're so weak. What you need is a strong enough France for the Axis to not have a walk-over, but not too strong so a dedicated Allied defense can cause a WW1 result.

If you play the Allies against the AI then this is what you get all the time. To breach through the Allied defense line you need to know how to use your units offensively as the Axis.