Slitherine

Dmoore wrote: Thu Mar 16, 2023 5:20 am Wow, I feel like I have just had a class in the role of the Free French in World war II (notably absent from English language histories). Tres bien fait, Messieurs!

bru888 wrote: Thu Mar 16, 2023 8:32 pm

Dmoore wrote: Thu Mar 16, 2023 5:20 am Wow, I feel like I have just had a class in the role of the Free French in World war II (notably absent from English language histories). Tres bien fait, Messieurs!

Thanks. We worked rather hard on it, I will say. I guess everything went well for you; no major issues encountered.

German Battalion in former French Indochina

During the First Indochina War (1946-1954), the so-called "German Battalion" fought as part of the French Foreign Legion. It is believed to have consisted of soldiers who escaped punishment for war crimes they may have committed during World War II and joined the Foreign Legion. It is reliably known that in 1948 the Foreign Legion units in Indochina consisted of 40% Germans. The bulk of them were gathered in the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment of the Legion.

It was war in the most primitive sense of the word and the German battalion fought brutally but effectively, distinguishing itself from other units. The battalion lasted exactly 1,243 days. During this time, its soldiers killed 7466 guerrillas and 221 base Viet Minh, released 311 prisoners (including civilians), walking about 11 thousand kilometers. They themselves lost 515 men - for them these losses were more than significant.

The dumbfounded Viet Minh, using Communist propaganda and a number of Western media, even launched a coordinated campaign to vilify the unit. The French were constantly accused of using their former enemies to expand their "imperialist influence" and eventually the German Battalion was disbanded. Radio Hanoi called them the Todeskommando - the "death squad". The Legionnaires themselves preferred to call themselves the "Battalion of the Damned".

The Foreign Legion's finest hour in Indochina was the battle for Dien Bien Phu in March-May 1954. According to the most conservative estimates there were about 2,000 German legionnaires. During the battle, the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment defended the strongholds "Marseille" and "Isabelle". On the eve of defeat, on the night of May 7, 1954, their garrison attempted a breakthrough. The vast majority of the fighters never made it out of the valley, however some seventy men eventually managed to escape and join the French forces in Laos. The rest, as they say, is history: on May 8, 1954, Viet Minh won the victory at Dien Bien Phu and France left Indochina in disgrace.

The actions of German veterans in the Foreign Legion were widely publicized. The media attention to these soldiers forced the German government to close the last Foreign Legion recruiting station on its territory in May 1955.

In the pictures: the French army during the three-month battle of Dien Bien Phu. Of the 10,863 soldiers taken prisoner by the Vietnamese there, only 3,290 were repatriated.

bondjamesbond wrote: Sun Aug 27, 2023 11:46 am Hello everybody! Does the author plan to make a company after WWII in Algeria and French Indochina Vietnam ?

bru888 wrote: Sun Aug 27, 2023 3:57 pm

bondjamesbond wrote: Sun Aug 27, 2023 11:46 am Hello everybody! Does the author plan to make a company after WWII in Algeria and French Indochina Vietnam ?

Hmmm. Emulating that game in OOB would be a rather ambitious undertaking for two reasons:

1) It's a first-person shooter game which is not OOB-style at all. (If it was, I wouldn't be here.)

2) It's set in the Franco-Vietnamese War . . . from 1946 to 1954 . . . [slows typing while thinking . . . actually, it would be feasible after all . . . much of the equipment would be the same . . . surplus from WWII . . . and not much advanced in design at that point anyway.]

Food for thought is all that I will offer. Aspect 1) is definitely out. Also, replicating the 7554 story line would be impossible.

But Aspect 2) could be worked around without modding the base game, I think. And although there were not many large-scale battles, there were a number of actions that could be replicated in scenarios. Regiment and division level, not company.

I was going to ask but instead I will inform: If I were to do a campaign along these lines, it would be human player as Vietnamese versus AI as French. It is very difficult to come up with ways for the historically losing side to win scenarios and campaigns.

Food for thought. Thanks for the food.

Erik2 wrote: Sun Aug 27, 2023 4:32 pm Actually, I'm planning a modded Indo-China with the French sometime...
They used mainly US WW2-equipment along with some pretty outdated French 1940-stuff.
I got all the map/oob-info collected.
So if Master Bru would like to bring the Studio back to life

From 1932 to 1944, German aircraft factories produced 4,187 copies of the Ju 52 of all modifications. In addition, the aircraft was produced in the occupied countries. So, in Hungary, Manfred Weiss built 24 Ju 52/3m, and the French Amiot plant in Colombes (renamed Ateliers Aeronautiques de Colombes, AAC) produced 602 copies with BMW 132 engines manufactured by SNECMA. After the war, another 415 copies were produced, designated AAC.1 Toucan, of which 216 were delivered to the Air Force.

The French widely used their "Toucans" during the colonial wars in 1947 — 1953.
https://fraza.com/analytics/308124-tukany-v-boju

Jaskier3000 wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 7:45 pm I tried downloading the mod but upon clicking the link it says that the file no longer exists.
Does someone have the files to reupload them?