Slitherine

Just reading Max Hasting's excellent new book, Inferno, and he has some interesting thoughts on Allied morale, particularly amongst the French, in the winter and spring of 1940.

He points out that the French army lost a great deal of its fighting spirit during the 'sitz krieg' phase, as the democratic nations struggled with the 'purpose' of the war. After all, Poland was overrun, and there were a lot of people amongst the Allies that didn't really feel that excited about continuing the war.

It occurred to me that we could reflect this in the game by effecting a cumulative morale/efficiency loss on the French for each turn that Germany does NOT invade Holland or Belgium, or occupy a French city.

In other words, starting as soon as Poland falls, French efficiency drops by 2 points per turn, until April 1940, at the latest. Approximately 20 points, if the Germans wait. As soon as the Germans DOW on the low countries, or invade some other way, the French stop suffering this loss (other effects still come into play).

That would:
a) reflect the (sorry) state of affairs in the French army,
b) give the Germans one more (small) reason to hold off on the early assault on France, thus hewing more closely to the historical track.

Although this is interesting, I don't think I'd make any changes here.

On the merits, I have also read that the French generally fought better in the second phase of the operation (after Dunkirk) despite the fact that they were at that point seriously outnumbered and outgunned. I think this points to tactical morale factors (the morale loss incurred by the "blitzkrieg") being more significant than the "national" morale, which is well-modeled by the lower-efficiency French units.

ncali wrote:Although this is interesting, I don't think I'd make any changes here.

On the merits, I have also read that the French generally fought better in the second phase of the operation (after Dunkirk) despite the fact that they were at that point seriously outnumbered and outgunned. I think this points to tactical morale factors (the morale loss incurred by the "blitzkrieg") being more significant than the "national" morale, which is well-modeled by the lower-efficiency French units.

I'd be interested to see that post-Dunkirk analysis, but I do think that you are right, the French fought better AFTER Dunkirk than before it. German daily casualties in that period doubled (Inferno, Max Hastings).

Still, what I'm talking about it reducing French effectiveness early in the fight, so that the Germans have a (good) opportunity to execute the knockout blow right at the start... as they pretty much did.

metolius wrote:

ncali wrote:Although this is interesting, I don't think I'd make any changes here.

On the merits, I have also read that the French generally fought better in the second phase of the operation (after Dunkirk) despite the fact that they were at that point seriously outnumbered and outgunned. I think this points to tactical morale factors (the morale loss incurred by the "blitzkrieg") being more significant than the "national" morale, which is well-modeled by the lower-efficiency French units.

I'd be interested to see that post-Dunkirk analysis, but I do think that you are right, the French fought better AFTER Dunkirk than before it. German daily casualties in that period doubled (Inferno, Max Hastings).

Still, what I'm talking about it reducing French effectiveness early in the fight, so that the Germans have a (good) opportunity to execute the knockout blow right at the start... as they pretty much did.

While I'm all for making life a tad bit easier for Axis, I'm not sure about this proposal. The swift knockout blow was more an issue of flawed strategy and tactics, wasn't it? I remember what Churchill wrote in his war memoire: After the German armor broke through in the Ardennes offensive, Churchilll asked the French commander in chief, where's your reserve force ('masse de manouvre')? and the answer he got was "aucune" (i.e. we don't have any). Doh!

My understanding of this game is that we want to make it possible to follow the historical line in a realistic manner, but we don't want to force players to repeat the blunders of history. IMHO, if a player, using the current game version, actually tried to "defend" France along historical lines, their downfall would be just as rapid.