The First Blitzkrieg, (What if) Saar Offensive 1939

[gwgardner]

Sept 11-12

Heavy French air losses in ground attacks against the German forces in the forests southwest of Karlsruhe, but the followup attacks by infantry and mech forces did dislodge the enemy from their strong positions.

Further south the roll-up of the Siegfried line east of Mulhouse has been successful, with the intent of opening a path through better terrain for an advance along the Frieburg-Stuttgart axis.

[gwgardner]

Sept 13-14

The encirclement of the southern leg of the Siegfried Line continues, but the advance towards Freiburg has come up against a strong German defense.  The French are taking 2-1 air losses in support of the ground attacks, which are themselves taking 3 times more losses than the enemy.

Newly mobilized divisiions are slow coming to the front due to limited rail capacity.  One odd feature of the game is that the British have 1000 rail strength point capacity to the French 500 - it doesn't seem  sensible that the British would have their own separate capacity in France, so does this model mean that the French reserved a great portion of their transport to bring up the BEF?

France now has a 1.2 - 1 air strength superiority.

[gwgardner]

Sept 15-16

BEF still moving to the Front, but two British Divisions were temporarily attached to the French 5th Army, to continue the roll-up of the Siegfried Line south of Freiburg.

Rail Transport is severely limiting the addition of more French units into the battle. Current front-line units are at approx 75% readiness after eight days of offensive operations.

French air superiority has vanished, with the fighter force ratio at 1.1-1, and the air arm's ground support has been greatly diminished due to heavy losses.

[gwgardner]

Sept 17-24

During the last week the French succeeded in clearing the Siegfried Line south of Karlsruhe, but the Germans have done an excellent job of positioning their troops for a slow withdrawal to the east, not allowing the Allies to breakout.  There is no rail movement for the Allies beyond the border, so bringing up the newly mobilized French and newly disembarked BEF has been slow also.

Recon shows that the German maintained their force along the Siegfried line northwards towards Belgian, not pulling out forces to move south against the Allied offensive.

With only a few days left in this planned offensive, prior to repositioning for the expected assault of German forces coming from Poland, it is looking doubtful that the Allies will take either Karlsruhe or Stuttgart. 

Therefore the entire offensive has been nothing more than a nuisance, albeit a bloody one, for the enemy.  To make it worse, the French air force has been worn down to parity with the German air units on the Western front, and when the arrival of reinforcements from the East, Germany will have total air superiority.

Even worse, the Dyle Plan is now completely out of the question, with the BEF fully engaged in the south.

The French regimental armored units do not have any punch and are incapable of forcing a breakthrough.  

It's clear from this scenario, if the abstracted elements of the game system do justice to history, that such a French offensive would not have altered the course of 1940 action on the Western Front all that much, and may have actually weakened the Allied defense.  Certainly the BEF would not have been rescued if it had been committed to the Saar.

[Mr Grumpy]

Thanks for this AAR, there are so few members playing these titles and hence so little info on what the game system plays out like. 

[gwgardner]

Too bad the designer made choices that tend to reduce interest in the game, like no organizational heirarchy.

[Mr Grumpy]

Indeed, seems like a rushed project with some significant flaws, there are occasional rumours that the titles are going to get a makeover but so far nothing............