Play 1940 Campaigns with surrender option on.

[jonnymacbrown]

I am unfortunately playing it now without this option, and surrounded, isolated and broken untis fight to the very last man. Last turn I assaulted such a unit 3 times, with 3 full battalions; all with high morale and assault factors. The last assault finally eliminated the last 9 men! I do believe surrender was an option that large numbers of Belgian and French troops did indeed choose. von Ege

[FLG]

When your down to attacking the last few men you are better just shooting them, rather than assaulting. You will get two shots for the same assault and it won't increase your units fatigue and lead to possible losses on your part. With a chance that the last few men in a unit will disperse a kill is almost guaranteed.

[Dog Soldier]

Actually, PvE is referring to the F40 game where the default fire options are the Alt ones. In this case, very small units alone in cover have to be rooted out by assault. Banging away with direct fire will not make these boys come out of hiding and stand at attention in the front yard while waiting for the firing squad.

I look at the default rule as being very good. Hunting down enemy stragglers who just want to hide until the other side has left the area, takes time. The optional surrender rule is meant to mimic the old cardboard games.
The flaw in the optional surrender rule, IMHO, is it allows a unit to cause an enemy surrender and then proceed with full capabilities for that turn.

It is true that the Belgians and French in May 1940 surrendered to "tank fright". There are accounts of columns of French soldiers walking into captivity without any German guards.

Just play the Allied side in the CG of F40. This phenomenon is there as units vanish from the board, leaving your lines looking like swiss cheese. Now that can be even more frustrating than the stalling of a few German follow-up infantry battalions having to round up the "broken" prisoners who are too dazed to fight after the panzers mauled them and moved on.

IIRC, that was the purpose of the German infantry in this campaign. Hold the territory the panzers had over run, and collect the prisoners. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.

Dog Soldier

[jonnymacbrown]

I agree with you Dog Soldier. The instances I refered to took place in open ground, and it is just a bit frusrating to be banging away at isolated, broken units and needing to destroy every last one of them down to the last man. But you are right: It is the job of the infantry to mop up. von ege :smoke:

[jonnymacbrown]

Just played another turn in the F40 Campaign with no surrender. A broken, isolated and surrounded Belgian engineer unit at 90% losses held out against an assault by a full battalion. Now down to their last 8 men in open ground they continue to hold out. This is supposed to be an historical simulation, no? Playing without the surrender option in this game turns these ordinary troops in Spartans. von ege

[Dog Soldier]

***Warning readers*** :soap: :soap:

PvE,
Looks more to me like the Belgians are hiding. What do you want them to do, walk up to Jerry and introduce themselves? It is a broken unit. How hard can this be for you?

Did you ever consider with the FOW, your Germans are not really looking for exactly 8 men? Not sure how you came to that number if the unit only shows X men. Anyway, I look at this as some German officer telling his troops to fan out and search every piece of ground where the "rumored" enemy troops might still be hiding. That could take time.

Or they just could be snipers. Ever search for snipers in a 1,000 meter radius? The snipers still have to be cleared out. This is not an 18th century battle with rows of troops banging away at each other at 25 yards.

You are implying that the German army is being delayed enough to mop up broken Belgian troops? That this might cause the Germans to lose the F40 CG? It is annoying to be sure, but not all that critical to the campaign. I doubt you will find any experienced players taking the auto surrender option in F40 as the Allies.

I would think your use of the German glider troops as Uber assault troops is more of a tragedy. Where is you thread on this? This version of the CG by RickyB and Dave Guegan with the strategy options forgot to withdraw the Strum units after the fall of the Belgian fortress on of Eban Emal the first day. (Something the authors tell me will be reviewed.) Now your using these very small but extremely powerful units to reduce bypassed bunkers. Defensive fire under the default alt direct fire rules just bounces off these small units with no effect. Assaulting them with the E morale Belgian bunker garrisons is not an option either. The FJ are A morale when in good order. Really, each of those Strum units are allowing one or two German infantry battalions to go to the front instead of reducing the enemy held bunkers in the rear. I'd say you have little to complain about.

When you try and cross the Muese, (and your late at that by historical measures), you may not want the auto surrender rule. All the French will have to do is move adjacent to the German crossing parties and the Jerries will surrender with their backs to the river. No need to waste Allied troops assaulting Jerries ferrying over to form a bridgehead with the auto surrender option. Just bust them up with plenty of artillery, then touch them on the shoulder. How silly is that? :rolleyes:

BTW, how good are those little 37MM AT units at surrounding bypassed Allied units? Guess it would be more efficient with the auto surrender rule so these AT gun crews could collect the prisoners and free up even more German infantry troops for the front lines. As it is, those guns are doing a good enough job for you holding the broken Belgians in place until your tired infantry can come and make the needed assaults. :rolleyes:

If the Allied defense has you frustrated, you can always hand over your baton and surrender.

Dog Soldier

[Volcano Man]

BTW, if these units are indeed broken then just leave them. What are they going to do to you? Anyone can follow up later and take them out. But in the case of broken double or single digit number man units then, well, you don't have to stop and kill everyone. :)

[jonnymacbrown]

First off, there were historically what, over 100,000 Allied troops surrendered in this two week campaign? I'd love to leave those isolated units behind, except they are often full 500 man battalions which will be a big problem later. The difficulty for me is the notion that they do not ever give up, even when down to 95% percent losses. Less than 10 men? You still have to keep on assaulting. It doesn't seem right. As for Sturn Abtilung Koch, my recollection was that the scenario was called "no fix" meaning all the German units were for use; that there were no withdrawals. Any comments I make on this forum have nothing to do with results in any specific game but rather as an observer. von ege :smoke: