F 40 Gold: Expiring Objectives

[Ricky B]

Jonny- as Mike noted the description is off a bit. Surrender objectives only impact the nationality's forces that the objectives apply to, not the victory etc:

When a nation surrenders, all its units, both ground and air, including future reinforcements, are removed from the scenario.

So it will leave a bit of a gap, but I don't believe the removed units apply to victory levels so forcing a surrender can provide tactical advantages, but not points toward a victory.

[jonnymacbrown]

Jonny- as Mike noted the description is off a bit. Surrender objectives only impact the nationality's forces that the objectives apply to, not the victory etc:

When a nation surrenders, all its units, both ground and air, including future reinforcements, are removed from the scenario.

So it will leave a bit of a gap, but I don't believe the removed units apply to victory levels so forcing a surrender can provide tactical advantages, but not points toward a victory.

Thanks Ricky B! That is very good to know!

[Mike Prucha]

Hi Johnny, 

Yes - for clarification, Belgian and Dutch surrender does not give the German player an automatic minor victor per se, but rather the points taken from the objective hexes that the Germans must capture to trigger Belgian and Dutch surrender (and those hexes that aren't surrender hexes but are almost certainly going to be captured along the way) should usually be sufficient to give the German player a minor victory.

There are two reasons behind this. First, I think the occupation of the Low Countries, even without a further advance into France, could reasonably be described as a German victory - doing so would have given Germany airbases from which to strike Britain and additional ports on the North Sea, and would have broadened Germans options for a continued offensive into France while narrowing the Allies' potential invasion routes into Germany. Secondly, attaching so many points to Belgian and Dutch objective hexes all but forces the Allied player to attempt to intervene in the Low Countries. Otherwise it would be to his advantage simply to have French and British forces stay put and leave the Belgians and Dutch to their fate - not at all historic behavior and not a good representation of Allied policies and objectives.

A few more things to consider - having surrender hexes expire could lead to some really weird situations. For instance, if Belgian and Dutch objective hexes were progressively removed, you could conceivably have a situation where the German player triggers Belgian surrender, but, because the Dutch objectives have expired, the Netherlands fights to last man isolated. Or perhaps, if the Dutch Army couldn't surrender and many of the objectives in the country had the expired, the Allied player might derive some benefit from send the Dutch Army south into Belgium. Or some other weird thing like that...So to me it seems safer just to keep them on the map and leave the possibility of Belgian and Dutch surrender open the entire scenario.

Also I don't believe Belgian surrender is inevitable. Depending on the actions of both players I think it is possible for the Belgians to hang on to the end. Dutch surrender is probably close to unavoidable, but it's entirely possible that the Dutch could hang in there longer than they historically did (deploying III Corps to the Peel-Raam Line rather than recreating the historic withdrawal to the north all but guarantees this)

-Mike Prucha

[jonnymacbrown]

Hi Johnny, 

Yes - for clarification, Belgian and Dutch surrender does not give the German player an automatic minor victor per se, but rather the points taken from the objective hexes that the Germans must capture to trigger Belgian and Dutch surrender (and those hexes that aren't surrender hexes but are almost certainly going to be captured along the way) should usually be sufficient to give the German player a minor victory.

There are two reasons behind this. First, I think the occupation of the Low Countries, even without a further advance into France, could reasonably be described as a German victory - doing so would have given Germany airbases from which to strike Britain and additional ports on the North Sea, and would have broadened Germans options for a continued offensive into France while narrowing the Allies' potential invasion routes into Germany. Secondly, attaching so many points to Belgian and Dutch objective hexes all but forces the Allied player to attempt to intervene in the Low Countries. Otherwise it would be to his advantage simply to have French and British forces stay put and leave the Belgians and Dutch to their fate - not at all historic behavior and not a good representation of Allied policies and objectives.

A few more things to consider - having surrender hexes expire could lead to some really weird situations. For instance, if Belgian and Dutch objective hexes were progressively removed, you could conceivably have a situation where the German player triggers Belgian surrender, but, because the Dutch objectives have expired, the Netherlands fights to last man isolated. Or perhaps, if the Dutch Army couldn't surrender and many of the objectives in the country had the expired, the Allied player might derive some benefit from send the Dutch Army south into Belgium. Or some other weird thing like that...So to me it seems safer just to keep them on the map and leave the possibility of Belgian and Dutch surrender open the entire scenario.

Also I don't believe Belgian surrender is inevitable. Depending on the actions of both players I think it is possible for the Belgians to hang on to the end. Dutch surrender is probably close to unavoidable, but it's entirely possible that the Dutch could hang in there longer than they historically did (deploying III Corps to the Peel-Raam Line rather than recreating the historic withdrawal to the north all but guarantees this)

-Mike Prucha

Mike; you say Belgian occupation should give Germany a minor victory. So the Allied player has to try and hold Belgium? But realistically or shall we say historically, just taking Belgium without making inroads into France is going to lose Germany the war, WWI redux, no? Maybe I just don't get it. I'm not trying to be difficult nor contrary.   jonny

[Mike Prucha]

Hey Johnny,

These are really great questions.

The French plan was not simply to refight the WW1, but to fight WW1 better. Plan D (with the appended hypothèse Breda) called for an advance deep into Belgium and up i to the Netherlands. The idea was to fight the decisive battle outside of the French territory in the Low Countries, thereby sparing the strategically important manufacturing and mining centers (Lille, Roubaix, Maubeuge, etc) from destruction and occupation and facilitating a future French offensive into Germany - with the Low Countries in Allied hands, the Germans would be forced to defend more ground and could not rely on the strong portions of the Westwall (the defenses on the Dutch border were rudimentary at this point and non-existent north of the Rhine.) Failure to hold at least a portion of the Low Countries would represent the total failure of Plan D.

Fall Gelb, for its part, was not envisioned by OKH & OKW to be the decisive "Sickle Cut" maneuver that it became. Though Von Manstein had advocated such a plan, and his thinking surely influenced Guderian, the German command had not planned anything beyond the partial occupation of the Low Countries and the seizure of bridgeheads over the Meuse between Dinant and Sedan. Halder, Von Brauchitsch, and the other cautious/conservative infantry commanders in the high command could not (or would not) imagine that the Allied armies could be dealt a death blow in one swift, decisive maneuver. To them, Fall Gelb was a limited operation - the first move in what was surely to be a long and arduous campaign. The seizure of the Meuse bridgeheads would facilitate further operations in France while the capture of the Netherlands and much of Belgium would enable the Luftwaffe to strike Britain. The push to the sea and encirclement of the Allied armies was not part of OKH's conception of Fall Gelb but rather unfolded solely due to the improvised (and, to an extent, unsanctioned) action of Guderian, Rommel, and other Panzer commanders. I would really recommend picking up a copy of Karlheinz Frieser's The Blitzkrieg Legend for more on this.

So, if the Germans occupy the Low Countries (plus maybe picking up a bridgehead over Sedan), this would  mean that Plan D has utterly failed while Fall Gelb has achieved about what the German high command envisioned (probably a little more actually). Hence a German victory. Of course, Fall Gelb vastly exceeded the expectations of the German command, so to win a major victory the German player must make a decisive move into France similar to what the Germans historically accomplished.

Again, if we didn't weight the objectives in the Low Countries so heavily then the Allied player would have zero reason to push French and British troops into Belgium & the Netherlands. We'd effectively be ignoring the Allied operational and strategic objectives and probably making things harder for the German player than it should be.

-Mike Prucha

[jonnymacbrown]

Hey Johnny,

These are really great questions.

The French plan was not simply to refight the WW1, but to fight WW1 better. Plan D (with the appended hypothèse Breda) called for an advance deep into Belgium and up i to the Netherlands. The idea was to fight the decisive battle outside of the French territory in the Low Countries, thereby sparing the strategically important manufacturing and mining centers (Lille, Roubaix, Maubeuge, etc) from destruction and occupation and facilitating a future French offensive into Germany - with the Low Countries in Allied hands, the Germans would be forced to defend more ground and could not rely on the strong portions of the Westwall (the defenses on the Dutch border were rudimentary at this point and non-existent north of the Rhine.) Failure to hold at least a portion of the Low Countries would represent the total failure of Plan D.

Fall Gelb, for its part, was not envisioned by OKH & OKW to be the decisive "Sickle Cut" maneuver that it became. Though Von Manstein had advocated such a plan, and his thinking surely influenced Guderian, the German command had not planned anything beyond the partial occupation of the Low Countries and the seizure of bridgeheads over the Meuse between Dinant and Sedan. Halder, Von Brauchitsch, and the other cautious/conservative infantry commanders in the high command could not (or would not) imagine that the Allied armies could be dealt a death blow in one swift, decisive maneuver. To them, Fall Gelb was a limited operation - the first move in what was surely to be a long and arduous campaign. The seizure of the Meuse bridgeheads would facilitate further operations in France while the capture of the Netherlands and much of Belgium would enable the Luftwaffe to strike Britain. The push to the sea and encirclement of the Allied armies was not part of OKH's conception of Fall Gelb but rather unfolded solely due to the improvised (and, to an extent, unsanctioned) action of Guderian, Rommel, and other Panzer commanders. I would really recommend picking up a copy of Karlheinz Frieser's The Blitzkrieg Legend for more on this.

So, if the Germans occupy the Low Countries (plus maybe picking up a bridgehead over Sedan), this would  mean that Plan D has utterly failed while Fall Gelb has achieved about what the German high command envisioned (probably a little more actually). Hence a German victory. Of course, Fall Gelb vastly exceeded the expectations of the German command, so to win a major victory the German player must make a decisive move into France similar to what the Germans historically accomplished.

Again, if we didn't weight the objectives in the Low Countries so heavily then the Allied player would have zero reason to push French and British troops into Belgium & the Netherlands. We'd effectively be ignoring the Allied operational and strategic objectives and probably making things harder for the German player than it should be.

-Mike Prucha

All right! Good explanation. That's in important point: France didn't want to fight another war in northern France. Nice job replicating that in a wargame.  jonny