Some questions about France '40

[Volcano Man]

I agree with most of what you are saying....

Well, apparently we are carrying on a conversation in two places. I have replied to this (mostly) at vmods.com.

For the most part I disagree with all the suggestions about German panzer quality and unit ratings (meddling with the latter in the _Alt is what I consider "fudging"), and I don't see any middle ground there. I am using well established values for these unit ratings, and I am totally against altering them to achieve some sort of effect, and I disagree with the idea that having the fragile (in the _Alt) German panzers rated as A over the French armor that is mostly C, is either too extreme or providing the same bonus twice, as you say.

Here I disagree. The may '40 campaign for the germans was all about destroying lots of enemy units, not about capturing certain objectives. The southern breakthrough and race to the channel ports was a means to an end, not the goal. In fact, the speed and success surprised even the german themselves. There were other ways they could have gone about it, what mattered though was to deal a crippling blow to 1st allied army group and knock out the belgians and dutch.

Actually, no, the wholesale destruction of the units occurs outside of the scope of this game, as far as I can tell anyway. The destruction of all the allied units occurred mostly at the strategic level when the Germans cut off the allied armies by slicing across to the Pas de Calais. After that point the result was a forgone conclusion. The actual total and complete destruction is not modeled in the scope of the F40 campaign, so this is where the objectives come in and why they are stressed. F40 assumes that you must quickly advance across and capture the objectives to cut off the allied armies in Belgium, thereby destroying all the units by default from isolating them, as was historically the case. If you can figure out a way to represent this some other way (in the scope of what we have to work with in the game engine without actually requiring the Germans to hunt down and kill every unit on the map) then I am sure everyone would like to hear it. ;) But really, the way the campaign is currently devised, it is the only logical way that it can be effectively represented; otherwise what is stopping the Allies from running to the map edges and escaping, thereby taking the German's VPs with them, and it keeps the campaign from having to be 200 to 300 turns long (they are the two important dilemmas that must be avoided/addressed when making these games, and F40 stock game addressed both as best as is possible IMO).

Have you never heard the phrase that the germans had the best LMG for defense and the british had the best LMG for offense? :-)

For sure the mg34 was an important weapon which had a lot of advantages. And german units should get a boost for it but it wasn't a miracle weapon. In the end it still was an mmg that could also perform the lmg role (although not as well as the mmg role). The Bren and it's french counterpart the FM29 were dedicated lmg's which had their own advantages. There's a reason both of these stayed in service for a considerable period of time after ww2. They were quite good for their job, and for some parts of the job at least considerably better than the mg34.
Personally I'd sooner raise the german defense value because of the mg34 than the attack value, maybe one point in each?

Perhaps this is a case of selective reading. I simply mentioned the MG34 as ONE important reason (in other words, one of the support weapons). ;)

Anyway, I do agree with some things that I may adjust in the future in F40_Alt. However, out of disagreement perhaps a new mod will be born. Feel free to build upon my changes and make F40 in your own image.

Still, the simple answer works here too: if anyone dislikes the unit ratings, combat ratings or OOB structure, then feel free to edit it to your own liking."

That's not really the solution...

I missed this comment earlier, and actually it fits perfect here. Actually, yes, this is certainly a valid solution (change the unit ratings to your own liking). I know you are not the one asking for that, but this proves the point: there is no possible way that everyone will ever come to an agreement on certain things (like unit values), and there are certain things that I am adamantly opposed to doing, like altering unit values in the McNamara db. So, if anyone wants such changes that is the ONLY solution. ;)

I will carry on the rest of the conversation at vmods.com.