France '14 Historical outcome

[jonnymacbrown]

"For example, some have caused a total collapse of the allied line to the point that the allies threw in the towel early, and other games have resulted in the allies fighting off the German advance almost entirely."

Ed, are there results you know about, that we don't, from play-testing for example? The results we do know about, those reported, indicate 4 Allied wins, 2 draws and 1 German win. One of the draws was actually a major win for me at turn 76 as the French, but I gave my opponent a draw because he had to quit and was a nice guy. I asked the fellow who has the lone loss as French what happened and he had to quit early for reasons other than military ones. I do believe that myself and Tom Quinn are the only fellows to play out a full 158 turn campaign and the final line ran from Arras-Cambrai-Le Cateau-Sedan-Verdun-Nancy. The French lost 950,000 men and 3000 guns but the Hun lost 800,000 and 2000 guns and never got anywhere. I think the defense is too tough, with the French having superior position, massive firepower with their 88s, errr I mean 75s, better cavalry, better morale, better assault values, better RR values and interior lines of communication. The Germans have superior rifle fire, MG fire and indirect fire but it's not enough in the long run. My gut feeling tells me the objective values are about right. My only suggestion to help the offense would be to limit gun stacking values to 18 per hex with the French allowed to divide their 88s, whoops there I go again, I mean 75s into 6 gun sections. As it stands now, if the French load 24 75mm guns into a protected hex with some infantry and a couple of MG sections; that hex and a few more like it will hold up a divisional assault for 2 days no kidding: German indirect fire will have an impact but you have to have the guns there for that and German ID guns aren't too mobile and many of them are 2 gun sections that don't have much impact other than on fortresses. I do know I lost 3000 guns as the French and still had scads of devastating firepower on turn 158. jonny