F '14 Flanders campaign German reinforcements deployment issue

[burroughs]

With all due respect - those FWWC campaign are just too great to incorporate such flaws and I find this one a major issue.

Actually I didn't consider the advantage of having the map edge in the south since there is a strip of impassable hexes neither side can do a damn thing about so it's like a river one cannot ford or cross - you need to bypass that instead of figuring out why it is there, sheer tactical logics - don't think about what you can't do about the situation, think about what you can . By the way, what is really the purpose of having that impassible area there? Apparently the Germans can cross that and deploy further north, of course not at the actual player's will, but by the scenario maker's design. This is a tricky assumption then leaving the Entente player at a disadvantage since they indeed cannot use that area. In "The Race to the Sea" the impassible hexes serve for a stabilized front line which is only open in the north as long as the race continues; here it's not since that would mean a salient where there wasn't any so it's a dubious thing in its essence.

So all it could have taken was to include a warning in the game notes where there is the part about the Flanders campaign. That would be sufficient, fair and historically justified.

However, the fact was that once FM French got himself persuaded to allow the BEF go into combat, they considered and at least partially tried to clear that ridge - generally the hight ground that runs NE towards Lille - and it's only the arrival of German reinforcements and the stiffening German resistance including counter attacks were the things that persuaded them to change their minds and go for Menin and Roulers higher up north where the reserve corps were deploying and thus the German capabilities there were believed to be diminished ( Le Basse defences were facing regular OHL infantry formations). I am not putting forward the source of the knowledge here as I own a monograph of the Flanders 1914 campaign, but it's in Polish so of a limited use. My own idea was to clear the left bank of the canal and lean the British right shoulder then once the Germans were bled white at Le Basse. At first it was only Smith-Dorriens II Corps that went on the offensive so I don't think it required moving the entire front line in the south not to leave their right southern flank open as they went.

The fact is that we know with the benefit of hindsight that by Oct 1914 at least the stage was set for the advent of positional trench warfare, but the truth is that either side at exactly that moment was still refusing to accept the impossibility of a breakthrough and outflanking manoeuvre so expecting the Entente player not to go on the offensive there because " they didn't and they shouldn't" denies the historic truth as much as Germans deploying behind the Entente lines. The BEF were reluctant and had orders not to engage themselves fully, but here it's after Mons and Le Cateau and that was exactly the 1st Battle of Ypres that saw the change in their attitude resulting in the ensuing annihilation of the Old Contemptibles in their Ypres graveyard. With al that in mind I claim the decision to go on the offensive east of Le Basse was equally justified, legitimate and allowed as not to and to enable a correct application of either approach we need a more flexible design in there. Fixing units won't make it happen since they have to finally be engaged what will unfix them so Germand need to enter their reinforcements further SE even if that defies what took place in history - not the first case in FWWC campaigns.

Having said that, with all of the volume of criticism here, let me recoil to what I have written at the very beginning - I am a huge fan of FWWC and to me its success surpasses that of PZCs and that is why I take care to blast what I dislike in there and not just to diminish anybody's achievement, person or commitment. I am thankful they exist and criticize them because I care.