Panzer Campaigns France '40 Gold 2.02 Patch released

[ComradeP]

Which editor is used to mark a nation or formation as "Fragile Morale"?

Thanks for the design notes, we'll probably be restarting our team game again.

The default optional rules are still the same and don't match the recommended rules.

I feel the Indirect Fire and Air Strikes by the map rules is one of the most unbalanced rules for a game like France '40. The Luftwaffe can simply murder Allied artillery units with little the Allies can do about it. The Luftwaffe was never as capable as the optional rule can make it.

-Fixed units are not released when shelled or bombed. All the Axis player needs to do is make a note of the coordinates and bomb/shell it over and over until it's gone.

-Heavy artillery movement is a 2 turn process, so the Axis player can again simply make a note of where the unit is and bomb/shell it. Heavy artillery also has a low Defence value usually.

-Most artillery units move slowly due to being horse-drawn, which makes it likely that a recon mission aimed at their previously reported location will also find them somewhere nearby in T-mode even if they moved.

-The He 111 has been "upgraded" to a level bomber like in Panzer Battles and can launch carpet bombing strikes. The Germans receive 69 He 111 units that can carpet bomb. Those alone can cause serious losses to artillery and concentrations of units without any additional air units joining them.

-The hex air strike limit doesn't apply to carpet bombers.

To give the Luftwaffe a bit of an edge, switching off Low Visibility Air effects is an option. Visibility is likely to be excellent throughout the game so the situation wouldn't deviate too much from what would normally occur, and the air units still have to roll for availability after a mission, but it will lead to a small (initially) or moderate (when Luftflotte 3 and the rest of Luftflotte 2 arrive) increase in air units each turn.

The carpet bombers can already target artillery concentrations and the Luftwaffe is large enough to go to town on an entire sector of the front, making it difficult to hold an area anywhere for the Allies. Most of the 69 He 111 units combined with 2 other air units per hex should be quite enough to recreate a Sedan-like breakthrough.

Another change that could give the Germans an edge in support weapons would be making their infantry guns mortar units that can move without a need to go into T-mode and can fire without setting up like in Moscow '42 and possibly other titles.

Counter-battery fire tends to hurt short(er) ranged units, like the German infantry guns or Nebelwerfers in other games, and tends to lead to high artillery losses as well.

The lethality of the combat (all kinds) in PzC makes any rules that allow a serious concentration of firepower on single units potentially highly damaging to overall balance.

The effectiveness of the Luftwaffe should also not be overrated, breakthrough always relied more on ground action than on the Luftwaffe even at Sedan where the contested river crossing was not as one-sided as the legend would have it. Players can focus air strikes on different parts of the front with a flexibility that wouldn't be possible in real life.

The Luftwaffe couldn't force a breakthrough at Stonne, couldn't consistently stop Allied mobile forces from forming up for counter-attacks, couldn't stop the Belgians from staging an orderly withdrawal towards the K-W Line and couldn't stop the Allies from staging a mostly orderly withdrawal to the beaches and evacuating. The Luftwaffe was highly effective at providing tactical air support, but couldn't cover every sector of the front at once.