France 14 Offensive Tactics

[Sir John Cope]

As a long term player/tester of the FWWC titles I do understand the problem that tackling the French 75's poses and so I am not surprised that you are scratching your head a bit to find a way of dealing with them, I went through the same process some years back.

You should understand that the 75's are the French players only real advantage over the German forces who are superior in just about every other measurable category, they literally are the glue that holds the whole line together, there are lots of 75 units but there are not enough to man the whole line and where possible you should avoid tackling them head on, I have found (especially in the larger scenarios) there is always a section of the French line you can attack where their effect is limited by range or where there are no 75's at all or where you can outflank their line entirely.

Remember historically the French army retreated as they were being constantly outflanked to the northwest, there are very few occasions where the German's simply burst through their lines with ease.

If you have to take on a section of line manned by 75's then you do indeed have to take a more methodical long term approach to dealing with them that requires planning, simply bustling up to them hoping to break through will end up with high casualties and high fatigue. If your opponent decided to stack multiple 75 units in one hex you may have to decided that hex is just too difficult to take, but if they do this there must be sections of the line that they are not protecting.

So you need to approach them with stacks of single battalions, you need to use the cover of night moves to move up and deploy MG/FG units into range without taking heavy losses, if there are not road/rail lines to move along at night you will have to accept they may disrupt but if they are in command you will find they should undisrupt quickly anyway, you need to have your arty assets in range and set up.

Once you are in this position you can pound the 75 units with ranged fire and arty, it may not be obvious at first but they will start to accumulate fatigue which makes them more likely to disrupt, you will need to continue this turn after turn until you sense they are weak enough to bring more battalions forward to assault and even then I have seen assaults falter and fail.

FWWC requires a much more methodical style of play than PzC and that is why it does not suit all players, but as long as you realise you cannot just roll over the 75's you then can plan to either avoid them or whittle them away methodically. 

Also note there are a number of 75 units that are D quality and hence easier to deal with that their C quality brothers!

All in all you will need to practise to gain the experience and gut feeling to deal with these units, but apart from them you will find the rest of the French forces quite brittle.

Thank you for the reply. I'm relieved to know that I've encountered a recognized problem, rather than evidence of my own mental decline.   

As a brand-new player of this game, though an experienced wargamer in general, I have relied on the historical facts to guide my play. But it wasn't just the swinging scythe of the Schlieffen plan that defeated Joffre and his commanders in August 1914. Lanrezac's 5th Army tried to defend the angle of the Sambre and Meuse: Bulow's II Army was able to fight its way across the Sambre around Charleroi, and III Army forced a crossing of the Meuse above and below Dinant in the face of a full French corps. In reality, Lanrezac found himself in a very dangerous position against frontal German attacks, despite the excellent defensive benefits of the two river lines he tried to hold. 

The "Before the Leaves Fall" scenario starts with II Army already partially across the Sambre and III Army approaching the Meuse, so I followed suit. The results have been simply disastrous, and now I have little choice but to withdraw, fall back, and dig in. In effect, I'll be fastforwarding from the German offensive of August to the German adoption of positional defensive in October, and effectively conceding defeat. And simply avoiding the French 75s wouldn't have been much of a solution in this instance: it can't be done without abandoning the offensive in that sector of the front entirely.   

I do take the point of your other recommendations, and my thanks for them. But overall, you seem to be advocating the solution of 1915: a methodical approach to an offensive, with heavy artillery preparation relying on attrition to eventually wear down the enemy's resistance through fatigue before launching the infantry offensive. 

And of course, that is exactly the conclusion the actual commanders soon came to. But not in 1914.