Some questions about France '40

[Volcano Man]

That's not really the solution to the problem because it's not just one person asking for change.

Well..... who else is asking for this change? I mean, if people were posting at vmods.com that F40_Alt is unbalanced, and/or suggesting changes (like the one you mention) then I would surely do it. Making the changes are not a problem, and the _Alt scenarios are a product of the community, or so I like to think. Why not start a discussion about it over there? Other than that, yes, it does seem to me like it is just one person asking for this change, at least I haven't heard it anywhere else. ;)

But then again, I forget more than I remember these days... busy busy busy.

[jonnymacbrown]

That's not really the solution to the problem because it's not just one person asking for change.

Well..... who is asking for this change? I mean, if people were posting at vmods.com that F40 is unbalanced, and/or suggesting changes (like the one you mention) then I would surely do it. Why not start a discussion about it over there? Other than that, yes, it does seem to me like it is just one person asking for this change. ;)

Comon Ed, there's one person asking about it today because an f 40 thread opened up. Over the years there have been a multitude. Maybe those issues were resolved, or maybe just so few people play f 40 anymore, that nobody cares anyhow. I don't know. Maybe I will design a scenario. I'm not looking for trouble. jonny

[Volcano Man]

That's not really the solution to the problem because it's not just one person asking for change.

Well..... who is asking for this change? I mean, if people were posting at vmods.com that F40 is unbalanced, and/or suggesting changes (like the one you mention) then I would surely do it. Why not start a discussion about it over there? Other than that, yes, it does seem to me like it is just one person asking for this change. ;)

Comon Ed, there's one person asking about it today because an f 40 thread opened up. Over the years there have been a multitude. Maybe those issues were resolved, or maybe just so few people play f 40 anymore, that nobody cares anyhow. I don't know. Maybe I will design a scenario. I'm not looking for trouble. jonny

Seriously, I haven't heard a peep about this. Where is the multitude? Perhaps you can search the posts and find this multitude and post the links here so we can all read it (you do not count as a multitude BTW). ;) The truth is, this is the first I have heard of what you claim is some sort of momentous outcry about the GD regiment being overrated. All I know is, the forums at vmods.com have been quiet for some time and I don't recall ever reading any huge complaints on this topic (when the forums there are quiet then it usually means people are content).

I also don't know what you mean that you are not looking for trouble: what do you want me to do? You say the GD should be B instead of A, so I rush out and change it in the _Alt in that regard because you say a large majority of people agree with you? This is just plain silly to be honest; maybe we should let the discussion develop before you make it sound like I am trying to sweep it under the carpet; you misunderstand my intent and the intent of the _Alt if you think that is true. I am merely being inquisitive before I go in bashing about in the OOB with a hammer.

In any case, as I said I am busy; if this discussion develops then great, otherwise I am sitting on the side lines from here until I see some substantial outcry in regards to unit qualities in F40_Alt. Ugh, I guess this is this week's whipping post topic....

[jonnymacbrown]

"I also don't know what you mean that you are not looking for trouble: what do you want me to do? You say the GD should be B instead of A, so I rush out and change it in the _Alt in that regard because you say a large majority of people agree with you? This is just plain silly to be honest; maybe we should let the discussion develop before you make it sound like I am trying to sweep it under the carpet; you misunderstand my intent and the intent of the _Alt if you think that is true. I am merely being inquisitive before I go in bashing about in the OOB with a hammer."

I am not nor was I ever talking about your mod(s). Gross Deutschland was rated A in the original game. My comments about that and other aspects of the game were just general. I was one of the first buyers of F 40. Then, French defense was rated 12 and they got badly chewed up. The designers then updated the best of the French units to 14 and produced a really neat German variable deployment scenario. There were still complaints about French morale and low defense. These questions were posed many years ago but not ever resolved except in your mods; but I wasn't talking about them. I don't know that too many people play any of the stock scenarios anymore which is why I guess you thought my comments were directed at vmods; which I believe solved the worst of the problems by rating all Allied units 16 defense. jonny :conf:

[Volcano Man]

"I also don't know what you mean that you are not looking for trouble: what do you want me to do? You say the GD should be B instead of A, so I rush out and change it in the _Alt in that regard because you say a large majority of people agree with you? This is just plain silly to be honest; maybe we should let the discussion develop before you make it sound like I am trying to sweep it under the carpet; you misunderstand my intent and the intent of the _Alt if you think that is true. I am merely being inquisitive before I go in bashing about in the OOB with a hammer."

I am not nor was I ever talking about your mod(s). Gross Deutschland was rated A in the original game. My comments about that and other aspects of the game were just general. I was one of the first buyers of F 40. Then, French defense was rated 12 and they got badly chewed up. The designers then updated the best of the French units to 14 and produced a really neat German variable deployment scenario. There were still complaints about French morale and low defense. These questions were posed many years ago but not ever resolved except in your mods; but I wasn't talking about them. I don't know that too many people play any of the stock scenarios anymore which is why I guess you thought my comments were directed at vmods; which I believe solved the worst of the problems by rating all Allied units 16 defense. jonny :conf:

Ah, perhaps it was confusion on my part then. Apologies then.

Well, let it be known that I am perfectly fine with changing the GD to B quality in the _Alt if the community thinks it necessary; I just need some discussion on that first. Feedback is welcome at vmods.com forums (I don't like the pollute the blitz with it). ;)

[Archijerej]

Hello Archijerej,

In regards to the unit compositions (German recon battalion), I use the compositions from the stock game -- I don't rework the entire OOB if I can help it because the stock OOB is always generally very good in this regard. Sure, someone can nit pick it to death, but as far as I am concerned the organization is good for me. ;)

In regards to the infantry hard attack ratings, no, when you factor out exactly how few AT guns were available to support an infantry battalion, IMO it doesn't warrant any range 1 HA ratings. Instead, these AT guns are factored into the range 0 and assault ratings instead, making them purely passive/defensive weapons. If it were any other way, then the infantry units would likely have more overall power than the AT gun units equipped with the same. It also forces the commander to better protect his infantry from tanks by stacking them with more AT guns, assigning tank support to them, and/or digging them in. I have never been convinced that these few integral AT guns would provide anything other than defense in the assault.

Of course you are welcome to tinker with the ratings all you want. :)

Thank you for reply. I understand your reasoning about AT guns, but I'm not quite sure I can agree. I'll try to illustrate my point on an example. I'm trying to hold an important village crossroads along an axis of advance of a Panzer division. I fortify the village of course and I establish a support point in the nearby woods. The village is defended by one battalion with support of divisional AT guns, the support point in the woods by a second battalion of the regiment. Now, a regimental commander (both French and German) has at his disposal 12 organic AT guns. He obviously places the bulk of them in the woods. What happens next? First the Germans destrupts my AT guns with an air strike before they open fire, destroying some of them (out of 8). Then the mighty 50 armored car recon battalion goes in being opportunity fired by 5-6 instead of 16-18 (divisional+regimental+battalion) AT guns. He destrupts my infantry in a village in turn one. There is a good chance that during my turn I won't be able to distrupt him (or even won't try, fearing his powerfull opportunity fire) or he recovers (good quality). He then fires next turn, disrupting my infantry holding the woods, and, if he's lucky increasing more casualties on defenders in the village. Then comes a motorcycle battalion and a Panzer I/II company. One company and panzers are sent to draw opp fire from defenders in the woods and make sure they're distrupted, two companies assault and take the village. Germans have breached my main line of resistance without even deploying. Is it historical? I doubt that.
To be clear, I fully appreciate your comments on tactics, I just feel that a ranged AT fire from a lone, wandering infantry company away from the Schwerpunkt would be much less irritating then the above example. Even 1/1 hard attack for infantry would be an improvement (with perhaps slight adjustments to tanks defense and assault ratings, or penalty for assaulting a covered terrain). The infantry still would remain hopeless in the open (and rightfully so), and players will in any case often restrain themselves from using their AT fire from fear of opportunity fire response. But it would force the German player to think, scout, search for the flanks, commit heavy companies and protect light. He would need to use historical tactics, do what the German commanders did. Right now, he often doesn't have to.

[jonnymacbrown]

"The infantry still would remain hopeless in the open (and rightfully so), and players will in any case often restrain themselves from using their AT fire from fear of opportunity fire response. But it would force the German player to think, scout, search for the flanks, commit heavy companies and protect light. He would need to use historical tactics, do what the German commanders did. Right now, he often doesn't have to."

Since those French AT guns don't last long you might want to take as many cracks with them as you can; especially against recon and light tanks because you can actually hit something when shooting at them. jonny :happy:

[Narwan]

The problem I have with France '40 is that it suffers more than most other wargames I know from the problem that the designers feel that the historical outcome should also be the 'average' outcome of battle in the game (and balance their victory conditions accordingly). For them the game becomes a question of whether you'll do better or worse than historical. It isn't a problem at all that you can lose the battle in game and still win the game so long as you didn't lose that badly.

But all of that becomes irrelevent if the historical outcome was actually a freak outcome instead of being the most likely one. The historical result of may '40 was more like the germans rolling lot's of fives and sixes while the allies kept on rolling ones and two's.
The battle for France in may '40 should actually be a game where the german victory on the battlefield (as opposed to winning because of victory conditions) should be in doubt. The most likely outcome, assuming equal skill an luck on both sides, should be a stalemate somewhere across belgium and northern france. Actually winning the battle should be result of skill (and maybe some luck). Winning as big as was done historically should be a freak occurence. Only in a campaign setup where the allies are forced to deploy their forces in belgium and keep them there until the 14th-15th of may should reaching the Channel by german armored spearheads be a serious possibility (but even then not the most likely one!). In a campaign with little or no limitations on allied deployments it should only be possible with fairly incompetent allied play plus very good german play plus a lot of luck.

Look at it this way, what do you think the answer would be if you were to ask a militairy historian to rate the chances of the germans decisivisely defeating the allies as they did under the following conditions:
a) french 7th army is kept as strategic reserve as originally planned instead of sending them north to link up with the dutch.
b) no strategic surprise; ie the allies either suspect/know of an attack through the ardennes or at the very least recognize the potential and deploy accordingly.

I'm pretty sure they would rate the german chances of achieving anywhere near the historical outcome within the same timeframe as close to nil.
I suspect that a fair amount of them would even speculate that the entire german attack might likely fail to produce a decisive result either in 1940 or in 1941 and that germany would then lose the war when either the russians or the americans decide to join in.

In my opinion a proper simulation of the France 40 campaign should have to see the germans fight hard to get any sort of battle ground victory. It should also have a serious possibility of the allies achieving a battleground victory as opposed to only 'stopping the germans' as it is now.
The current france '40 campaign games have had to incorporate a number of unrealistic elements just so to make the historical outcome a likely one:
- german morale ratings are too high for some units (IMO no german units except the three platoons at Eben Emael should be rated A)
- allied morale too low for some units; the french should have a number of B morale formations, especially among some of the North African formations (these were essentially professionals with combat experience who did well in 1940)
- german artillery twice as effective as allied artillery
- french (and later belgian) units starting to disappear randomly from the 13th on
- and IMO german soft attack values are in many case too high compared to those of comparable allied units (or the other way around).

I view the current France '40 game as a just that, a game. It's based on historical events but not a historical recreation of those events.
Doesn't mean I can't enjoy playing it, I just can't take it seriously as a historical simulation.

[FM WarB]

I agree with the OP that the German recon battalions are overrated. (France '40 is not the only game in which this is the case.) The Panzer battalions are also overrated. By having mixed type Panzer battalions, the uselessness of the Panzer Is and IIs in the antitank role is masked. And these were the majority of German tanks.

[smurf309]

any thoughts on (what if) wargames.i know there are what if scenarios.