Europe Aflame 1.8 (a)

[Mark Stevens]

I've stuck this on the Warfare HQ Scenario Depot: I've tried to test every combination of Events I can think of, but do take a look and tell me what you think.

Probably more bugs than a beggar's beard, but I'll see what anyone thinks about it, then ask Ulver to upload it to the other scenario depots and his homepage.

I'm very much hoping that there'll be no need - or almost no need - to make any further adjustments to this version.

Thanks for everyone's comments and advice on this one.

[otto]

Mark - FYI, Fairs and I are on turn 5 of the test version. On turn 3 I took the DOW Poland, Low Country and Yugoslavia (Allies extended Maginot Line so Hungary & Romania were in).

When I attacked the Low Countries I am not too sure I saw any Frenchmen moving in (Local Reserve). Bob mentioed that when he got the turn all the French were yellow lined (including the Local Reserve units). I thought the intent was to have some French units streaming into Belguim

[Mark Stevens]

Just checked it and I assure you that the French do still intervene automatically in the Low Countries.

It could be that, as a result of the Allied shock penalty following the attack on the Low Countries, some of the French Formations were oranged out.

[Panzerpelle]

I just read the full briding and it says 475 VPs/side but IIRC I only saw 470 VP in my game.

[Dan Neely]

In removing the reconstitution flags from the French recon corp, and Heavy corps in French OOB2 I'm worried that you might've made the french too brittle in the long run. Aside from the recon corp none of these units are scheduled to arrive until after the winter 40/41 effects begin, if the Germans haven't taken the French out by then, the odds are that they've either choosen the eastern crusade option or have screwed up massively. Either way it seems like that the French will be in the game for the long haul, and 5 reconstituting corps just isn't enough to do that.

the french OOB2 heavy corps have thier arrival times intermingled with the latewar french units, and my impression was that they were originally intended as latewar troops, and the latewar oob was subsequently tacked on to increase the frenchs durability.

I agree that the reorg formation needed to have it's reconstitution flags unsent, but by removing them from the reorg and the OOB2 heavy corps You've reduced the French from 20 large reconstituting units (I'm not counting the reorg AT or arty) to only 7.

60: recon corps (oob2)
80: 1 FR heavy corps (oob2)
90: paradiv (late war)
90: Mech 1 (late war)
105: 2 FR Heavy Corps (oob2)
120: art corps (late war)
130: 3 FR Heavy Corps (oob2)
130: Mech 2 (late war)
152: mech 3 (late war)
155: 4 FR Heavy Corps (oob2)
180: 5 FR Heavy Corps (oob2)
200: mech 4 (late war)
200: mech 5 (late war)

[Mantis]

That does sound a bit light, Mark. France had the potential (had she not been crushed, and wasn't governed by a bunch of surrender monkeys) to morph into one helluva power. Not on the scale of Germany or the US, but formidable all the same.

[Mark Stevens]

Well, we all know the problem: if any of the French are set to reconstitute, even in Paris and it's occupied, you may get an unrealistically high number of units that were killed off at the time of the surrender reconstituting in the UK, making a Sea Lion pretty well impossible, or providing a large reserve to ship elsewhere.

The French pretty well fell to bits in six weeks in 1940: would they really have been any better six months later? The Allies will just need to use British (and American) troops, and the few French which do reconstitute for any offensives in Europe.

Let's see how it goes.

[Chuck?]

This is just a suggestion but maybe you could a few more late war corp that reconstitute.

[Dan Neely]

Realistically, if the Germans are playing a historical game and haven't conquered France by winter 1940/41 they've done something seriously wrong. I won't go as far as to say that screwing up that badly is impossible[1], but it takes an extreme set of circumstances to accomplish. Very much not the common case, of which I see basically 2: The Germans play a broadly historical game invade France and defeat it before winter 40/41, in which case with the possible exception of the recon corps (turn 60), none of these units will be deployed. Or the Germans choose an eastern crusade, and France has several additional years to build up it's armed forces and train them to a credible level. In the former case none of the heavy corps will appear, and thier reconstituting or not is irrelevant, in the later thier not reconstituting is IMO silly considering that the simultainiously deploying late war mech corps all are set to reconstitute. Without an infinite number of events covering every possible case is impossible, so it's neccesary to focus on the common ones and simply accept that wierdness results from wierd gameplay. Removing the reconstitution flag from the reorg formation was designing for the common case because taking france out before they enter is nearly impossible. Removing it from units that arrive from winter 40/41 to spring of 43 because it causes problems if the Germans invade at the normal time but take an extraordinarly long time to subdue France when is signifigantly changes the balance for the worse in annother much more common set of circumstances is the wrong choice.


[1] Using case yellow just before the sitzkrieg (the french army was almost universally red, but only a handful of units, IIRC 3 corps worth, were actaully destroyed. and all of the red units fully recovered over the winter.) and not learning how to get multiple attacks until july/august 1940 look like they'll manage to acomplish it for Vaughn in our game. It's turn 67, the front in the north is static 25-50 km inside France, in the south Italy has fallen and the Germans proping up the Italians (2pz corps and ~10 infantry) have been wiped out. A similar number of corps were evaporated in ignore losses assualts in the north. A new defensive line is being formed on the German side of the Austrian Alps, and just across the yugo border. With strong defensive terrain, in the german sector, and fresh Hungarian/Romainian corps in the yugo region this line has a decent chance of holding until winter, if not until the soviets enter. But German offensive prospects are very dim. The current loss penalty is 43 axis to 12 allied, with most of the allied losses being from when case yellow + partisans on top of the supply lines happened to the soviets in the winter war. This is very much the exception rather than the rule, and I'd be curious if anyone else has ever had an equally a historic campaign.

[Dan Neely]

Saying that units that almost never get deployed outside of an eastern crusade shouldn't reconstitute because in the rare cases that they do arrive in a normal game they can cause problems is especially bizaare sounding when you've got: 5 allied polish corps, 2 dutch corps, 3 belgian corps, 3 greek corps and 1 div, 3 yugo divs, and 4 east polish corps all set to reconstitute despite the fact that their nations were overrun in a few weeks historically, and are very unlikely to last any signifigant ammount of time in the game. Almost all of them have a few allied aid units that are scheduled to appear after the historical surrender dates that could be set to reconstitute to give increased strength in the unlikely events that they did holdout in the face of the axis onslaught. The Eastern Poles have a huge number units that only arrive in the event of an eastern crusade that could be set to reconstitute without having any impact on a normal game.

[Mark Stevens]

The hypothetical post-Spring 1940 French Army would certainly have got bigger and better equipped. Whether it would have overcome its 'Maginot mentality' and turned into a force to match the Germans, Russians and Commonwealth troops in aggression and staying power is questionable. I know the 'Free French' were pretty good, but their numbers were limited and they were trained and equipped by, and fought with, the other Allies.

I think that even a mid-War French Army should be 'brittle', and only take the offensive once it's supported by Commonwealth and perhaps American units. A few months more training and more tanks, guns and planes wouldn't - IMHO - have made them that more formidable.

But it's all guesswork: much like the Free Russians, Paul Reynaud French, Axis Belgians, Turks and Dutch, the whole idea of an 'Eastern Crusade' option, etc, etc. We dunno what would have happened because it didn't.

I don't want to keep changing the scenario every few weeks - God knows, we've done enough of that in the past couple of years - until we've given 1.8 a good try. If it transpires that the French survive until the middle of the War - perhaps if the Germans go for the 'Eastern Crusade' - but then are still a pushover, perhaps we do need to think about changing the number set to reconstitute.

For the time being, I only want to make changes where the Event Editor is clearly screwed