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Fall Gelb - Part I

On May 19th troops finally were in position for the attack. In the first phase light forces would secure critical objects in the Netherlands.




As expected the Benelux violation made Luxembourg and Belgium join the Allies. Parachutes were used to secure the Dams in the Netherlands.




With the capture of Eben-Emael the way was free for the armoured spearhead. Plan was to cut off the allied troops in the north, to encircle and destroy them.




Crossing the Mosel with its steep slopes was not an easy task and the infantry attacking was very limited in its effectivity.

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When the french sent in reinforcements to Luxembourg the attack had to be halted. Meanwhile the allied lines at Liege had collapsed.




Air battle over the Benelux area was intense, losses were extreme on both sides.




On May 23rd situation got critical. The French had sent over twenty divisions to reinforce Luxembourg already. The armoured spearhead was planned to break thru to the north west, but the french divisions threatened to couterattack and cut it off. It was not an easy decision, but in the end the tanks were redirected to the south to push back the french and give the infantry time to secure the positions.




Meanwhile the winter war ended.




The tanks began their attack on Luxembourg on May 25th.


 
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Fall Gelb - Part II

By help of the Luftwaffe the defenders in Luxembourg had to rout on May 27th. Infantry was moving in to secure the positions.




Bastogne was surrounded and the French made an relief attack on Eindhoven. German forces there had to retreat.




Still Bastogne was taken and seven french divisions captured.




The French continued their push into german lines and therefore the armoured spearhead was ordered to cut off and destroy them. First step was to take Antwerp.




So far the progress in the West was unsatisfying and the public in Germany got nervous. Also the exile gouvernments of Belgium and Netherlands had managed to secure most ressources before Germany could conquer them.




Plan was to capture Rotterdam, encircling the French Spearhead. But it showed that swampy terrain and massive shore bombardement hampered the offensive actions so much that the attack did not punch thru.




So the small alternative was executed and Eindhoven was attacked.




Eight allied divisions could be captured in Arnheim, but a break thru attempt to Ghent was not successfull. Once more strong shore bombardement and river crossing made it impossible to attack the weak defenders there effectively.




The next step planned was encirclement via Namur-Mons-Ghent and the armoured spearhead was redirected accordingly.


 
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Fall Gelb - Part III

June 16th finally saw the occupation of Mons. Now only the weak defenders in Ghent stood between the german tanks and the coastline, cutting off the allied troops in Rotterdam and Brussel.




When the german tanks approached the enemy positions they got hit by devastating artillery fire from the sea. The shells threw german tanks like toys through the air.

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The attack had to be stopped due to heavy losses, it was aggravating.




Finally on June 20th Ghent had been captured in the second attempt after the Allies withdrew some of their exhausted troops and did not manage to reinforce their positions fast enough, leaving the garrisons in Brussels and Rotterdam encircled behind.




Even the capture of nine further allied divisions could please the masses at home. They demanded faster progress and hopefully finally the French resistance was weakened enough for fast and deep armoured raids into France. The German tanks and supporting infantry were deployed in their positions in Ghent and Mons, ready for an massive strike on Lille.


 
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Fall Gelb - Part IV

At first light of the 23rd June the german tanks began their attack.




The Allies tried to stop the spearhead with a massive counterattack.




A relief attack was made on Valenciennes, but the french defenses there could not be broken and the attack had to be halted. Nevertheless the Armoured spearhead repelled the french attack.




Now the way to Calais was clear, but the Allies managed to retreat their armoured forces right before the german tanks finished their encirclement.




Before a bigger breakthru could be achieved first the amassed french troops in Valenciennes had to be pushed back - danger was that they could cut off the german spearhead.




Meanwhile Hans Oster was appointed Minister of Intelligence focusing on espionage on allied technology.


 
Fall Gelb seems to be going much more slowly than IRL!
 
Indeed, the French forced me to loose my momentum and the 36h "reforming after attack" does no good either as well as did the insane shore bombardement. It was my hardest "Fall Gelb" so far - wondering how Barbarossa will work. My planes are pretty wrecked and I lost some precious manpower due to massive Infantry attacks in unfavourable odds. While the performance in Poland was ok the performance in France was worse then history. Now Sealion is probably out of reach but nevertheless I will try air battle for England and in the unlikely case that I have a chance to weaken the RN and RAF enough to make a successfull landing I will do so. Meanwhile getting the Balkan minors into the Axis and Invading Jugoslavia and Greece to get access to the mediterranean would be an option. Historically Jugoslavia and Gemany had good relations at that time but getting access to the med is critical to support Italy. Attacking Turkey would have had a good chance of a russian DOW so it's no easy decision - maybe couping would be an alternative.

Anyways I am just preparing the next update so you can see yourself how I finally managed to get Vichy France - phew :D
 
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Fall Gelb - Part V

When the French threat was eleminated at Valenciennes the german tanks proceeded to the West.




Germany captured a lot of equipment in the Benelux countries.




The UK was shocked to see the French about to be defeated when the german tanks rolled on to the west.




Argentan fell, the breakthru was finally achieved!




Now an attack on Paris could finally be launched.




And Paris was captured.

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With the fall of Paris Italy wanted to join in. Even though capturing Paris was a success people still were not satisfied with the long war in France.




The UK was now shifting strategies to the mediterranean with France lost. Therefore more troops were placed in Northern Africa and Greek independence was guaranteed.




Meanwhile the german troops had to cut off and destroy remaining french units in their back - including the mobile french forces that managed to escape so far and which had delayed the german attacks sucessfully in combination with heavy shore bombardement - to be free for deep raids into southern France.


 
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Fall Gelb - Part VI

With the defeat in France allied troops in Norway were withdrawn - just when Germany had finally managed to send in reinforcements for another attack. Left behind by the Allies Norway was annexed by Germany.




Germany established a puppet gouvernment under Vidkun Quisling in Norway.


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Historical Informations


The naval engagements so far had shown that a change of strategy for a possible sealion had to be made emphasizing on subs and carriers. Since Germany had no real carrier expert so far Karl Dönitz was appointed Chief of the Navy.




Meanwhile Germany had managed to trap the french divisions in the west and von Manstein and Rommel led four elite tank divisions to Auxerre to stop huge french forces trying to break out to the south west. Being outnumbered by far von Manstein and Rommel still managed to hold their positions.




French resistance at Brest was finally broken at July 21st.




A lot of equipment had been captured in Norway.




To make sure french troops would not interfere in the securing of important strategic positions in southern France an attack on Troyes was executed which should cut off strong french forces in Compiegne.




German troops were now free to move behind the french lines - victory was near.


 
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Fall Gelb - Victory!

On August 11th the situation for France was hopeless and their leaders tried to negate peace with Germany - Vichy france was born!


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Historical Informations


French generals and politicans around Pétain feared the worst, but considering the clear defeat of France they were relatively mild - which was also a signal to Churchill. But the UK did not agree to begin peace negotiations.


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The defeat of France also led to a lot of captured equipment.


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You seem to have used some of the pictures two times :p . Nice updates btw :)
 
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Thats one thing about HSR that I dont really like, combat takes an age and rather cruddy units like an 1918 garrison for instance can sometimes hold off an entire army of my Panzers for days and days especialy if equiped with a "special" brigade like eliets, gets pretty frustrating and makes taking a nation like the SU darn near impossible
 
Is it just me or did they misspell 'Quisling'? :confused:
 
@lifeless
Will do :)
Actually I am in the process of reorganizing land units and rebasing planes for Sealion and/or Jugoslavia. This will take some time, though.

@General Jac
Thanks for the hint - should be fixed now.

@Iron-Chef
Hmm, river crossings and the huge shore bombardement and facing those fast moving french armoured and motorized forces with infantry were the reasons for receiving so bad attack efficiency and being delayed. Otherwise especially tanks so far were almost unstoppeable by infantry. 36h delay after attack is slowing down spearheads quite a bit, though. I wonder if there would be no better system but question is also how well the AI would perform. Let's see how it will work out in Russia.

@anonymous4401
Aye, that's what I thought, too :)
 
A suitable thrashing, though was it ever in doubt? ;)
 
I was thinking about making a "gröfaz" AAR at first, but the hefty penalties made me rather do a "hard" AAR - you start with about 70IC on "gröfaz". Reason was that I wanted people to see a lot of events which require a sufficient supply stock and game progress. I think on "gröfaz" even conquering France is not an easy task, while on hard France is defeateable even if it took me quite a while.

On hard the results are so far somewhat historical, if not even worse. Air battle over England is not even really initiated since I already have pretty heavy losses just holding air superiority over the channel and doing some naval "test"-bombing. Need probably to gind the UK down, then infra, then insta, then runway and - well, I will need my planes in the SU. "Actually I think there is a good chance that once the US enters the war I get squeezed between the US and the SU if I don't manage to advance fast enough.
 
Preparing Sealion and/or Marita

The Italians, after advancing first, were pushed back by the UK in North Africa. Germany recognized that if there should be at least a small chance for an successfull sealion the RN would have to be distracted. Also Italy was eager to claim Jugoslavian territory and Hungary was improving its relations with Germany in return for german diplomatical help to claim its former territories.




Restructuring the SS was ongoing. Menawhile the war between Japan and NChina went back and forth.






Hungary and Germany finally concluded a diplomatical deal where Hungary would join the Axis in return for control over slovakian territory.




Romania, fearing being isolated, also joined the Axis.




This was Germany giving access to the oilfields of Ploesti.


 
I imagine Sealion will be quite difficult, seeing how hard France was!
 
Iron-Chef said:
Thats one thing about HSR that I dont really like, combat takes an age and rather cruddy units like an 1918 garrison for instance can sometimes hold off an entire army of my Panzers for days and days especialy if equiped with a "special" brigade like eliets, gets pretty frustrating and makes taking a nation like the SU darn near impossible
If you're talking in plains (or even forests or hills), you're quite right: that definitely shouldn't happen. If you're talking in the snow, the mud, a river crossing, or mountains, then it's reasonable. IMO, vanilla HOI2's battles and campaigns are generally way too fast-paced, much faster than in real life.