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leazriz

Second Lieutenant
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Jun 8, 2011
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How the French blindés defeated Germany

In 1918 with the Renault FT-17 France had the strongest and the more efficient armored force in the world and it lead it to victory. In 1936 with the rising of the German power French leaders decided to rebuild this force so the new Armée Blindée was created with 25 armored regiment with 2 mediums tanks brigades and 2 motorized divisions. This Army was scheduled to be ready by 1939. Also every technologies related to armored forces have been develop in priority.

The France situation:
defencesfrance.png



The Northen border will be hard to defend so the French Generals have planned three battle plans:


Plan1:

plan1w.png


Plan2:

plan2.png


Plan3: send reinforcements in Poland
for: -will divide Germans forces
against: -will divide French forces to
-Poland will be very hard to defend
-if Poland falls, it will be hard to repatriate French forces
-USSR can stab us in the back


After a long debate between Plan 1 and plan 2, the Plan 2 won. The plan 3 was totaly passed by.
 
Interesting...

Although to be frank the premise does assume a coming war, the invaison of Poland, and the Germans will re-enact the Schlieffen plan. So in that sense you've really got the '1-up' from the get go here.

In fact at the outset of WWII it was assuming that france did have if not the best, one of the best armoured tank forces in the world, with tanks like the Char and Renaunt FT series.

Again not too historically minded...but if we ignore that aspect and instead look at an aggressing move from France in HoI, it should be interesting to see how easliy Germany falls, and then if you want to go futher and unite Europe or take on the Soviets or something of that nature....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_of_the_interwar_period
 
Hi,

plan 2 is practically a carbon copy of the historical French plan in case Poland was attacked by Adolf(Hypothèse Rhenanie or Saarlouis, don`t remember exactly which name is correct).
So it`s not really using hindsight, it`s re-enacting history.
The only fault with this plan was that it wasn`t executed. Gamelin stopped the French offensive on 12 Sept 1939, partly influenced by reports from Poland where the situation wasn`t as bad as he was led to believe, but mostly by his personal flaw, great fear of responsibility.

Considering that Germany had engine lubricants for less than 3 months when the war started it can be argued that Gamelins decision led to a WW II of abt. 6 yrs duration instead of a Franco-Polish-German war of abt. 6 months duration.

Good luck with this, never enough French AAR:s.

Rgds, Oldtimer
 
Germany attacked Poland on the first of September and France immediately executed the plan. Poland was estimated to fall quickly so the assault must be fast before Germany could withdraw its best troops from the Eastern front.

attack1p.png


Germans troops are outnumbered and the attack goes well.

attack2c.png


attack3u.png


attack5.png


attack6.png



Poland will fall soon and the British landing is not going well, French generals estimated than the British forces don't make a foothold big enought.

attack8.jpg


defence1.png


With more than 30 000 french soldiers kills and despite the advice of French Generals the government decided to stop the attack. They expect Germany to accepted a peace if we hold the line long enough. Also the Spanish and the Italian borders need to be reinforced.
 
Last edited:
leazriz, go check the HoI3 rage -thread, I made a very vivid ragecomic about British A.I, on the last pages

Strategically though, your position will still be precarious if you loop through the Ruhr area all the way up to the Netherlands, such a weakly held static defense, even with riverline, would make me cringe at least. I mean what's gonna happen when the Luftwaffe and panzers come back from poland?

Luftwaffe helped the Wehrmacht punch through Meuse river at Sedan, what makes the Rhine so different (in-game)? :D
 
Very interesting concept and experiment; I don't suppose saving the Brits is a possibility? That might be a worthy long term goal, perhaps. I'm subbed!
 
It can be considerated as a cheat but i have decided to reload the game because Britain lost 111 divisions (more than half of their army.....) and only 50 000 men remains in England.

Because of the French massive assault, Germany withdraw its troops from the harbors, so the only way to prevent he British landing is to confiscate British transports...
confiscated.png


(yes I load a save game)


So the situation is pretty much the same but Britain send troops:

attack10.jpg


attack11.jpg


Spain is going closer to the Axis and the Southern border is menaced so the french government decided to attack them:

spanish1.jpg


spanish2.jpg


spanish3.jpg


After that Portugal was attacked:

portugal1n.jpg


portugal2.jpg


But French oil stocks are low, and the sized stocks in Spain and Portugal are not enough. Also South Africa send 12 light armored brigades. They are completely outdated so they can't be used on the Western front but they can be useful against a weak country like Persia... and its oil stocks.

The french expeditionary army: (the South African divisions will stay to protect Persia)

persia1k.png


persia2.jpg


Oil shortage is now far away ! The Production has been increased by 2 and 40 k of oil has been sized.

oilr.png
 
If you are willing to cheat that way it is much simpler to send you the UK units to you as exp
forces. It is probably possible to do it without cheating by creating an allied objective
in one of your ports as soon as the wat starts. In one of my games as Poland the
UK and France sent me their whole armies as expe forces to Danzig when I declared
war on Lithuania.

Very interesting AAR, but cheating is not fun for me. Once you open the console
you can just do whatever pleases you.
 
I figure that since the British AI invasion is basically a bug (AI throwing away 100+ divisions should not happen...), reloading save is not really cheating in this case. Cool plan.
 
I tried to create an allied objective in France, England send me 3 divisions but they still land in Germany....
Also i returned back the ships in October and England still had had a transport fleet of three ships. After Germans divisions were back from Poland to protects the harbors so England didn't tried to land.
For me it was the easiest way to prevent Britain from landing in Germany, forcing them to give me their troops as an expeditionary force is a much more bigger cheat for me.

Finally in my other AAR Britain made 3 unsuccessful landings in Europe, all too small to be efficient and i don't want it back in this game.
 
Last edited:
So the war goes on:
Blocked by the French army, Germany decided to attack the low countries. But the French reserve army was ready to hold the line:

netherland1.jpg


netherland2.png


netherland3.png


The German army was easily stopped, and a new reserve army was created:

reservearmy.jpg


Also news from the Western front:


newsfromtheeast.jpg
 
Italy enters war in August and the Allies decided that i will be the new priority. Italy is weaker than Germany and convoy raiding must be stopped.

The reserve army will be used to attack Italy in many fronts at the same time:
-Sicilia
-Sardigna
-Lybia
-Etiopia



norhtafrica1.jpg


norhtafrica2.jpg


northafrica4.jpg


French troops lands in the south of Italy to prevent Italian troops from retiring:

norhtafrica3.jpg


The Italian garnison in Lybia has been smashed by the French tanks:

northafrica5.jpg


After the fall of Ethiopia, the remaining Italian Forces, without supplies, will be crushed and are no longer a threat.

northafrica6.jpg


northafrica7y.jpg


northafrica8.jpg


The French attacks went very well, all the objectives were sized with only few loses. The main problem is that we lose more than 20 convoys so new ones were rushed into production.
 
You could have made it interesting by actually giving Italy the ability to fight in any of these places. You could as well have attacked the ports themselves from sea instead of landing next to them. You could also have refrained from landing on the tip of the Italian boot, as this would have allowed Italian supplies to flow down there and they might have had the chance to fight back or retreat.

What's stopping you from landing right on top of all their VPs anyway?
 
-Italian coast are not protected, I can't do what i have done in Germany. Also each time I attack I have both numerical and technological superiority. For example Sardinia was protected by a division and I land 5... For me the only game exploiting fight is the defeat of Etiopia were I vp rushed Abis Adeba.

-land on the harbors like in Dunkerque? and unlike the D-Day, the Sicilian invasion and the Provence landing ? The only reproach i made about landing in HOI3 is that you can make rush landing with only transports without protection and that troops are ready just after the landing and have too many supplies.

-I will not make vp rushing in Italy because it be much harder than slowly encircle Italian troops.
 
That's shortcomings of the game, not neccesssarily to be followed. The AI does not defend non-port provinced, hence the call to attack the ports to make it somewhat more interesting.