Blitzing France and help with Barbarossa

[preordain16]

It's currently april 1940 in my current Germany game, and Poland and France have fallen. I started my offensive in the west in June 1939 and it ended late October. I went through Belgium and Luxemburg, ingnoring the Netherlands. While it wasn't necessarily hard, I feel like France could've fallen quite a bit sooner. I performed the invasion as Poland more like an operation, keeping some infantry on the entire border and sending armour to key provinces. This was extremely succesfull and I think I conquered them within a month with very few battles. That's what my initial plan was for France too: sending armour through the plains in western Belgium, quickly taking Paris and surrounding VP's. Before I knew it however, I was bogged down by relatively lots of French and Belgian troops (as the front was quite small). Having to cross lots of rivers wasn't helping either. By the time I conquered Belgium, the French already had troops on their entire border (also drawn from the Italian border) and I just put down a full corps at every border province too. At that point I started major offensives along the entire border, steadily moving deeper into France. I had more and superior forces, so it wasn't hard, but it's not exactly what I'd call an 'operation'.
So my question is, what are some good things to do when you're planning on taking out France ASAP? The obvious one is researching Operational level organization ahead of time and I think officers reduce attack delay too, is that right?

Now something else that's bothering me is Barbarossa, mostly the scale of it all. Having to control all these divisions along a massive border is kinda scaring me off. The fact that the border is growing larger the more I advance is making it even harder. This isn't really a question as I'm pretty bad at wording all this, but the main thing is: Barbarossa is overwhelming, some general tips or advice that could help me with that in particular? I'm the kind of person who likes to keep his OOBs perfectly organized, having the same type and amount of divisions spread out evenly, which is probably a reason why I'm having a problem right now.
Oh I do have one actual question regarding Barbarossa, would one INF division that packs a punch (3inf/2art or something like 2inf/2art/1at) be enough to hold the line while I advance deeper into Russia with armour?

Now this is quite some text, but I'd be more than happy if someone could provide me with some short general answers and advice, which is the main reasons I didn't create 2 seperate threads.

[Thanik]

1. Yes, officer improve your attack delay ..

2. Good idea is massive air bombings (both tactical and logistical) ,to improve advance speed on main directions. Also attacking from other direction(like from Switz) can help to spread their forces. But propably these things are obvious to you too

3. About Barbarossa -> I think good ideas are:
a) to make some encirclements on start of war, destroy as many as you can soviet divisions, or some crucial objectives and then switching command to AI
b) give command to AI except panzer + motorised division -> AI should follow your advance with without massive effort

4. I know from my experience that better is to create One Big Push Army ( Panzer) in one place (like Ukraine) than spreading them to all fronts. If you have spreaded front, make one week to reorganize them, and waste one week of offence is not big deal. Until you attack SU too late

5. 3 inf + 2 art is better -> no spreading tech, and your mainly enemy will be soft targets,and you can improve hard attack of ART anyway.


If this answers not help you, don't be angry. I'm not super pro experienced player...

[BeondTheGrave]

For Barbarossa, Ill share my tactics.

First, you want a full Corps in each and every province you intend to hold. The Soviets will hit you with A LOT of divisions, and you need all those men to hold the line. BUT you also dont want the stacking penalty which comes from 4+ divisions in 1 province. I usually build 3xINF 1xArt and 1xArt/Inf/AT/AA when i get superior firepower and depending on what the Soviets are throwing at me.

Now I take ALL my Panzers, and put them in a few armies. Usually I like to have mainly MArmour, a Mot/Mech/LARM thats mostly Mot/MECH Division and 1 (and only 1) HARM division. I Select the area I want to encircle, and use the HARM to poke the first hole. HARM is like a mobile fortress. Its super IC heavy, but in proper numbers (and usually only with a 4x or 5x HARM division) it can either save, or crack open any province in Russia. My Luftwaffe (and especially the CAS) should now begin to work on opening a path to your target destination. Once I have my hole, I move up with my ARM divisons, and extend the encirclement. I usually have 2 pincers which work towards each other, but this could also work with 1 pincer against an ocean, or a very short sweep across the front. The Mot infantry can be used to hold the supply lines open, and to reinforce where necessary if thats your thing. I dont use much of it because I find them to be too weak to hold against the Soviet onslaught which generally accompanies any encirclement attempt. And the worst thing to see is your troops letting a gap open up, and watching the pocket empty. Once the pincer has closed around the enemy, the regular Infantry corps on the front can start to work down the pocket, while bombers use logistics attacks to quickly deplete the pockets supplies. Once the regular Infantry had finished off the pocket, I reorganize the, put them back in the line, and move the Panzers to the next section of front which needs their attention.

Other players have a dislike for HARM since it is SO IC heavy and it opens up another line of TECH which needs researching, but I like it. Like I said, its the ultimate tank Fortress, especially when you use them in HARM only divisions, when the hardness is 100%. Ive yet to come up against a province that an HARM corps cant take. BUT they are very slow, and use a lot of supplies so be careful about that Russian infrastructure and partisan activity.

[QuestGAV]

So my question is, what are some good things to do when you're planning on taking out France ASAP? The obvious one is researching Operational level organization ahead of time and I think officers reduce attack delay too, is that right?

You didn't mention air power at all, obviously air superiority is key and it allows your TACs to interdict and keep the Belgians/French on the run after your initial punch. A few inf/inf/eng/eng divisions can help you punch through the river heavy provinces, but don't go crazy. Support your attacks from adjacent provinces, the attacks will go more quickly and you'll lose less org in the process. And as you mentioned, anything you can do to reduce your attack delay is huge. Dropping a full corps on each province is massive overkill. One inf/inf/art/art division in each province along the Maginot line with one behind them in reserve was enough to keep France from trying to push through in my last game and meant I only had to commit two corps to holding the line. Punch through from Luxembourg to Calais and Verviers to Dunkerque and then smash the Belgian army against the Netherlands border. Then punch through Lille and Cambrai down to encircle Paris. You'll need to lead with infantry in some of the attacks because of the rivers. Once Paris is taken punch west to Nantes and south to Besancon and the rest is a mopup operation.

Now something else that's bothering me is Barbarossa, mostly the scale of it all. Having to control all these divisions along a massive border is kinda scaring me off. The fact that the border is growing larger the more I advance is making it even harder. This isn't really a question as I'm pretty bad at wording all this, but the main thing is: Barbarossa is overwhelming, some general tips or advice that could help me with that in particular? I'm the kind of person who likes to keep his OOBs perfectly organized, having the same type and amount of divisions spread out evenly, which is probably a reason why I'm having a problem right now.
Oh I do have one actual question regarding Barbarossa, would one INF division that packs a punch (3inf/2art or something like 2inf/2art/1at) be enough to hold the line while I advance deeper into Russia with armour?

Now this is quite some text, but I'd be more than happy if someone could provide me with some short general answers and advice, which is the main reasons I didn't create 2 seperate threads.

Again, inf/inf/art/art x2 for holding provinces is enough to hold the line and even slowly push forward with supported attacks. I reached Moscow in two months yesterday by putting all of my arm/mot divisions around Zamosc and punching east to Kiev. You can set up two massive encirclements from there and then it's over. Keep your main schwerpunkt two provinces wide, you'll have to cut that to one when you set up your encirclements. If your experience is like mine, the AI will just sit there and take it.

[preordain16]

Thanks for the replies.