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The sAARbrücken offensive, an AAR for France

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Hello, that's perhaps one of the first time I post here, but I'm not really new to the forum nor to the paradox games (EU I & II, Victoria and now HoI 2) and I decided to share this AAR with you since I didn't find many AAR for an offensive France strategy.

I'll do it quickly, based on the game I'm currently playing (I've started on wednesday).

France, 1936, normal/normal.

At first, it seems that France doesn't have many advantages. It has a poor industrial development for a western country, divisions are not updated and technology is not that high. The ressources problem is small as long as you keep the Alliance with the Commonwealth.

Strategically, everything goes toward a defensive military oriented one. With the Maginot line and many defensive leaders (and old guard :) ). But it's painful to see Germany annex its neighbors and becomming a war machine without acting. So, I've decided to opt for an offensive strategy.

Let's begin. In 1st january 1936, I put in production 10 inf, 10 alpine inf, 10 medium tanks, 20 artillery. Talk about military production. Of course, with the Dunkerque ship, it exceeds the production power of France, but who said that units need equipment ?
At first I put nothing in supply. Most of my IC goes to prod, the good manufacturing. A small to improve the outdated units.
Research : Basic Infantry Division, Improved Light Tank, Early Field Artillery, Agrichemistry and the first Land defense dctrine for the french tree.
After those choices, I focus on those research fields and pick sometimes Aircraft Air doctrines when I have blueprints from my allies.

With this focus on land troops, I can follow more or less Germany in numbers and quality of troops. More than that, it seems that Germany doesn't like Blitzkrieg in this game :) There are less than 10 tanks in its side in 1939...
 
For the spanish civil war I sent troops and supplies. It semt sufficient since the republican won it !
Since I needed that Poland could defend a sufficiently long time, I've decided to take control of its army the moment it enters our alliance to organise it a bit.

So, I was ready for the upcomming conflict. All events went the historical way for Germany.
In August-september 1939, I had (sorry, no pictures) :

Strasbourg : 4 groups of 3 alpine inf with 12 art bde
1 group of 12 inf with 10 art bde and 2 AT bde
1 group of 8 inf with 8 art bde and 1 HQ

Mulhouse : 3 groups of 3 inf with 2 art and 1 AT bde in one of the groups.

Chalons (if it's the name of the province on the left of both strasbourg and mulhouse and just south of Metz) :
1 group of 9 medium tanks (somua s-35) with one or two heavy tank bde
4 groups of 1 cavalry
4 groups of 1 med tank with 4 heavy tank bde

Metz : 1 group of 9 inf with mostly art bde

Reims : 1 group of 8 inf with mostly art bde

There is no more army in North Africa and two groups of 4 inf/alpine inf at Italy border.
 
In the begining of september '39, Germany DoWed Poland and the Alliance was driven into war.
I will let you imagine the defense of Poland, just saying it was a dense one, which ended pretty quickly around Waraw More or less 50 div for Poland where besieged by about forty german division.

Now, west Germany was more interesting. I quickly attacked the Saarbrück province with my 4 groups of alpine div and my 12 inf. The German defense was quickly overwelmed and the counter offensive missed against my 12 alpine div ('39 with art). All the mobile divs (cavalry and tanks) then followed quickly and I used the Saarbrück province as a pivotal position to reach Dortmund with my 12 alpine divs and 4 tanks and 4 cavalry. The big tank army drove to Kassel.

My strategy was to create two small pockets to quickly (more or less) eliminate the western defense of Germany and at the same time using my tanks and cavalry take the less defended provinces. My big tank army was there to pierce the german defense in plains and reach Berlin as Quickly as it could.
 
A France AAR! This is interesting! I had also plans to create AAR with France, but I choosed Finland instead. Two underdog countries really. :D

Wow! You are *attacking* Germany!?! That's a nice strategy. Can you give us screenshots?

Oh, and welcome to the forum.
 
Thanks for the reply and the welcome.

Sorry, I can't send any screenshot because I'm writing this at work and I don't have internet at home.

Sure, at first it seems strange to attack Germany, but I wanted to verify if the credo : Germany can't win a two front war, could be verified. It was. You'll see it in the next post, which is already written.

By the way, I'm having problems to keep being connected and I've lost one of the post I was writing. So now, I'm writing it on a text editor and copy/paste it here. Is this normal or just some stange circonstences ?
 
The first (and quickest) pocket was around Essen, I used my alpine inf in Dortmund and Threw one of my group of inf to Köln. The other pocket was the Alps between Swiss and Italy. I've sent an assault from Saarbrück, then Strasbourg, then Mulhouse and at the same time, the other big group of inf went from Metz to Saarbrück then passing north of Frankfurt.

Small tanks and cavalry div went to north germany and captured Hannover. With the first pocket eliminated, I could use my alp divs to help in the second one after the German defense was sent against the mountain wall named the Alps.

In two monthes, I took half of current Germany without many losses and liberated the polish army from the siege during November '39. Two monthes later and Germany only kept east Poland as its territory. Now, I'm in february '40, the german army is composed of less than 40 div, it has no more tank.

Of course, many of you can probably say that was not that hard to do, but it's only my fourth game of HoI 2. Feel free to add any thoughts you have about the strategy I used and the weakness of it. Like if Germany was played by a human player instead of a the IA , what could have occured.
 
El Savior said:
A France AAR! This is interesting! I had also plans to create AAR with France, but I choosed Finland instead. Two underdog countries really. :D

Wow! You are *attacking* Germany!?! That's a nice strategy. Can you give us screenshots?
Click to expand...

:rofl:

Orcho said:
By the way, I'm having problems to keep being connected and I've lost one of the post I was writing. So now, I'm writing it on a text editor and copy/paste it here. Is this normal or just some stange circonstences ?
Click to expand...

Quite normal circonstances i will say. Personnaly i do use a text deitor too.
 
Orcho said:
Thanks for the reply and the welcome.
Sorry, I can't send any screenshot because I'm writing this at work and I don't have internet at home.
Click to expand...

Sorry everybody but i don't know why but i will answer him in french.

Tu n'as pas de disquettes ou de clef USB?

Une fois les screens réduit et retravaillé sous Paint (ou autre). Sans oublier de les passer en .jpg ils ne prennent plus que quelque dizaine de Ko.

Après il suffit de les uploads sur www.imageshack.us ;)
 
forezjohn said:
Dist don't telle me you can't speak english!
Click to expand...


Sure i can but you know me i'm a lazy guy. ;) :p let me tell you a little secret here : if i choose to speak in french it's only because i didn't know how to translate "clef USB". :eek:o :D :p
 
let's see, "USB key"?
:D
 
I write my AAR in Wordpad and copy & paste it to the forum (after minor changes with forum editor usually). This way you can concentrate to play, hit alt-tab, write few lines and get back to game, etc. But if you don't have internet connection at home, we probably won't see any screenshots. :(

I really beat the Germany with that tactic. AI have severe problems in two-front war. In my game Poland campaign lasted about two months, only after that Poland fall. Try to increase AI aggressive and increase diffculty. You are too good player! :)
 
El Savior said:
I really beat the Germany with that tactic. AI have severe problems in two-front war. In my game Poland campaign lasted about two months, only after that Poland fall. Try to increase AI aggressive and increase diffculty. You are too good player! :)
Click to expand...

Will you please, let the france win this war for one time :p
 
Well, sorry to end it, but since I've annexed Germany, the war ended. During the following three years, nobody moved. It seems that Stalin understood that a franco-germany country is bit too much as an enemy. Since he never declare war to anybody, I couldn't DoW him. So, I've waited and it was a bit boring.

Sure, next time, I'll try with a higher setting. I'm currently trying the German, it's pretty easy to annex Poland then declare Vichy. Both fell in less than three weeks.
 
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