Do you think that France can pull out an offensive move?

[endimielle1]

Do you think that France can pull out an offensive move like they promised to Poland

Compare the number of military factories in France and Germany. And after GER start blobbing (swallowing their neighbors) this difference will only increase. (A skilled player may keep pace ofc.).

So basically the Jerries will have more rifles, tanks, guns and aircrafts. Divisions. Not to mention larger "bodypool".

And if it's not enough the major starting debuffs prevent France from researching new doctrines.

So - it would be hard.

 

[CHRIS3169]

Compare the number of military factories in France and Germany. And after GER start blobbing (swallowing their neighbors) this difference will only increase. (A skilled player may keep pace ofc.).

So basically the Jerries will have more rifles, tanks, guns and aircrafts. Divisions. Not to mention larger "bodypool".

And if it's not enough the major starting debuffs prevent France from researching new doctrines.

So - it would be hard.

Germany also has a multi front war, and has to contend with England, while France only has the Western front(if you don't count the Italian front as separate, or include colonies since they don't border Germany.)

If you could take out enough of the German army and seize the Rhineland before they finish off Poland and concentrate the brunt of their forces on you, it's doable. I wish there was a way to coordinate with your CPU allies, like assigning a SACEUR to assign British troops arriving to the front as you see fit...

 

[endimielle1]

Germany also has a multi front war, and has to contend with England, while France only has the Western front(if you don't count the Italian front as separate, or include colonies since they don't border Germany.)

If you could take out enough of the German army and seize the Rhineland before they finish off Poland and concentrate the brunt of their forces on you, it's doable. I wish there was a way to coordinate with your CPU allies, like assigning a SACEUR to assign British troops arriving to the front as you see fit...

You are right.
The question was if France could launch a successful offensive to save Poland in 1939.
My answer was "So - it would be hard"... But not impossible...

 

[Augustus93]

France has so many problems that I don't think that they will be able to do anything and it is for several reasons.
1. Horrible modifiers that cripple France in the early stage, to counter them you have to spend considerable time.
2. France has internal political struggle and couple that with a low national unity and you have again huge problems.
3. France starts with only 3 research slots and Germany starts with 4.
4. France is a democracy at the beginning and is limited by the global threat levels meaning that they would not even be able to do anything even if they could in 1936.
5. Time favors Germany more than France.
6. The best bet for France is to hope that their defensive lines protect them. It would be very foolish to invade Germany as the French would most probably end up being surrounded and destroyed and then Germany would have a clear path to Paris.

 

[Harada.Taro]

Well of course France could have gone through the Rhine and started to invade germany from West in 1939... They had ready troop in the maginot line for that. But they did not why ?

-France will was not to give her childrens' blood for Danzig.
-France was plagued by old military doctrines only relying a strong defensive lines and a long lasting war where support and industrial power would prevail.
-France was plagued by political struggles opposing communists and socialists to liberals.

But what made it even worth for France was the betrayal of the communists and to a lesser extent the socialists during the 1940 campaign. Communists plagued the moral calling for not to fight with the germans. They sabotaged the industries many cases of such acts of betrayal had been reported. Workers put nails into gearing box of tanks and trucks... Workers cut fuel lines of planes making them take fire and even explode in flight. Railroad workers went on strike and refused to drive train with war material towards the Front line...Communists and socialists raised baners in villages when the german approached " On ne tire pas sur les allemands Vive Hitler, Vive Stalline!" All of that because Germany had allied with the soviets to rape down Poland....

so yes if on pure material side France had the power to invade germany in septembre 1939, France had not the will to do so and she felt from a Major nation, a leading one in the world to a third powerless rank one.

 

[Bob the Biro]

I think that my first game as France I am going to try and make a large push to the Rhine whilst the bulk of the German army is in Poland and then hope that the major river crossing penalties will help me hold it against their counter attacks whilst the rest of the Allies sort their shit out and come and help me.

So to answer the question I think that a concerted effort could break through to the Rhine I am not sure that it would make it much further than that without major help from the USA, USSR or UK

 

[WeissRaben]

It's so circumstantial, but in a fairly historical game, it's probably possible to pull off, if extraordinarily tricky.

In a completely historical game, it would be extremely easy to defeat Germany - they needed to kill France, and kill it soon, and as such the Sickle Cut was a one shot plan that had to work (or die trying). There were a lot of countermoves to Sedan that would have maimed Germany, as the plan itself was a flimsy thing that didn't collapse only by virtue of absent response from the French (the bridgehead wasn't reinforced for almost eight hours, and the panzer corps ran alone, with basically no supply lines behind them, for days).

 

[ViriathusTG]

French D-Day... in Poland gg wp

 

[Jeroentje22]

maybe a rhine defense line? part maginot-part river

 

[Volodio]

maybe a rhine defense line? part maginot-part river

You can extend the Maginot line to Belgium, so don't need to take the left of the Rhine, kill your soldiers and destroy the fort in the process.

 

[sandman2575]

France always gets a bum rap. There's no reason a human player as France shouldn't be able to be competitive in the early war vs. Germany.

There seems a widespread belief that France was doomed and never could have resisted Germany. I think that's nonsense. The Germans took a *big* gamble with the Manstein plan (which, up to the moment of the invasion, Hitler was very uneasy about). Because it paid off so spectacularly, it makes them seem invincible, and the defeat of France a foregone conclusion. Things might easily have gone very differently though (see: World War One).

The things that really did France in historically are not modeled well (if at all) in Hearts of Iron. Namely, a complete lack of nerve in the political leadership, and *terrible* morale in the army ranks and lack of initiative in the army leadership. HOI doesn't really model "lack of will to fight," but in a real sense the French defeatist attitude wound up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A determined human player, as France, should well be able to put up a fight against Germany.

 

[Mirage2k]

Historical power level and gameplay, how it should be:
More of Germany's factories should be military ones compared to more naval and civilian factories in France, with the total number being similar. Population (and thus manpower, as it is calculated as % of pop) should also be similar. Higher military factory ratio along with political buffs to Germany and debuffs to France should make Germany stronger in 1940, but allow France to match Germany in strength by 1942 or so if the war stagnates on defensive lines. Germany keeps its fascist buffs, and over time France gets rid of its debuffs and can continue trading with USA and colonies.

From what I've seen of recent WWW it seems like that HoI 4 will be much closer to this reality than HoI 3, which I'm very happy about

We are discussing two (democratic) strategies for defeating Germany in the same thread here, leading to some confusion:

a) The historical plan of defending the borders for a year or so to give time for militarization. This should be quite easy for a player, especially by choosing the "extend the Maginot line" focus. Over time, resources from colonies and superior allies (UK eats Italy for lunch, even without USA joining) should over time tip the scales. Allied naval superiority allows invasions in Italy, taking Scandinavia to harass the Baltic, landings in the Balkans... The result is a given, as long as Germany doesn't have unhistorical base IC as they did in HoI 3. Nobody knows what USSR would do in case of stalemate in France and thus no Barbarossa, so I won't speculate further.


b) Little Entente intervention, where France goes on the offensive in autumn 1939 when German forces is somewhat occupied in Poland. This is what OP asked for our opinion about, so I suggest we stick to this as much as possible. Historically I think France was not nearly strong enough to do this, but with good support from UK Royal Army and marines it might have been possible with the troops and equipment numbers available. In game it might not be as easy to get UK forces to even enter the continent, much less partake in coordinated offensives, so France will not get the same support as was historically available. On the plus side, you will with your amazing armchair general skills build a much stronger France, maybe enough to offset weaker allied cooperation... I think it should be possible, but only by min-maxing like crazy and prioritizing like a beggar.

I plan to try either strategy b) or ahistorical France as my second or third play-through, when I have gained the skills to do it well. For little Entente plan, I would follow roughly these lines:
1) Production and research. Min-max and turn every coin: Ship production costs oil, oil costs civilian factories. Unacceptable, we need those to build industry faster. I would probably try converting naval dockyards to military/civilian factories, producing no bombers, no special forces or anything else fancy. Focuses would be Metropolitan France industry for more factories and research slot, then anything to get rid of debuffs. Never research anything at less than 100% efficiency unless I have spare research slots, researching anything industry related first.

2) Army buildup: Just infantry for Maginot Line, infantry reinforced with artillery and AT for Belgian border, mountaineers for Italy and a mobile strike force of motorised and light armor to be used for encirclements. Produce only fighters and no more bombers than starting ones.

3) Battle plan: If Italy delays entering war I would accept being pushed back some places to push for making one or two small encirclements in Western Germany while many forces are in the east and they thus don't have reserves nearby to counter breakthrough. I would focus on capturing units, not terrain, and continue this until they send more forces West after winning in the East or reorganizing to beat me back. I would then accept this change and fall back to Maginot Line without contesting any ground I may have won. When Italy joins the war, the mobile strike force will be sent to Marseille and prepare to strike there. The very southern edge of the front (the coast) is not mountains, just one or two provinces of hills before plains in Northern Italian heartland. The mobile force would strike hard through here, cutting off the alpine troops and threatening either a move to the Northeast or to Rome. Infantry would move ASAP (by naval invasion possibly) to Italian-German alpine border to prevent reinforcement, and mobile force could then strike at Rome and other cities, taking Italy out of the war or to my side (can I choose conquest as a democracy?). I could plan further, but then we are really stretching the limits of what's possible to plan for... If Italy join immediately, then I would forego any West German ideas and go straight for them. The weak Italians will be no match for a France that is completely focused on their destruction

#Edit: Apparently ship production does not cost oil, it costs steel and maybe chromium. I will have to see if ship production then indirectly reduces industrial/army buildup.

#Edit 2: As ahistorical France, for example going communist, I would not scrap dockyards as they could be useful for a variety of options... Reverse D-day, here we go! Communist party in Brighton, June 6th 1944! War with Germany would have to start another time and play out very differently then.

 

[Anna_Gein]

Fortune favours the bold !

I shall fight the facists as soon as possible. Hopefully my initial superiority in war equipment shall give me an hedge. The tricky part will be to remove the negative modifier quickly enough.

Germany might start with many more factories but it lack resources. Should I meet enough success in my blockade attempt the difference in industrial potential might be minimal.

 

[blue_yonder]

@Mirage2k Good post, but when you say France will have a job to get the UK involved, that's an understatement. From the wiki: If anyone declares war on a guaranteed nation, they will automatically join the faction of the guarantor. Two things follow from this: firstly, the UK and an entente France can't both guarantee Poland, as she can't 'automatically join' two different factions.

It also means Poland won't be a member of the entente unless or until she is attacked; Germany would therefore do well to pick off the rest of the entente first, while Poland looks on passively and waits her turn. The UK simply won't have a CB unless Germany can't get through the Maginot and invades Belgium. On the other hand an Italy surrounded on all sides by entente might well think twice about getting embroiled - though of course the AI might decide that interesting gameplay trumps rational self-interest - and instead concentrate on Africa and the non-entente Balkan states.

 

[PhroX]

If we assume that things go pretty much historically up to the start of the war, an offensive move as France is playing straight into Germany's hands. Even if we disregard the serious issues with morale and leadership in the Army which should make such a move problematic to undertake, France wants a long war, not a risky short one. With Britain as an ally, you should have an overwhelming advantage in resources and industry in the long term compared to Germany. Your goal should be to hold the line until, say, mid '41, which is a plausible thing to do provided you don't massively overcomit into Belgium leaving you cripplingly vulnerable to being outflanked, and maintain a solid mobile reserve to counteract breakthroughs, as the balance of forces in '40 don't favour Germany that much, at which point Germany's economy is collapsing without the resources looted from France, then grind them down with a mechanical war of attrition they simply cannot compete in.

Of course, if we're diverging from history significantly prior to the war beginning, then things get more interesting. Holding off Germany without British help is much more difficult, and while eventually the former's resource shortages will come into play, wearing them down on your own will be much more difficult even if you survive the initial onslaught.

 

[mkbrv]

This was in HoI3, the black ice mod.

Started as France in '36 reorganised every division, created nice HQ's and positioned them well. Maginot line was mostly protected by garrisons and around 30 regular divisions.
The rest of the army was prepared to invade Luxembourg as soon as Germany captures it, and another part was on the closest route to defend Amsterdam, Bruxelles and Antwerp. The german offensive came strong, at peak managing to capture Amsterdam but then a counterattack of my 7th Army under general De Gaulle managed to push them back.

The British Army was nowhere, I have witnessed the Dunkerque forces retreating instead of helping maintain the line. The struggle was hard but by the end of summer of 40' I was able to contain the attack. Counterattack started in september, north of Amsterdam where the Germans were weak. In the same time I declared war to Italy and conquered Africa (with a minor involvement of the Brits). North of Italy was unbreakable, reinforcements of German divisions stopped my advance next to Turin.

But then, at the end of the year, several Belgium and Netherlands divisions came back from their initial defeat and helped push the front line in Northern Germany to Kiel. In the same time France (me) invaded Norway, pushed away the nazis, conquered most of Denmark (except Copenhagen), so by the June '41 the war looked good, Berlin was near.

Of course it didn't last long. Slovakian, Romanian, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Finnish and Italian reinforced germans near Hamburg, pushed the line back and forced a retreat almost to the initial borders of Germany. Only the industrial area of Ruhr was held by 40 french divisions. In the same time Germany invaded again Denmark and Norway, taking them back.

War was grim again, brits did not get involved in the western front, France was fighting alongside Belgium and Netherlands. Due to being unable to conquer France, Germany never attacked USSR or Greece.

Short story next:
March '42: Heavy fighting in North of Germany, in the Maginot Line only failed offensives done by both sides. USSR conquers Romania (without declaring war to Axis)
September '42: USA invaded Italy, failed in 3 different points, did ok in Sicily, France landed an army to help against the counterattack. USA did not try to push forward.
October '42: Failed French landing of Yugoslavia, retreat was ok. Successful French invasion of Norway. (for the last time)
March '43: Failed French landing behind the lines in central Italy. Fighting continues in Germany.
March '43: Taking advantage of the fights in souther Italy, and the diversion caused by the failed landing, french forces push the front in Northern Italy up to Venice.
April '43: US troops push ahead just until Anzio.
June '43: French troops push south towards Rome, helping US. Front line is stable in Germany.
July '43: Italy is taken. Time to push forward in Germany.
August '43: US and French forces attack Austria. Canadian and British forces reinforce the western front. Some expeditionary force from Australia and NZ arrive as well.
September '43: France pushes through the Maginot in the south (Mullhouse) with help from paratroopers and tanks lead by De Gaulle and Leclerc.
October '43: US and British landings in Yugoslavia.
November '43: Germany goes all in to defend Hamburg and Munich. Rough weather prevents major offensives.
December '43: Austria is taken.
February '44: Hungary is taken
March '44: Berlin is surrounded.
April '44: Berlin is taken and there is just Eastern Prussia and some Polish territories still standing.
June '44: War with Germany is over. Time to prepare take down of USSR

 

[WeissRaben]

If France doesn't fall, Italy shouldn't declare war - remember that the leadership was very conscious of the state of the Italian army, and the DoW only came when the war looked utterly won, as a kneejerk reaction to the possibility of being left completely out of the peace treaties if some fighting hadn't happened.