France vs Germany in HOI4

[Mabzie555]

If the Maginot line were not built, and France adopted an offensive posture and actually attacked Germany in a meaningful way in 1939 the Germans would have lost.

Germany lost 1/3 of their tank force in Poland alone...

 

[1alexey]

If the Maginot line were not built, and France adopted an offensive posture and actually attacked Germany in a meaningful way in 1939 the Germans would have lost.

Germany lost 1/3 of their tank force in Poland alone...

France didn`t adopt offensive posture because offensive posture in WW1 costed it way too much manpower, and avoiding attacking Germans head-on was the entire reason for French politics in 1930s. The other reason was that UK would be extremely happy to see France and Germany bleed each other, thus the policy of "strengthening" Germany, granted, they miserably failed to predict the result of the war in the west and the result was that UK, France, Italy, Japan and Germany bled each other, while the profit went to USA, and to a point, to SU.

Let`s not pretend UK, Italy, SU and USA would be terribly happy about France quickly winning the war and getting away without much blood.

Politics of 1930s actually made sense most of the time, except nobody could predict that Hitler would get a 20/20 luck saving throw, messing everything up.

 

[Tomnoddy]

What i want most is a historically accurate modelling of France and Germany's available IC.

Germany did have twice the population and economy of France, but was starting from zero - before 1933 Germany was practically disarmed. France had been mothballing tanks and artillery pieces since the great war, and had a vast amount of materiel in storage. On the other hand, France did not know when war was going to break out and could not bankrupt itself - Germany went on a massive borrowing splurge, and would have been in serious trouble had they not gotten their hands on Austria's gold reserves in 1938.

The problem, i guess is the difficulty of making an accurate study of what % GDP went into military in Nazi Germany, since they were trying to keep this under wraps and were using unconventional practices (eg Mefo bills) to feed resources in.

In HOI 3 terms, the IC disparity between the two nations was roughly historical.... the main problem is caused by Germany being fully mobilised in 1936 and the Allies not. In reality, the Allies probably had a gradual transition to a war economy as events like the Sudeten crisis made the populace feel sufficiently threatened to give sacrifice some standard of living for more weapons. All the same, the Germans had a head start, since they could borrow money without worrying about having to pay it back.


The IC/Pop handicap alone should have left France fielding an OOB half that of the Germans in 1940, in fact they managed significantly more and with Belgian, British and Dutch divisions, had rough numerical parity. However quality perhaps wasn't there. Stockpiled equipment from the 1920s vs brand new stuff, youthful full time soldiers amped up on drugs (Wermacht was handing out methamphetamine pills like sweeties) vs ageing reservists (France conscripted every man up to the age of 40). The artillery issue has already been dealt with - German pieces , while fewer in number, had higher rate of fire and longer range, being more modern designs (Germany outproduced France in artillerly pieces 5:1 from 1933-1940). In tanks too, we need to remember that it's not all about the size of the gun and thickness of armour. Mobility, reliability, radios and having commander separate from the loader/gunner in the turret for situational awareness were all important.


If France had executed their defence sucessfully, if they'd left some quality divisions in Sedan and the battle turned into a slog, with Allied units taking up hasty defensive positions in forests and rivers... I still think Germany would have won, eventually. France had mobilized ALL of its manpower, including men up to the age of 40. Where were replacements going to come from? What was the effect in industrial production, taking so many men out of the workforce?

The rivers etc. would prevent a quick German breakthrough, but were not insurmountable. These were hastily prepared positions, not deeply encased in concrete. Heavy air/artillery bombardment would suppress, kill or drive off the defenders in direct-fire range of the river, a crossing would be made eventually. Sooner or later the Germans would breakout from the bridgehead and push the Allies back, albeit at great cost. Once they've been forced off the Dyle and Meuse, the defenders just have flat plains behind them.

 

[keynes2.0]

France wouldn't be the one that had manpower problems if the battle of France dragged on. They already had called up enough manpower to match the Germans in the field. The Germans didn't have many more troops for invading the Soviets than invading the French so it's not like the Germans were holding back. The French would get help from the British, who had provided a field army of two million during WWI. Sooner or later the Americans or the Soviets get involved and the Germans are in real trouble.

And industry would favor the French very, very heavily if the war dragged on. There were the great resources of the British empire, which would be applied much more easily without Italian interdiction of the Mediterranean and French ports for U-boats. The French had contracted for large scale purchases of war materials with the US and FDR was actively interested in getting American industries to supply the French. American tanks were nearly non-existent but American guns, artillery and trucks certainly weren't. While German's finances were in shambles (defaults and confiscation aren't good for your credit), the French had spent the time after WWI single mindedly focused on stockpiling gold and investing money overseas. Spending their savings and then securing credit with a sympathetic american government (like British with cash-carry) would make imports a very, very significant factor even before lend-lease comes into play.

 

[1alexey]

France wouldn't be the one that had manpower problems if the battle of France dragged on. They already had called up enough manpower to match the Germans in the field. The Germans didn't have many more troops for invading the Soviets than invading the French so it's not like the Germans were holding back. The French would get help from the British, who had provided a field army of two million during WWI. Sooner or later the Americans or the Soviets get involved and the Germans are in real trouble.

France called 5 millions-something. Germany, eventually called in 18 millions during the war.
The amount of troops that UK would be willing to commit, is debatable.

Also Soviets were not interested in fighting Germany if it was having a long and bloody war with west allies, on contrary, they were interested in supplying them resources in exchange for industrial equipment and technologies, as they did in 1939-1941, and eating up Balkan countries, that, by and large were having some sort of alliances with France and UK, that neither could honor if at war with Germany, like what happened to Romanian Besarabia after French surrender.

And industry would favor the French very, very heavily if the war dragged on. There were the great resources of the British empire, which would be applied much more easily without Italian interdiction of the Mediterranean and French ports for U-boats. The French had contracted for large scale purchases of war materials with the US and FDR was actively interested in getting American industries to supply the French. American tanks were nearly non-existent but American guns, artillery and trucks certainly weren't. While German's finances were in shambles (defaults and confiscation aren't good for your credit), the French had spent the time after WWI single mindedly focused on stockpiling gold and investing money overseas. Spending their savings and then securing credit with a sympathetic american government (like British with cash-carry) would make imports a very, very significant factor even before lend-lease comes into play.

Which probably was exactly what UK and USA wanted.

WW2 only turned into WW2, because Germans got rather lucky in many ways, both in French being severely over-estimated by other countries, and Germans, being on the short end of the resource having to be creative and improvise.

If the war would turn out as most probably predicted, it would`ve left Germany eventually defeated by Franco-British armies, with both France and Germany very strongly bled, British taking mostly light wounds, and both sides heavily indebted to USA and SU, that would not even need to enter war. Or SU could eventually enter war on the side of Germany, and Allies would be screwed.

But such things are more for Victoria 2 or 3, then for HOI series.

 

[Klausewitz]

France wouldn't be the one that had manpower problems if the battle of France dragged on. They already had called up enough manpower to match the Germans in the field. The Germans didn't have many more troops for invading the Soviets than invading the French so it's not like the Germans were holding back. The French would get help from the British, who had provided a field army of two million during WWI. Sooner or later the Americans or the Soviets get involved and the Germans are in real trouble.

And industry would favor the French very, very heavily if the war dragged on. There were the great resources of the British empire, which would be applied much more easily without Italian interdiction of the Mediterranean and French ports for U-boats. The French had contracted for large scale purchases of war materials with the US and FDR was actively interested in getting American industries to supply the French. American tanks were nearly non-existent but American guns, artillery and trucks certainly weren't. While German's finances were in shambles (defaults and confiscation aren't good for your credit), the French had spent the time after WWI single mindedly focused on stockpiling gold and investing money overseas. Spending their savings and then securing credit with a sympathetic american government (like British with cash-carry) would make imports a very, very significant factor even before lend-lease comes into play.

What you describe is basically WWI.
Which still ended as a pyhric victory for the Entente.

 

[keynes2.0]

France called 5 millions-something. Germany, eventually called in 18 millions during the war.

France was occupied.

What you describe is basically WWI.
Which still ended as a pyhric victory for the Entente.

Pretty much. Germany would have been worn down but at great cost if there wasn't a breakthrough.

 

[Big Blue Blob]

These points are mostly valid. A long war would have favoured the Allies' more static strategy and superior resources. A short, sharp war was what Germany wanted, and it was what they got.

 

[Chromos]

In HOI3 fighting off Germany as France is extremely difficult and only taken up by very experienced strategists, and even then they usually have to wait for Soviet intervention. However I've read that in real life the Battle of France was a little closer than is shown in HIO3 (where Germany usually just rolls over France). In real life was the battle between the two closer than is shown in game and should HOI4 make it a little easier to play as France?

I would like if FRA will be more modelled to its historic strength and allow a much more "risky" gameplay. Winning against it was no easy task and any Vets of WW1 knowed that.
That FRA felt so quickly is a combination of many parts. Gamewise I would tie it mostly to "high command failures" -> bad decsions like spending all time money into Maginot/defense doctrine/tanks as Inf support role etc..
Also High Command was a real problem for getting new ideas into the armed forces, that combined with the overall politcial situation(money was short too) should make it hard for an FRA player to go away from historical paths, but still have the possibilities to do so. Then FRA would bee a much harder opponent, and given UK aid early on even more.(In HoI3 UK-AI did not aid FRA very often, I mostly see that only in modded games, where UK even send in forces to aid POL!).

So after all it would be mostly historical against ai with few possible changes, and also a human player would/should have problems to play more ahistorical, but may be able to do some things different.
-> More sandbox, less railroaded/scripted..

 

[Klausewitz]

@German practically disarmed in 1933:
Not so.
For one there was of course the Reichswehr.
But apart from that there was the Black Reichswehr.
A little example:
In Bavaria alone there were about 200.000 'lost' rifles floating around.
Krupp covertly produce artillery (or hid old pieces in factories and test areas).
No small part of the 'disarmament', read: destruction of weapons, was handled in the Ruhr area and there again quite a few artillery pieces and lots of machine guns were 'lost'.
The list goes on.

Germany was theoretically disarmed.
Practically there was enough equipment floating around to arm a sizable portion of the population.
The problem was in tanks and airplanes, not infantry small arms and artillery pieces.

 

[FOARP]

@German practically disarmed in 1933:
Not so.
For one there was of course the Reichswehr.
But apart from that there was the Black Reichswehr.
A little example:
In Bavaria alone there were about 200.000 'lost' rifles floating around.
Krupp covertly produce artillery (or hid old pieces in factories and test areas).
No small part of the 'disarmament', read: destruction of weapons, was handled in the Ruhr area and there again quite a few artillery pieces and lots of machine guns were 'lost'.
The list goes on.

Germany was theoretically disarmed.
Practically there was enough equipment floating around to arm a sizable portion of the population.
The problem was in tanks and airplanes, not infantry small arms and artillery pieces.

Indeed. Basically rearmament against the terms of the Versailles treaty was going on even under the Weimar government, there's no reason to believe that another war couldn't have broken out even without the Nazis rising to power.

 

[TheRomanRuler]

@German practically disarmed in 1933:
Not so.
For one there was of course the Reichswehr.
But apart from that there was the Black Reichswehr.
A little example:
In Bavaria alone there were about 200.000 'lost' rifles floating around.
Krupp covertly produce artillery (or hid old pieces in factories and test areas).
No small part of the 'disarmament', read: destruction of weapons, was handled in the Ruhr area and there again quite a few artillery pieces and lots of machine guns were 'lost'.
The list goes on.

Germany was theoretically disarmed.
Practically there was enough equipment floating around to arm a sizable portion of the population.
The problem was in tanks and airplanes, not infantry small arms and artillery pieces.

Don`t forget political militias, they could easily be reformed/were formed, SA had 3 million men at best. That is peace time, when someone invades your land, more will join. With blood alone, they would hold allies for a while. How long, i have no idea, men are needed at factories/etc too, which is why Wehrmacht was sometimes smaller than SA.
And since allied advance would be slow due to their focus on infantry tanks, Germany may just be able to hold long enough to organise strong enough forces to beat allies. It is possible, but i doubt it. In war, anything can happen. I think France would have been much stronger had they had some early victories to boost their morale. Strong enough to beat Germans.

 

[Tomnoddy]

That FRA felt so quickly is a combination of many parts. Gamewise I would tie it mostly to "high command failures" -> bad decsions like spending all time money into Maginot/defense doctrine/tanks as Inf support role etc.."..

Without the Maginot Line France would probably have fallen to a surprise attack by Germany in 1939 (before Poland).

Had the Franco-German border lain a few miles further East, the river Rhine could have acted as a natural barrier across their frontier. Unfortunately, Germans actually live on both banks of the Rhine, so without it, so it's much easier for Germany to invade france than vice-versa. Assuming you get across the Rhine, a hundred miles of hilly, forested, sparesly populated terrain lies between you and any important German industrial/population centres.

Going the other way, like the Germans did in 1870, there's a few hills but like i say you're starting from a position west of the Rhine anyway and over most of the Vosges mountains. Most of the Iron ore and Coal that France has lies in this border region... and then you're into the nice flat plains of the Seine basin, not too far to Paris. Alternatively you can violate Belgium like in WW1 and just come in across the Franco-Belgian border. The rivers and Marshes are quite a barrier, but fortunately they'll only have the relatively small Belgian army defending them. The actual border with France is nice and clear and flat, and a large chunk of Industry sits right on the border, in the town of Lille.

Finally, you got to look at the structure of the French army. Because of their smaller population, they needed a largely reservist army to compete with Germany for size. But, reservists take time to call up. In a surprise attack, Germany could seize the hills of Alsace Lorraine before France has finished mobilizing. Then France would be trying to defend against a stronger attacker on flat plains, with much of the raw materials to feed their industry gone.

French divisions were structured with a majority of reservists but a core of full timers to act as the "glue". This meant that in peacetime, most of the army's full time contingent were in these "skeleton" divsions.. so very few divisions in peace time were actually full strength and combat ready.

This is not to say mistakes weren't made in the run up to war and that a human player couldn't do it better, with the benefit of hindsight. What i tend to do -

Hearts of Iron 2 / Arsenal of Democracy

1. extend maginot line slightly to belgian border. no more breakthroughs in the ardennes for you mr hitler
2. dont build any new navy
3. disband bomber force
4. build plenty of fighters, obtain radar blueprints from UK
5. don't build tanks, instead churn out huge amounts of motorized infantry
6. research best possible antitank weapons and attach to every division

In HOI 3

1. Extend Maginot line to Belgian Border/River Meuse
2. Build Radar across Maginot Line
3. And lots of fighters
4. Dont build any ships or Bombers
5. Get a large amount of motorised infantry for the dash to belgium
6. Research the best possible antitank weapons and attach to all divisions
7. Later, when your war economy means you have plenty IC and not much manpower, start attaching heavy armour to everything

 

[GermanPower]

So much arguing about silly stuff. If you win a war in 1 month and 15 days, I don't give a shit what you wanna argue about or say. One side clearly was much more devastating then the other. The war wasn't close, it was a mauling...plain and simple, In fact Germany mauled everyone they fought. Unarguably the Germans had the most efficient army in the world at the time, France didn't and faced the terror of the German command and control. It's simply strategically impossible for France to beat Germany, it's no fault of the troops, equipment, and other things needed in war. It's simply how things lined up(PST, it's the generals of the french armies fault! If a Napoleon caliber general was in command, I bet the battle of France would have been totally different) , France wasn't ready for a war, at least the generals weren't. So in summary stop arguing about well France had the same amount of stuff, if you are going to fight Germany and win a war you should know...you better outnumber them....by a lot. Germans are good at two things, making beer and fighting wars. The point is France got smashed and broken in, you can argue all the, well they could have done this! Shut it, that's hindsight and doesn't bring anything of value to the table. It's simply blathering that is unfair for arguing about 'balance', because you have a crystal globe (Well errr, computer) that defines how things would have gone/how to do them. Think to Pearl Harbor, if you were FDR would there have been any reason you should have lost Pearl Harbor so bad? No you would have mauled them, because intelligence is everything. Not like IQ, but knowing whats going on, what's effective, what works, etc, etc.

 

[meowmeow12345]

So much arguing about silly stuff. If you win a war in 1 month and 15 days, I don't give a shit what you wanna argue about or say. One side clearly was much more devastating then the other. The war wasn't close, it was a mauling...plain and simple, In fact Germany mauled everyone they fought. Unarguably the Germans had the most efficient army in the world at the time, France didn't and faced the terror of the German command and control. It's simply strategically impossible for France to beat Germany, it's no fault of the troops, equipment, and other things needed in war. It's simply how things lined up(PST, it's the generals of the french armies fault! If a Napoleon caliber general was in command, I bet the battle of France would have been totally different) , France wasn't ready for a war, at least the generals weren't. So in summary stop arguing about well France had the same amount of stuff, if you are going to fight Germany and win a war you should know...you better outnumber them....by a lot. Germans are good at two things, making beer and fighting wars. The point is France got smashed and broken in, you can argue all the, well they could have done this! Shut it, that's hindsight and doesn't bring anything of value to the table. It's simply blathering that is unfair for arguing about 'balance', because you have a crystal globe (Well errr, computer) that defines how things would have gone/how to do them. Think to Pearl Harbor, if you were FDR would there have been any reason you should have lost Pearl Harbor so bad? No you would have mauled them, because intelligence is everything. Not like IQ, but knowing whats going on, what's effective, what works, etc, etc.

It should also be impossible for world conquests to occur but they still do. It's a video game.

 

[-Stukov-MK VII]

Threads like this scare me

It's already easy To beat AI Germany as France solo in hoi 3 and I'm sure there are plenty of youtube videos that demo this... I think the way France was setup in hoi 3 is pretty spot on so please no super buffs in hoi iv to nations like France and Poland or Belgium or whatever the heck else is being asked.

 

[Stenner]

I would almost prefer if France was defeated by Germany on average. There could be tweaks so that France doesn't mobilize before the war or other things that a player wouldn't do (because they're a player and expect a war). In that way there would be less of a challenge than in previous games when a human plays France.

As I believe has been addressed in this topic, the allied forces of Britain and France (in conjunction with defenders from Belgium and the Netherlands) were roughly a match for the designated forces invading France at the time, and as I understand it from a few documentaries the allies didn't expect Germany to be able to bring tanks through the wooded areas to the south of their defenses (just North of the Maginot Line).

But tonks streamed through the area and pulled of a pincer like attack, when the allies tried to counter (when they noticed the movement) they were too slow to react and always misjudged where the Germans were going to be, and we assume it's because they weren't used to tank warfare, as no one was yet.

Anyway.. So if ai France just doesn't prepare for war very well, I think I'd be happy.

But also! If the war plans thing goes well and AI Germany just does really well every time to make plans against AI France, breakthrough, and encircle the defenders, then I'd be extremely happy.

 

[1alexey]

France was occupied.

France couldn`t mobilize all adult male population.

I would like if FRA will be more modelled to its historic strength and allow a much more "risky" gameplay. Winning against it was no easy task and any Vets of WW1 knowed that.
That FRA felt so quickly is a combination of many parts. Gamewise I would tie it mostly to "high command failures" -> bad decsions like spending all time money into Maginot/defense doctrine/tanks as Inf support role etc..
Also High Command was a real problem for getting new ideas into the armed forces, that combined with the overall politcial situation(money was short too) should make it hard for an FRA player to go away from historical paths, but still have the possibilities to do so. Then FRA would bee a much harder opponent, and given UK aid early on even more.(In HoI3 UK-AI did not aid FRA very often, I mostly see that only in modded games, where UK even send in forces to aid POL!).

So after all it would be mostly historical against ai with few possible changes, and also a human player would/should have problems to play more ahistorical, but may be able to do some things different.
-> More sandbox, less railroaded/scripted..

France spend huge amount of money on equipment during 1920s and 1930s, and all of it was needed to work, so it is hardly surprising Generals and politicans were not thrilled about the prospect of throwing away a lot of that for some idea that might or might not work.

@German practically disarmed in 1933:
Not so.
For one there was of course the Reichswehr.
But apart from that there was the Black Reichswehr.
A little example:
In Bavaria alone there were about 200.000 'lost' rifles floating around.
Krupp covertly produce artillery (or hid old pieces in factories and test areas).
No small part of the 'disarmament', read: destruction of weapons, was handled in the Ruhr area and there again quite a few artillery pieces and lots of machine guns were 'lost'.
The list goes on.

Germany was theoretically disarmed.
Practically there was enough equipment floating around to arm a sizable portion of the population.
The problem was in tanks and airplanes, not infantry small arms and artillery pieces.

Germany was also having a lot of it`s R&D outsourced to other countries, like Nederlands, Sweden, and Germany was having great military cooperation with Soviets, where Soviets would provide territory and equipment for tank schools and Germans would provide the teachers.

 

[ClothCoat]

Threads like this scare me

It's already easy To beat AI Germany as France solo in hoi 3 and I'm sure there are plenty of youtube videos that demo this... I think the way France was setup in hoi 3 is pretty spot on so please no super buffs in hoi iv to nations like France and Poland or Belgium or whatever the heck else is being asked.

???

Nobody is asking for super buffs just for France to be able to field an historically accurate army. And it's not "easy" to beat Germany as France though through practice and only by being extremely gamey (i.e. not even building infantry units just building armoured cars and so on) it is possible.

GermanPower why shouldn't a player be allowed to beat them back by not making the same mistakes the French generals did? It's a video game not a reenactment. Hypothetically speaking you can do things like conquer belgium as Luxembourg, unite nationalist China and conquer Japan, or have America under FDR join the Axis even though those things didn't happen in real life either. For most countres the whole point is to command your forces much better than actual historical figures did.

 

[GermanPower]

It should also be impossible for world conquests to occur but they still do. It's a video game.

Moot point, I wasn't claiming that it couldn't happen in the confines of a video game. Simply stating how it was, not how it could possibly maybe, sorta be. I'm for the notion France should never win(In a AI vs. AI, with no player intervention or other circumstances that came about as in ahistorical possibilities in the game), nor should Poland win. However....players should be able to change that. If they so choose by whatever means they wish, as long as what they do would be adequate enough to tip the scales to a more balanced fight in whatever situation is created by their actions.