French military

[lwarmonger]

I am currently playing as Britain, the same way I normally do in a HOI2 game. I take control of all of the allies militarily and pour commonwealth infantry divisions into northern France. My British Army makes up the specialized troops, usually a significant number of 1ARM, 2MOT corps and 2ARM, 1MOT corps, a few mountain corps for Norway and some marines for future operations against Italy and Japan once Germany has been contained.

However. This strategy requires a lot of cannon fodder from the allies, including a France that I can bleed white. That is right, I fight to the last Frenchman! However, in my current game war has been declared on Poland, and France has 60(!) divisions! Total. In their entire army. Ten of which are militia! They have 800 manpower in reserve, and 60 divisions.

This is completely unhistorical, especially given the gobs of divisions that Germany has to throw at us (165 and counting). Given how hobbled France is economically, and how small their starting OOB is, this is hardly surprising however.

One of two things needs to happen. Either France needs to lose a lot of its economic penalties so it can build a bigger military (I don't like this solution), or it needs to start with masses of outdated troops (something like its historical OOB... this is a much better solution). This will not make France ahistorically powerful, since the vast majority of its IC will have to be spent on supplies and upgrades for this much larger army, but will also make the nation quite a bit more realistic. Historically Germany didn't have a roughly 3-1 numarical superiority over the French army, so why does it here? AI Germany should still beat AI France and AI Britain almost everytime due to technical and doctrinal superiority, but the numbers game should be even.

Historically, France was an early modernizer, like Russia and Italy. They built their military in the early 30's but then cut back later on, so that they went into WWII with masses of outdated equipment and doctrine. This is too easy to model.

 

[DarkLight]

You say one of two things has to happen. You may want to cosider a third option. That being...learning how to play a game that, while based on HOI2, has different paramaters. What worked with HOI2 will not necessarily work in AoD. It's a different game.

 

[poweraxe]

You say one of two things has to happen. You may want to cosider a third option. That being...learning how to play a game that, while based on HOI2, has different paramaters. What worked with HOI2 will not necessarily work in AoD. It's a different game.

That has nothing to do with the problem at hand, which is that the French military is smaller than it should be realistically.

I'm playing a game as France right now, and it is quite difficult to hold the line against the Germans(and it should be), even with several years of preparation. The only way France can have a decent-sized army is by cutting back a lot on research and the airforce, which I suppose is historical, but even then I don't see how its possible to match the German numbers, especially when it comes to armored divisions. Didn't France historically have about as much armored units as the Germans did? I always thought that the main problems of the French army were an outdated military doctrine and their poor use of their armored units in the actual war.

 

[unmerged(115311)]

Seems the French AI is thrilled to build mostly militia in AoD, just like Nationalist China. Since we all know how powerful militia is with the stacking penalty, it is hardly a suprise that both countries get their asses kicked.

Basically the AoD patch crew needs to think twice before allowing the AI to build militia. Even the USSR should avoid building them.

One other thing the AI needs to be configged to do, especially in France's case, is infra in the capital and other +6 IC provs. It is debatable should France build infra if Germany will conquer it anyway, but just saying...

 

[PanzerMan7]

That has nothing to do with the problem at hand, which is that the French military is smaller than it should be realistically.

I'm playing a game as France right now, and it is quite difficult to hold the line against the Germans(and it should be), even with several years of preparation. The only way France can have a decent-sized army is by cutting back a lot on research and the airforce, which I suppose is historical, but even then I don't see how its possible to match the German numbers, especially when it comes to armored divisions. Didn't France historically have about as much armored units as the Germans did? I always thought that the main problems of the French army were an outdated military doctrine and their poor use of their armored units in the actual war.

this

 

[DvD-IT]

AI Germany should still beat AI France and AI Britain almost everytime due to technical and doctrinal superiority, but the numbers game should be even.

While it would be tempting to give France a boost, I disagree with that. The French defeat in 1940 isn't something to take for granted: it was mostly thanks to circumstances that were out of Germany's control and a sheer dose of luck. Determinism aside, if we could replay Fall Gelb 100 times with a different outcome every time, 90 of these would end up in a standstill in my opinion.

This means that, if we actually represent things as they were IRL, Germany would almost never defeat France in AoD. In this case, realism plays a second role for the sake of gameplay.

 

[arya126]

DVD i agree with you. But still, the french should not be too outnumbered. a 3 to 1 battle is almost too unfair. A large french army at the begining and a larger cost fpr upgrades should fix this problem. They will have to cut back on research and the air force/navy to meet the demands of upgrading their army to be rteady for war against germany. Also france should have REALLY weak doctrines compared to germany so that even if it does come to a standstill, the germans initially huge advance(as in WW1)can be modeled.

 

[Iarodus]

As I recall in 1939 France had the "largest army in the world". At least that's what the propaganda films from the time declared. Of course half of it was garrison or badly equipped reserve divisions and yes France in 1940 had either as many or more tanks than Germany. The problem wasn't the size or capability of the French army but its disposition. Which, since no human French player is going to kindly leave the Ardennes basically undefended for the Germans, something else has to be done to ensure France loses appropriately.

 

[unmerged(5228)]

I've heard that the quality of the French army wasn't all that bad, especially their armor divisions which were in fact better than what the Germans could field at the time.

Even in areas where Germany did have an edge (either quality and/or quanity wise), like their airforce, the advantage wasn't overwhelming.

I do think the French should have a much larger army, but to reflect the poor way they used it, and how they were completely snookered into thinking that the Germans were coming through Belgium, they should have their land doctrine technology limited to the very first level of the Grand Battle Plan tech tree, and unable to research the higher levels until '40 or even '41.

 

[froek]

I've heard that the quality of the French army wasn't all that bad, especially their armor divisions which were in fact better than what the Germans could field at the time.

Even in areas where Germany did have an edge (either quality and/or quanity wise), like their airforce, the advantage wasn't overwhelming.

I do think the French should have a much larger army, but to reflect the poor way they used it, and how they were completely snookered into thinking that the Germans were coming through Belgium, they should have their land doctrine technology limited to the very first level of the Grand Battle Plan tech tree, and unable to research the higher levels until '40 or even '41.

Nice idea

 

[unmerged(93773)]

According to Wiki Germany had the following forces:
141 divisions,
7,378 guns,
2,445 tanks,
5,638 aircraft
3,350,000 troops

France with help of allies
144 divisions,
13,974 guns,
3,383 tanks,
2,935 aircraft
3,300,000 troops
Detailed:
On 10 May there were 93 French, 22 Belgian, 10 British and nine Dutch divisions in the North, a total of 134.

So 1:3 seems to me ridicoulus.....

The Allied forces deployed an organic strength of about 3,100 modern tanks and self-propelled guns on 10 May; another 1,200 were committed to battle in new units or from the matériel reserves; 1,500 obsolete FT-17 tanks were also sent to the front for a total of about 5,800. They had about 14,000 artillery pieces. The Allies thus enjoyed a clear numerical superiority on the ground but were inferior in the air

Not in here....Beware Germany übermensch army rules all!!!:wacko::rofl:

 

[DesertSnow]

A long time ago, I did a test in Doomsday. I removed the IC peace-time penalty for France and ran a hands-off 1936 game. The Germans managed to defeat the French, which should be attributed to the clever DAIM german AI (the French AI was the vanilla one).

Back to AoD: The German doctrines are superior to the French ones. My guess is that we could achieve German superiority without using an ahistorically small French army.

 

[Freightshaker]

Back to AoD: The German doctrines are superior to the French ones. My guess is that we could achieve German superiority without using an ahistorically small French army.

...or use detrimental organization and morale political modifiers on military units, as was historical.

The French had a larger and more modern army than the Germans but suffered from short conscription service times (which led to poor training), an archaic and cumbersome command structure (which allowed Germany to work within France's decision cycle), and abysmal morale in the government and high command.

- Short conscription times can be replicated by Drafted Army
- The command structure problems done through doctrines and political modifiers
- Poor morale could also be done through political modifiers

The Battle of Gembloux Gap showed that the French could fight a mobile action, when properly supported. The problems lie in attaining that support...

 

[lwarmonger]

One other thing I would like to add is that when war was declared, Poland had 72 divisions, 66 of which were infantry. The Polish Army is numerically superior to the French Army, and qualitatively equal! They didn't have two light armored divisions and two Headquarters the way the French have, but they also didn't have any militia either.

Personally I think that TRP got this part right. I could fight Germany to a standstill as England, using the combined might of all of the allies in France (as a Britain with military control), but I could also lose. France was usually somewhat outnumbered by Germany, however a total committment by the commonwealth and Britain gave us a moderate quantitative edge. That being said, inferior doctrines resulted in an extremely hard fought battle for France, which as the human player was lost almost as often as not.

 

[TontonJack]

I totally agree.
That's a pity that the game must use the "trick" of a small army to represent the French army's weakness.
It was most a problem of doctrine - High commandement refused to agree with De Gaulle's view -, problem of organization - whether you can find a translated version of "l'étrange défaite" of Marc Bloch, you will find the political and military organisation problem - and moral.

I am not good enough in AoD to know how it is possible to fix it, but I think that a large army with only 1918's Inf could represent that.

It is a word given to Leon Blum a famous '30s politician who said : in '40, there were 3000 tanks in both sides of the frontiers, Germany made 3 packets of 1000, France made 1000 packets of 3...

Best regard

 

[unmerged(207113)]

The French OOB does indeed need fixing.

This is a good website.

Austen.