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- Dont need rush medium tanks, or 40w.
- U cant declare war on them all
- Dont need rush any OP stuff/tech.
Just blitz correctly i always do in historical date( 10-may-1940 ) with 20w divisions.
If u blitz u dont let them over-stack, just this.
-France AI have stacked troops on Maginot Line,
-once u declare war on Benelux, they will try move troops,
-u should pin them from luxembourg,
-so they dont reinforce Netherlands/Belgium fronts, u shoul focus your blitz from there, there will be few oposition to tanks, and u run freely to nothern France.
Correctly blitzing u rarely get more than 20k ~ 50k casualties.
Your error is just letting France AI stack troops.
I did a post on the past explaining it with maps, basically same approach of @sekelsenmat :
My record to make France fall is 10 days. - I start on historical date 10/may/1940 - Dont invited italy, force France to "double front" is too cheap. - Historical invasion starting invading by Benelux, dont did early wars. ... -The strategy is...
You are correct the lack of tempo with my offensive resulted in a build up of well dug in infantry and a quagmire. That is an impressive amount of industry. You should elaborate on one of the different 1.9 build threads.
Yeah I know "git-gud" you need to micro. Even microing this becomes a chore. The other issue is the great wall of Wallonia on the one province next to Germany.
With low countries, the front is so small. You can't even call it "micro" even if you move troops manually. Still, even though I think the auto battle plan is dysfunctional, you should have no issue pushing through as Germany into low countries. There are some serious issues with your divisions and you probably don't produce/use air force.
You build a historical template you get punished, everything comes down to 10W, 20W or 40W and the same set up for armor 6 med armor 4 motorized, 10 infantry with support, or 7 infantry 2 artillery, or 14 infantry 4 artillery.
Indeed, consult Reman's tutorials on land combat. But honestly, the symptoms you describe go way beyond combat width. There are something seriously amiss in your land forces.
1k in HOI4 is not the same as 1k in real history. The numbers in vanilla HOI4 are not historical (though they are closer to historical than they are off) and are not balanced. But the real reason you have trouble is that you don't have 3k planes of your own to match. So, match it?
Also, see the point about speed again. If you had taken 6 months to hang out in low countries without progress as Nazi Germany in real history, would RAF have sent more planes?
realize this is suboptimal on width, at the time had an issue with regards to land experience and did not have enough mediums built for a bigger template, looking at the hardness there is a problem. Had been following the CIC build up thread so thought, I had decent industry, was close to the results posted there, but may have spent too many resources on the spy game. WIth regards to equipment I have large amount. The air battle ranges from red to yellow to green and back. The real kick in the teeth was thinking I could do a coup-de-main with paratroopers only to have them sit at the airfield due to red/yellow air.
It's more than just width. I guess you are dedicating AA as a response to your worsening air situations. But you could have AA as support to save the width for something else. Your division lacks artillery which means they lack division attack. In turn, it means your enemy divisions don't take enough org damage. So they don't fall back. Swap some light tanks for SPG. Light SPG has low attack as well. So consider medium SPG. The second medium tank battalions do little to your armor and piercing. Swapping that out frees up your production elsewhere. (Honestly, you are not going to see many others agreeing with this, because they dont need to conserve resources to this extent.)
With the spare resources, consider inbedding some early-game heavy SPG in your inf divisions. For the cheap armor and high attack per combat width. (I wouldn't say you need it for mere France. But it will have an effect.)
With your meds, try to research ahead of time for the armor. (Again, I wouldn't say you need it for mere France. But it will have an effect.)
Don't forget land doctrine. Doctrines take a long time to research to you need to queue them early. Basically right after the initial push for Industry research and nonstop from that point on.
You need to use your air force. You need to intentionally build up your air force Even if you don't have air supremacy, use lots of CAS. Un-intercepted CASs do direct damage on enemy divisions as well as giving your divisions bonus attack. You just need to contest the airspace somewhat for CAS to get through.
Last but not least why are you against using up the remaining 2 combat width?
Try only do it for collaboration on France for now.
If you are really REALLY desperate,
exploit World Tension and conquer Netherland early-game, e.g. after initial Industry research and filling initial govt positions. You may as well grab Belgium along the way. Makes little difference for Germany though.
Personally, I do it every game for every Axis nation because I am partial to this strategy which I realized long before it appears in any forum or reddit post and applied it to MP after the initial release before I saw anyone else doing it. Otherwise, I wouldn't do it because it is too ahistorical. Just personal preference.
It is a tad frustrating that the likes of the Ardennes armoured thrusts and the race to Sedan of history are difficult if not impossible to replicate with the often huge buildup at he Belgian/German border
Yes, your strategy is great, but I'm not sure if this is also the OP's issue too, but at least I, would like to recreate the historical "Ardennes" path, encircling the French in Belgium.
Indeed, Manstein Plan is not represented in HOI4. France common leaves the coast thinnly defended, makes no attempt to race into Belgium but instead fortify the front behind Luxemburg heavily.
Terrain is simply not represented to such details (and I would say not represented enough). If France had done in real history what it does in HOI4, Germany would've gone along the coast too. HOI4 is not meant to be a set piece game. So while I would love to see terrain playing a greater part -- perhaps heavy artillery having further terrain modifiers on top of sharper terrain distinctions -- and AI front management incorporating terrain, I don't think reenacting Manstein Plan for the sake of it makes a good game.
With low countries, the front is so small. You can't even call it "micro" even if you move troops manually. Still, even though I think the auto battle plan is dysfunctional, you should have no issue pushing through as Germany into low countries. There are some serious issues with your divisions and you probably don't produce/use air force.
Indeed, consult Reman's tutorials on land combat. But honestly, the symptoms you describe go way beyond combat width. There are something seriously amiss in your land forces.
The speed of your breakthrough matter. And that is totally historical.
1k in HOI4 is not the same as 1k in real history. The numbers in vanilla HOI4 are not historical (though they are closer to historical than they are off) and are not balanced. But the real reason you have trouble is that you don't have 3k planes of your own to match. So, match it?
Also, see the point about speed again. If you had taken 6 months to hang out in low countries without progress as Nazi Germany in real history, would RAF have sent more planes?
-----
Now I see your second post.
It's more than just width. I guess you are dedicating AA as a response to your worsening air situations. But you could have AA as support to save the width for something else. Your division lacks artillery which means they lack division attack. In turn, it means your enemy divisions don't take enough org damage. So they don't fall back. Swap some light tanks for SPG. Light SPG has low attack as well. So consider medium SPG. The second medium tank battalions do little to your armor and piercing. Swapping that out frees up your production elsewhere. (Honestly, you are not going to see many others agreeing with this, because they dont need to conserve resources to this extent.)
With the spare resources, consider inbedding some early-game heavy SPG in your inf divisions. For the cheap armor and high attack per combat width. (I wouldn't say you need it for mere France. But it will have an effect.)
With your meds, try to research ahead of time for the armor. (Again, I wouldn't say you need it for mere France. But it will have an effect.)
Don't forget land doctrine. Doctrines take a long time to research to you need to queue them early. Basically right after the initial push for Industry research and nonstop from that point on.
You need to use your air force. You need to intentionally build up your air force Even if you don't have air supremacy, use lots of CAS. Un-intercepted CASs do direct damage on enemy divisions as well as giving your divisions bonus attack. You just need to contest the airspace somewhat for CAS to get through.
Last but not least why are you against using up the remaining 2 combat width?
Try only do it for collaboration on France for now.
If you are really REALLY desperate,
exploit World Tension and conquer Netherland early-game, e.g. after initial Industry research and filling initial govt positions. You may as well grab Belgium along the way. Makes little difference for Germany though.
Personally, I do it every game for every Axis nation because I am partial to this strategy which I realized long before it appears in any forum or reddit post and applied it to MP after the initial release before I saw anyone else doing it. Otherwise, I wouldn't do it because it is too ahistorical. Just personal preference.
Indeed, Manstein Plan is not represented in HOI4. France common leaves the coast thinnly defended, makes no attempt to race into Belgium but instead fortify the front behind Luxemburg heavily.
Terrain is simply not represented to such details (and I would say not represented enough). If France had done in real history what it does in HOI4, Germany would've gone along the coast too. HOI4 is not meant to be a set piece game. So while I would love to see terrain playing a greater part -- perhaps heavy artillery having further terrain modifiers on top of sharper terrain distinctions -- and AI front management incorporating terrain, I don't think reenacting Manstein Plan for the sake of it makes a good game.
Not using the two width, poor management of land experience on my part. Failure to properly build industry, a crying shame that the game does have some sort of ingame tool to forecast what your future production based off current conditions.
Not using the two width, poor management of land experience on my part. Failure to properly build industry, a crying shame that the game does have some sort of ingame tool to forecast what your future production based off current conditions.
Also do this. Decide on a template you wish to build for your mid-game breakthrough divisions. Say it is similar to the 18w division you showed by with the modifications that can be found in this thread. Using the in-game UI, you will know how many tanks/SPG etc you need before you can research them. (except SPG, you need that from your current game in an advanced stage.) Try to have as many such divisions as possible. Say it costs 200 tanks 60 SPG. Then set up your production line so they are roughly in that ratio. The same goes for artillery. (Inf weapon you will always have an excess.) Train quite a few divisions ahead of time. There are ways to estimate how many you can afford eventually. But don't even worry about that. You train more than you need. When you do need to start war, you can then cancel the last few in that are clearly not receiving equipment.
You should have enough land xp for two good 20w divisions from sending volunteers and national focus -- one for armor, one for infantry. Land xp is precious though. Don't waste it early game.
Took me 8 Days to break through Benelux and France.
Rush with my light Panzerdivisions (4tank/3mot/2lSPG) through Netherlands to the coast at Rotterdam and then through belgium alonge the coast deep into France take Paris an all citties in reach with the light tanks and motinf division that run with ~15km/h. AI cant catch them and get brushed aside. With this speed u can block most of france Army in the south an make them surrender quick.
Only Belgium inflicted 1K death through the unfavourable terrain. The French army only inflicted 300 casualties before surrender. Also take only 33.000 casualties themself so u capture most of there equipment. Get 1000 tanks 3700trucks ~55000 rifles and 1000 arty from France and Belgium. That is a nice boost for the Wehrmacht.
control all by myself. No battleplans that spread out like crazy and wast time.
Perhaps I'm just the worst HOI 4 player, but this has become a real problem for me, frankly it is taking the enjoyment out of the game. In particular the massive ahistorical flood of British infantry that pours in through the ports.
To begin with I have a real problem with Luxembourg. This serves as a traffic light stop sign for all intent and purposes. Because of the front mechanic, nice in principle, not so great in practice you get stuck, have to form a new front then push on. Yeah I know "git-gud" you need to micro. Even microing this becomes a chore. The other issue is the great wall of Wallonia on the one province next to Germany. This tends to have 8 divisions, massively dug in, and I have seen soft defense values of over 1000 on some of the divisions. There is zero, room for maneuver, breaking through to Sedan, is at least for me damn near impossible. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the map in this area, and it is only exacerbated by the 80W (W = width) for combat.
Lastly the massive RAF commitment is just pure garbage and has no basis in the reality of the how the war was fought, or the actual constraints that the UK faced. Time and time again, there are over 2.5-3k fighters, and in some instances the first of a couple hundred fighter II's (i.e Spitfires).
I really like this game, some of the things that I thought made it more realistic though, however, I don't think do much of anything. The varied equipment doesn't seem to mean much. From this forum, HOI4 reddit, or the steam community you see over and over again the same equipment and templates. You build a historical template you get punished, everything comes down to 10W, 20W or 40W and the same set up for armor 6 med armor 4 motorized, 10 infantry with support, or 7 infantry 2 artillery, or 14 infantry 4 artillery.
Realize I just ranted, but frustrated after multiple starts and the same thing over and over. May just hit the easy button and play UK/US from now on.
I think you got plenty of good advice, so I will spare you mine.
What I wanted to share was how I was able to pull off the Ardennes path a few times.
I kept failing at the historical German strategy, until I realized that the French forces are going to help out Netherlands and Belgium, if I let them. It was their plan, after all. Unfortunately, the path the French take to reinforce the north is along the border of Luxembourg and Belgium. So, if I attacked right away on day one through Luxembourg I would run into half the French army.
Trying something new I decided to feint at the Netherlands, deliberately not advancing. The French and British rushed their divisions way up there and all along the Belgium and Netherlands borders. I kept my armor and motorized divisions one tile east of Luxembourg so the French did not spot them and try to counter them by piling up divisions in the Ardennes area.
The timing matters. You have to watch the French as they run past you front lines until it begins to thin out some and you see a lot of Allied divisions in the Netherlands. Once, you think the time is right, pin the enemy with infantry attacks, especially around the Ardennes, and launch your armored attack.
If you built your armored divisions correctly and have green air they will defeat the French quickly, but they must continue to do so in bad terrain and low supply until you get past the Sedan area and hit open ground. This means do not skimp on those armored divisions. Good ones are much better than to many that suck up the Ardennes supplies. The motorized divisions need to be capable of 10kph as they must breakout and quickly reach Paris and then the coastline, or some of those Allied divisions up north will come down to counter you.
Thankfully, the French want to surrender and taking their capital and a few other towns is usually all it takes to make it happen.
I was able to take France several times like this. Still, it is much easier to use the coastline strategy as others mentioned, as the AI cannot counter it.
Not using the two width, poor management of land experience on my part. Failure to properly build industry, a crying shame that the game does have some sort of ingame tool to forecast what your future production based off current conditions.
I did forget that I load up the planning bonus before declaring war. That's a 30% or something bonus to attack that let's you take Luxembourg much faster.
Your division is not bad. If you swap the sp-aa for 1 extra light spg, it should be ok for 1939-40. Put support aa instead. Someone said medium spg is much better, but that's false. Both l-spg-2 and m-spg-1 have the exact same Soft Attack 42: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_units_by_year#1939
And lspg is cheaper.
I still think your division will be too small against the Soviets, but that's a different story.
About the pincer attack, it might seem ridiculous, but it's not completely absurd. When the soviets encircled Stalingrad why didnt the germans just bring 1 million soldiers from elsewhere to counter attack? Well, the soviets were attacking over the entire front, so the germans couldn't bring reinforcements because they were pinned down.
Used 20w tankdivisions all the time. They are never "too small". U build 2 20w for 1 40w. so u use 4 instead of 2 on a attack.
Especial in Russia smaller divisions are more useful to grab a lot of Land after u break through. The light tankdivisions can then split up and secure a wide corridor around the encircled russians. The make it harder for them to break the encirclement and also improve your supply.
At russia u should use medium tankdivisions for the breakthrough. Then the light can rush through the gap and rampage behind the lines with ~15km/h an cut of the entire Red Army.
Perhaps I'm just the worst HOI 4 player, but this has become a real problem for me, frankly it is taking the enjoyment out of the game. In particular the massive ahistorical flood of British infantry that pours in through the ports.
To begin with I have a real problem with Luxembourg. This serves as a traffic light stop sign for all intent and purposes. Because of the front mechanic, nice in principle, not so great in practice you get stuck, have to form a new front then push on. Yeah I know "git-gud" you need to micro. Even microing this becomes a chore. The other issue is the great wall of Wallonia on the one province next to Germany. This tends to have 8 divisions, massively dug in, and I have seen soft defense values of over 1000 on some of the divisions. There is zero, room for maneuver, breaking through to Sedan, is at least for me damn near impossible. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the map in this area, and it is only exacerbated by the 80W (W = width) for combat.
Lastly the massive RAF commitment is just pure garbage and has no basis in the reality of the how the war was fought, or the actual constraints that the UK faced. Time and time again, there are over 2.5-3k fighters, and in some instances the first of a couple hundred fighter II's (i.e Spitfires).
I really like this game, some of the things that I thought made it more realistic though, however, I don't think do much of anything. The varied equipment doesn't seem to mean much. From this forum, HOI4 reddit, or the steam community you see over and over again the same equipment and templates. You build a historical template you get punished, everything comes down to 10W, 20W or 40W and the same set up for armor 6 med armor 4 motorized, 10 infantry with support, or 7 infantry 2 artillery, or 14 infantry 4 artillery.
Realize I just ranted, but frustrated after multiple starts and the same thing over and over. May just hit the easy button and play UK/US from now on.
You can break Wallonia, you have 3 provinces to attack from, so 160 width, or 4 40 width armor divisions, or 8 20 width armor. 8 infantry, under red air, will just melt.
Sedan is not particularly tough, it is level 2 fortress usually, so you can cansel entire fort bonus by using proper general and field marshal.
If you want to blitz, either get more fighters then enemy, or put AA/mot.AA/SP.AA into your tanks. Otherwise your attack ill quickly stall because your armor will take massive casualties from air power.
Yes, your strategy is great, but I'm not sure if this is also the OP's issue too, but at least I, would like to recreate the historical "Ardennes" path, encircling the French in Belgium.
It is possible to recreate it, just need to declare war on Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg at the same time. Need to use proper commanders, and make sure you have a pincer that attacks between Metz and Sedan. Still, since there really is no historical French army that advances into Belgium, it makes no sense to implement the race to sea. Race for Switz border, however is very efficient.
At russia u should use medium tankdivisions for the breakthrough. Then the light can rush through the gap and rampage behind the lines with ~15km/h an cut of the entire Red Army.
Again this is the problem, air inferiority, followed by stalemate in Belgium.. I knocked Holland out.
Something happened with the idiotic battle plan when going into Belgium. Stalemate, WWI style now. Close to 500K casualties, more than Operation Barbarossa. I like the game, but this isn't a World War II game at this point. I get it, my micro isn't great, and it is beyond frustrating how this has happened every single time. How some of you have 400 industry and 24 division parachute armies, I don't know, clearly no where's close to "git gud".
I massed every tank knocked out Holland in four days. I think the battle planner completely 100% screwed things up, on the Belgium attack. At this stage I don't think I will every trust an Army Group order again. Successfully paradropped on Rotterdam. Hooray for small victories I suppose.
For context built max fighters from the beginning had ~3k at the start of the war.
This is another "failed" campaign. I think I'm done, at least playing Germany.
Don't use battle plan through France. It is such a tiny front. There is no excuse for insisting on auto battle plan over manual. All battle plan should do here is to give you some initial planning bonus.
And then, perhaps, rejoice that AI is able to organize something that resembles a fighting force. That's how you know you got your money worth.
At this point I think that your only problem was not having backed up a save from right before declaring war on the low countries do you could repeat the attack to perfect it.
Again this is the problem, air inferiority, followed by stalemate in Belgium.. I knocked Holland out.
Something happened with the idiotic battle plan when going into Belgium. Stalemate, WWI style now. Close to 500K casualties, more than Operation Barbarossa. I like the game, but this isn't a World War II game at this point. I get it, my micro isn't great, and it is beyond frustrating how this has happened every single time. How some of you have 400 industry and 24 division parachute armies, I don't know, clearly no where's close to "git gud".
I massed every tank knocked out Holland in four days. I think the battle planner completely 100% screwed things up, on the Belgium attack. At this stage I don't think I will every trust an Army Group order again. Successfully paradropped on Rotterdam. Hooray for small victories I suppose.
For context built max fighters from the beginning had ~3k at the start of the war.
This is another "failed" campaign. I think I'm done, at least playing Germany.
Seems you have no fuel. I see a red bar in the top bar. Without fuel your air mission efficiency is very bad.
37% mission efficieny (even with ground crews) is bad. You have no fuel, are overcrowding your airports or using airports out of range or your airports have low supply. You should have > 80%
Why are there planes on training mission? You are at a critical point of the war. Not the time for training now.
Why do you have naval bombers stationed in the Netherlands?
Who told you to build 100 scout planes? If you are struggeling you should stick to the basics. You should move them away now to free the close range airports for your CAS and Fighters to increase your mission efficiency.
Please click a "battle bubble" and post a screenshot of the combat screen to see some stats of your combats. (Including your tanks.)
Again this is the problem, air inferiority, followed by stalemate in Belgium.. I knocked Holland out.
Something happened with the idiotic battle plan when going into Belgium. Stalemate, WWI style now. Close to 500K casualties, more than Operation Barbarossa. I like the game, but this isn't a World War II game at this point. I get it, my micro isn't great, and it is beyond frustrating how this has happened every single time. How some of you have 400 industry and 24 division parachute armies, I don't know, clearly no where's close to "git gud".
I massed every tank knocked out Holland in four days. I think the battle planner completely 100% screwed things up, on the Belgium attack. At this stage I don't think I will every trust an Army Group order again. Successfully paradropped on Rotterdam. Hooray for small victories I suppose.
For context built max fighters from the beginning had ~3k at the start of the war.
This is another "failed" campaign. I think I'm done, at least playing Germany.
If you ask questions on what is wrong, don't crop the upper panel, is often has important Intel, like your fuel/stability status.
If you have issue with air inferiority, as already mentioned, you should go to basics of your economy management and German early years strategy. Or change division template to compensate.
Did you sent volunteers and attache to Spain, to get maximum of air exp and upgrade Messerschmidt and research good air doctrine?
Besides frustration, it is best to do a good job of describing what you do, what you use your industry for, and so on.
At this point I think that your only problem was not having backed up a save from right before declaring war on the low countries do you could repeat the attack to perfect it.
Apologies for the border gore, first time having Belgian-Germany wasn't what I intended. Followed the advice about the hook around Holland it worked. Pin the French behind the maginot line and the Swiss border, was great, expect for well, the puppet issue. But that is a different topic.
The culprit in a lot of this was my infantry, I had not updated the original template. I have built 40W 14-4 infantry battalion (BN) artillery BN but basically upgraded all of the original units to this template this game. Also some of the others with about 20-30 of these divisions much different outcome. The video tutorial that was referenced was helpful.
Apologies for the prior cropped screen shot, was using the Window's snipping tool (i.e. Windows Key + SHFT + s).
I have neglected the Kreigsmarine, so I don't think I will be in a position to pull a See Lion. Of a mind to play this until Barbarrosa, just to see what the next level of challenges are.
You are correct the lack of tempo with my offensive resulted in a build up of well dug in infantry and a quagmire. That is an impressive amount of industry. You should elaborate on one of the different 1.9 build threads.
The industrial is because is a pre LaR run, after LaR my industry is very close to ur screenshots..,..., but i have new "strategy" for LaR anyway, when i have time i will post. normally i play historically til fall of France, then after that i grab some ahistorically conquests before barbarrosa.
You guys are making things overly complicated. You don't need ANY medium tanks at all for France. Don't bother with them until you have MT2 researched. You don't need paratroopers. You don't need some complicated thing with 10000 branching arrows from the battleplan.
1) Have at least 3k fighters at the start of the war. Another 1500 CAS to go with that.
2) Have 6-12 20W LT divisions. 6LT/4MOT. Don't build SPArt or anything like that. Just simple stuff.
Before you attack, some things to note: You only have a one province border with Belgium. Because they have no other enemies, this means they put their entire army there, and have 0 troops elsewhere. This is important information to know, as it means if you can pin them with an attack and go around them (like say, through luxembourg), they're doomed, and you can capitulate them just by pinning their army in place and going around. Also note: France and the UK have 0 troops in Belgium and the Netherlands to start with. France also doesn't have any troops on the Belgian border, because it considers them an ally. This means you have ~1 week before any French troops could possibly reach the Belgian front on strategic redeploy. This gives some hints on what you need to do.
3) Launch holding attacks on Metz, to pen the French troops. Launch holding attacks on the 1 Belgian province you border, to pin the Belgian troops.
4) Send your tanks through luxembourg. You also want to send ~12 infantry divisions with them, for future holding attacks.
5) Move the tanks behind the Belgian troops and march to the sea, following the French/Belgian border. The infantry should follow, and you should be doing holding attacks on any French troops you see. Particularly at the start this is critical in areas like Sedan to keep them from moving forces up. It doesn't matter if you end up losing those holding attacks, the whole point is to prevent their troops from reinforcing the low countries.
6) Your tanks should make it to the Channel in 3-4 days. At this point the game is over, Belgium and the Netherlands are done as they are completely cut off. Grab the Belgian VPs (assuming their entire army is still trapped via pinning attacks on that border province).
7) Regroup your tanks and concentrate attacks to take Paris and the area around Cherbourg. France should fall within the week.
I've never had it taken longer than 3 weeks to kill France from the outset of hostilities with Belgium. I never build MTs for the fall of France, or crazy 40W divisions. Just 20W infantry (10 Inf, no arty), and 20W LT. The bulk of your production should be on fighters and CAS, it's air superiority that wins the war. You want ~3-4k fighters at the start of the war. Typically this means you should put 15 of your starting factories on fighters, and then put your first factories on fighters until you get ~30 there. I usually boost this to 60 once France falls- fighters are your most important production output, more important than tanks. Make sure you have the synths to cover the rubber costs.
Also from your other post about losing the battle of Britain- don't ever run out of fuel. You run out of fuel you lose the game. You can trade with Romania, Iran, and Iraq for oil to cover fuel needs. You can also trade with the Soviets at this point in the war, but be aware that doing so makes them stronger, so they should be a last resort. Typically the only trade you should have with the Russians is for tungsten at the outbreak of the war when your Portuguese trading route is cut off. Once France falls you can switch back to Portugal. Also, you should start FW190 research at the start of 1939, you want it done somewhere around the start of the war. Also do 5/5 engines before any other upgrades on your fighters, it's the most important.
See my screenshots- I declare war as soon as around the maginot is done (sept 20), and a week later Belgium and the Netherlands are done. 3 days after the 2nd screenshot France falls. Total time from Belgian DoW to Fall of France: 10 days. I'm sure you can do it faster if you're trying, I just loaded up a save from an industry test run that was at the right point in time and played this out for 10 minutes.
You guys are making things overly complicated. You don't need ANY medium tanks at all for France. Don't bother with them until you have MT2 researched. You don't need paratroopers. You don't need some complicated thing with 10000 branching arrows from the battleplan.
1) Have at least 3k fighters at the start of the war. Another 1500 CAS to go with that.
2) Have 6-12 20W LT divisions. 6LT/4MOT. Don't build SPArt or anything like that. Just simple stuff.
Before you attack, some things to note: You only have a one province border with Belgium. Because they have no other enemies, this means they put their entire army there, and have 0 troops elsewhere. This is important information to know, as it means if you can pin them with an attack and go around them (like say, through luxembourg), they're doomed, and you can capitulate them just by pinning their army in place and going around. Also note: France and the UK have 0 troops in Belgium and the Netherlands to start with. France also doesn't have any troops on the Belgian border, because it considers them an ally. This means you have ~1 week before any French troops could possibly reach the Belgian front on strategic redeploy. This gives some hints on what you need to do.
3) Launch holding attacks on Metz, to pen the French troops. Launch holding attacks on the 1 Belgian province you border, to pin the Belgian troops.
4) Send your tanks through luxembourg. You also want to send ~12 infantry divisions with them, for future holding attacks.
5) Move the tanks behind the Belgian troops and march to the sea, following the French/Belgian border. The infantry should follow, and you should be doing holding attacks on any French troops you see. Particularly at the start this is critical in areas like Sedan to keep them from moving forces up. It doesn't matter if you end up losing those holding attacks, the whole point is to prevent their troops from reinforcing the low countries.
6) Your tanks should make it to the Channel in 3-4 days. At this point the game is over, Belgium and the Netherlands are done as they are completely cut off. Grab the Belgian VPs (assuming their entire army is still trapped via pinning attacks on that border province).
7) Regroup your tanks and concentrate attacks to take Paris and the area around Cherbourg. France should fall within the week.
I've never had it taken longer than 3 weeks to kill France from the outset of hostilities with Belgium. I never build MTs for the fall of France, or crazy 40W divisions. Just 20W infantry (10 Inf, no arty), and 20W LT. The bulk of your production should be on fighters and CAS, it's air superiority that wins the war. You want ~3-4k fighters at the start of the war. Typically this means you should put 15 of your starting factories on fighters, and then put your first factories on fighters until you get ~30 there. I usually boost this to 60 once France falls- fighters are your most important production output, more important than tanks. Make sure you have the synths to cover the rubber costs.
Also from your other post about losing the battle of Britain- don't ever run out of fuel. You run out of fuel you lose the game. You can trade with Romania, Iran, and Iraq for oil to cover fuel needs. You can also trade with the Soviets at this point in the war, but be aware that doing so makes them stronger, so they should be a last resort. Typically the only trade you should have with the Russians is for tungsten at the outbreak of the war when your Portuguese trading route is cut off. Once France falls you can switch back to Portugal. Also, you should start FW190 research at the start of 1939, you want it done somewhere around the start of the war. Also do 5/5 engines before any other upgrades on your fighters, it's the most important.
See my screenshots- I declare war as soon as around the maginot is done (sept 20), and a week later Belgium and the Netherlands are done. 3 days after the 2nd screenshot later France falls. Total time from Belgian DoW to Fall of France: 10 days.
40 W was in response to a post above about tutorials by YouTuber Reman, it's a couple of posts above, the link. But I thank you for your detailed response. I have found that building a mass of medium armor can become a big burden on your limited resources due to the requirement to trade for tungsten. So less CIVs to build other things.
I have been on the receiving end of the holding attacks, and have started to do the same. Light SPGs were an attempt to raise soft attack, but if you break through and race to the coast, not really necessary, as you have demonstrated.
I don't think I have the appetite for MP, so some templates/production are more for flavor or semi-historical order of battle/table of organization and equipment (TO&E).
40 W was in response to a post above about tutorials by YouTuber Reman, it's a couple of posts above, the link. But I thank you for your detailed response. I have found that building a mass of medium armor can become a big burden on your limited resources due to the requirement to trade for tungsten. So less CIVs to build other things.
I have been on the receiving end of the holding attacks, and have started to do the same. Light SPGs were an attempt to raise soft attack, but if you break through and race to the coast, not really necessary, as you have demonstrated.
I don't think I have the appetite for MP, so some templates/production are more for flavor or semi-historical order of battle/table of organization and equipment (TO&E).
MT are useful for Russia, but you simply can't get them in decent numbers for France/Poland without making too many sacrifices, and they aren't necessary for Poland or France. Once you research MT2 (probably finished at the end of '38, depending on when you do armor treaty), then you can start building them, but I wouldn't even bother putting them in the field until you want to take on Russia. I'd also argue that MT are inferior to LT against Poland and France. At that point in the game they are going to struggle to even pen the LT, and you want the speed to overrun France as fast as possible.
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