How to beat France with Germany?

[Fipse]

Hello everyone.

Normally i am a ok HoI player

But since Darkest Hour i seem unable to beat France.

Poland is easy, Norway a bit tricky with Great Britain invading. But a nice Luftwaffe bombs their ships away pretty quickly.

But France is impossible for me to beat. I move into Belgium but if their is only one Devision in Sedan it is over. It takes way too long to beat this poor little Division and France moves dozens of Devisions into Belguim.
How am i suppose to make the Sichelschnitt when 1 Devision can hold up against 3 Tank Devision several days?

 

[nattai]

Yeah, it is a bit harder now to knock France out. Combined arms is really necessary. Use your infantry to do the grunt work, with the luftwaffe on ground support and then try and slip the panzers through any holes. I find that artillery brigades help a lot, especially if you research the techs which improve their soft attack. On the plus side France should only have the tank division(s) they start with, cause they lack the tech required to build them till late 1940 at least, so once the breakthrough is made you should be able to outmanouver them and cut them of at the coast.

On the other side, playing as France I really had no trouble at all grinding the German advance to a halt on the border and keeping it there, which I could never do in vanilla HoI2 without building fortresses everywhere, so things between them are pretty even now.

Also you might want to reconsider you build program if you only have three tank divisions in 1940? I found myself in that position on my first play through and so had to restart giving a lot more emphasis to building armour.

 

[pwncake111]

First of all stocking works in DH. What i do to defeat France is move all your panzers and mot to dutch border. Go to Limburg then to eindhoven then antwerp and then down to France. Works every time.
keep your inf attacking borders in belgium and upper france so they cant retreat the forces to stop you.Use you panzers against undefended teritories so you can go by them and use mot or inf to the defended teritories.

 

[Fipse]

I will try moving over Dutch provinces and not Luxenburg and then Belguim->Sedan.

I have enough tanks, about 7. Should be enough i guess.

 

[T.j. Arnold]

I will try moving over Dutch provinces and not Luxenburg and then Belguim->Sedan.

I have enough tanks, about 7. Should be enough i guess.

If you plan on fighting Russia/U.S.A. ever, you will be needing a lot more... The Germans focused mostly on tanks (and infantry with MG's).

 

[Fipse]

If you plan on fighting Russia/U.S.A. ever, you will be needing a lot more... The Germans focused mostly on tanks (and infantry with MG's).

Of course. But i have to build a Luftwaffe too and i have to upgrade my infanterie.

 

[unmerged(83496)]

My upgrades need is up over 500 IC now.

 

[unmerged(300058)]

First i beat the Dutch, then my 15 divisions somehow breakthrough the north and i captured Paris, after that event showed up, showing up armistice

 

[Klewer]

Militia are so much more effective in DH make use of them and use mot infantry if you don't have tanks cheaper and slower build time. Also try and encircle French units in the Netherlands and Belgium.

 

[RiseOrDie]

it sounds like most people here are talking about how to win in iron cross or aod. darkest hour is completely different when it comes to france.

to do this you will need:

- at least 90 infantry divisions
- at least 12 tank divisions
- at least 3 hqs
- at least 10 motorised divisions
- at least 4 Calvary divisions

In reality the germans had 141 divisions and the allies had 144.

for air you will need

- 16 CAS
- 8 fighters
- 12 inter
- 8 tactical
- 4 stragic

I suggest you place your fast units near Luxenbourg and southern Belgium, this is where you will break through them, you will place most of your troops here.

before you invade, use your strategic bombers for logistical strike on the maginot line, this will lower infrastructure there thus reducing the enemy speed to relocate.
use your bombers to destroy airports, the idea is to not allow enemy aircrafts to reorganise as fast as they want to.

begin the invasion with as many troops on assault as possible (if you have the resources)

breakthrough belgium and luxemburg, there should be no resistance at first. then you will see the enmy once you move into belgium and luxemburg. carefully attack in the best way, using attack and support attack from different provinces. this is where your fighters/inter come in and your CAS, use your CAS for ground support. this is very very important. without ground support you will move very slow and eventually just sit there. ground support will take chunks off the enemy organisation. with low infastructure you will see the french struggling to move back.

DO NOT TRY and encircle the French in the Netherlands or Belgium, this will slow you down by at least a month or two, in fact it could ruin your advance. you want to keep your lines clean without encirclement until you destroy Belgium and the Netherlands.

you see when you break through Luxembourg and belgium you should head towards bruges. thus cutting them off from any support. do not use those troops to go back and support the Netherlands, instead now you find holes or weak points to move towards paris. while having small armies take care of the rest of belgium and the netherlands. DONT LEAVE BEACHES UNPROTECTED!

best way is to support attack on lille from all direction this taking the airport, now your only a few provinces away from paris.

take paris, then do a swing on the maginot line, those troops from belgium and the netherlands should have finished by now and joined your main lines, move towards the maginot and the event will pop up.

 

[unmerged(41190)]

I did it with fewer land units. I concentrate on CAS to sap their morale and ability to fight (ground support). I make sure i have the Ju87-G, as this ripps up infantary. With their moral gone, they cant fight at all, and i just roll over them. I have no less than 20 CAS, grouped in 5 air groups. (4 units in each) and i only target the enemy units my land units will attack next.
Once their units have been defeated (and are 'gray flagging) and i have taken that ground, air units will switch from ground support to ground attack. This destroys them.
Using the above, i take out France easily and my land units hardly have to fight at all.

"To Win Without Fighting Is the the Acme of Skill". Sun Tzu

 

[Unit101]

I cannot imagine it is possible to build that many units, RiseOrDie. How did you manage to do that? I had 126 divisions by september 1940. Also waiting out the whole phoney war seems dangerous because the British are very good at bombing factories.

As for having 20 CAS, how many land divisions do you have?

EDIT: please tell me what I'm doing wrong, province-wise, why there has been no armistice (other than me being able to raise claims) with France? http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1435/fraop.png

After I could raise the claims (after capturing Paris) no response from France, with a lot of trouble I took over the Maginot line, nothing happens. So do I have to take them out all the way to Marseille before anything happens? I'm already 10 months at war with France (instead of a few weeks in usual games).

 

[Otacon]

Killing AI France is easy in DH. Maybe not as easy as in AoD/HoI2, but still easy enough. You don't need no Luftwaffe if you don't want to. Just see that you have like 10 light tank divisions by 1940.

I use a medium-sized force to fake-attack the marginot line, while pushing huge chunks of infantry to luxemburg. Luxemburg is either taken quickly or turns out to get a meat grinder for the french troops which try to move to belgium etc. The tanks rush right through belgium into france, with the infantry moving behind. The most important thing is that you start your attack in summer. Do not do Fall Gelb when there is snow, you will regret it.

 

[lorenzfx]

I believe RiseOrDie's numbers are really not necessary. I mostly have something like 6 light tank and 4-6 mot divs, 6 tac, 6 cas, 8 int for defence of my factories and 4 figther for air sup. missions.


My main attack (all mobile units and some inf) goes through Belgium and northern France to the channel coast. The first few time I had very similair problems: I managed to to take the first province but while my divisions were reorganising french troops amassed in the next provinces.

Now I give the mobile troops orders to advance through at least three provinces, keeping them from pausing for reorganization. Than outmanouver the French with the mobile forces, reinforcing the gap with inf, cutting of Belgium and the Netherlands from France, mop up their armies with inf divs and keep heading for paris...

 

[Fipse]

Now I give the mobile troops orders to advance through at least three provinces, keeping them from pausing for reorganization. Than outmanouver the French with the mobile forces, reinforcing the gap with inf, cutting of Belgium and the Netherlands from France, mop up their armies with inf divs and keep heading for paris...

I tried it with 9 tank devisions, serval mobil infanterie and a good part of my normal infanterie. The frensh army is just oo big, they have about 20 devisions at every border province. There is no way i could break through.

 

[Otacon]

Then you did something wrong right from the beginning.

 

[unmerged(189717)]

In reality the germans had 141 divisions and the allies had 144.

I'm pretty sure the Allies outnumbered Germany by 1:1,5. Or do you mean just the troops deployed between Paris and the Benelux states?

 

[RiseOrDie]

I'm pretty sure the Allies outnumbered Germany by 1:1,5. Or do you mean just the troops deployed between Paris and the Benelux states?

i read it in a book "Germany and the Second World War: Germany's initial conquests in Europe"

and yes, not counting the allies stationed in the maginot line.

 

[Fipse]

Then you did something wrong right from the beginning.

I am sure i did everything right. I commanded my tanks directly to Sedan. And there already 10 Divisions waited for them, the howl border region was manned with Frensh, British and Commenwealth troops

 

[Otacon]

When did Poland fall and when did you begin with Fall Gelb?