That was very badly organized attack on the Benelux for the Germans, lets hope the IJA can do better ... or more realistic, they will do worse and the Soviets will take all.
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"We will look for how history unfolds, and, maybe, the "Mortal Phoenix" plan, which is on the table, will be the one put into action. This is the plan B. I find plan B a bit riskier, but also with a guaranteed victory against both the Nazis and the Soviets." Good to see my plan is at least on the table. 
I was going to tell you to withdraw from Indochina, because it isn't worth protecting. However, RoverS3 makes a good point that you gain an increased in manpower by holding Indochina. I think for now you should hold it, because of manpower being a big issue for France. It is 1942, so I would be very careful using your navy in the Pacific. I suggest letting US and UK deal with Japan, as I usually see them invade Japan (albeit in 1945 or later, but they usually do).
In terms of invading Italy...you need a strong force to breakthrough. You would think it would be a walk in the park, but Axis assistance turns it into a slogfest.
I was going to tell you to withdraw from Indochina, because it isn't worth protecting. However, RoverS3 makes a good point that you gain an increased in manpower by holding Indochina. I think for now you should hold it, because of manpower being a big issue for France. It is 1942, so I would be very careful using your navy in the Pacific. I suggest letting US and UK deal with Japan, as I usually see them invade Japan (albeit in 1945 or later, but they usually do).
In terms of invading Italy...you need a strong force to breakthrough. You would think it would be a walk in the park, but Axis assistance turns it into a slogfest.
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Achilles' Heel
Right as the French HQ generals and the distinguished military advisors from Paradox Forum - a secret organization rumoured to come from an alternative future and able to talk with our leadership due to technological leaps in quantum mechanics (weird and apparently not so useless theory of those despicable Germans) - were busy assessing the merits and risks of withdrawing the Oversea corps from French Indochina to counter more effectively the German and possibly Italian threats, Nazi Germany continued to attack and probe the Allied defences in the Low Countries, on various locations.
Our experience shows, the enemy initiates multiple attacks simultaneously at irregular intervals [NOTE: For a mysterious reason most, though not all, of the attack waves occur whenever I log in into the saved game.]. First we thought the Germans were simply trying to hide from us the main thrust direction, with a string of fake offensives. The newer theory is they are trying to periodically assess the numbers and composition of enemy defence positions, and decide ad hoc where the main offensive thrust will best take place. We might only find out the truth only decades after this bloody war will be over, and the archives will be open, however by that time this will be useless information for France.
On the 25 November 1942, although the German aviation didn't completely recover from the previous round of fighting two weeks ago, the German High Command ordered a new offensive on two of our positions, which were recently spared, in a clear attempt to crack the Allied defence and push through as far as possible toward the French borders.
The Roermond Attack
On the 25 November 1942 at 11:00 five German divisions advanced toward the Allied positions, where 5 French divisions and the 2nd British Royal Marines division were dug in. Artillery bombardment followed suit from both sides. Things were not looking good for the adversary, who couldn't gauge yet how many troops they were facing, while having a hard time traversing the river under heavy fire. They called in the bombers, who were promptly chased a way by the Allied fighters after making only 150 fatalities. The Germans sent then a weakened Interceptors' air group (one air wing has been eliminated in previous air fights) to protect their bombers and re-establish air superiority, suffering a swift aerial defeat.
25 November 1942 - Roermond under attack
At 18:00 o'clock the Germans understood the battle was not in their favour and stopped hostilities. In fact, they had the option to attack Roermond from four directions, as they tried in the past, offsetting the river crossing disadvantage, but in absence of aerial superiority and air bombing support, the human price would have been huge. Therefore, they wisely chose to step back.
Victory at Roermond
Offensive in Afsluitdijk
The second attack took place synchronously in Afsluitdijk at the most northern Allied defensive outpost. At first the French HQ didn't pay much attention to this battle, because, on the one side the Germans have initiated countless probe attacks in the past, only to abort them in a few hours or days, and on the other side France has bolstered her divisions' number, while manning the well fortified position with 2 AA divisions (1xInf + 4xAA, as a test of AA divisions).
That proved soon to be a costly mistake. On the ground, the Germans steadily increased the pressure with more and more divisions entering the frame, and slowly turning the tide of battle to their favour. The change of odds was so slow, that the French higher officers didn't even notice it during the first week. The AA divisions, meant to help the Allies protect against aerial bombings in absence of aerial defence, which happened with regularity given the Allied air forces were involved in bitter fights elsewhere, were no match for the heavily armed German infantry and artillery. While the Roermond battle raged, German bombers caused havoc in the mainly French defensive lines at Afsluitdijk, killing thousands of soldiers. France's single full interceptor group stationed in Belgium intervened right after Roermond came to a resolution, encountering the enemy bombers, but was swiftly intercepted by fresh German air fighters. Both sides fought to the bone. We tried to bring in more airplanes, but there was no airport capacity left in Belgium and Holland.
Namely, the technologically and doctrinally superior Luftwaffe has annihilated many Belgian and Dutch air wings, but the British stepped in with their fighters in the free slots, having their own operational objectives. At this time, the latter started strategic bombing over German cities and industrial centres, but they were met with decisive opposition from the Luftwaffe and had to escort those strategic bombers with fighters (INT and/or FTR). We're not sure how effective the British strategic bombing campaign was, but this surely impeded our capacity to strengthen the aerial defence of Afsluitdijk.
One of the reasons the Germans stopped early the Roermond offensive was that their interceptors have certainly spotted a full corpse of French medium tanks stationed right behind in the neighbouring provinces ready to intervene in case things would have turned sour for the Allies. By the beginning of December, that armoured corps being at the end of the process of receiving the fifth brigade, given the gravity of the situation at the most northern positions, was finally sent to Afsluitdijk to literally save the day.
Our AA batteries, not fully up to date [I couldn't modernize the AA techs because of priorities elsewhere and low French LP], and under ground bombardment, could not efficiently counter the rain of enemy bombers, who eventually could roam the airspace under the French limitations of bringing more airpower to the frontline.
The land battle became a bloodier affair with every passing week for both sides, though the French started losing more men due to the incessant air bombings.
Feeling emboldened by the success in Afluitdijk, the Luftwaffe started bombing Allied frontlines across the Low Countries' borders, but French Interceptors at full strength and organisation from France countered them successfully, with high losses on both sides. On the 10th of December the exhausted French air group in Belgium was replaced by a new one, which only with half organisation entered immediately in combat over the skies of Afsluitijk. That was a lucky decision, since the German air to air force was also low powered by the dog-fights across the Belgian and Dutch borders the days before. By the 17 December the German bomber raids had to stop completely. The next day a tactical French air group (3xTAC + 1xFTR) started to bomb the attackers. The Germans sent new Interceptors forcing us to halt after three raids. The German combined troops nonetheless continued to slowly advance through the severely weakened French positions (-80) threatening to finally break our defences, while two French divisions were routed fleeing west for safety, until the wee hours of 19 December when the first two of our medium tanks divisions entered the battlefield. Shortly later, the other three armoured divisions joined in stopping in its tracks the advancing enemy, who wasn't in best shape itself after so many weeks of battle. The fierce tank and artillery battle lasted for 10 hours. Finally overwhelmed by such a great number of tanks, the Germans were increasingly pushed back behind the provincial borders, some of their divisions retreating disorderly from battle as ours did a day earlier. At 13:00 o'clock the enemy had to concede defeat interrupting the failed offensive.
Another heroic battle ended that day. 45.640 French heroes lost their lives for the Motherland (without counting the approx. 3.000 to 4.000 casualties from enemy air raids), while 44.320 Germans lost theirs for the Reich [Remember the decision to multiply by 10 the casualties numbers for historical plausibility.].
The long battle of Afsluitdijk
The Germans have found the Achilles' heel in the Allied defence and we were not amused at all, feverishly working toward closing that vulnerability.
Creating more infantry divisions to fill the frontline cost lots of MP, of which France is so short of (drop from 830 to 715 after new orders and battle casualties). By the beginning of 1943 the French medium armours were largely brought up to date, and we got a respectable number of them too, all being modernized to the 1942 standards. The next upgrades are scheduled take place in 1944.
On the bleak side, the Heavy armour programme is eating a lot of LP and the technological advance is maddingly slow! The 1938 threshold was barely reached in some respects, only to discover in horror, that the next technological hurdle is set in 1939. That means we have to research the next level every single year instead of every 2 years as the case with the other armours is?
On the other side of the Globe, the French and the Japanese navies met for the first time in battle. The outcome of that battle has influenced greatly the debate around the deployment of the elite French Indochina's corps. Important developments on the diplomatic front also marked the beginning of 1943, but on all these things and others we will write in the coming chapters.
P.S.: Unfortunately, the Afsluitdijk episode is less documented in graphical terms because nobody in the Allied camp realised during the first weeks the importance of the battle, everyone thinking Roermond was the big bet of the Nazis and celebrating that aah... decisive Allied victory. In hindsight, it was a blunder that cost many lives, a loss that could have been averted. History is full of blunders and this time it taught us a painful lesson.
Right as the French HQ generals and the distinguished military advisors from Paradox Forum - a secret organization rumoured to come from an alternative future and able to talk with our leadership due to technological leaps in quantum mechanics (weird and apparently not so useless theory of those despicable Germans) - were busy assessing the merits and risks of withdrawing the Oversea corps from French Indochina to counter more effectively the German and possibly Italian threats, Nazi Germany continued to attack and probe the Allied defences in the Low Countries, on various locations.
Our experience shows, the enemy initiates multiple attacks simultaneously at irregular intervals [NOTE: For a mysterious reason most, though not all, of the attack waves occur whenever I log in into the saved game.]. First we thought the Germans were simply trying to hide from us the main thrust direction, with a string of fake offensives. The newer theory is they are trying to periodically assess the numbers and composition of enemy defence positions, and decide ad hoc where the main offensive thrust will best take place. We might only find out the truth only decades after this bloody war will be over, and the archives will be open, however by that time this will be useless information for France.
On the 25 November 1942, although the German aviation didn't completely recover from the previous round of fighting two weeks ago, the German High Command ordered a new offensive on two of our positions, which were recently spared, in a clear attempt to crack the Allied defence and push through as far as possible toward the French borders.
The Roermond Attack
On the 25 November 1942 at 11:00 five German divisions advanced toward the Allied positions, where 5 French divisions and the 2nd British Royal Marines division were dug in. Artillery bombardment followed suit from both sides. Things were not looking good for the adversary, who couldn't gauge yet how many troops they were facing, while having a hard time traversing the river under heavy fire. They called in the bombers, who were promptly chased a way by the Allied fighters after making only 150 fatalities. The Germans sent then a weakened Interceptors' air group (one air wing has been eliminated in previous air fights) to protect their bombers and re-establish air superiority, suffering a swift aerial defeat.
25 November 1942 - Roermond under attack
At 18:00 o'clock the Germans understood the battle was not in their favour and stopped hostilities. In fact, they had the option to attack Roermond from four directions, as they tried in the past, offsetting the river crossing disadvantage, but in absence of aerial superiority and air bombing support, the human price would have been huge. Therefore, they wisely chose to step back.
Victory at Roermond
Offensive in Afsluitdijk
The second attack took place synchronously in Afsluitdijk at the most northern Allied defensive outpost. At first the French HQ didn't pay much attention to this battle, because, on the one side the Germans have initiated countless probe attacks in the past, only to abort them in a few hours or days, and on the other side France has bolstered her divisions' number, while manning the well fortified position with 2 AA divisions (1xInf + 4xAA, as a test of AA divisions).
That proved soon to be a costly mistake. On the ground, the Germans steadily increased the pressure with more and more divisions entering the frame, and slowly turning the tide of battle to their favour. The change of odds was so slow, that the French higher officers didn't even notice it during the first week. The AA divisions, meant to help the Allies protect against aerial bombings in absence of aerial defence, which happened with regularity given the Allied air forces were involved in bitter fights elsewhere, were no match for the heavily armed German infantry and artillery. While the Roermond battle raged, German bombers caused havoc in the mainly French defensive lines at Afsluitdijk, killing thousands of soldiers. France's single full interceptor group stationed in Belgium intervened right after Roermond came to a resolution, encountering the enemy bombers, but was swiftly intercepted by fresh German air fighters. Both sides fought to the bone. We tried to bring in more airplanes, but there was no airport capacity left in Belgium and Holland.
Namely, the technologically and doctrinally superior Luftwaffe has annihilated many Belgian and Dutch air wings, but the British stepped in with their fighters in the free slots, having their own operational objectives. At this time, the latter started strategic bombing over German cities and industrial centres, but they were met with decisive opposition from the Luftwaffe and had to escort those strategic bombers with fighters (INT and/or FTR). We're not sure how effective the British strategic bombing campaign was, but this surely impeded our capacity to strengthen the aerial defence of Afsluitdijk.
One of the reasons the Germans stopped early the Roermond offensive was that their interceptors have certainly spotted a full corpse of French medium tanks stationed right behind in the neighbouring provinces ready to intervene in case things would have turned sour for the Allies. By the beginning of December, that armoured corps being at the end of the process of receiving the fifth brigade, given the gravity of the situation at the most northern positions, was finally sent to Afsluitdijk to literally save the day.
Our AA batteries, not fully up to date [I couldn't modernize the AA techs because of priorities elsewhere and low French LP], and under ground bombardment, could not efficiently counter the rain of enemy bombers, who eventually could roam the airspace under the French limitations of bringing more airpower to the frontline.
The land battle became a bloodier affair with every passing week for both sides, though the French started losing more men due to the incessant air bombings.
Feeling emboldened by the success in Afluitdijk, the Luftwaffe started bombing Allied frontlines across the Low Countries' borders, but French Interceptors at full strength and organisation from France countered them successfully, with high losses on both sides. On the 10th of December the exhausted French air group in Belgium was replaced by a new one, which only with half organisation entered immediately in combat over the skies of Afsluitijk. That was a lucky decision, since the German air to air force was also low powered by the dog-fights across the Belgian and Dutch borders the days before. By the 17 December the German bomber raids had to stop completely. The next day a tactical French air group (3xTAC + 1xFTR) started to bomb the attackers. The Germans sent new Interceptors forcing us to halt after three raids. The German combined troops nonetheless continued to slowly advance through the severely weakened French positions (-80) threatening to finally break our defences, while two French divisions were routed fleeing west for safety, until the wee hours of 19 December when the first two of our medium tanks divisions entered the battlefield. Shortly later, the other three armoured divisions joined in stopping in its tracks the advancing enemy, who wasn't in best shape itself after so many weeks of battle. The fierce tank and artillery battle lasted for 10 hours. Finally overwhelmed by such a great number of tanks, the Germans were increasingly pushed back behind the provincial borders, some of their divisions retreating disorderly from battle as ours did a day earlier. At 13:00 o'clock the enemy had to concede defeat interrupting the failed offensive.
Another heroic battle ended that day. 45.640 French heroes lost their lives for the Motherland (without counting the approx. 3.000 to 4.000 casualties from enemy air raids), while 44.320 Germans lost theirs for the Reich [Remember the decision to multiply by 10 the casualties numbers for historical plausibility.].
The long battle of Afsluitdijk
The Germans have found the Achilles' heel in the Allied defence and we were not amused at all, feverishly working toward closing that vulnerability.
Creating more infantry divisions to fill the frontline cost lots of MP, of which France is so short of (drop from 830 to 715 after new orders and battle casualties). By the beginning of 1943 the French medium armours were largely brought up to date, and we got a respectable number of them too, all being modernized to the 1942 standards. The next upgrades are scheduled take place in 1944.
On the bleak side, the Heavy armour programme is eating a lot of LP and the technological advance is maddingly slow! The 1938 threshold was barely reached in some respects, only to discover in horror, that the next technological hurdle is set in 1939. That means we have to research the next level every single year instead of every 2 years as the case with the other armours is?
On the other side of the Globe, the French and the Japanese navies met for the first time in battle. The outcome of that battle has influenced greatly the debate around the deployment of the elite French Indochina's corps. Important developments on the diplomatic front also marked the beginning of 1943, but on all these things and others we will write in the coming chapters.
P.S.: Unfortunately, the Afsluitdijk episode is less documented in graphical terms because nobody in the Allied camp realised during the first weeks the importance of the battle, everyone thinking Roermond was the big bet of the Nazis and celebrating that aah... decisive Allied victory. In hindsight, it was a blunder that cost many lives, a loss that could have been averted. History is full of blunders and this time it taught us a painful lesson.
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The AI resets its plans when you reboot, so the longer the session the smoother the flow by the ai.
Just in time, for sure. Good use of the armoured reserve.
Even without that, this was a large and important battle.
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A, Infantry brigade with some AA guns attached, will never be a match for a regular Infantry Division with heavy Artillery, especially on the defensive. I'm not sure what French high command was thinking, with Afsluitdijk being such a crucial province and all... That said, it's an interesting test, I haven't seen anyone try out Inf, AAx4 Divisions before. Glad the Tanks repelled the Germans in the end. That could have been a disaster.
After 1939 it's every 2 years. 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, ... But yes, developing H Arm and keeping it up to date is more expensive in Leadership than doing so with Arm as the difficulty level of the H Arm techs is level 7 difficulty compared to level 5 for Arm, you also have that initial 1938-1939 thing, and the fact that you have to develop Arm to Level 3 before you can even access H Arm. As an alternative, you can get your Tank Destroyer brigades to a point were they counter enemy H Arm adequately for significantly less Leadership investment. (though you still need some H Arm techs to max out TD Armour)
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"Distinguished" is a strong term to use for such an organization, I might say.
Always this is the story against Germany, the Allied or Comintern air forces simply cannot stem the losses from air attacks along the front it seems.
I wholly approve of multiplying the casualties here, as vanilla HoI3 is simply horrible about casualty numbers. However I would suggest that these numbers include dead, wounded, and lost/missing in action instead of being 45,000 dead on each side, which seems excessive for all but the bloodiest WWII sieges.
Probably it is better to attach 3-4 AA brigades to a corps HQ if the air defense is needed. I think this is more historical as well but as armies always varied I cannot be certain.
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You could try something cheeky, but it depends on the state of your navy and if you have landing crafts. My idea is to have you land your armoured tanks in both Heerenveen and the province above it. You likely need about 4 armoured tanks for each province (8 total armoured tanks). You would use your air force to attack the units guarding those provinces, and have navy units with shore bombardment. You want to get onto land as quickly as possible. Once your armoured units landed, you would have then encircled any Germany troops directly next to Afsluitdijk. You would attack and destroy the pocket by all directions. After that, you would retreat your units back to Afsluitdijk, and let the Axis regain their lost land. You would then repeat the process. That might be the most cost-effective way to do as much damage to the Germany as possible, while losing as little manpower as possible.
Make sure you keep your navy units near those provinces in case the plan backfires, and you need to retreat your units back to your landing craft.
Make sure you keep your navy units near those provinces in case the plan backfires, and you need to retreat your units back to your landing craft.
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A bloody lesson to be sure, but it could have been a lot worse.
Best option is using the IC to build fighters, it might cost a bit more and take a bit longer but it has much more chance of working. Historically the French were putting their few AA guns in with the divisional artillery, which they felt was most vulnerable, which is not a completely terrible plan given French doctrine and probably was the best use of their very limited supply of AA guns. What they would have done with a proper amount of AA guns, I'm less sure about. Probably kept it with the artillery and HQ units, keep them protected, and only if they get really plentiful start cascading down.
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