Anti-armour unit values

[mtodd]

I am playing France 40 & have issue with how anti-armour unit values calculated.

How can the combined anti-armour value of German I Korps 11 infantry be 7 when only
one unit(37mm gun) has value of 3 with the rest being mainly 1 or 0 ?

When the XVI PZ Korps 3 Panzer has the same anti-armour value of 3 but has 88mm gun
& other tank units.

Any help to explain how this combined anti-armour strength is calculated most appreciated.

Many thanks.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: mtodd

I am playing France 40

Your first mistake. Try another scenario, this one's junk.

How can the combined anti-armour value of German I Korps 11 infantry be 7 when only
one unit(37mm gun) has value of 3 with the rest being mainly 1 or 0 ?

When the XVI PZ Korps 3 Panzer has the same anti-armour value of 3 but has 88mm gun
& other tank units.

Any help to explain how this combined anti-armour strength is calculated most appreciated.

The AT strength displayed is an aggregate total of the AT strength of all the hundreds of peices of equipment in that unit. This value isn't actually used to resolve combat, it is just an approximation displayed to the player. In combat, individual peices of AT equipment fire at individual vehicles.

In the cases here, 11. Infanterie has hundreds of squads and MGs with low AT ratings in addition to its 75 37mm AT Guns. Whilst 3. Panzer has 8 88mm guns, these barely register, and the 118 tanks assigned to the unit are not enough to make up the difference.

Of course, in this scenario the TO&E of 11. Infanterie is grossly inflated and that of 3. Panzer is distorted and shrunken. Looking at another (regiment scale) scenario in which these units appear, the total AT strength for 11. Infanterie is 20 whilst for 3. Panzer it is 40.

[mtodd]

Thanks for your helpful reply.

Have you any suggestions for better ww2 scenarios than france 40 ?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: mtodd

Thanks for your helpful reply.

Have you any suggestions for better ww2 scenarios than france 40 ?

It's a rather broad subject so I hesitate to suggest anything in particular. Point is that France 40 is about the worst you could pick. Try browsing here;

http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/scenar ... enario.php

Or alternatively, hopefully some other people will chip in with their own ideas.

[Zaratoughda]

Hmmmm.... maybe we should see if we can get Silvanski to redo the France '40 scenario.

But, then again, what about you, GD?

Z

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

Hmmmm.... maybe we should see if we can get Silvanski to redo the France '40 scenario.

But, then again, what about you, GD?

Z

I wrote my BA dissertation on the problems of simulating this particular battle so...

It would certainly be possible for me to put together (or borrow) a map and build a fairly good OOB. But for a number of reasons it's very difficult to turn those elements into a complete model of the campaign. One, no Allied player is going to leave the Ardennes to light cavalry and 2nd class infantry divisions; Second, few Allied players will enter an existential crisis early in the scenario and fail to react effectively. Third, there is no mechanism in TOAW to reflect the institutional difficulty the French army had in organising attacks at short notice.

The choice, as Colin phrased it, is between a scenario in which the two sides are portrayed accurately- but the historical result is impossible; and one in which you can have your victory in six weeks- and the expense of an artificially hamstrung French army.

[Silvanski]

I agrre with GD that hindsight is a thing which can make a scenario such as France 1940 unplayable... to model the Allied behaviour one should have to put a bunch of formations on garrison status and let the German player have his way with them...
Not much excitement there
 
However "Battle For France" by Brian Topp offers a decent game vs the French PO, especially he non-historic vesion
I quote...Two are for solo play as the Axis against a computer-controlled France (variant 1/solo sets up the game more-or-less historically. Variant 2/solo sets up the PO-controlled French and British forces "freely", with the benefit of historical hindsight and thus a keen awareness of the vulnerable French front facing the Ardennes).
 
 
 

[Zaratoughda]

Hmmmm.... meant to reply here some time ago but.... not sure what to say.

The Germans suckered the French into believing that they were gonna attack like in WW1 but instead totally outflanked them through the Ardennes. So, a classic example of a campaign that was over (essentially) before the first shot was fired... and a high visibility campaign at that.

I took a look at the scenarios you referenced and, probably about as good as you can get.

But then again, on the other hand....

What you could do (conceivably), is give victory points to the French player for executing the Dyle plan. Number of units in certain hexes, etc, etc. OK, nothing to do with what is really in the French interests but, for the sake of a game and the historical situation and 'player' victory.

Then, you could allow the German player the option of attacking like in WW1, attacking through the Ardennes, or maybe even a combo type attack, with different victory conditions and victory point hexes based on the option chosen (and the French player would not know which option is chosen).

With this, the French player would not know what the Germans would be doing and would thus be sure to execute the Dyle plan.

Another possibility, allow the French player the option of secretly replacing the French mindset with the more open possibility... with the resultant changes in victory conditions.

Hmmm.... yeah.... not sure it would be all worth it and not sure if TOAW could handle something like this.

There was one game..... released years ago by SSI... called Sons of Liberty...and the Saratoga scenario... where you had the problem of Gates' unwillingness to attack... and they gave the American player the option at the start of going as things were historically, getting limited participation from Gates, or almost complete cooperation from Gates as a third option.. and the British would not know which option was selected and this was thus significant in simulating the historical situation.

Would be nice if more games had things like this for situations along these lines.

Zaratoughda

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

Hmmmm.... meant to reply here some time ago but.... not sure what to say.

The Germans suckered the French into believing that they were gonna attack like in WW1 but instead totally outflanked them through the Ardennes. So, a classic example of a campaign that was over (essentially) before the first shot was fired...

Not entirely. The German plan was a huge gamble and a rapid and decisive reaction from the Allies could have turned it into a disaster for them. But French doctrine didn't allow for rapid reactions.

What you could do (conceivably), is give victory points to the French player for executing the Dyle plan. Number of units in certain hexes, etc, etc.

Why not start the scenario on 13th May or even later rather than force the players to manually recreate the events of the first few days?

[vahauser]

Actually, I'm in the planning stages of re-doing France 1940.  However, my goal is very different.  My goal is to use it as a tutorial for some friends of mine who are new to TOAW.  Thus, I don't really care if the French get blown away because I'm just using this as a training aid (my secondary goal is as a testing ground for certain aspects of my WW2.eqp file)... 
 
In general, though, I agree with golden delicious's conclusions regarding this scenario.

[Iñaki Harrizabalagatar]

I toyed wth the idea of a new TOE for France40, I built a French infantry division with ots historical TOE, very different from that of the original scenario, but the final numbers in the counter were exactly the same! after that I quitted.