Fall Gelb (France 40) AAR from Allied side

[jjdenver]

Hi,

This game isn't noticed by many but it is a really nice game with some great scenarios. One of my favorites is Fall Gelb, the battle for France 1940. I can't promise this will be a detailed AAR but it should give you some idea about this beautiful and enjoyable user-made scenario.

I've played this 2 times. The first time as Germany against a very experienced and excellent player who in fact helped upgrade this scenario. My Wermacht didn't do very well.

I'm currently in a game again as Germany against an inexperienced opponent and my panzers are doing much better. I'd prefer to do the AAR on that game but I didn't take any screenshots so I'm going to write the AAR about this game (my 3rd with this scenario) where I'm playing Allies.

We gave the Axis +1 replacements per turn to help them out.

Here are orders issued to the allied commander.

[jjdenver]

The main threats to the allies that I see are 4:
1) There is a strong Wermacht mobile group including 1st Cav, an SS motorized division, and a panzer division ready to race into Holland. This combined with a large airdrop near Rotterdam can knock the dutch out of the war. I think a friend once mentioned to me that the Dutch start this scenario almost ready to sit back down to a nice plate of cheese.
2) 6th Army is a very powerful infantry and panzer formation that will be able to smash the Eben Emael fortress on the first turn and follow it up in any of several directions quickly.
3) 4th Army while not as strong as 6th, does have both infantry and panzer divisions. It can push into the Ardennes and cross the Meuse at one of several places with bridging engineers or by capturing a bridge.
4) The biggest threat is panzergruppe Kleist. As we know in hindsight this very powerful army has many panzer and motorized divisions and can choose to push quickly to Sedan to cross the Meuse or it can push to the northwest corner of the Ardennes to cross near Dinant, Namur, and Givet in support of 4th and 6th armmies. It can also split to do both.

The Allies also start the game with many units frozen for 2 or 3 turns.

Once German penetrations are achieved the slow French troops will have a hard time reacting.

Here is a shot of the 2 most dangerous German formation's OOB.

[jjdenver]

Here is a full map of the area covered by the scenario. A little is snipped at the edges but not much. Note that there are other German armies not depicted on the map (17 Army, etc)

[jjdenver]

After receiving the first turn from my opponent (let's call him Rommel), I wrote back to him the following because I've had a go at this scenario before as Axis and I felt that my opponent might be at a disadvantage because of this.
"I noticed on your turn 1 that you have assaulted the Maginot line. I have never tried it but I think it might not be possible to breach the Maginot. So when I played Axis I moved about half of the divisions from the Maginot area west toward Sedan to support operations in that area and to cover the German flank as they advance through Ardennes.

Also you are probably aware but if you can reach Rotterdam with the 2 mobile division (SS motorized and the Panzer division) quickly then you can support the airlanding forces there and when Rotterdam falls the Dutch surrender. So usually you want to try to force Dutch surrender by around turn 4 I think using a very fast advance by these 2 divisions supported also by infantry divisions of course.

Also I guess you know the history but the Allies have a pretty strong defensive position along the Dyle river east of Brussels. If your panzer forces near Eben Emael fortress (Maastricht area) go northwest instead of southwest then they will run into this position which might be difficult to breach. However the line is weaker to the southwest near Charleroi and if you move quickly in that direction it's pretty easy to breach the line there and possible to create a breakthrough.

If you feel that you'd like to restart based on any of my comments above then we can do so - just let me know now before I do my turn."

He replied:
"Oh, nice to meet a player with your knowledge and your fair play. At first, I speak very little english, so it's possible I don't understand well your mail.

Now it is the first time that I play this scenario, so it's possible I play it very bad. For example, I don't know that holland surrender when they lose Rotterdam, so I wont to kill all their units.
In Belgium my objective is Amberes -or Antwerpen?- from Maastrich and some point in the Liege-Samur-Charleroi line, from Malmedy and St Vith. In the south I will bet all my money for Sedan and for cross the Meuse near that city. I think it will not be possible, but I must try.
My assault to the Maginot is not real. I only want to take some PVs of your Fortifications and pinned all your troops. It's possible I take some of my units to support the attack in another point, but I would prefer to see where I have chance to break the line. Of course any reinforcement will go to fight against the Maginot line.
I don't know if you see very poor my strategy but I would prefer continue to playing and we will see wath happen with the crazy german "

And my reply again. I include all of this because by reading these exchanges the reader of the AAR can understand some of the strategies considered by the opposing commanders in this early stage of the operations in France.
"Belgium can also surrender but I think 3 cities must taken and it is quite difficult - you can find them by the white flags in their hexes.

As for reinforcing your assault on Maginot I would send reinforcements to Sedan and other Meuse crossings instead. It is important to continue to push troops forward behind your panzers since you will have constantly increasing flank length to cover and you need to try to get infantry divisions into attacks to cut down on losses that your motorized infantry regiments must absorb.

As for aiming at Antwerp it is possible but the number of rivers and difficult terrain there are a bit terrifying for me when I'm playing Germany so I'm not confident that it's possible to break through there.

Oh by the way on turns 4 and 5 or 5 and 6 (don't recall which) you get a couple of shock attacks. If you use 1 of these at Sedan it can get you across the river by destroying the French defenders in Sedan. They are also nice to destroy city defenses like Charleroi for example. You want to use them I think on stacks of enemy with many steps since they can reduce perhaps 2 steps from each enemy unit - so save them to hit big stacks only, don't waste on a stack of 1 or 2 units."

[jjdenver]

It's important to understand that the Battles in Italy game puts 3 constraints on the panzers:
1) Supply - The Germans have only 1 fast truck supply unit with a large supply radius and it begins with Kleist. Other German supply units are either fast with very small radius (there are 2 of these), or slow with large radius representing horse-drawn supply systems. If Kleist tries to split his effort the fast supply unit can only go in one direction, and other panzers that are part of 6th Army, 4th Army, etc can quickly outrun their horse-drawn supply units.
2) Fuel - each unit has a fuel supply. Extra fuel can be used to move extra hexes each turn (extended movement in the game) but making this choice will quickly burn through a unit's fuel reserves leaving it unable to take advantage of opportunities and react to situations that arise in later turns. A typical German mobile unit can probably sustain 4 turns of extended movement before going dry.
3) Step losses (casualties) - A typical German mobile regiment (panzer, motorized infantry, etc) has 1 inherent "timed" replacement step representing the ability to reorganize during ongoing combat ops to recover lost combat capability. But after this there are not very many replacement steps available so if the panzers are always in front fighting without infantry divisions along to take part of the losses, the panzer formations will quickly lose their edge. In the first turn Germany lost 12 steps - many of these in panzer divisions - this will come back to haunt Germany later.....just as they reach the main French and British defenses. Right now most of the combat is against Belgian and Dutch units.

Now let's take a closer look at the German operations on turn 1. Here is the German advance in Holland where some heavy casualties were taken by the SS and panzer division involved.

[jjdenver]

The Germans of course get lots of airpower in this scenario. Air support peaks around turns 4/5/6 when they get some special air assault attacks that can be used to destroy difficult allied positions at Sedan and other Meuse crossings or at the Dyle Line.

They also get heavy air interdiction options that can cause severe supply and movement problems for the allies. Typically these are very useful around Rotterdam to prevent the Dutch from interfering with the air-landing forces operating there.

Here is a look at the German 6th Army spearhead that forced its way through Maastricht and destroyed Eben Emael on turn 1. Here also the panzer divisions took relatively heavy casualties (as I mentioned before a total of 12 steps of losses were taken by Germany - about 2/3 of those by mobile divisions)

[jjdenver]

Another thing to understand about the game is that heavy artillery (typically 2-4 of these per German Army) can be used to provide support to attacks or can also be used to destroy fortifications and strongpoints with long range bombardment (not in support of any ground attack). This second use can really facilitate rapid advance since if panzers run into strongpoints and forts they can be substantially delayed. Reducing strongpoints with artillery reduces time spent and casualties taken.

Here is a look at the advance of Kleist through the Ardennes. Typically I use Kleist's artillery to shell French positions along the Meuse while advancing west parallel to the Meuse to bypass the Maginot fortifications and hopefully cross at Sedan.

You'll note in many of these screenshots that most of the allied units have a hazy yellow overlay. This indicates that the units are frozen (cannot move) and will release on turn 2 or 3.



------------------END OF TURN 1 GERMANY-----------------

[jjdenver]

Here's a typical panzer regiment. Note that the armor bonus is very important. In general in France 40, the allied units have weak AT strengths (0,1,2) and that AT and armor bonus falls as a unit loses steps. Terrain can also give an AT bonus so allied units in forest or cities are difficult to handle with panzers.

You can see by the silhouette that the primary AFV for this regiment is Pz III. Some have PZ II's, some have Czech 35/38t, etc.

[jjdenver]

Here is a look at the area around Rotterdam after German turn 2. If this city falls then Holland surrenders. Note that the city is being held by a small Dutch infantry regiment but it's heavily fortified so they might hold out for awhile if the mobile group composed of panzers and SS units doesn't quickly reach the area. The besieging forces are airborne and airlanding Wermacht formations.

You can see that some of the interdiction icons are blue while others are brown. The blue markers are unopposed by AA defenses while the brown markers are hexes that have less interdiction effect due to AA units - either on-map units or inherent city AA defenses.

[jjdenver]

This is the German turn 2 advance. What I think is important here is that the SS division has routed northwest from Nijmegen - running into heavier Dutch defenses. This division will also probably have to fight through or around the city of Zeeland, another potential trouble area. For me, the advance depicted by a yellow area is preferred and faster.

You can also see that the 9th Panzer is held up at the town of Hertogenbosch by a Dutch infantry division. I moved those there on allied turn 1 using extended movement, knowing that this is a likely avenue of advance for the panzers. The town is on the south side of a river so is a tough go for panzers to clean out. Probably the panzers should bypass to the north and continue on while infantry divisions using extended movement assault the town or screen it.

[jjdenver]

In Central Belgium almost the entirety of the 2 Belgian divisions + garrison regiments in the Maastrict area are destroyed in heavy fighting on turns 1 and 2. However 6th Army's thrust to the southwest is stopped by an engineer battalion and artillery regiment dug in along the main road. This position could have been breached but most of the German effort was spent on combat against the 4th Belgian division to the north so late in the German turn there was not enough combat power left to take this town and the 6th Army advance for turn 2 is slowed.

Farther south Liege will be surrounded next turn and the 4th Army spearhead is attempting to grab the bridge at Huy. The Belgian regiments in the area belong to 1st and 2nd Jager divisions. They have severe supply problems due to the presence of the German panzer divisions combined with heavy air interdiction so most of the regiments are going to be trapped and destroyed south of the Meuse. 2 regiments make it to the north bank and will try to hold the bridge (not able to blow it due to German units next to the bridge).

[jjdenver]

Kleist's panzer gruppe has glided through the Ardennes mostly unopposed and at the end of turn 2 is menacing Sedan where a lone French 25mm AT battalion garrisons the town. The French 5th Cavalry division holds a line north of Sedan but its' line is already pierced by the lead Panzerwaffe motorized infantry regiment.

The French regiment stationed on the road is 5e Regiment Automitrailleuses, equipped mainly with armored cars. It is already at half strength and it's lucky for the French that this regiment was able to delay the advance at the edge of the forest.

Germany took about 14-15 step casualties this turn - most of them among panzer and motorized divisions. I would say that Germany got very unlucky with combat rolls this turn - losses should have been lower. In a lot of combats Germany had a 16% or 33% chance of taking a loss but still took the loss.



------------------END OF TURN 2 GERMANY-----------------

[Haplo_Patryn]

Thanks for the AAR.
 
Are you playing Abwehr's updated version of Fall Gelb?
 
About the AAR, I'm not sure if crossing Sedan is the best way to push west with Panzergruppe Kleist. I've seen other AARs where the german player crosses the Meuse by other northwest cities (although Montherme and Charleville have no roads to go through).
 
 

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: Haplo_Patryn
Thanks for the AAR.
Are you playing Abwehr's updated version of Fall Gelb?
About the AAR, I'm not sure if crossing Sedan is the best way to push west with Panzergruppe Kleist. I've seen other AARs where the german player crosses the Meuse by other northwest cities (although Montherme and Charleville have no roads to go through).

I'm glad to know someone is reading the AAR. I think this game is really great but sadly it doesn't get noticed often by players who I think would really enjoy it. We are using the updated scenario - v 1.2 from Abwehr.

If you know of another AAR using this scenario I'd love to read it. Where did you see it? I've never seen one.

As for crossing at Sedan here is a picture from the start of German turn 7 (no moves yet) showing a breakthrough at Sedan in another PBEM game I'm playing as Germany. So I think it's certainly possible. I used one of the special Luftwaffe attacks on turn 4 to smash the defenses at Sedan.

It's interesting to note that I just checked the "killed units" display in this game (the game where I'm Germany at start of turn 7 pictured below) and there have been 15 French combat units (mostly regiments) destroyed in the Sedan area along with an AT and artillery regiment. So the advance has not been easy but with 4 mobile division supported by infantry divisions using extended movement and trucks, it is possible I think.

[Haplo_Patryn]

Yes, crossing at Sedan is possible. I was only telling you what i've seen in other AARs, another crossing target for the german.

I made an AAR a 3 o 4 years ago, in Spanish (I crossed at Sedan, btw). Here is the link:

http://www.puntadelanza.net/Foro/phpBB3 ... =41&t=8178

Another AARs:

http://www.si-games.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25535 (German AAR but a lot of screenshots)

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph ... yle.58122/

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: Haplo_Patryn
Yes, crossing at Sedan is possible. I was only telling you what i've seen in other AARs, another crossing target for the german.
I made an AAR a 3 o 4 years ago, in Spanish (I crossed at Sedan, btw). Here is the link:
http://www.puntadelanza.net/Foro/phpBB3 ... =41&t=8178
Another AARs:
http://www.si-games.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25535 (German AAR but a lot of screenshots)
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph ... yle.58122/

Ok, I see. Nice AAR's - I'm glad to see them. Thanks.

Here is a look at the German situation around Sedan at start of Allied turn 3. You can see that 5th French Cavalry Division has only remnants remaining in Sedan itself.

I made a pretty big mistake on turn 1 because I didn't know I would need to use extended movement to reach the front so I'm paying for it now since there the French are still far from Sedan and also the Dyle Line. Some of the FR divisions that start near Sedan are poor quality and fortress divisions so they are not able to use extended movement, but the divisions approaching from the north could have used extended movement. This is also a problem in Belgium.

Sadly, elite 2nd Cavalry Division near Montmedy has been frozen and now it appears that elements won't be able to escape encirclement due to supply problems and the German advance. This division would have been really useful around Sedan.

[jjdenver]

The situation around Namur is looking ok.

The bad news is that most of 2 elite Belgian Jager divisions are stuck in a web of supply problems and German panzers near a Meuse bridge and the town of Huy. Liege is almost isolated.

The good news is that 2 elite German motorized divisions have approached Namur and Dinant but haven't been able to seize a Meuse bridge.

The question is whether the Germans have sent a bridging unit to this area? It's almost certain that there will be a bridge thrown across the Meuse somewhere between Huy and Dinant - but where?

[jjdenver]

I thought that 6th Army might drive southwest toward Namur and Charleroi but instead it is advancing directly west toward Brussels and the Dyle Line. This might not normally be a problem but in this game I failed to force march the allies on turn 1 so will have trouble reaching the Dyle Line in time.....

On the plus side is that the Germans took about 15 more step losses this turn - for a total of about 42 so far - I think higher than usual.

It also appears that the recon element of 4th Panzer division is ripe for counterattack by the Belgians....an opportunity that I don't plan to miss.

[jjdenver]

In Holland I made a mistake by underestimating the speed of the SS Motorized troops. They managed to bypass Zeeland to the south and seize a key bridge. I should have defended or blown this bridge.

Farther south the 9th Panzer Division bypasses the Dutch divisions dug in at Hertogenbosch and approaches the Moerdijk bridge held by Fallschirmjagers. It is likely that this division can reach Rotterdam next turn and then the Dutch will soon be out.