Ranting about the French Army

[Vetkin]

Bonjour!

I am not French.

But I am currently playing this French army against a German opponent set in 1940.

I guess the French have fairly good infantry... OK tanks (except they are slow, have low rates of fire and have exactly 1 machinegun each), OK artillery...

But what's with their MORALE!?!?!

I find that when a French unit gets hit by a little bit of artillery that won't faze a Volksgrenadier squad, it gets suppressed really bad... and this is OK, understandable... but they are not easy to UN-surpress! Very difficult in fact. I find that 1 out of 4 French units can be rallied, compared to around 1 of 2 with the Germans.

My question now is, what does the French army have to redeem itself? I'm sure there is something. And... who has tactics on how to use the army in this year? (1940)

[Orzel Bialy]

in the terms of my two kids.

There have been several people who have sought to take the French and try to win with different tactics and strategies....except for some small successes here and there, overall the result is usually the same.

Unless you are playing the Daft AI you are pretty much starting out in a hole when taking the French. An even modest human player will whoop on them in the long run...as the French morale just does a death spiral as the games progress. They can't take heavy arty fire for long...they supress easily under motar fire...and if they are hit by small arms afterwards...good luck. If the enemy hits you with tanks...forget it...the infantry will panic and your own armor (though strong in defensive armor) is not designed for sustained offensives. They just don't have the rate of fire required to supress enemy armor most of the time.

Now, perhaps there is something that hasn't been tried yet...but at least from my opinion...stay away from the French unless you are a glutton for punishment.

[Vetkin]

I agree wholeheartedly....

Sun Tzu also says that "On 'death' ground, FIGHT"

For the french its more like "On 'death' ground, RUN!"

[G_X]

I've played French, against the computer (That was a sorry game, I got a DV using the French...)

And against a few human opponents. Mostly, what I've learned is to hide, hide, hide, hide, and spread out. The French are scared to death of fighting apparently, and it shows, BUT, their saving grace is the Legionairres, in my opinion.

If I play France now, I talk all Legionairres basically, and I take them in company formats, as many as possible, then you slowly inch forward, the Legionairres do best when they can stop and sit there and set up a trap, hiding, and when even German armor comes through...They're ferocious buggers. If you can trap them in, even SS squads don't stand a chance, your only hope is that you can simply have enough squads spread out over enough area to keep them from getting hit by too much Arty.

Standard Legion's company for 43 I think, which is all I remember, is a Command Squad and 4 Platoons, each platoon is a 3 squad deal, so you get something like 30+ guys to a platoon, then 4 platoons, so 120+ guys, per company, and the Legionairres are pretty cheap for what they can do if I remember correctly.

Try it for yourself, sometimes you just have to bog the enemy down with your numbers to overcome the morale deficiency.

[Orzel Bialy]

if you have the game set with "rarity off" (So that would mean that there would be very limited numbers of Legionairres available at best in a battle set with "Rarity On")

[Vetkin]

Legionnaires are pretty tough, except there's not too many of them available at any one time...

What about the other infantry types? What are the Dragons anyways, historically?

[G_X]

I usualy don't play with rarity on, mostly because it tends to bite me right in the arse where it hurts most.

Most French Infantry, if you can get them in numbers, with back up from other stuff, should be able to do moderately well, just remember, it's all in how you use them.

[Vetkin]

Really really hard....

I'm trying to concentrate my fire on some German panzers only to find that NONE of my 4 Chars would rally! The panzers have their side armors exposed but still! It seems no tank would like to take advantage of this....

It's really a big difference when you're used to the Germans....

Germans rally in snap... not french though. Hard to coordinate assaults/defenses because you can't COORDINATE at all.

My 2 cents.

[G_X]

Average French rally is 50 or less.

Compared to Germans which are about 70 or so, yeah, French almost never rally.

[Ograbme]

I remeber I played as the French the first game I played with morale turned on, and hoping that not EVERY army in the game abandoned their antitank guns the moment they saw enemy tanks...

[Ivan]

hehe YUP.
Sure sounds like France IMO

[Vetkin]

I know I have to stop now but I have an ongoing battle with Katana and I'm using the French.....

One good thing though is that I feel confident with French artillery hehehehe at least they don't lose morale

Gotta give my AMR-35 scout tanks credit though.... they didn't bail when they got hit by riflemen hehehehhe

[fud]

Originally posted by Vetkin
What about the other infantry types? What are the Dragons anyways, historically?

You ussually see it spelled as DRAGOON. Dragoon is a term that was applied to early firearms - supposedly because they 'breathed fire' like a dragon. Later, a Dragoon became a mounted infrantry man who carried a firearm, and later still the term got applied to all sorts of heavy calvary or to soldiers that belonged to units that were formerly called Dragoons. A French Dragoon of WWII was a member of the armored infantry - kind of like a Panzergrenadier.

Hope this makes sense - anyone else got a different understanding?

fud

[Vetkin]

Thanks for the info