The Graveyards Are Full of Indispensable Men - A MP France AAR

[DesertFoxx]

The Graveyards Are Full of Indispensable Men - A MP DAIM France AAR

At dawn on May 10th, 1940 the long anticipated German onslaught on the west began. The war had been hot for several months, but there had been no action in the west since war had been declared back in September. The German declaration of war on the Holland, Belgium & Luxembourg heralded the beginning of the decisive phase of the war. Just as they had in 1914 the Germans would come at France through Belgium and the outcome of the campaign would likely determine the outcome of the war. Fortunately, during the pre-war years and particularly during the months of the phony war, France had not been idle. Slowly but surely she had been re-arming as it became ever clearer that a storm was gathering on the horizon. As of May 10, to oppose the German invasion the Allies could muster 195 divisions, and this would be further augmented by whatever forces the Dutch & Belgians could offer, though it was doubted that many of these troops would be of much use for the coming battle of France. Regrettably, it appeared that the low countries had been taken completely by surprise, the divisions of the Benelux countries were out of position and ill-prepared for the massive German offensive. Intelligence reports from the morning indicated that approximately 125 German divisions were engaged in fighting the 19 of Belgium, Holland & Luxembourg combined. These would not even slow the Germans down.

The moment that GHQ received word that the campaign had commenced with fighting in the low countries, orders were issued to begin Plan XXXIX. Accordingly the two French armies in the Dunkerque region were ordered to advance into Ghent to aid the Belgians in defense of their beleagured nation. Some at GHQ insisted that if the Allies moved quickly a solid defensive line could be established further to the north & east. It was suggested that the more ambitious defensive plan should be put into action, with Allied forces marching into Mons, Namur & even to the defense of Liege. That it was best to fight the decisive battles on Belgian soil, rather than in Northern France, where vital industrial sectors such as those in Lille might be risked. While multiple contingency plans had been developed, the more conservative idea prevailed, Plan XXXIX, it was eventually agreed was the most sensible option to be implemented. French & allied forces would move into Belgium near Ghent only, and attempt to defend the river there and the dug-in positions along the rest of the line at the French-Belgian frontier would not be abandoned. Any Belgian or Dutch divisions that fell back would merely be incorporated into that line. The French government also formally called upon her ally in Britain to send more divisions, the UK had built up forces at home, but for reasons that she would not share with her French allies had thus far refused to send more than 1 infantry division, 2 militia divisions & an HQ to help her continental allies. Hopefully the withholding of the two dozen or more English divisions from the western front would not make the difference between victory and defeat... the approximately 200 divisions the Allies already had would have to be enough.

Everything was to be gambled on the lesser fortifications on the Franco-Belgian border as well as the river to hold. Hopes were high, as was confidence, in the Allied camp. While the army was perhaps not so strong relative to Germany's as in 1914, this time modern fortifications were already prepared to stem the German advance. It would have to be enough to offset both this, and the absence of an Eastern front for the Germans. All of France's hopes were pinned on this being so, though how defensive works would actually 'win' the war beyond simply stopping the German offensive was not specified clearly. Only some vague words spoke to a build-up of Allied forces based on their superior economic output capabilities over the long run. This time no one predicted that the campaign would be over in a matter of weeks lest history judge them unkindly as it had those who had made such predictions in 1914.

Would their judgments once again be proven wrong? Will the campaign last only a matter of weeks? Or has the GHQ sufficiently prepared for the 2nd German invasion of the 20th century? Will the German juggernaut run out of steam before it reaches the gates of Paris? Or will May 10 1940 be seen as a watershed day in history as the beginning of the events that lead to l'Europe Allemand?

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A few notes potentially of some interest;
This is my first AAR, I'm facing a human controlled Germany, and while I have high hopes, I wouldn't describe my odds of staving off defeat and avoiding the humiliation of Vichy as favorable. A few tweaks have been made, but otherwise this is the 1.3 beta version of the game. ENG brigades cost .01 more supply and no oil & MTN/PAR/MAR cost 12 instead of 15 MP. A few minor modifications have been made to the French tech teams (DeGaulle & Dassault pop up a bit earlier & Gamelin/Weygand are a bit more skillful). I will take control of the smaller Allies, but will rely only on what divisions the UK sends me via expeditionary corps rather than taking control of them as well.

I'll try to update this a couple times a week, please feel free to comment and offer suggestions or questions, though please bear with me, as it is my first AAR (I've almost begun some, at least did some prep work before, but this one I'm going to start AND finish!). I've been debating what form this should take, if I should write it in the first person as a gameplay , or have a more narrative approach. Comments & suggestions are certainly most welcome.

The next update(s) will take us back to 1936 to show how we got to this point...

Thanks for reading!

 

[Beladriel]

I personally prefer defending inner France. AI lacks the coordination between armor and infantry, which lets you push the assault back. Of course, I have no idea how does Germany player plays.

 

[unmerged(47582)]

So France and Germany are player controlled?

Also other countries?

If you try to hold Rotterdam-Eindhoven-Antwerpen-Namur The germans wouldn't be able to annex the Dutch and the Belgains. This way there divisions would keep fighting.

Then you could fall back to Ghent.

How good is this German player?
Your airforce can it stand up to the Luftwaffe or not?

 

[Beladriel]

They don't get annexed anyway, they have colonies.

 

[son of liberty]

They don't get annexed anyway, they have colonies.

But thier divisions still die, so it is a moot point.

 

[Beladriel]

If you manage to save divisions out of encirclements, they survive. They don't get reinforced too often.

 

[unmerged(47582)]

If you manage to save divisions out of encirclements, they survive. They don't get reinforced too often.

Ok, maybe this has changed... it has been a long time since i played HoI2 but as far as i know the Belgians and Dutch loose most of there divisions once there continental provinces are lost.

 

[son of liberty]

Ok, maybe this has changed... it has been a long time since i played HoI2 but as far as i know the Belgians and Dutch loose most of there divisions once there continental provinces are lost.

IIRC it is that way. Same as with vichy, all french land divisions are gone.

 

[DesertFoxx]

The game is dead, but the AAR continues!

Well, the game has died an unhappy death, but I mostly finished the portion of the AAR for the campaign in France, so while I'd hoped that that would merely be part one of a longer AAR, I don't want to be one of those one & done AAR-writers, and while this has been delayed by a long time, by gods I'm going to come back and finish it, starting now:

Picking up where we left off on May 10, 1940 --

The Germans advanced with lightining speed, and by dawn on the 12th of May, had occupied all of Belgium east of the Scheldt and had driven the Dutch to their coast, with the Luftwaffe's close air support hammering away at the retreating divisions of the low countries.

The Germans wiped out the Dutch army and gathered their forces to assault allied lines beginning at dawn on the 18th. The initial attack was made by 45 German divisions led by Field Marshal Leeb. Allied efforts to defend Ghent were complicated by the fact that the German attack was a coordinated one, divisions engaging them from not only Rotterdam but also Antwerp, Mons & Brussels. To make matters worse, French Marshal Corap was outnumbered nearly 2:1, having only 26 divisions with which to withstand this assault, though his forces were augmented by reinforcements from the south & by the 20th, more than 46 Allied divisions were engaged in Ghent. Unfortunately for Corap & the Allies, the Germans also reinforced their armies with 22 additional divisions, though 57:46 was a far more favorable ratio for the Allies than when the battle begun.

To the south, another decisive engagement was underway. At dawn on May 19th, German Field Marshal Brauchitsch, with the bulk of German Panzer & motorized divisions attempted to breach Allied lines at the Franco-Belgian border. Unlike in Ghent, the Allies had the advantage in men deployed, totalling nearly 60 divisions against 48 Germans. Unfortunately for them, this would not be enough and within 36 hours the Allied armies were in full retreat and the Germans were advancing onto French soil.

By the 20th, the situation in the north was not much better for the Allies. Though many German infantry divisions were as disorganized as their Allied counterparts, Leeb had managed some minor tactical encirclements in the preceding week, which lead Corap on the 20th to begin a tactical withdrawal to better positions within the province.

This would prove to be in vain, and by the 23rd of May, less than 2 weeks after the campaign in the west had begun, not only was all of Benelux was in German hands but they had also moved into France and captured Valenciennes. The low countries had been lost and the battle for France was about to begin in earnest.

 

[DesertFoxx]

Update #3

A strange incident took place off the coast, north of Dunkerque. On the 16th of May, French naval forces intercepted a pair of German cruisers and a number of German submarines trying to make a dash through la manche to make it out into the Atlantic to prey on Allied shipping. Admiral Gensoul turned the Germans back, even sinking the light-cruiser Dresden but at the lost of the French heavy cruiser Foch. This was considered an ill omen. With the Marshal dead, and his namesake at the bottom of the channel, who would lead France to victory this time?

Turning back to the action on land; as we saw in the previous installment, the initial frontier battles had not gone France's way, and German divisions were pouring onto French soil, though the decisive engagements had not yet been fought. At 4am on the 23rd of May, the Belgians officially capitulated, though a couple of their divisions refused to lay down their arms and carried on the fight with their French comrades. Two hours later, at dawn, the Germans began their assault on Reims. They struck both from across the Meuse and directly from the north & north east, Valenciennes having recently been captured. Field Marshal Brauchitsch commanded 60 German divisions in this multi-pronged assault, he was opposed by 28 divisions under the overall command of French Field Marshal Garchery.

The fight in Reims, in spite of the valiant efforts of her defenders was a rather lobsided affair. The French fortifications were far from finished when the Germans struck. The intent was to fortify Reims to the same degree as the rest of the Maginot line, but at the time of the German attack they were barely 40% complete. The province had fallen within 24 hours of the initial attack, and French forces there had been driven back toward Chaumont & Troyes.

On the 24th, GHQ decided that it was time to disrupt the German offensive with a series of counterattacks all along the line, the cult of the offensive still claiming many adherents with in GHQ. Thus it was that up and down the line from Metz to the channel one side of the other was undertaking an offensive by 10am on the 24th of May, 1940.

In Ghent, British General Alanbrooke was leading 16 Allied divisions from Dunkirk & Lille in a minor counterattack against the vanguard of German forces in Ghent. The three lead German divisions under Lt. General Eberth were resisting to the utmost, admirably shifting from a headlong advance into a defense against an Allied counterthrust, nonetheless without substantial reinforcement they would soon be forced back across the Scheldt. The Allies attack in the north did force the Germans to alter their timetable, Field Marshal Grun to the southeast was ordered to move up his troops as quickly as possible and begin the attack on Lille at the earliest possible moment so as to relieve pressure in the north. The blow fell upon the sector under the command of New Zealand Field Marshal Freyberg. The Allies, having recognized the industrial importance of this northern French town had given Freyberg's sector adequate troops for the task at hand and budged little at this premature German thrust. In the north, it seemed, perhaps at least for the moment, that perhaps the tide was turning and things might yet go the Allies' way.

In conjunction with their operation in Belgium, the British also began a landing in Kolding in the south of Denmark. Acting unilaterally, the invasion came as as much of a surprise to the other Allies as it did to the Germans. And while it made some headway and a beachhead was initially secured, German reinforcements drove the inadequate British forces back into the sea with considerable losses. Nine transport divisions were sunk in a naval engagement just off the German coast, and the English cruisers Kent, Calypso & Dorsetshire were also lost. Following the failure of this ambitious endeavour the British government fell, and on the 16th of May, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. As the purity of his essence was well known, his promise of blood, sweat, toil, tears and any other bodily fluids needed for victory was a great motivator to a people recently stung by a severe setback. It was decided then that these 'descents' did not defeat the last Corporal turned despot, and were no more likely to do so to the upstart Austrian than they did to the Corsican.

Further evidence that the Allies' hopes were illusory came shortly thereafter, as the Allies' attempts to defeat the bulk of the German forces, which were arrayed further to the south, were faring abysmally. Marshal Georges' counterstroke into Reims was being repulsed with heavy losses, and General Lafont Chabert was faring only marginally better in his attempt to retake Valenciennes from German forces under Field Marshal Blomberg. German General Manstein also distinguished himself at this point, by easily fending off Georges' feeble attacks in Reims & maintaining his advance into Troyes, driving General Nouges' French army back before him. Though German high command gave him strict instructions not to advance with his panzers beyond Dijon, as they were ever fearful of the distance between their advancing forces, not wanting to give the Allies another opportunity like they had in 1914 at at the Marne. The next phase of the plan called for a brief lull in the advance to bring up infantry to consolidate the gains the panzers had made heretofore. With the forces marshaled there, only then would the final battle to finish France off begin. German high command was wedded to this plan and ignored or flatly rejected the pleas of the panzer generals to let them press their advantage to the fullest, whether this conservative approach was the right course of action, or whether it was gifting the Allies the time they needed to prepare their defenses, only time would tell...