The main problem is, as I undertook to prove in CONFLICT #3, that the Fall of France cannot be made into a playable game that produces the same results as obtained in the real world.
At right: A mobile Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun of the Lines of Communicatlons troops.
Our hindsight makes it impossible. You cannot force a gamesplayer to think like the Allied generals did, and you cannot create the mind-numbing surprise of a German attack on the fourth day when you were convinced attack wasn't possible until the ninth. Any intelligent gamer will defend the hinge of his position, will hold back a reserve, will concentrate his armor, and will delay the German advance through the Ardennes. In fact, if allowed to do it by the rules, he would make the Battle of the Ardennes the decisive phase of the game -- if the Germans were silly enough to attack there against prepared Allied defenses.
Therefore, if you want a "simulation" in which the Germans can run rampant over the Allies, you have to give the Germans overwhelming superiority. On the other hand, the "counting rifles" method of simulation won,t allow that. The German forces just weren,t all that much better than the Allied; if you make German Panzer divisions worth, say, 12 combat factors each while the Allied infantry corps and armor divisions are worth only 4 or 5, people will laugh at you. It would be obvious that there was something terribly wrong with the simulation.
The designers of France, 1940 had to give the Germans enormous superiority, though, or there couldn't be any of those startling quick victories. Players might not understand that games and simulations have different objectives and sometimes you can't both game and simulate a campaign. What to do?
In France, 1940 the German superiority was hidden in the Combat Results Table (CRT). The old standard CRT wouldn't do, and changing it to give the attacker a sure victory with, say, 2:1 odds doesn't help because that's symmetrical, and France, 1940 isn't a game with attacker superiority at all; it's a game of German supremacy. (The standard Avalon-Hill CRT was based on the U.S. and British umpiring manuals developed after World War II. These manuals, based on solid study, require an over-al1 3:1 superiority before an attacker can be reasonably certain of success.)
Forced Counterattacks
Thus the new CRT with its silly forced "counterattacks". This CRT gives an enormous edge to the attacker, but only if he is slightly superior to his opponent. Now, giving the German infantry corps 7 factors to the French corps' 6 doesn't look like much difference. It's only a 1/6 advantage, isn't it?
No. It's over 2:1 superiority because of the new CRT and stacking rules.
Watch. Two German "7s" attack a French "6" with air support. Even with terrain advantage to nullify the air support, the French can't win. They stand a 1/9 chance of losing a unit because 2/6 times a "CA" results, and in a "CA" the French player must attack at 1:2 odds. Yet the German can't lose a unit no matter what happens (unless he is silly enough to attack a French unit with terrain advantage and no German air support.)
Now suppose three French corps attack one German infantry corps. The odds are 18:7, or 3:1, surely a favorable situation for the French? Hardly. The chances are nearly even that both retreat, and only 1/18 that the Germans can lose a unit.
Thus 3 Allied corps attacking a single German unit haue 1/2 the chances of killing a German unit than the Germans haue with a 2:1 attack on the French. That one combat factor edge has become a nightmarish supremacy.
THE FAILURE OF FRANCE, 1940 AS A SIMULATION
The above supremacy of German forces built into the unit sizes and CRT makes it impossible to play meaningful simulations with the game rules as given.
In order to get any kind of play balance, the Allies have to have enormous increases in numbers of forces available to them. They also have to have increases in unit armor strengths. You can't simply assume changes in Allied strategy, tactical doctrines, organization, etc., and play a game to see "what might have happened if."
This is unfortunate, because one of the first things I wanted to do with the game was to examine what might have happened if the British had adopted, in the Spring of 1937, the changes advocated by Basil Henry Liddell Hart. These changes amount to an increase in British armored strength, not a vast increase in the number of British soldiers available for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
I worked out what those reforms would have meant in terms of BEF forces, and translated those into unit strengths by the "counting rifles,, method, using the combat factors of the German Panzer divisions as my reference point. This should have worked. After all, I knew how many tanks Liddell Hart proposed for British Armored divisions, and how many the Germans had in each Panzer division. Adding the new BEF units and keeping the French Army exactly what it had been in the real world should have made for a very playable game.
It doesn't. The Allies still have no chance, because tiny advantages in individual unit strength combined with the new CRT used in France, 1940 still give the Germans overwhelming advantages.
In order for France, 1940 to work as a simulation, there must be wholesale changes in the basic structure of the game. Some suggested changes that make it a better simulation are discussed elsewhere.
FRANCE, 1940 AS A GAME
Despite its flaws, the game enjoys a not undeserved popularity. It is not part of my discussion to detract from the real contributions to wargaming the designers of France, 1940 have made; and in fact, the game itself will be required in order to play the variant published here.
In my experience, newcomers to France, 1940 go through several phases. First they are, as I was, struck by the obvious advances in game design theory incorporated into this game. These are, among others: advance through zones of control, (ZOC) with the ZOC assuming a reasonable role in play; the air power rules, which are extremely good and probably quite accurate (military analysts believe air superiority gives an attack about double its effectiveness); the qualitative difference between armored units and other units; and the rather meaningful fortress rules. Wargamers are, and should be, impressed with these details.
Secondly, the newcomer plays out the battle of France as fought, and sees the resu1ts happen almost by the book. If he's got an opponent for this, it's not much fun for him, but there's a thrill to watching the campaign go something like a scenario.
Next, the newcomer tries the "historica1" orders of battle and attempts to defend France. He tries again, with new strategies. And again, and again, until he abandons the historical batt1e and goes to one or another of the "what if" orders of battle. There, thankfully, he finds a pretty good game, and eventually finds some handicapping system that makes the result doubtful enough to be fun.
This is all very well, and wouldn't require comment except: the player should be warned that he is simulating precisely nothing with all these "what if" orders of battle. There has never been war like that and there never will be. Any lessons reamed from play of France, 1940 should not be applied either to the real world or to most other war games.
IMPROVING FRANCE, 1940
In order to make France, 1940 into a simulation of the war that might have been, a complete re-design of the combat system and CRT will be required. When that's been done, do not expect the game to ever give the results of the real-world Battle of Erance. As I've explained elsewhere in this article and at great length in CONFLICT #3, that campaign as it was fought simply cannot be simulated by gaming.
What you can get by a redesign of the combat system of France, 1940 is a reasonable simulation of the campaign that might have been fought had the Allies known then what most of us know now about tank- time, armored warfare, and defense. The "quick- fixes" included in this magazine won't even do that, but they will make the game a bit more realistic and a great deal more playable. When combined with the counters for the BEF furnished with this issue they give an enjoyable variant, a pretty exciting game, and a not-too-bad simulation of what might have happened in 1940 had the Allies known a bit more about what they were doing.
BEF
In the following game, it is assumed that the British Army was reorganized along lines suggested by Liddell Hart, and a different kind of force was sent to France after the war began. In order to have an effect similar to what would have happened in the real world, it has been necessary not only to add British units, but also to make changes in the rules of the Avalon-Hill game of France, 1940. An interesting game can also be played with the original A-H rules and the new unit counters included in BEF.
GAME STRENGTH OF BRITISH UNITS
I have often written about my objections to the "figure-of-merit" type of unit strength, but the idea of a single number expressing the "combat factor" of a military unit seems imbedded in board-type wargaming. I think this unfortunate because there are qualitative differences between kinds of units that can never be expressed as a single number.
For example: armored divisions attacking non-mobile infantry forces were able to penetrate them almost at will (in open terrain). The penetration might or might not be accompanied by casualties to the infantry force, but there was almost always a way through the infantry -- and after the penetration, the infantry force was generally in a perilous position, its supply lines threatened, and often its headquarters disrupted. Unless there could be an immediate armored counter-attack the infantry, although relatively unblooded, was doomed. How can this be expressed by a single figure-of-merit?
However, to change this would be to redesign the game of France, 1940, and BEF is intended to be a variant of that game; not a creation de novo. We can introduce rule changes that will help reflect qualitative differences, and I intend to do so; but the units themselves will have to resemble those of the Avalon Hill game.
Unit size is also fixed by the A-H design. In order to keep the scale of the game manageable, the designers of France, 1940 created highly artificial infantry corps as the basic unit of the game. This makes for certain similarities with World War One, and is quite unrealistic; but some compromise was required, or the number of units on the game board would be unwieldy and the game impossible to play. The variant affects only the British forces, which will in general be divisions.
Unit strength is fixed in large part by the A-H design. The strength of armored divisions seems to have been assigned rather capriciously by the A-H designers, in that there is no obvious reason for the variations in strength among the various German Panzer divisions. In general, however, a force of some 200+ gun-armed tanks results in a combat factor of between 4 and 7. The British divisions contemplated by Liddell Hart would have been roughly comparable in organization and equipment to the German units -- hardly surprising, since the Germans organized their forces after study of Liddell Hart's theories. BEF armored division strengths should therefore be comparable to the German Panzers.
They would have been less mobile, since the British tanks were not so fast as the Gemman. On the other hand, all of the British support forces would have been fully motorized and plentifuUy supplied with vehicles, making the BEF armor division not greatly less mobile, as a division, than the German.
In order to avoid having several movement allowances printed on each unit, I have chosen to give the rather lower numbers to the British armored forces. However, I strongly suggest the following optional rule: Add one movement factor to the allowance of each British armored unit when moving before combat, that is, in the nommal movement phase of the Allied turn; and use the number printed on the unit for movement after combat. This should not apply to the 100+ number British units, which are furnished for experimental purposes and do not form a part of the actual game variant.
The number of British AFV's is difficult to estimate. Assuming the acceptance of Liddell Hart's reorganization plan, more tanks would have been purchased, but how many more, and of what types, is not known. The unit counters given with BEF include both general armored mobile divisions -- the "Liddell Hart Ideal" type -- and others including units of "I" tanks. These infantry support tanks were quite effective, if a bit slow; the A-12 had armor almost 80mm thick on the bow, and it was quite impossible for the guns in most German tanks to penetrate an "I" tank head-on at any range. Obviously their armored defensive strength was greater than their offensive capability against tanks. Against infantry units the "I" would perform very satisfactorily.
In addition to the regular armored units, Liddell Hart wanted to create Territorial armored forces. These would have been less effective than the regulars. The men would not have been as well trained, and Territorials would have received less modern equipment. Thus the strength of the Territorial units in BEF is considerably lower than that of regular forces.
In designing BEF, I have included several units which do not appear on any of the orders of battle specified for the game. These units are furnished to give experimenters a chance to play with such what-if situations as: greatly increased British armored capability; large expansion of the British Army; early American intervention through supply of equipment to Britain; and the like. In order for the British to have one or more of the "super-divisions" British policy would have had to change long before Spring, 1937. Tank designs would have had to be developed concurrent with German expansion of the Wehrmacht, and Liddell Hart's doctrines and training methods employed in the BEF.
ORDER OF BATTLE
In every case it is assumed that one of the A-H OB's has been selected. For the standard variant, the Allied OB #11 (Historical Situation) should be used; however, ignore the British units on the A-H OB and select one of those given below. When the game begins all U.K. units must be north of the line formed by the Somme River, square 884, thence across to Sedan.
BEF Order of Battle #1
Assumes that all of Liddell Hart's plans were implemented, new tanks were ordered immediately and the RAF given heavy financial support. U.K. (but not French) air units may fly intervention missions. German victory chances are very low against a skillful Allied player.
| BEF Order of Battle #1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Units | Unit | Reinforcements | ||
| Turn 3 | Turn 4 | Turn 6 | ||
| Armor Divisions | 1,2,4,1-T | 3Arm | 2-T | 5Arm |
| Armored Infantry Divisions* | 1, 2, 1-T, 2-T | - | 3-T | 4-T |
| Armored Support Group (May NOT use armor movement rule) | 21, 22 | - | - | - |
| RAF Flying elements and support | 7, 8, 9 | - | - | 10 |
| AA/AT Regiments + | 131, 132 | 133 | - | - |
| RAF Heavy Bomber | B-1 | - | - | - |
BEF Order of Battle #2
Assumes considerable success by Liddell Hart and Hore-Belisha. U.K. aircraft units may fly interdiction missions.
| BEF Order of Battle #2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Units | Unit | Reinforcements | ||
| Turn 3 | Turn 4 | Turn 6 | ||
| Armor Divisions | 1, 2, 3 | 1-T | 2-T | - |
| Armored Infantry Divs.* | 1, 2 | 1-T | 2-T | 3-T, 4-T |
| Armor Support Gp. | 21 | - | 22 | - |
| AA/AT Regiments + | 131, 132 | - | 133 | - |
| RAF units | 7, 8, B-1 | - | - | - |
BEF Order of Battle #3
| BEF Order of Battle #2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Units | Unit | Reinforcements | |
| Turn 4 | Turn 6 | ||
| Armor Divisions | 1, 2, 1-T | 2-T | - |
| Armored Infantry Divs.* | 1, 2 | 1-T | 2-T |
| Army Tank Brigade | 21 | - | - |
| AA/AT Regts + | 131 | - | - |
| RAF units | 7, 8 | - | - |
* Uses mechanized movement rules, same as German armored infantry.
+ Combat factor trebles in Defense if not engaged by infantry. If not engaged in ground combat, has same ettect on enemy air units as one Allied CAP over hex. One AA/AT regt may be added to any legal stack and will then fight in either offense or defense.
More BEF Variant
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© Copyright 1998 by Dana Lombardy
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