Saturday, April 14, 2018

France 40 - Turns 5 to completion

Yesterday Richard and I finished playing the Sickle Cut scenario.

 The Germans get close to a breakthrough in the centre.

 While in the north I failed to notice that the fortress units don't have a zone of control.
The Germans have broken through.

 But all is not lost, de Gaulle counterattacks.
It achieves little but has lots of promise.

 End of Turn 5, May 17.
The holes in the line have been plugged.

 The Hitler Halt!
A reasonable panic response due to the French counterattack perhaps?

 Rommel keeps attacking however.

 And the Dyle line has collapsed.

 De Gaulle has more success, but at a cost.

 End of Turn 6, May 18.
Again the allies have been able to stabilize the front.
They did have some luck with the timely arrival of reinforcements 
(that come on randomly, north, south etc)

 End of the German Turn 7.
Namur is isolated.

End of Turn 7, May 18.
Again the Allied line has been repaired.

At this stage I suggested we stop playing.  We had worked out that we wouldn't be able to meet up again in a reasonable timeframe to complete the game and both agreed that it was worth playing again, paying attention to the things we had got wrong (major river crossing, allied HQs and a few other things that had probably affected the German's chances of success).

Later I heard from Richard:

I played the game out to the end of the regular game (Turn 10).

The French line collapsed in the centre the very next turn. First there 
was a small but exploitable breach and then the next turn there was a 
huge breakthough, such that by turn 10, the Germans were as far forward 
as Arras. De Gaulle was surrounded in the forest and there was a major 
breakthrough in Belgium. The victory points worked out at 12 to 3 so an 
Allied Victory. (The allies get 10 points if the north south rail line 
is uncut).

I then played through the extended game and after another 2 turns, so 
turn 12 the Germans had reached the coast in strength and there was no 
hope for any kind of counter attack from the allies at that stage. So 
that made the game a draw.

What was interesting was when the breach finally opened, it was just 
impossible to stop. All the allied stuff was just too far behind the 
breach to be able to withdraw fast enough. Food for thought for next games.

Looking forward to playing this again one day.

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