Case Yellow - War in the West

By start of 1940, the Allied air campaign has eased off a bit, allowing us to replenish the decimated Luftwaffe a bit. The good news is that the British seem to have also let off a bit, and are nowhere to be found either in the air over Germany or on the ground in the Low Countries or France.

We've begun consolidating the panzer forces and moving them to their jumping-off points for Case Yellow:

That's three panzer groups lying just east and northeast of Luxembourg. We've concentrated all of our tank strength here, and we will be doing a faithful recreation of the historical Manstein-plan invasion of France (although we have a lot more armor at our disposal).

We would like to spend at least another five months or so preparing -- in addition to the work to be done with the Luftwaffe, OKH feels it needs at least another ten infantry divisions. We are ahead of schedule with Directive #1 and will likely begin the invasion with 160 divisions, so we have bought ourselves a bit of time with which we can be cautious and over-prepare. More units are needed both to maintain a strong reserve in the attack on France, but also to garrison the coastal areas to head off the obnoxious Royal Navy. They are constantly threatening us with sea invasion.

Meanwhile though it appears the Italians, who have just entered the war on our side, may have forced our hand by launching their own invasion of southern France:

This can work to our advantage. Mussolini is attempting to cross the Alps with about 120 divisions, which will tie up a substantial portion of the French army there. The Italians have made little progress though, as they're attacking fortified troops over mountainous terrain. Their losses have been quite high and I don't think what they are doing is sustainable, so we will probably be forced to act a bit ahead of schedule.

Here's the plan for the liberation of France and the Low Countries:

All three panzer groups will drive westward, making their breakthrough just north of Luxembourg and well clear of the Maginot Line. Manstein (II. Panzergruppe) will wheel north once it crosses into France, and drive to the sea at Dunkirk; Guderian (I. Panzergruppe) will continue straight west and threaten Paris to provoke a French reaction there; and Rommel (III. Panzergruppe) will wheel south. My sense is that the British and French will not end up deploying the bulk of their forces forward in the Low Countries but will instead try to keep themselves to the east and south of us. They can only really do this by pulling units off of the Maginot Line and the Italian front, so we will keep those units busy with large-scale feint attacks along the German-French border. Meanwhile Rommel will wheel south, consolidate just east of Paris, then drive southeast in an attempt to create a massive encirclement in eastern France and bag the entire Maginot Line.

French collapse

We cross the border near the end of January. I should really have taken more screenshots here, but the battle involved so many units packed into a dense space that I'm not sure how interesting they would have been. Progress was initially slow, as I think we erred in concentrating too much at the initial breakthrough point. At some point you end up with too many units in a small area, and you have to keep some strong offensive units like panzer divisions in reserve in an effort to avoid combat-width penalties.

However, Rommel was the real hero of the day here. Once Panzer Group 3 broke through the lines north of Luxembourg, we were astonished to find Paris and the surround basically devoid of Allied units. Rommel rolled his panzers straight into Paris, and Guderian set about executing the southward-wheel movement to roll up the Maginot Line -- but the French surrendered before we could complete it.

Needless to say, the French surrender came soon after. However something has gone horribly wrong, as the French have formally surrendered to the Italians, not us! Has Il Duce pulled one over on us, or is the game just bugged?

We are still in control of Paris and the low countries, but the bulk of French territory has been handed to Italy. This may also work to our advantage however: we have a far smaller amount of coastline to cover for protection from Allied seaborne invasion. There are already a decent number of cities in the Reich that have to be garrisoned due to unrest, and that combined with coastal protection requires a significant manpower commitment. We would like to have as many army assets available as possible for the coming campaign in the east.