Home Forums WWII Invasion of Germany, 1939?

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  • #150232
    Avatar photoDarkest Star Games
    Participant

    Was reading some stuff about the early part of WW2 and came across a quote by German General Siegfried Westphal that stated if the French army had launched the attack in full-force in September 1939 “the Wehrmacht could only have held out for 1 or 2 weeks”.  I haven’t read a whole lot about the early part of the war but was very surprise to find out about the French invading the Saarland, and the utter botched job they did of it, including a whole division being held up by a single machinegun in a village.

    Has anyone gamed this offensive?  Anybody tried a “what if the French and British invaded Germany properly in 1939”?

    "I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

    #150234
    Avatar photoSteve Johnson
    Participant

    I’ve done one-off scenarios with Blitzkreig Commander II, based around the Saarland Offensive, but a proper campaign is on my list of things to do. Ideally I would tie it in with the Polish Campaign at the same time, maybe adding in an opportunistic Soviet invasion of parts of East Prussia. Plenty to think about that’s for sure.

    #150245
    Avatar photoMartinR
    Participant

    I’ve also done a couple of games set in the Saarland offensive.

    As for a strategic invasion of Germany in 1939? Well, just give it a go in e.g. Third Reich, Hitlers War, World in Flames et al and it is a short cut to an early defeat of France, whatever Westphal may have said. Far more viable is a 1939 invasion of France by Germany (which I have managed to pull off a couple of times although it is a very high risk operation).

    The French Army just isn’t set up for rapid, deep, offensive operations.

     

     

    "Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

    #150248
    Avatar photoPhil Dutré
    Participant

    As for any military “what if”, it’s always a matter of weighing military capability (what could have been done) with political decision making (what could have been decided).

    I guess in 39 neither FR or UK were psychologically ready to start a war against Germany that involved large-scale military operations. Esp fear of retaliation (e.g. bombing of cities), with the lessons learned from the Spanish Civil War, was probably a major factor. Also remember that WW1 was only 20 years before. I don’t think FR was ready to go through another slugfest, as they envisioned what another war would mean. The mobile Blitzkrieg type of campaign was somewhat unexpected in Spring 1940, and neither FR nor the UK were prepared for that, let alone do it themselves on the offensive.

    As for the political situation: Poland was probably not worth it at the time to start a war over. Harsh, but probably true.

    #150249
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    Anybody tried a “what if the French and British invaded Germany properly in 1939”?

    Any French offensive into Germany in 1939 would have been without much, if any, contribution from the British.  The B.E.F. troop ships didn’t start leaving Britain for France until September 1939.  If you want the entire B.E.F. to be in France, and ready to assist a French offensive, then you probably have to have all the events that lead to this taking place a year earlier too.  A 1937 Munich Crisis?  A 1938 invasion of Poland?  So then do you postulate a 1938 French offensive into Germany?  And so on…..

    As Martin says, the French Army was not a Blitzkrieg style force.  It was large but it generally lumbered along at a slow pace.  It’s command & control was not suited to respond to rapidly changing situations.  It had to develop armoured fuel supply vehicles for its tank units because they used up so much fuel, and anticipated having to refuel almost in contact with the enemy.  A well placed Stuka attack, or artillery bombardment, on these vital vehicles would have stopped a French advance in its tracks.  Several photos exist of groups of these Lorraine or Renault tractors and their fuel bowsers destroyed, or simply abandoned at the roadside.

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #150251
    Avatar photoChris Pringle
    Participant

    I have gamed the actual French attack into the Saarland. I used the ever-creative Richard Crawley’s scenario for it from the “Blitzkrieg 1940” scenario book for the old Tac:WWII rules (long out of print). The main thing I remember is that the French earned victory points for getting their Char 2C heavy tanks into particular locations to pose for propaganda photos (a slight but not implausible stretching of history).

    Chris

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    #150252
    Avatar photoDarkest Star Games
    Participant

    Great stuff guys, thanks!

    Upon reading up it does appear that despite the very large troop and tank ratio in favor of the allies over the Germans in the area, without heavy artillery being brought up and as much of the BEF pushed in as possible there wasn’t much the French could have done on their own, tactically.  Strategically, however, it does appear that had the allies really pushed, especially if Russia had decided that attacking the Germans to take as much of Poland as possible, they could have indeed drastically changed the course of history.  They wouldn’t have needed to push all that far into Germany, just enough to force a ceasefire and start talks.

    Now, where that would have gone is truly wild conjecture.

     

    It’d be interesting to see a France vs. Siegfried Line 1939 battle!

    "I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

    #150269
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    You know someone should game this out.

    #150280
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    I’ve never attempted this sort of thing intentionally.

    Hoever, many years ago, I had something odd happen in a game of Avalon Hill’s “Third Reich” — first edition rules, it wouldn’t be allowed now. A fellow student had been pestering me to play a game, and ignoring my suggestions that we try something simpler, as “Third Reich” is famously unforgiving, and not much fun unless all players have achieved a certain basic level of competence that means they can’t be knocked out of the game in a single turn — one unit one hex out of place is often all it takes. He ignored my advice, and went on pestering, so I gave in, and took him on in a two-player game, with him as the Germans. It wasn’t a very good game; never mind one unit one hex out of place, the man was a dangerous nutter, drove westwards bald-headed from turn 1 leaving inadequate forces to attack Poland. He had no concept of security, hadn’t checked the CRT odds, and had failed to internalise any of the dire warnings about the dangers of a turn flip-flop. On the bright side, it wasn’t a very long game, either. When I had the Polish Army sitting in Berlin in early 1940, he finally took the point about trying something simpler. Steve Jackson’s “Raid on Iran”, I think it was.

    All the best,

    John.

    #150285

    IIRC the Polish Army in 1939 was actively courted as a foil to Germany and was considered a very powerful force, not quite a great power but nearly so.  It was quite large. Poles in Berlin in 1939 doesn’t strike me as implausible if the focus of the Germans had been in the west rather than east.

    A easy port of SCW or VBCW models and rules could handle battles in the Rhineland or Saar from 1936-39.

    Mick Hayman
    Margate and New Orleans

    #150311
    Avatar photoPhil Dutré
    Participant

    If you want to game something like this, I don’t think it will teach you much. Miniature games usually are at the tactical scale, and putting a platoon or even a few companies in a tactical battle against each other might yield any type of result, especially if you use a “vanilla” ruleset that is more inspired by mid- or late WW2 rather than pre-WW2.

    The failure or success of any possible Saar-offensive has to be seen at the strategic and/or political level, something miniature wargaming is not very good at it, if at all. YMMV.

    #150313
    Avatar photoSteve Johnson
    Participant

    I think you would need to use a board game for the big picture, then zoom in on certain actions to get a game on the wargames table.

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