Author	TFGA73
Method	Solo
Victor	France
Play Date	2023-01-18
Language	English
Scenario	FaoF014

This was a neat little situation pitting superior French firepower against a mobile German force. It's a one-map battle with the Germans attempting to take the town. A critical feature is a special rule that says to treat the fields on the map as woods. This would make a big difference in the battle.

The French have a small infantry force backed up by some impressive firepower by 1940 standards: Some S35s, H35s, P178s and a couple 25mm AT guns. I set the infantry and one AT in the woods northeast of town, with the other AT and the tanks scattered around the town itself.

The Germans have numbers but lack anything that can go head to head with the French armor. They have a motley collection of PZ Is, Pz IIs, a PzIIIG and one PzIVA, which can hit hard but is fragile.

The Germans move down the map but the S35s and 25mm block the easy path into town, so the PzIIs swing to the left towards the east side of the map while everyone else heads to the west.

The S35s continue to maneuver the Germans into a pocket along the west edge and into the fields--er, make that woods (gotta remember those special rules that permeate FoF scenarios), slowing them down and tangling them up. Eventually the infantry dismounts from the trucks, and the PzIII and PzIV start heading up the hill towards town. They start knocking down the H35s but eventually a S35 gets a shot and knocks out a PzIIIG step. The infantry assaults two town spaces but cannot clear out either before the game ends.

Meanwhile the PzIIs get chewed up by P178s, losing two steps. One PzII successfully rushes the three town hexes to the south but can get no further.

In the end the Germans held 3 town hexes and eliminated 12 French steps, but the French held 5 and took out 16 respectively. Major French victory!

ANALYSIS: This is a tough one for the Germans as they are badly overpowered in anti-tank strength, and their units are all fragile. As long as the French can avoid letting the 25mms and S35s get into assault combat they should be fine. I felt like another key was having the French infantry start in a forward position. That helped stall out the Germans, and once they started swinging around the French were able to hop on trucks and scoot back into town first. A fun cat-and-mouse engagement.