Turn #6

Spotting

Only the German Infantry still in the trucks is unspotted.

All French not Hidden Units except PzIIIF #3 are spotted. None of the Hidden units are spotted.

Command Phase

German Commands – The forward-Most Tanks are firing. The rear most tanks are moving. At least one unloaded infantry is firing while the other ones will move and possibly close assault. The H-39s will fire while the Loaded infantry will move.

French Commands –

Neutral Commentary: This is one of those cases where normally I’d over-ride what the roll had the unit do and instead I’d FIRE the tank. I mean it has a rear shot! Since this is a learning game I’ll leave it. I can justify it by saying that something went wrong in the tank. Maybe the main gun got temporarily jammed or the ammo round was a dud.

French Comment: I just wanted to explain why I choose the commands that I did. For the rear-most Char B1-Bis tank stack I choose MOVE for two reasons. The first is that the 47mm Gun has a TT value of 1. That means that outside of movement the turret can shift 1 hexside. It could have done that during the adjustment phase last turn. It still could not have fired on the tank behind it. So instead it will move which will also have the advantage of giving the German tank a -2 to hit it. Remember that in Solitaire mode you ALWAYS put out your commands first. So, I had no idea the Tank behind me wouldn’t fire.

That stack will either turn around and destroy the PzIIIF #1 or more probably just move forward.

The forward most Char B1-Bis stack will take out one German tank. The PzIVD is a bigger threat but farther away so I’ll probably fire on the PzIIIF #2. Again, keep in mind that due to a lack of radios, all the tanks in a stack have to fire on the same hex.

The unloaded infantry I have marked with a FIRE and a MOVE counter. I will probably fire two infantry units at the German Infantry in the open and save one to possibly move into the hex with the two tanks and ATG gun.

The H-39s spun their turrets one hex last turn so they could Fire on the same hex the two German tanks and ATG are in.

The loaded infantry (whom I will now refer to as my PESO Infantry. Pot Enhanced Smoked Out) will probably unload but it really depends on how my fires go.  

Initiative Phase

French Initiative – 18 – 20 = -2

German Roll – 30

German wins Initiative.

Combat Phase

German Fire #1

Neutral Note: Rifle #1 was given a FIRE command, however, his Fire really can’t hurt anything he can see, so normally it’d be changed to an OW command. In this case I think I’ll fudge a little and change it to a move so they can get into cover.

German Fire #2

German Fire #3

German Fire #4

German OW Fire #1

French Fire #1

French Fire #1

French Fire #2

French Comment – Char B1-Bis # 1-4 all fired on PzIIIF#2. Technically you should roll for their hits because they might be able to roll a BU but dead is dead so we’ll let it go. Also, you’ll notice that Char B1-Bis #2 rolled really low to hit which would normally be a ROF hit (an additional hit) but since the 47mm gun has a ROF of N, they get just one shot.

Movement Phase

French move first – everyone moves closer to Stonne.

German Moves – Rifle #1 moves into the trees. 37mm ATG #1 moves into the stone buildings in Stonne. #12 moves towards the most dangerous French unit (the Char B1-Bis by the fastest route. They are in LOS of the French Rifle units right away and must roll for activation.

This is the map after all the moves.

2nd Air Phase

None.

Adjustment Phase

None.

French Comment – Basically I’m facing two lines of threats. The first threats are everyone in front of Stonne and the first line of buildings in Stonne. The second line is PzIIIF #3 and Hidden Units 6, 8, and 10. My first priority will be to destroy all of the First line of threats then take my infantry to the far-right side of Stonne and begin clearing it house by house.

Turn #7

Spotting

Everyone is spotted.

Command Phase

French Commands – Pretty much everyone except the suppressed guys will Fire.

Initiative Phase

French Initiative – 35 – 20 = 15

German Roll – 12

French Win Initiative

1st Air Phase

None.

Combat Phase

French Fire #1 & 2

French Fire #3 & 4

French Fire #5, 6 & 7

H-39s # 2 & 3 also fired on this target which is no super-duper KO’d.

Enemy tank, FRONT! Everyone Fire!”

“Uhmm, Capitan?”

“What, corporal!! Fire dammit, Fire! All tanks Fire!”

“Capitan, who are you talking to?”

“<sigh> I’m telling the other tanks in our section to Fire, imbecile!”

“How are you talking to them sir?”

With my radio…oh yeah…we don’t have a radio do we? Oh well just fire and hopefully they will too.”

Overheard outside of French Char B1-Bis command tank

French Fire #8, 9, 10 & 11

Three more Char B1-Bis tanks fire at the poor overwhelmed PzIIIF #6 which now lies in multiple pieces strewn about the French countryside. RIP.

French Fire #12, 13 & 14

Neutral Commentary – Again the French go for massive overkill and totally wreck the German tanks. On a side note, this is one of the few things I don’t like about the Panzer system. I would really like to have some gun jam or breakdown rules. If you roll too high (or low for GP), your gun jams.

German Fire #1

German Fire #2

Neutral Comment – There’s a couple of interesting things happening with this Fire. First is that since the Turret on the H-39 is turned facing a different direction, when determining where the shot hit you must first determine if the shot hit, hull, turret or track. Taking the 3 roll on the front side of the tank is a turret but the turret is actually Front/Side facing so you take that 3 roll and look down on the Front/Side part of the location table. That shows a Turret Side (TS). The second thing is that when we rolled for Variable Penetration, it actually decreased the penetration. BTW, you’ll notice that we do not always roll for Variable Penetration. This is because the table can only increase/decrease the penetration by from 2 (if Penetration is 10 or less) or 4 (if the penetration if from 11-20). If that is not enough to change the outcome of the shot (meaning that the deference between the penetration and armor is greater than 2-4) then there is no need to roll for variable penetration

German Fire #3

German Fire #3

Movement Phase

French Moves – None. We don’t need to move while we’re blowing up enemy troops.

German Moves – Rifle #1 will try to Close Assault Char B1-Bis #6 (Again. These guys really shouldn’t have painted such a large target on the front of the tank).

Neutral Comment – How does tank Fright work? Well first off it only applies during early war (up to ’41). Basically, the Infantry unit makes a Forced Morale Check. You use almost all the modifiers. If the unit rolls a Broke they get a Suppressed ON counter and can’t move. If they rolled a little better and get a Hesitate result they get a Suppressed OFF counter and can’t move.  If they roll really high, they can continue the move and make their Close Assault.

Now Hidden unit #10 move into the open and is spotted.

2nd Air Phase

None.

Adjustment Phase

Suppress to OFF for German Rifle #1

French Comment – It was a good turn. I really don’t understand why everyone talks about the vaunted German Armor. In truth, this AAR does show one of the interesting things about the battle for France. The French tanks were better. As you can see so far in this Replay, the German AP shots ARE hitting, they just cannot penetrate the French armor.

Neutral Comment – I cannot find any faults with the French strategy so far. They’ve used their tanks the way they should. Just charge and ahead and destroy anything that moves.

Turn #8

Spotting

Everyone is spotted except for the two French infantry units in hex W10 on the right side of Stonne.

Command Phase

French Commands – The Infantry (except for the suppressed infantry) get move commands as well as the trailing Char B1-Bis tank stack. The forward tank stack of Char B1-Bis and the H-39s get Fire Commands.

French Comment – This is where the French Infantry will get into the Village and start clearing it out building by building. Expect a lot of Hand To Hand combat soon.

German Commands –

Initiative Phase

French Initiative – 53 – 20 = 33

German Roll – 7

French Win Initiative

1st Air Phase

None.

Combat Phase

French Fire #1, 2 & 3

Neutral Comment – Two more 47mm guns and 3 more 75mm guns on the Char B1-Bis tanks fire on PzIVD #2. At this point I’m just wondering if the French aren’t just showing off.

French Fire #4, 5, & 6

Neutral Comment – OK Come on! This is just overkill. At this point in the game I think I’m going to call a penalty against the French for unsportsmanship-like conduct. All French units will have to retreat 15 yards. If this happens again, I may have to throw a Unit out of the game.

German Fire #1

German Fire #2

Movement Phase

German Moves – None.

French Moves – Just a few units. There is some OW fire though.

German OW Fire #1

Neutral Comment – The reason the Char B1-Bis does not get the -3 for Medium cover is that he entered the hex on the Road. Hence he’s not IN the building but ON the road or Clear Terrain.

2nd Air Phase

None.

Adjustment Phase

Neutral Comment – We are calling the game at this point. There are at least 7 turns left and there is only one Hidden Unit left. The Germans might be able to get a victory if Hidden unit #8 was 5 units and they were all infantry, but, barring that the VP count is already at 352 for the French and 7 for the Germans. Just to be fair, I’ll roll for Hidden Unit #8 activation.

So, it wouldn’t have mattered. The Germans only have 2 PzIIIF’s and 1 37mm ATG none of which have proven they can even scratch a Char B1-Bis.

So, what happened? Well first off the French did roll well overall. However, most of the time the French rolls didn’t matter as the French had 3-4 units firing at one German unit. The odds are one of them would have hit. The Germans rolls were not bad, they just couldn’t penetrate the French armor.

The real issue was that the Germans could not activate their units. I’ve played this scenario other times and it was a lot closer when the Germans activated a lot of Infantry in the Village of Stonne.

More importantly, this scenario shows the power of properly used French Armor early in the war. They are hard to stop, especially the Char B1-Bis. I’ve yet to come up with a good way to destroy those in Panzer other than to use Artillery or Stukas. Or fs you have a spare 88mm gun around.

Overall, I’d rate this scenario Heavily pro-French but it’s still fun to play just to be able to see the French stomp early in the war.

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Previous Articles:

Panzer Expansion #4 Solitaire Scenario #46 Replay Part 1 — Introduction and Turns 1-3

Panzer Expansion #4 Solitaire Scenario #46 Replay Part 2 — Turns 4-5