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Hürtgen Forest - Game Video
EARLY WAR for the win! Video Replay: Anniversary of Battle of Hannut-Merdorp (12-13 May 1940)
Some people call it history’s first “true” tank battle, and if you’re interested in command-tactical level wargaming, this is probably true.
The Battle of Hannut-Merdorp was a more or less accidental clash between the 2nd and 3rd Division Légère Mécanique (Light Mechanized Divisions), formed into the French Cavalry Corps under Henri Prioux … and the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions of Erich Höpner’s XVI Motorized Corps (Army Group B), fought on 12-13 May 1940.
The battle took place in a rolling band of Belgian countryside between these two towns, where the Germans stook startling, steep, and bloody tank losses against the French and their (in certain specific ways) superior tanks.
It’s one of the very few times German armor was seriously challenged anywhere in World War II before Russia, by large numbers of concentrated enemy armored hitting power in a focused counterattack.
The Germans would eventually prevail, but not until two days of fiery, costly combat … and heavy intervention of German airpower to finally tip the scales.
We go over the battle here, and quickly demo a couple turns of this battle in Panzer Leader.
Might be a fun listen while you are building models, painting, or making hobby terrain.
Hope you like it!
nice one Jim I didn’t think the Germans had that many P4s in 39 mostly P1/p2s an the Skoda jobs. And didn’t the fence usually have to get permission to do everything from a commander so were usually dead when they got a answer.
Thanks, @zorg! You’re right, they didn’t have that many PzKpfwIVs. Note in our video each regiment (35. and 36., respectively) only had two counters of PzKpfw IVDs. So that’s ten tanks at the most per regiment, twenty tanks in the division, out of 300 or so in the division (in those days when panzer divisions were still build around a full brigade of two panzer regiments). Each regiment, meanwhile, still had two full triple stacks of PzKpfw I and II (six counters, 30 tanks, times two regiments, times two types = 120 vehicles total). So yeah, PzKpfw IVs were definitely… Read more »
It was the biggest mistake that the French force’s were to indoctrinated on following orders at the expense of free thinking & movement costing them greatly in lives & equipment.
Can’t really argue with that, at least with most units. French post-WW1 pacifiscm, the mass French mutinies of WW1, and the overall terrible experience of WW1 meant volunteers in the French Army were very low, they relied heavily on conscription, and again … the memory of those mutinies loomed large in the French officer corps.
So they didn’t trust their soldiers (or pay them worth a damn, to be honest), and trained them accordingly – i.e., do as you are ordered and nothing else.