They Retreated to Victory, barely
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Played a long and intense game of France '40 with CC. I was Allies, and barely squeaked out a win, after narrowly escaping two or three traps. I think he actually missed a couple of opportunities to exploit those situations he had me in.
Part of the reason the Allies got into a bind is they started the game very aggressively, in an attempt to put the Germans on a back foot. That didn't work out so well.
I took pictures of a couple of the blunders I made during the game. The idea is that the next time I play this, I'll review these pictures and notes, and not make them again. That's probably wishful thinking!
The pictures are from Turn 2 and the end of the game.
Turn 2 situation at Calais
35 french light tank should be 1 hex closer to calais to get minor river defender double.
In this case, it's fortunate the Halt! marker prevents the Germans from attacking, and 1 Pz is tied up at Calais until it falls.
Due to not doing a determined defense, the defender at calais went to 0-0-3, hence no determined defense, 1 Pz crossed the minor river massively threatening dunkirk. (!!!)
would be good to add a unit to calais to keep the odds high
Use those minor rivers
Examining the map of the coastline between Boulogne-sur-Mer and Ostende, it's easy to see why Dunkirk was chosen for the evacuation: it's ringed by canal and small rivers extending many kilometers to the south and east. None of the other ports or towns have this natural defensive structure.
The Allies should attempt to exploit this defensive structure as much as possible, and not end up where 44 Mech ended after punching that 3rd panzer division in the nose (disrupted stack).
The key is "advance after combat" can be in any direction instead of only "forward through the vacated hex." 44 Mech would have been better put to advance to hex 2220 just to the southeast of its shown position (south is up in this photo).
Moving 44 Mech into 2220 would prevent German units from crossing Canal de Neufosse into 2220 to attack either 44 Mech or 1 NA and denying either the x2 defensive advantage of defending behind minor river or canal (Vert would move to 2020 to attach 44 Mech). The Germans would be forced to attack only with 7 Pz, risking a dangerous step loss as armor shift is lost across river as well. In fact, as the situation stands right now, 7 Pz crossing into 2220 would get the armor shift on 1 NA, Vert could move to 2320 and stack with, say, 76/20M leaving the bottom 20M unit in reserve.
Protecting Dunkirk
The primary Allied mistake here is not establishing a defensive perimeter further out. ZOC bonds could have helped establish that perimeter, but it's going to be hard for the Allies to push the Germans back.
(DISCUSS POOR ALLIED POSITIONING)
Turn 9 and end of game
The game came down to a final die roll at Dunkirk. The Allies were
defending with 15 to attacking 31 for 2:1, 3:1 with +1R air, the die
rolled a DR, and the defenders rolled a 6 on Determined Defense. This
left all 3 defenders in Dunkirk, with only 1 defender needing to
evacuate for the Sudden Death win.
The situation looked like this:
Dunkirk is defended by two Remnants and the full strength 2 Mech.
Note: the position of Germans stacked with 83 ID were inadvertantly swapped with the French 9 Bn armor unit in the eastern beach hex. That beach hex was occupied by Monty and evicted by the German infantry. The swap occurred when I started to put the game away then decided I wanted to write up the end of game situation.
AAR
Very tense game, CC played pretty well.
Blunders
Many.
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Lost too many French units allowing the German infantry to get too close too soon. Even holding them one more turn would have made a comfortable Allied win.
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The Germans had at least 2, possibly 3 opportunities to massively followup on Allied mistakes, but did not exploit these mistakes.
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The Germans never used reserves. Had they done so, they would have been able to penetrate sooner and faster into Allied hinterland. For example, in the 44 Mech (Allied) example above, 7 Pz could have attacked 1 NA with 20 Mech and Vert in reserve. Since Rommel gets a re-roll if desired, it's almost certain the Germans could have broken the line here.
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Allies using a "speed bump" French armor Bn to attempt to hem in Rommel and 7 Pz. This allowed an Auto-DS situation, which occurs during movement, and allows the attacker Breakthrough extra advance. This breakthrough almost closed off a huge number of Allied units south of a Bethune-Armentiers line. This is one of the places where the Germans missed an opportunity to really hurt the Allies. What they could have done was close the pocket then let the Allies expire from being out of supply.