A couple of things I really like about this set-up.
Well, first, I like that it's 1940 France. I mean, yes please! I really like gaming that campaign. I find the vehicles so interesting, and the issues so challenging to understand and model on the game table.
And then, notwithstanding the comment about wall-to-wall tanks on the road, I really like that you set up a great big table with lots of room to maneuver. I too like to game that way. I like to use a complete ping-pong table, which at 5 x 8' is rather smaller than your game table, but then I game at 6mm so my figures and terrain features are rather smaller too!
I find it very appealing, even though in most games the action occurs in about a 1 x 2' area on the table. The problem for the commander is figuring out where that 1 x 2' space is most likely to be, and then ensuring that you have more of your forces positioned to participate in the key action area than your opponent, while also ensuring you have your forces set up widely enough that if the key area turns out to be somewhere else you are not caught completely flat-footed.
As some wise officer somewhere once said, deployment is half the battle!
Now a couple observations. The stone walls look very nice. With the wooden gates -- even nicer. Got to build me some stone walls with wooden gates like that.
The buildings look nice. I particularly like the walled yards / courts. A number of them, though, are timbered. In my travels I have rarely seen timbered or partially timbered construction in France, except for Alsace. That said, I have spent more time in the Southwest and the South of France than in the North. Never even been to the Ardennes region (except passing through). Are half-timbered houses common there? If so, it expands the selection of my own structures that I could use in a future game.
The selection of vehicles seems a bit of an odd mix on both sides.
On the French side, from my readings I do not find much likelyhood of S-35s in action with R-35s or Char-Bs. They were in separate divisions -- Char-Bs were in the DCRs, S-35s in the DCMs. The H-35s and H-35 mod1939s (sometimes called H-39s or H-40s) might well have been mixed with either, and the R-35s, while usually operating independently from the armored divisions, filled out the slots in DCRs when H-35s were not available, so thus could mix with Char-Bs. But S-35s were in different divisions, and usually in action on different parts of the front.
On the German side, again from my readings I do not see Pz38ts in the same divisions as PzIIIs. The 38ts (and 35ts) were used to equip some Panzer Divisions in place of PzIIIs, which were not available in sufficient numbers. In the divisions with 38ts one might still have found PzIVs for support, and PzIIs and Is for recon. But not PzIIIs.
Of course during war sometimes formations get mixed up, but in my games when I want to put forces from different divisions (or sometimes even different battalions) on the game table I usually give them to different players with some restrictions on their coordination.
I can easily understand if the goal was just getting some interesting kit onto the table, and I offer no criticism of the mix. But I'd be interested to know if someone has information to the contrary of my restrictions in either the French or German mix.
In any case, keep up the good work, and give those Pan-pan commanders an extra ration of wine for their courage!
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
