Blitzkrieg - Early war book

It’s hard to know where to start when writing the design notes for a whole new period! I guess that’s the best place to start though – Early War is a whole new period. Making Early War feel and play very differently from the later periods was the key design goal in the whole process. At the same time we didn’t want to change things unnecessarily. We wanted to keep things as much the same as we could. This means there are no major rules changes and that equipment that fought right through the war is generally the same as it is later in the war making it easy for players to transition to the new period.

That Early War Feeling

Part of the feeling we were seeking throughout the design process was the fast-moving sweeping battles of manoeuvre where massed tanks swept across the battlefield throwing the enemy into confusion. At the same time we wanted to show how the infantry, with far less support than they would later have, were able to form bulwarks against this tide of tanks, standing their ground for as long as they could keep their flanks secure.

Another part of the feeling we wanted to capture is the weird mix of experimental ideas, some of which worked and went on to become mainstream and some which were better left to quietly vanish into oblivion, mismatched doctrines and by later standards, ludicrously under-powered tanks. The weird equipment ranges from tanks with two or even three turrets, to light tankettes far smaller than a modern car, to heavy tanks barely capable of keeping up with a walking man, but armed with a single machine-gun, to fast cavalry tanks carried to the battlefield on trucks and trailers. I love the idea of trying to make these weird ideas actually work on the battlefield!
These go hand-in-hand with the many and varied doctrines and tactical brain farts that spawned them. The French didn’t want their tanks able to move too fast; otherwise they would get too far ahead of the infantry. The British created cruiser tanks to roam the battlefield seeking out and destroying the enemy, unfettered by defences that doomed infantry to trench warfare. The Germans were not immune to crazy ideas either. Their reckless manoeuvres with massed forces of hundreds of largely-unsupported tanks worked well against disorganised defences, but failed dismally, at a high cost in knocked out tanks, against the well-prepared defences on the Somme as they would find again and again in later battles like Medenine, Kursk, and Mortain.

Manoeuvre over Firepower

To players familiar with Mid and Late War equipment, the tanks of the Early War period are unbelievably primitive. Whereas Late War players consider a 75mm gun to be barely adequate, to Early War players a 75mm gun is a super weapon. The most common German tanks in Poland and France were lowly Panzer I and II light tanks armed with machine-guns and 20mm cannon. The Panzer III with its 37mm gun is a rarity and a monster, while the massive Panzer IV with its short 75mm gun can take on anything. Even armoured cars pack a serious punch against tanks like these! This change in armour and firepower brings new challenges and tactics. Tank battles happen at short ranges and are far less deadly than they became as the war progressed. Manoeuvre and massing your forces are essential because firepower can’t be counted on.

Armoured Trains

The new environment did require some new special rules, such as those for armoured trains. While armoured trains may sound a bit old-fashioned and outdated for the Second World War, the Poles proved that in the east where good roads are few and far between, these land battleships could prove to be tough opposition. A late-war Sherman tank might laugh at the 30mm of armour and 75mm field guns carried by armoured trains, but the tanks of the Early War period find these monsters a serious challenge. The model is over two feet (60cm) long and its performance is as impressive as its appearance. Trains move 16”/40cm a turn and can fire everything they have at full effect, unperturbed by their own motion. They can even fire deadly artillery bombardments while under way. They are not cheap, but boy are they awesome in every respect!

Motorcycles

We also needed to revisit motorcycles, after all what self-respecting blitzkrieg thrust doesn’t have waves of motorcyclists mounted on their BMW combinations, machine-guns blazing, roaring along with the tanks? Before the invention of jeeps and armoured half-tracks, motorcycles played a huge part in mobile operations with nearly half of the infantry in some German and French armoured divisions mounted on them. We pondered how to make these troops more effective and more suited to their real-life roles as cavalry scouts and fast-moving mounted infantry and realised that the answer was staring us in the face – they are cavalry. Now the motorcyclists use the cavalry rules, including having an infantry save of 3+, but move as motorcycles and can fire their machine-guns on the move. Of course, unlike cavalry, they can’t launch charges, having to dismount to make assaults. The result is an exciting new dimension to Flames Of War battles with fast-moving motorcyclists adding to the pace of the games.

Polish Special Rules

Talking of cavalry, that brings me back to the Poles. I’ve always been a fan of cavalry and love the pageantry of the Polish lancers (yep, we even have a page on Polish lance penants!), and with their Lancers special rule allowing them to hit in assaults on a roll of 2+, they will be very deadly to any infantry foolish enough to let them make a mounted charge. Like the Soviets and mid-war Italians, the Polish cavalry and infantry are fielded in battalions and regiments rather than companies. This reflects the small size of Polish cavalry platoons (just 19 dismounts at full strength) and the limited support available to their infantry. However, rated as Fearless and using their Fate of the Nation special rule which allows both the company commander and the 2iC to re-roll Platoon Morale Checks to stay in the fight in the face of heavy casualties, the Poles don’t go down easily. Not that all Polish forces are lightly equipped. A Polish motorised cavalry regiment can field twelve (pretty good) anti-tank rifles, twelve (excellent) 37mm anti-tank guns, an artillery battery or two, and over a dozen tanks and tankettes and even an armoured train, making it a tough challenge for any opponent.

French Special Rules

Like the Poles, the French are a new force in Flames Of War and needed their own special rules. Here the challenge was to balance the excellent French equipment with their out-dated approach. Contrary to popular opinion, the French actually performed well when they were given half a chance – unfortunately their elderly generals made sure that this didn’t happen too often. One aspect of the French obsession with trench warfare was their plan to fight a methodical battle where each attack would advance a few thousand metres, then halt as the artillery is brought up for the next attack. This is reflected in both the slow speed of their tanks and the High Command special rule that allows them to place objectives closer to their table edge than normal. Seeking limited objectives like this, French infantry can be quite powerful in the attack.

A Few Interesting Changes

Talking about the Germans, players will notice a few differences in the characteristics of some guns and weapons from those they are used to. In 1940 the Germans had not yet fielded the improved anti-tank ammunition that they later used to give short-barrelled guns better capabilities against tanks. The 7.5cm KwK37 gun in the Panzer IV and StuG for example is rated as Anti-tank 7 rather then Anti-tank 9 as it is in Mid War. Don’t worry though, this is still a seriously respectable performance allowing it to knock out even the much-vaunted British A12 Matilda infantry tank. The 7.5cm leIG18 and 15cm sIG33 infantry guns and the 10.5cm leFH18 howitzer are similarly affected by the lack of improved ammunition.

On the other end of the scale, we found that the Panzerjäger I self-propelled anti-tank gun was under rated in Mid War. With an Anti-tank of 7 it just wasn’t able to perform some of the feats it did in real life. As such a marginal contributor to the mid-war battles, we had overlooked this, but it became critical when we started using it in Early War games, so we upped its Anti-tank rating to 8.