From: Philippe Butez Subject: French and Vietminh advantages in GDW's Citadel Dear web grognards What's below (after the dotted line) is a submission for publication on your web site. Please feel free to edit it (omitting these intro lines) and also if my English is not quite right.. Many thanks in advance. Philippe BUTEZ (Lille, France) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Citadel: French and Vietminh adavantages This summary of each side's advantages in GDW's Citadel is organized along the original rule numbers. 6. Stacking This is both a French advantage and a French drawback: A large stack of tanks and high morale infantry will often succeed in an attack,but on the reverse side, the way indirect fire losses are distributed means large stacks will make inviting targets. A trick is to stack low and high morale infantry in the same hex, using the 1st as cannon fodder, but this is limited by the rules (2 companies from different battalions). Also the problem will tend to worsen later in the game, as French units will be cramped in a shrinking perimeter. A possible house rule in favor of the French would be to allow the merging of similar companies into 'Compagnies de Marche' as was often the case in such conditions. 7. Movement and vulnerability points The French player must pay attention to these rules. Some roads are not that safe, and some vulnerability points are located right inside the perimeter when moving from one strongpoint to another. For the VM player, I advise forgetting open terrain movement completely, and only use trenches, even if this implies not attacking in the first 2 turns. Also, the return phase movement cannot be used if the unit is not linked to its HQ through trenches. 9. Fire combat At first, I thought it was very interesting for the VM player to try pinning French artillery in preparation to an assault. 105's are prime targets for this as they are the most flexible French arty. But the March '80 errata state that all indirect fire is considered to be simultaneous. Ah well... 11.Melee The main French asset is the usually higher morale of the troops (only 4 of the 38 VM battalions have a rating of 4, while 52 French companies out of 79 have 4 which sometimes get even better after the first loss). When defending, the French may only need pin a fraction of the attackers through indirect fire to win the day. It is also useful to call FPF on your own position in an overrun situation: more casualties will be inflicted on the VM (in the open) than on the French (in the strongpoint). For the VM player, the need to get favorable raw odds may mean that it will be difficult to plan/execute several assaults in the same turn, not mentioning ammo consumption (at least in the full campaign game). 13.Terrain Swamps are a VM advantage from April 19th, while the hill bonus against assaults will benefit both players (well maybe more for the French...) 15.Replacements VM replacements only arrive late in the game (19 turns to wait!) so I suggest that the VM player keeps track of his loss level for each battalion on a separate sheet, to determine more easily where the reinforcements will be most sorely needed (also useful in case of a bump in the table...). The French have plenty available but the main problem will be to bring them over. This also applies to full size units, as a full strength battalion takes 8 DC3's to carry! 17.Desertion Clearly a VM advantage, but the French player can counter this by sending the Thais to Isabelle and the original Isabelle garrison to the central strongpoints, thus reducing desertion losses to a single location some distance away. 18.Trenches Great for the VM player, but it is worth trying to plan the trench network in advance to build in flexibility in channels of attack and also maybe catch the French player in the open (vuln.point) if he tries to fill in trenches early in the game. Tunnels are nice, but there are not many eligible locations, and some are outright risky. 19.Tanks They are very powerful, equivalent to a full strength infantry company, and can be used to soak off indirect fire, but repairing them is difficult, so the French player may be tempted to leave damaged ones in the front line. I suggest the VM player to leave them alone all the time, except if alone in a hex. 21.General Supply Both sides must avoid getting short of GSP's, as this is very costly. The French player should simulate strategic bombing before play, with the PB4Y's for instance, and decide if it's worth it. 23.Resupply An analysis of the weather table shows that: If weather is clear everywhere, transport points will range from 288 and 400, depending on transport availability. If 20 GSP's (daily consumption) are transported to Dien Bien Phu (160 cargo points), this leaves between 128 and 240 points for ammo/troops. If weather is overcast over the valley, the same calculation will give between 144 and 216 points. 144 points will only allow 16 GSP's... Again, if weather is overcast everywhere, the number of transport points available will be from 72 to 112, i.e from 9 to 14 GSP's. This has to be compared against transport costs of 64 points for a whole battalion, 32 points for a full salvo of 155mm, 8 points for a salvo of 105mm, 16 points for a salvo of 120mm. The VM player MUST aim at eliminating (or rather, aborting) as many transport missions as possible. 24.Ammo dumps This is a twofold VM advantage. First, it gives a 33 percent chance to cause an ammo loss to the French, not much maybe, but not to be missed anyway. Second, I think the 105's are the best targets among French artillery anyway, as they are the most numerous, most flexible and easiest to resupply. 26.Air missions While the aircrafts are the best assets the French player has, some ways are available to the VM player to minimize this. Tac air: Never use VM Infantry in the open, remember that only fighter-bombers (i.e the weakest air units) can attack units adjacent to French units, so plan your flak cover well, and also that units cannot be attacked both by artillery indirect fire and aircrafts (it is wise to use some kind of marker to indicate such units to avoid mistakes). The DBP-based planes are enticing targets at game start before the French player can withdraw them. Flak suppression: If the French player has plenty available, he can use some planes on this. Although this is almost worthless in terms of losses to flak units, and also risky for the unit(s) doing it, it will prevent flak elsewhere. Spotting: At game start, the VM player should try to space out his units as much as possible to avoid spotters discovering too many of them with one plane, but this has to be balanced with artillery range benefits. Strategic bombing: Clearly a French advantage, although allocation of planes to this task will probably depend much on the situation on the battlefield. The French tactic here would be to use a few large stacks to minimize VM flak, and to use either B.26's at medium altitude or PB4Y's at low altitude to achieve odds of 2-1. Transport: This is esential for both players. Note that flak can be used in that phase, even if it fired before, and that there is a 1 in 6 chance of the supply getting lost, even at low altitude. If possible, try to hit the C.119's first. 27.Weather During March-April, the French air force will be at full strength 44 percent of the time, half strength 44 percent and quartered 11 percent. In May, this will change to: full, 25 percent, halved 33 percent, quartered 11 percent and completely grounded 30 percent (but by this time, both players should have a good idea of the end result...). Note that the PB4Y's are subject to weather in the Delta as they are ground based. 28.Flak The French advantage is that there is only a handful of them, and not very powerful as about half of them are limited to low altitude targets. On the reverse side, they are capable of firing 3 times per turn (twice against Tac air, once against transports) and are very resilient as losses are only temporary. Strongpoint Anne-Marie is a tempting place to establish flak there if there are still some aircrafts on the airfield (low altitude fire multiplied by 2, and ability to fire twice). I recommend creating some kind of flak 'umbrellas' out of clear plastic to avoid tedious hex counting for flak ranges. 29.Aircraft maintenance Maintenance seems very easy for the French (50 percent chance for each plane!) and culling is great too (the errata of 03/80 state differnt rules for Crickets and PB4Y's), so reducing the threat from the air will probably seem very long to the VM player. 31.DBP airfield This is a French advantage (2 missions per turn) but will probably not last very long, unless the VM player is careless... 32.Pilot strike This VM advantage has only a 1 in 6 chance to happen, but there are 18 die rolls to do! The impact on the transport will be anything from 2 C.47's unavailable during 1 day, to 12 C.47's during 6 days (God help the french player!) and also..... 33.Naval rotation The Frenh player will lose 8 planes and gain 4, so it is tempting to leave the Navy planes alone, and concentrate on the others, but reaction to air strikes on the battlefield will probably render this VM asset meaningless.