PLEASE CONTINUE TO PLAY AS FREE FRANCE! I would really love to see how the mechanics would work in dealing with the colonies and such! Cheers and hope your mental health recovers after what i can only imagine Pain as worse as the Carlist Spain video
I'm not sure how it would work in Black Ice, but in the base game it has severe problems. One of which is your capital is in the Pacific and won't move until you retake Paris, so you have massive convoy lines and almost no manpower or factories and have to rely on the AI to do the bulk of the fighting and either navel invade yourself and hope the AI follows you or wait for them to navel invade and then desperately try to hold off the German counter attack when most of the force you have are probably the AI and AI controlled. And you have to do all that while shipping everything from the Pacific.
@@politonno2499 Retaking any nation after capitulating would be difficult. France has the greater problem of also having Vichy France though which makes everything worse because other nations like Belgium or the Netherlands would get to keep their overseas territories but if you choose Free France then Vichy gets most of the territory and unless some way is implemented to completely break the historical route(like say no Vichy if stability is really high) then Vichy has too.
It's similar to vanilla, there's a shared focus tree, each time you do a focuys you declare a small war on vichy france to take that area You start with just the one pacific island as in vanilla, and take back everything but northern africa slowly Unfortunately, you have to naval invade all the islands... You have a -70% research speed to naval invasion techs. You have no food, and no way to get more food as you have no civs to buy food You have to beg your allies for fuel or you get the fuel debuff too I was also stuck at 0% stability the entire time (This may be a skill issue though) you can't do anything with your industry, as you have no power and none of the states have any resources until you get back to north africa You are on a timer until Japan joins, because when they do they will end up putting their fleet in the Indian ocean stopping you from invading managascar, which stops you progressing towards torch/overlord. You are totally reliant on your allies to Torch, as the focus requires you to have a number of capital ships in a port before you can do it And because you lost your mainland you are limited to two research slots, so you fall woefully behind in tech It's.. really not great, the complete lack of resources and especially food is crippling, I belive in Vanilla you end up with a handful of factories but in black ICE you can't use them at all Even pre-building in the colonies wouldn't help much, as you are either stuck trying to power steel refs with 0 power, coal, or iron. or importing the steel directly at 10/civ (roughly enough to have 2 mils on guns) To make it work, you'd need a way to beg your allies for resouces (Especially food! did I mention how bad food was oh my god) alongside equipment, and to actually re-gain some research slots/steal some british research etc. so you aren't 5 years behind in tech trying to dday with basic infantry divisions with no doctrine lol
The real war was probably easier than BICE. The mod isn't really historical, just artificially painful and hard, and over bloated with content and other stuff to make it look complex (which it is) and historical (which it isn't) The mod is literally just op Germany
just a tip for the pop ups, you can right click them to make them go away. Essentially, they are the new popups but have not been reskinned yet to match the new style.
@@blackrose3653 and irl, they start their retreat to dunkirk withouth telling anyone, leaving a large hole in the defensive line wich neither french or belgium was able to close
I don’t mean this in a rude way but I really enjoy watching you struggle and lose. Normally when I watch HOI4 videos (like from Tommykay, or your disaster saves) nothing is beyond saving. In the end you guys always win. Watching this was really entertaining because it felt hopeless and semi realistic. I would love to see more of this kind of stuff.
He's failed a few disaster saves, like that Carlist Spain one. Honestly I mostly watch to see if I can improve my own game or if I'd like a mod but for someone watching I can understand how the suspense of not knowing if they'll win or lose is good.
So they made France even worse than Vanilla, and it was already way worse than it should be. The French only lost IRL because of tactical failure in the Ardennes, not because of low military strength or quality. Also, the French planned a last ditch defensive line at the Loire river and only surrendered after the Germans crossed the Loire while the French forces were scattered and non-combat-effective. So, the surrender limit should be normal, not nerfed. Granted, IRL countries would surrender based on their prospects of victory, not their level of foreign occupation, example Belgium in WW1, or China in WW2, so the way surrender limit works in HOI4 is completely unrealistic to begin with, but still, France should not have an France-specific terrible surrender limit.
I mean, AI vanilla France is just terrible but you playing as France in historical is laughably easy by just doing the things France didn't do during the inter-war and ww2 period
No. Their general staff was terrible (except for DeGaulle but he was lower in rank and somewhat disgraced at the time), the Front Populaire was a massive faliure, their doctrines were stuck in the past. Equipement wasn't all that bad and the soldiers themselves were good, but without competent leadership it basically came to, well ...real life. The truth is that the French Army while brave was completely unprepared for the new combined warfare type of combat. Pétain was a good leader, a hero of WW1, but he was really really old. Still people could have rallied around him, at least that's what the gov was hoping for at the time, but he pulled a "Ceasar" and chose collaboration instead.
@@robertbastiencote4284 It really is a shame that "collaboration" is what Petain is remembered for when he was very vocal that he just wanted France out of the war so the French people could stop dying for what many people saw as "British adventurism" hell he wanted out of the war as early as the fall of Warsaw.
@@simonnachreiner8380 Yes, because he knew that it was not a conflict that France could win, not on land at least while she would bear the blunt of it. This is why they had been so adamant at disarming the Rhineland at Versailles, although this ultimately proved useless. The Anglo-Saxons, protected as they were by air and sea, could afford to be more lenient. Yet for all his qualities he wasn't blameless. As a traditionalist who belonged to the aristocracy he wasn't exactly fond of republicanism. He made sure that the state capitulated before the honor of the army could be tarnished by an official surrender. During his trial at the end of the war, he tried to convince people of that he wasn't a collaborator: he simply had been "Le Général": the good father of the nation. The shield that protected the French people until the "sword" that was General De Gaulle arrived. However documents and correspondence of Vichy revealed that he wasn't simply a passive spectator.. He provided information and lists of people even when the Germans didn't ask for them. In the end he truly proved a collaborator. For this and for his role in WWI (as well as his age) De Gaulle commuted his death penalty into a life sentence.
@@robertbastiencote4284 the french general staff have very competent and good general de Gaulles yes but Alphonse juin, Philippe Leclerc, Delattre de Tassigny, was also excellent and Weygand was good Marshall and have good sucess but when he was call back it was too late Gamelin and the french tank doctrine was the main reason of french failure the other point France was better liké motorisation And the popular front try to get back the arms industrie of France and get back the french economy
As a french, seeing someone in so much pain because of the state of my country feels familiar with our whole current political and economics situation…
Fyi the convoy thing is a bug. Ive had it multiple times when reloading the game in mods such as KR. Usually playing on non iron man the fix is to add 1 convoy using the console and that causes the game to update and realise that you dont actually have 0 convoys. No idea why tho
the bug happens when a lend-lease is still going when you leave the game. i had it recently the first time and my fix was to just cancel the LL and wait for a day.
If you don't want to console (or can't) you can just build a convoy (takes 1-2 days), after that it's fixed (until next time you load) (And yea, it's nothing to do with mods, since it happens in raw base game as well)
It’s really sad that the only way to improve the AI in this game is to hardcode it to do certain stuff, like Britain not sending units to France. It ultimately makes the challenge unrealistic and just unfairly hard beyond the point that it makes any sense, so i’d imagine this French campaign would be much more enjoyable if you had a buddy playing as Britain- THEN you could actually focus the allied might together and beat up the Axis
When the mod creators said they wanted the players to really feel WWII while playing, they actually meant it. They want you to feel the dread and futility of it all. The true WWII experience.
correct me if im wrong but im pretty sure the British ai intentionally doesnt put troops in france because how quickly france fell irl, I played a game as france a while ago and faced the same problem, if you can hold out until america gets involved they're more than willing to flood your lines with troops
Black Ice has presets for Tanks and Ships, and you can hover over the next ship/tank and itll tell you ''you need this and this gun'', so in the end it really isnt super complex if you just follow the presents and maybe modify it if you specifically want more AA or torpedos, or better penetration in the case of tanks
Historicly, France has in 1940 a bigger and better army than germany(with better tanks equipement and better/equivalent fighters). The only big problem of our militay power was the leader ship of the army, who were some old-WW1 petain's friends. Also yes the britain has abandoned us.
Britain abandoned France when France was defeated. The British were able to evacuate Dunkirk yes but they lost all their heavy equipment. So once those troops were back in Britain they weren't equipped to fight and the last soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk on June 3. So if Britain wanted to help they'd have had to re-equip their army and get them back into France in position to fight in time to make enough of a difference to stop the start of the surrender negotiations on June 18th and frankly before French Prime Minister Reynaud resigned on June 16th. So 13 days to somehow find the equipment and reorganize their soldiers into an effective fighting force and then get them back into France and achieve a worthwhile victory. That couldn't happen. Also there were still British divisions in France and fighting after Dunkirk. So no France wasn't abandoned by Britain. All that said, Britain committed vastly less divisions to the fighting in France then France did and realistically Britain should have had the equipment to send more, based on the relative size of the French and British economies. I don't know why the British army was smaller or what they were doing with the extra industrial muscle they should have had, maybe it went to the navy or air force or maybe they were supplying the French military. But they certainly weren't sitting on a stockpile of equipment because there was a serious worry that they didn't have enough equipment to defend against a German invasion after France fell and they basically had to re-equip their entire army. So no Britain didn't abandon France they fought alongside them from the beginning of the Battle of France until the end but they make a huge number of mistakes leading up to the Battle of France that contributed to the loss. Of course so did France, including their failure to stop the German army breaking through French lines which is what got the most of the British army surrounded at Dunkirk(and a bunch of French soldiers, about a third of those evacuated from Dunkirk weren't British).
the french army really wasn't much better than the Germans, nor were the Germans genius for using massed tanks or the French stupid for using them dispersed what had happened is that the Germans did everything right while the allies did everything wrong the french army never thought the Ardennes were impassable terrain for the tanks, but rather that it would be such difficult terrain that if would have taken the Germans at least twice as long as they did in otl to get a force concentration in the area the initial french plan had included an operational reserve for the Sedan sector too, in the form of the french 7th army, which was probably the best trained and equipped large unit in the whole French army, which, had the French GHQ stuck to the pure Dyle plan (set up shop along the Dyle river in Belgium), it would have been able to be pulled to shore the German advance, but the Breda alternative was engaged, which had the 7th army engaged on the left flank of the allied army to rush into the Netherlands, which it did, but then had to quickly leave as the Germans were already wreaking havoc into the french lines as for the Sedan sector, it wasn't left undefended, an entire army crops was centred here, but it's units weren't best equipped, lacking mostly in anti tank weapons, and some were shuffled into position late, thus weren't fully dug in when the Germans attacked, which wasn't catastrophic as they were able to repel the advanced elements, but then the Germans zeroed 2 geschwaders (60-80 planes) on a 15x10km sector, which repeatedly pound the area for 5 whole hours, methodically blasting artillery, anti air positions, field fortifications and command nodes, the result was the effective destruction of the 55th infantry division as a fighting force, and the adjacent units were completely disorganised, thus the German forces could cross the river the next day virtually unopposed
The reason behind your convoy is dissappear and then reappear wirhout no reason, yeah it's bug. When you reload game it's seem like that convoy and supply system not been load properly so it disaapear an then after a while after it reload then it reappear again after it loaded.
That was rough man. Classic useless allies. Good job holding em back. Watching you get vengeance as free france would be neat, but honestly i think at a certain point black ice becomes a torture technique lol
Been waiting for ThatGuyFromCollege to finally play France in BlackIce. Glad I don’t have to wait anymore thanks to you. Y’all should do a Allies or axis game together in BlackIce lol
Nicely played! You could do both Free France and Vichy. I feel like the latter would be more challenging, trying to help the Germans, since, as you said, they will now be very ill-prepared for Barbarossa.
you can also use the normal division symbols instead of the NATO standard, by clicking in the symbol in the division trainer menu, and clicking ''use standard symbol'', it then reverts to the base-game one
I always use marketplace to sell every piece of equipment i do not plan on using at the beginning. And most of it does get sold giving some boost to construction.
the convoys are a bug where you load a save sometimes the convoy count will be 0 until you get or lose a convoy causing it to go back to how much you actually have
as a french, i have to say... i have never heard nor even read "HON HON HON" in my life, until about ten years ago when I started to watch american youtube. It took me a while to even know it was supposed to mimic frenchies. to this day i still don't know where it comes from.
French Language is generally very nasal (just say "pain au chocolat" and it's obvious to any non French speaker), and so it's the way of expressing that as a pretentious laugh. Probably from some Parisians who came to England at one point.
Germany is now set up to lose, so you should join their side just for the challenge. If you play as free France you can at this point literally do nothing and win anyway.
I remember a time when Black Ice didn’t work and that it was advised not to play the mod because it is broken and I’m surprised they made it work. Makes Millenium Dawn look like a mod masterpiece.
Honestly there isn’t a massive difference between ww2 and ww1 French uniforms, the only thing that really changes are parts of the helmet and uniform color! Well and ammo pouches
French soldier alone in a pillbox, 9 months after his British pales left, with only 1 box of ammo for his MG, 2 mags for his sidearm, and a single gernade. *racks the last of his MG ammo* "I'M STILL STANDING!"
29:02 yeah i think it's a bug that when you load that the game temporarily forgets about your convoys and you have for a short time. Have noticed that a few times aswell, really annoying.
BICE definitely rigs France to lose - base game hoi4 does the same btw. Easier to cheese it in vanilla but with historical army and industry the French AI kept dunking on mustache man But the war probably ends quicker in this world when an exhausted German army gets curb stomped by Stalin
god i wish there was a lite mod for this. i love parts of the depth and complexity but it also have unneeded bloat and difficulty for the sake of being hardcore.
i started up your video on my phone as i was grabbing cereal and tripped on the pantry door, hit my foot hard. almost cried too, avoided the brain damage. 2/10 would not recommend.
I would love to see bittersteel play sacred war it's a mod that asks what if the axis did great (Not the new order the allies and comintern exist) They are just doing horribly The soviets have lost most of the caucus Vladivostok Murmansk Stalingrad and most European lands and the British lost egypy it'd be really interesting to see if bittersteel could pull this one off. (it's in the steam workshop mod name sacred war)
The convoys issue is a bug, when u reload, u ll always have 0 convoys. To fix it, just build 1 convoy, and the bug will dissapear. Thsi shit has been in game for quite a bit, and paradox doesnt seem that it is gonna fix it soon
You set up a production line for left boots, but not for right boots, That incurs a -50% penality on movement speed. Happens to the best of us.
LMAO
cant imagine if war countries was only produce one side footwear
Wait WHAT??
Wait is this fr?
no guys, this is a joke. you produce uniforms, that's it. helmets, tunics, trousers, and boots are all packed together.
PLEASE CONTINUE TO PLAY AS FREE FRANCE!
I would really love to see how the mechanics would work in dealing with the colonies and such!
Cheers and hope your mental health recovers after what i can only imagine Pain as worse as the Carlist Spain video
I'm not sure how it would work in Black Ice, but in the base game it has severe problems. One of which is your capital is in the Pacific and won't move until you retake Paris, so you have massive convoy lines and almost no manpower or factories and have to rely on the AI to do the bulk of the fighting and either navel invade yourself and hope the AI follows you or wait for them to navel invade and then desperately try to hold off the German counter attack when most of the force you have are probably the AI and AI controlled. And you have to do all that while shipping everything from the Pacific.
@@JohnSmith-zl1tr France needs a rework
@@politonno2499 Retaking any nation after capitulating would be difficult. France has the greater problem of also having Vichy France though which makes everything worse because other nations like Belgium or the Netherlands would get to keep their overseas territories but if you choose Free France then Vichy gets most of the territory and unless some way is implemented to completely break the historical route(like say no Vichy if stability is really high) then Vichy has too.
It's similar to vanilla, there's a shared focus tree, each time you do a focuys you declare a small war on vichy france to take that area
You start with just the one pacific island as in vanilla, and take back everything but northern africa slowly
Unfortunately, you have to naval invade all the islands... You have a -70% research speed to naval invasion techs.
You have no food, and no way to get more food as you have no civs to buy food
You have to beg your allies for fuel or you get the fuel debuff too
I was also stuck at 0% stability the entire time (This may be a skill issue though)
you can't do anything with your industry, as you have no power and none of the states have any resources until you get back to north africa
You are on a timer until Japan joins, because when they do they will end up putting their fleet in the Indian ocean stopping you from invading managascar, which stops you progressing towards torch/overlord.
You are totally reliant on your allies to Torch, as the focus requires you to have a number of capital ships in a port before you can do it
And because you lost your mainland you are limited to two research slots, so you fall woefully behind in tech
It's.. really not great, the complete lack of resources and especially food is crippling, I belive in Vanilla you end up with a handful of factories but in black ICE you can't use them at all
Even pre-building in the colonies wouldn't help much, as you are either stuck trying to power steel refs with 0 power, coal, or iron. or importing the steel directly at 10/civ (roughly enough to have 2 mils on guns)
To make it work, you'd need a way to beg your allies for resouces (Especially food! did I mention how bad food was oh my god) alongside equipment, and to actually re-gain some research slots/steal some british research etc. so you aren't 5 years behind in tech trying to dday with basic infantry divisions with no doctrine lol
@@JohnSmith-zl1tr it needs a better focus tree and more extensive free France mechanichs
0:16 “you win too much”
-literally lost last saturday
I'm still salty about it. I want him to do it over and not fuck up. IT WAS WINNABLE!!!
In truth, this was recorded first!
@@Bitt3rSteel DO 👏 IT 👏 AGAIN! 👏
@@Ilikecoffees 👍
@@Bitt3rSteel
Whoever made Blackice really wanted to experience WW2
The real war was probably easier than BICE. The mod isn't really historical, just artificially painful and hard, and over bloated with content and other stuff to make it look complex (which it is) and historical (which it isn't)
The mod is literally just op Germany
As a supply administrator
betrayed by the british
my reaction: why im not surprised
Clarkson: Oh no! So anyways, the hatchback model...
This entire video is just the French taking over Bittersteel like a symbiote
More like a parasite, symbiotes usually give some benefits to the host
The only benefit is that you made the Germans waste enough manpower that operation Barbarossa is going to be significantly harder
just a tip for the pop ups, you can right click them to make them go away. Essentially, they are the new popups but have not been reskinned yet to match the new style.
Very helpful!
25:50 so just like irl, the brits decided to bail withouth warning . This is really the most realistic mod out there
It happens in vanilla as well
When did the brits decide to bail without warning?
@Brxwn9 oh kk
@@blackrose3653 and irl, they start their retreat to dunkirk withouth telling anyone, leaving a large hole in the defensive line wich neither french or belgium was able to close
@@luc-zq7ku damn. Do you know where I can read about this?
Try Luxembourg black ice now🗿
How i got 1,7 thousand likes🗿
God have mercy on your soul🗿
Idk about that
Tbh I think its easier than france reason being france is france
Tried it with cheats. All tech unlocked, 2 million manpower 100% war support and got killed by the Germans in two months
What's the fucking point?
@@King_ShotoFaney
so many tears must have fallen to make this.
member alert
A lot... (probably)
I don’t mean this in a rude way but I really enjoy watching you struggle and lose. Normally when I watch HOI4 videos (like from Tommykay, or your disaster saves) nothing is beyond saving. In the end you guys always win. Watching this was really entertaining because it felt hopeless and semi realistic. I would love to see more of this kind of stuff.
Bro is at his villain arc
He's failed a few disaster saves, like that Carlist Spain one.
Honestly I mostly watch to see if I can improve my own game or if I'd like a mod but for someone watching I can understand how the suspense of not knowing if they'll win or lose is good.
So they made France even worse than Vanilla, and it was already way worse than it should be. The French only lost IRL because of tactical failure in the Ardennes, not because of low military strength or quality. Also, the French planned a last ditch defensive line at the Loire river and only surrendered after the Germans crossed the Loire while the French forces were scattered and non-combat-effective. So, the surrender limit should be normal, not nerfed.
Granted, IRL countries would surrender based on their prospects of victory, not their level of foreign occupation, example Belgium in WW1, or China in WW2, so the way surrender limit works in HOI4 is completely unrealistic to begin with, but still, France should not have an France-specific terrible surrender limit.
I mean, AI vanilla France is just terrible but you playing as France in historical is laughably easy by just doing the things France didn't do during the inter-war and ww2 period
No. Their general staff was terrible (except for DeGaulle but he was lower in rank and somewhat disgraced at the time), the Front Populaire was a massive faliure, their doctrines were stuck in the past. Equipement wasn't all that bad and the soldiers themselves were good, but without competent leadership it basically came to, well ...real life. The truth is that the French Army while brave was completely unprepared for the new combined warfare type of combat. Pétain was a good leader, a hero of WW1, but he was really really old. Still people could have rallied around him, at least that's what the gov was hoping for at the time, but he pulled a "Ceasar" and chose collaboration instead.
@@robertbastiencote4284 It really is a shame that "collaboration" is what Petain is remembered for when he was very vocal that he just wanted France out of the war so the French people could stop dying for what many people saw as "British adventurism" hell he wanted out of the war as early as the fall of Warsaw.
@@simonnachreiner8380 Yes, because he knew that it was not a conflict that France could win, not on land at least while she would bear the blunt of it. This is why they had been so adamant at disarming the Rhineland at Versailles, although this ultimately proved useless. The Anglo-Saxons, protected as they were by air and sea, could afford to be more lenient. Yet for all his qualities he wasn't blameless. As a traditionalist who belonged to the aristocracy he wasn't exactly fond of republicanism. He made sure that the state capitulated before the honor of the army could be tarnished by an official surrender. During his trial at the end of the war, he tried to convince people of that he wasn't a collaborator: he simply had been "Le Général": the good father of the nation. The shield that protected the French people until the "sword" that was General De Gaulle arrived. However documents and correspondence of Vichy revealed that he wasn't simply a passive spectator.. He provided information and lists of people even when the Germans didn't ask for them. In the end he truly proved a collaborator. For this and for his role in WWI (as well as his age) De Gaulle commuted his death penalty into a life sentence.
@@robertbastiencote4284 the french general staff have very competent and good general de Gaulles yes but Alphonse juin, Philippe Leclerc, Delattre de Tassigny, was also excellent and Weygand was good Marshall and have good sucess but when he was call back it was too late
Gamelin and the french tank doctrine was the main reason of french failure the other point France was better liké motorisation
And the popular front try to get back the arms industrie of France and get back the french economy
As a french, seeing someone in so much pain because of the state of my country feels familiar with our whole current political and economics situation…
France never changes
@@gijskramer1702 "France, France never changes..."
Ah la la
Mate that's so wrong you clearly don't know anything about the state of France preWW2 if you believe now it is simular you are a fool.
Make sure to save the state with your life
Fyi the convoy thing is a bug. Ive had it multiple times when reloading the game in mods such as KR. Usually playing on non iron man the fix is to add 1 convoy using the console and that causes the game to update and realise that you dont actually have 0 convoys. No idea why tho
I have had it in vanilla many times
the bug happens when a lend-lease is still going when you leave the game. i had it recently the first time and my fix was to just cancel the LL and wait for a day.
If you don't want to console (or can't) you can just build a convoy (takes 1-2 days), after that it's fixed (until next time you load)
(And yea, it's nothing to do with mods, since it happens in raw base game as well)
Do not hon hon hon in my ear ever again 💀
Part 2 : Bittersteel : So... disaster save....
It’s really sad that the only way to improve the AI in this game is to hardcode it to do certain stuff, like Britain not sending units to France. It ultimately makes the challenge unrealistic and just unfairly hard beyond the point that it makes any sense, so i’d imagine this French campaign would be much more enjoyable if you had a buddy playing as Britain- THEN you could actually focus the allied might together and beat up the Axis
I would love to see some Free French gameplay!
When the mod creators said they wanted the players to really feel WWII while playing, they actually meant it. They want you to feel the dread and futility of it all. The true WWII experience.
correct me if im wrong but im pretty sure the British ai intentionally doesnt put troops in france because how quickly france fell irl, I played a game as france a while ago and faced the same problem, if you can hold out until america gets involved they're more than willing to flood your lines with troops
This is literrally a suicide mission
Nah, I did the same thing and held.
... until Spain back doored me in 41.
Black Ice has presets for Tanks and Ships, and you can hover over the next ship/tank and itll tell you ''you need this and this gun'', so in the end it really isnt super complex if you just follow the presents and maybe modify it if you specifically want more AA or torpedos, or better penetration in the case of tanks
36:37 Poland’s historical 1939 pov:
Historicly, France has in 1940 a bigger and better army than germany(with better tanks equipement and better/equivalent fighters). The only big problem of our militay power was the leader ship of the army, who were some old-WW1 petain's friends. Also yes the britain has abandoned us.
Big issue was that the Germans concentrated their tanks while the French used them like it was WW1
@@snowmeows3342yeah the lack of modern doctrine was the cause with bad leadership.
Britain abandoned France when France was defeated. The British were able to evacuate Dunkirk yes but they lost all their heavy equipment. So once those troops were back in Britain they weren't equipped to fight and the last soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk on June 3. So if Britain wanted to help they'd have had to re-equip their army and get them back into France in position to fight in time to make enough of a difference to stop the start of the surrender negotiations on June 18th and frankly before French Prime Minister Reynaud resigned on June 16th. So 13 days to somehow find the equipment and reorganize their soldiers into an effective fighting force and then get them back into France and achieve a worthwhile victory. That couldn't happen. Also there were still British divisions in France and fighting after Dunkirk. So no France wasn't abandoned by Britain.
All that said, Britain committed vastly less divisions to the fighting in France then France did and realistically Britain should have had the equipment to send more, based on the relative size of the French and British economies. I don't know why the British army was smaller or what they were doing with the extra industrial muscle they should have had, maybe it went to the navy or air force or maybe they were supplying the French military. But they certainly weren't sitting on a stockpile of equipment because there was a serious worry that they didn't have enough equipment to defend against a German invasion after France fell and they basically had to re-equip their entire army. So no Britain didn't abandon France they fought alongside them from the beginning of the Battle of France until the end but they make a huge number of mistakes leading up to the Battle of France that contributed to the loss. Of course so did France, including their failure to stop the German army breaking through French lines which is what got the most of the British army surrounded at Dunkirk(and a bunch of French soldiers, about a third of those evacuated from Dunkirk weren't British).
the french army really wasn't much better than the Germans, nor were the Germans genius for using massed tanks or the French stupid for using them dispersed
what had happened is that the Germans did everything right while the allies did everything wrong
the french army never thought the Ardennes were impassable terrain for the tanks, but rather that it would be such difficult terrain that if would have taken the Germans at least twice as long as they did in otl to get a force concentration in the area
the initial french plan had included an operational reserve for the Sedan sector too, in the form of the french 7th army, which was probably the best trained and equipped large unit in the whole French army, which, had the French GHQ stuck to the pure Dyle plan (set up shop along the Dyle river in Belgium), it would have been able to be pulled to shore the German advance, but the Breda alternative was engaged, which had the 7th army engaged on the left flank of the allied army to rush into the Netherlands, which it did, but then had to quickly leave as the Germans were already wreaking havoc into the french lines
as for the Sedan sector, it wasn't left undefended, an entire army crops was centred here, but it's units weren't best equipped, lacking mostly in anti tank weapons, and some were shuffled into position late, thus weren't fully dug in when the Germans attacked, which wasn't catastrophic as they were able to repel the advanced elements, but then the Germans zeroed 2 geschwaders (60-80 planes) on a 15x10km sector, which repeatedly pound the area for 5 whole hours, methodically blasting artillery, anti air positions, field fortifications and command nodes, the result was the effective destruction of the 55th infantry division as a fighting force, and the adjacent units were completely disorganised, thus the German forces could cross the river the next day virtually unopposed
Abandoned? We had a small arse army. In what way did we abandon yous
What if instead of Bitt3rSteel he would be called FreakySteel and he would get freaky
hoi4 players dont get freaky.
Fr3akySteel
He will enjoy playing bice
@@cosmosyn2514exepction to this one
i think bitt3rsteel said it best himself; "i need more men". the french simply did not have enough bouletz, bigehr weponz, or protein.
Looks so hard! Is Belgium playable in Black Ice?
Everything is playable
Yes, and it has content
by playable if you mean wanting to rip your hair out by the end of your short but VERY eventful session, then yes it is playable.
What do you think 💀
I meant if its the same difficulty as France :) the crisises looked like the real diff for france, i wonder if like Belgium can be easier
i count that as a win tbh, you held out all the way past our timeline's barbarossa, so thats pretty great
The reason behind your convoy is dissappear and then reappear wirhout no reason, yeah it's bug.
When you reload game it's seem like that convoy and supply system not been load properly so it disaapear an then after a while after it reload then it reappear again after it loaded.
Ah yes, "misunderestimat[ing]" of your enemy - the classic mistake. (25:43)
Needed to mate his enemy tbh
That was rough man. Classic useless allies. Good job holding em back. Watching you get vengeance as free france would be neat, but honestly i think at a certain point black ice becomes a torture technique lol
Would really love to see how the Free French gameplay looks in this mode, please make a sequel! 🥺
Been waiting for ThatGuyFromCollege to finally play France in BlackIce. Glad I don’t have to wait anymore thanks to you. Y’all should do a Allies or axis game together in BlackIce lol
I absolutely love this new black ice series!!!❤ hope your doing well bitt3rsteel.
Watching someone play this mod is like being a dog, you don't know whats going on but you're just happy to be there
therapist: french bittersteel can't hurt you, he's not real
french bittersteel:
HONHONHON 0:01
The kids drum over his head strikes again... And again... And again.
Fucking google translate says that translates to "HONOR"
My sides are metaphorically in orbit right now.
The Brits are actually just sitting there sipping tea, and not doing shit.
Adrahill and you are really doing a great job to convince me of joining your suffering playing this mod
This gives the same vibes as me playing base game hoi4 for the first time, as France. Great vid!
I for one would like to see you play on as Free France so that we can see the Germans fail at Barbarossa
Continue as Free France and at least take back Corsica. At least.
I agree, this run is not finished
"it is horrible its is french lets see why- oh its a Eiffel tower"
Dude, the amount of micro managing you have to do for the economy and production is crazy insane!!
A Free France run would be pretty cool, I'd watch. Keep up the great work.
Nicely played!
You could do both Free France and Vichy. I feel like the latter would be more challenging, trying to help the Germans, since, as you said, they will now be very ill-prepared for Barbarossa.
I love every Bittersteel french run, cause he mocks the country for the entire video
Black ice - destroying Bitt3rSteel’s sanity one upload at a time
5:44 we got a deal my man
you can also use the normal division symbols instead of the NATO standard, by clicking in the symbol in the division trainer menu, and clicking ''use standard symbol'', it then reverts to the base-game one
05:29 ooooh, i get it why you dislike France now
je vais faire des frites au four pour la peine
avec une petite sauce la...
German in World Ablaze plz
Your French prononciation is actually very good
I always use marketplace to sell every piece of equipment i do not plan on using at the beginning. And most of it does get sold giving some boost to construction.
Try 1939 next 🗿🗿
0:32 pov my adhd kicking in
That's genuinely the best way I've ever been told to like and subscribe. Alas, I could only like, since I was already subscribed.
Its funny that he had published this videos the same day the 2024 Olympics at Paris ended officially
Would love to see you stage a come back as free france, cant let those germans think they've truly won
he lost his mind in the beginning of the video lol
the convoys are a bug where you load a save sometimes the convoy count will be 0 until you get or lose a convoy causing it to go back to how much you actually have
as a french, i have to say... i have never heard nor even read "HON HON HON" in my life, until about ten years ago when I started to watch american youtube. It took me a while to even know it was supposed to mimic frenchies. to this day i still don't know where it comes from.
French Language is generally very nasal (just say "pain au chocolat" and it's obvious to any non French speaker), and so it's the way of expressing that as a pretentious laugh. Probably from some Parisians who came to England at one point.
CONTINUE AS FREE FRANCE SUFFER FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT
Great content! Keep posting ❤
Would like to see some Kaiserreich
Specifically Baltic State- having some trouble with this one
great video but everytime i heard these frenchman impressions i died a little on the inside
French uniforme: If it aint broken dont fix it.
As a Frenchman, the little "hon hon" made me die laughing.
Whenever he gets "Frenched" I can detect the loss of psychology.
Unironically Historically accurate Foreign relations.
Germany is now set up to lose, so you should join their side just for the challenge. If you play as free France you can at this point literally do nothing and win anyway.
Yes please keep playing as Free France! to Victory!
16:48 historically they actually did help the Republicans with supplies, but it was all very unofficial
I remember a time when Black Ice didn’t work and that it was advised not to play the mod because it is broken and I’m surprised they made it work. Makes Millenium Dawn look like a mod masterpiece.
Finally it's saturday and it's Bitt3rsteel time. And oh God, now we'll have to survive an another week.
26:23 " I *NEED* a *MEDICBAG* "
Honestly there isn’t a massive difference between ww2 and ww1 French uniforms, the only thing that really changes are parts of the helmet and uniform color!
Well and ammo pouches
French soldier alone in a pillbox, 9 months after his British pales left, with only 1 box of ammo for his MG, 2 mags for his sidearm, and a single gernade.
*racks the last of his MG ammo*
"I'M STILL STANDING!"
29:02 yeah i think it's a bug that when you load that the game temporarily forgets about your convoys and you have for a short time. Have noticed that a few times aswell, really annoying.
Great video! as always! 😁😁😁
This mod was built for Bitt3rSteel
I don't know, the mod is kinda saved by the little eiffel tower in paris for me...
BICE definitely rigs France to lose - base game hoi4 does the same btw. Easier to cheese it in vanilla but with historical army and industry the French AI kept dunking on mustache man
But the war probably ends quicker in this world when an exhausted German army gets curb stomped by Stalin
The amount of time it takes Britain to send aid to france is insane
god i wish there was a lite mod for this. i love parts of the depth and complexity but it also have unneeded bloat and difficulty for the sake of being hardcore.
Given how much you've chewed up Germany, I would love to see you try and rebuild this as Free France. Return to the Continent?
I felt remarkable threatened by those Belgian Waffles
Babe wake up Bitt3rsteel just uploaded a black ice video
i started up your video on my phone as i was grabbing cereal and tripped on the pantry door, hit my foot hard. almost cried too, avoided the brain damage. 2/10 would not recommend.
Play on as free France please, I wanna see what happens from here
Oke something that nearly makes Bitt3r cry really must be something Evil indeed!
Try building lots of low cost high org units (so like 10 widths unless it doesnt work like that in black ice) and just cycle them on the front line
Good to see the 0 convoys glitch is still present lmao
If bittersteel says boxite one more time I’m gonna start calling him b’thulu-stāl
I would love to see bittersteel play sacred war it's a mod that asks what if the axis did great (Not the new order the allies and comintern exist) They are just doing horribly The soviets have lost most of the caucus Vladivostok Murmansk Stalingrad and most European lands and the British lost egypy it'd be really interesting to see if bittersteel could pull this one off. (it's in the steam workshop mod name sacred war)
Play on Sir! Play on!
Geweldige video man, groeten van een mede Vlaming!!!!
The convoys issue is a bug, when u reload, u ll always have 0 convoys. To fix it, just build 1 convoy, and the bug will dissapear. Thsi shit has been in game for quite a bit, and paradox doesnt seem that it is gonna fix it soon
love these black ice videos do the British next please
Great vid.. we get a deep view in Black Ice.. with a nice country . let's grap some pop corn.
"France is in such a bad position in this game. Its the worst."
Poland: ....