Bonjour and welcome back to my process of tweaking the DLM lists from the Chain of Command 1940 handbook to better fit our specific scenario this year: the Battle of Hannut. Make sure to read Part 1 first or I’m not sure this will make much sense!

The Support List

Our starting point here is the Support List for the DLMs from the Blitzkrieg 1940 Handbook.

Division Légère Mécanique

Support List

List One

Medical Orderly

Adjutant

Engineers Mine Clearance Team

Engineers Wire-Cutting Team

Engineers Demolition Team

Additional V-B Ammunition for one man

Anti-Aircraft Machine Guns

Car with no crew

Francs Tireurs

List Two

Sniper Team

Escouade de Fusiiers Motorcycliste

Red Dice

List Three

60mm Brandt Mortar team with Junior Leader and four crew

Canon De 25mm L72 AT gun with five crew and Junior Leader

Panhard 178 AMD with Junior Leader

Hotchkiss H-35 with Junior Leader

AMR ZT-1 with Junior Leader

AMR ZT-3 with Junior Leader

Pre Game Barrage

List Four

Hotchkiss M1914 MMG Team with five crew

Canon de 75mm M1897 with five gun crew and Junior Leader

Hotchkiss H39 with Junior Leader

AMR 35 ZT-2 with Junior Leader

List Five

Groupe de Combat with Junior Leader

Forward Oberserver Team with fixed line telephone and 81mm mortar section

List Six

Somua S35 with Junior Leader

So, let’s tackle these items one by one. After that we’ll talk about some things that need to be added, then we’ll have our refined list!

Medical Orderly, Adjutant, Car, AA, VB Ammo– These are all standard List One utility items in the book and deserve to remain so.

Engineers– Fitting with the newer style of engineers in Chain of Command 2 these will be merged into “Engineer Team, 3 men” and moved to List Two.

Francs Tireurs – Unofficial and irregular French resistance sharpshooters are fun and thematic, however I’ve seen no evidence of them being active in Belgium at Hannut, and the Germans had no problems advancing to the battle area, so this support choice doesn’t make sense to us for this scenario. It will be removed.

Sniper Team – The Sniper Team is a Chain of Command list staple, so it will stay.

Escouade de Fusiiers Motorcycliste– Motorcyclists were an important part of the integrated reconnaissance arm of the DLMs so they make perfect sense here.

Red Dice- In my opinion the 3rd DLM did not have sufficient training or qualitative advantages to reasonably assign a Red Dice like one might with the 1st or 2nd DLM. I’ve been on the fence with this one but for now it will be removed.

60mm Brandt Mortar team with Junior Leader and four crew– Though fairly low in number within the DLM organization (A Dragon Portes regiment or RDP only had four) they are a good fit.

Canon De 25mm L72 AT gun with five crew and Junior Leader– The standard anti-tank gun was available in the 3e DLM in abundant supply with roughly 60 of them being allocated. It’s a keeper for sure.

Panhard 178 AMD with Junior Leader– Deployed within various reconnaissance units in the DLMs this iconic armored car easily makes the cut!

Hotchkiss H-35 with Junior Leader- These are staying, but there’s a small discussion needed about this. The H-39 is going to be included here as well as the 3e DLM had both. In fact they had more than the other DLMs. When the 3e DLM was formed the tanks integrated with the dragoon units were meant to be the AMR 35 series tankettes. However, production of the AMRs had already ceased by this time and they were not available for use. Instead the units in the 3e DLM were equipped with extra H35s and 39s which was quite the upgrade. In fact, overall the 3e had more H39s than H35s but here’s the catch: most of them were armed with the older SA-18 short 37mm gun. Now the Blitzkrieg 1940 handbook has two entries for the series: The H35 with the short SA-18, and the H39 with the long SA-38, giving the H39s a small boost in firepower. We’re going to have to walk this back and add an entry for the H39 (it’s a little faster) with the less powerful SA-18 gun. The SA-38s were available but they were limited and often seen on platoon command tanks more than anything. The new CoCulator article in the 2025 Lard Mag gives us a List Four value for all of the variants, but as Rich says in the article part of this process is a judgement call and not just the numbers on the page. So were going to retain the H35 with SA18 at List Three and we’ll add the H39 with the SA-18 to that as well as it was the most common variant in the 3e DLM. Then both of the SA-37 variants will sit in List Four with their improved gun!

AMR ZT-1/2/3– Our last topic brings us to these. I love these little tankettes but they weren’t part of the 3e DLM at all! We’ll have to omit them, though they would see action days later in the Gembloux Gap. Additionally the 2e DLM, just south of the 3e during the battle, would have them.

Pre Game Barrage– French artillery effectiveness was noted in several German war diary entries at Hannut, I think this one is safe to keep.

Hotchkiss M1914 MMG Team with five crew– The standard French machine gun, and as noted earlier the DLMs had more than other units proportionally so this one is good to go.

Canon de 75mm M1897 with five gun crew and Junior Leader– The French updated the trusty 42 year old gun design in the 1930s. Given new pneumatic tires to make vehicular towing an option the reliable Soixante-Quinze was present in the DLMs, with each having 24 allocated. This one stays too.

Groupe de Combat with Junior Leader– The extra section option is always solid in Chain of Command so it shall remain!

Forward Observer with fixed line telephone and 81mm Mortar Section (2)– This is the boom boom and a dragoon regiment packed 8 of them. Safe to say your 3e DLM force can send down some HE.

Somua S35 with Junior Leader– The iconic French cavalry tank made up half of the armored regiment tanks within the 3e DLM. A heavy hitting 47mm gun packs a punch and this emblematic tank will be right in the mix in the list.

Additions

Now I’m going to discuss some missing items, which I believe need to be added.

New things for CoC2– Some new standard options to add are Explosive Charge for Engineers, Entrenchments for One team, an additional phase of mortar fire, and the Replen Point for List One. For List Two we’ll add a Roadblock, the ability to upgrade one AFV commander to a Senior Leader, and SOS Fire.

Canon De 47mm L53 AT Gun with Junior Leader and five crew– A newer and therefore rarer piece of equipment these excellent AT guns were allocated somewhere in the 6-12 gun range per DLM. Now TO&Es are rarely perfect and who knows if the guns were actually tendered before the fighting started. Yet it feels appropriate to me to give some of France’s premier units one of their premier guns.

Laflly S20TL- If we use the generic Transport rules in Chain of Command 2 for “Truck or Lorry for two Teams or one Section” we can add this on List Two. The Dragon Portes relied on these heavily for their missions so its a logical add.

The Lafly S20TL 25mm Portee- Several photos and references exist to RDP units mounting AT guns in their transports. One of these shows 25mm AT guns mounted forwards in a Laffly, and in fact Laffly made a small run of specialized trucks for this purpose featuring a split windshield. This can use the Flat-Bed rules in CoC2 to mount a 25mm AT gun on a flat bed Laffly. The CoCulator comes out to a Support List 2 option for the Portee but with the new Flat Top rule I feel it could be a tidy list 3 option as its at the absolute top of the list 2 point sum on the CoCulator. We’ll add a Junior Leader to command it and that makes it easily a List Three item.

So there’s our modifications. In Part 3 I’ll return with the new CoC2 style support list and well take a dive on each item in particular and look at their rules in game!