A Blunted Sickle
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The German attack plan through the Ardennes was called Sichelschnitt (sickle cut in translation).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenium_Challenge <- interesting AH hook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Iraq <- what would really happen
The rumours I've heard about Van Riper's conduct in that war game make interesting reading. Like, he apparently invented cruise missiles in what were pretty much rowing boats within range of the fleet (no matter that they can't actually get there without sinking, or that the crews would turn to crispy critters on launch, or that they have no way of acquiring the target) and used said cruise missiles to sink the fleet. Not possible in reality, so he just handwaved them into existence and when the cruise missiles sank Blue Fleet he claimed that proved US doctrine was obsolete.
Forgive my ignorance, i'm sure you're making a point here, I'm just not sure what it is. Could you explain?
Regards
LD
And there was I thinking I was the only one who didn't understand it.
I mean, an interesting link, but I fail to see the relevance.I think he means that wargames do not accurately predict reality. I think.
11th March 1940
“The overall plan has two Corps of the BEF and Seventh Army advancing into Belgium to set up defensive positions along the Eschaut in the event of a German invasion of Belgium, with the BEF on the right flank up to the Eschaut estuary. Second and Ninth Armies will be holding the fixed defences along the Belgian and Luxembourg borders, down to the junction with Second Army Group along the Maginot Line.
The entirety of First Army will be held as a mobile reserve along with a Corps of the BEF in the vicinity of Amiens. To support this, the 1st and 5th Corps will change armies, such that the First Army will consist of the Cavalry, 1st, 3rd and 4th Corps.”
“Along the Maginot Line, 5th Army will be withdrawn in it’s entirety to form a reserve based around Nancy, with the borders between the Second and Third Army Groups adjusted accordingly. Of the existing reserves, the Corps in the North will be added to Seventh Army and the two in the South to Second Army Group as a Ninth Army to partially compensate for the withdrawal of 5th Army.”
“The intention of this is to provide powerful mobile reserves capable of reinforcing whatever area comes under attack within a few days. As Napoleon said, were we to distribute our forces evenly along the frontier all we would prevent is smuggling. Accordingly, the intention is for the forces along the border to hold for a few days until powerful reserves can be brought in to reinforce them. After much consideration we have confirmed that the main line of defence in Belgium will be the Eschaut line. We hope the Belgian army will resist for long enough to allow field fortifications to be built along it. The Dyle has been extensively considered as an alternative, but it was decided that it formed too weak a line, and would require the commitment of all our reserves to hold it.”
“General Gort, you have a question?”
“Several immediately if I may General Gamelin, and no doubt my staff will have further questions in the days to come.
Firstly, why do you want to split my force? While we have trained with you for some years now, we will still be more effective working with ourselves.
Secondly, how will I exercise my right of appeal to London if I have two Corps next to the Schelde and a third God alone knows where?
Thirdly, surely the decision to abandon most of Belgium is a political one – has this been agreed with Paris and London?
Finally, when will this decision become effective and the troop movements take place?”
“The first is simple: you have the most mobile force available to me, with all your troops being motorised. If I had a free choice, I would use the entirety of the BEF as my reserve with one French motorised Corps attached to it since the purpose of this reserve is to travel to any threatened area of front as fast as possible, without having to rely on potentially sabotaged Belgian railways. Unfortunately, the Minister would have a fit if I did so, and start asking questions as to whether the British are really here to fight with us at all. Accordingly, I am compelled to use the majority of the BEF in the line. As my most mobile force, assigning them the longest advance to the Eschaut estuary seems appropriate.
If your political masters should find it possible to provide a fourth Corps, I would be ecstatically happy to have that as part of my reserve and keep your original three Corps together.”
“So far as your right of appeal to London goes, I would suggest that this right be given directly to the command of the Corps you assign to the reserve. I am very conscious of your position, and will understand that General Blanchard does not overreach himself.”
“As for the decision to abandon Belgium, I consider this to have been forced upon my by military necessity. The Belgians will not permit us to reinforce them along the line of the Albert canal prior to a German invasion, and in the opinion of my staff the only line we can reliably hold within Belgium without the cooperation of their army is the Eschaut one. I am briefing the Supreme War Council tonight on this plan.”
“My intention is for the troop movements to start on Wednesday, and to be complete by the 1st of April.”
“The overall plan has two Corps of the BEF and Seventh Army advancing into Belgium to set up defensive positions along the Eschaut in the event of a German invasion of Belgium, with the BEF on the right flank up to the Eschaut estuary. Second and Ninth Armies will be holding the fixed defences along the Belgian and Luxembourg borders, down to the junction with Second Army Group along the Maginot Line.
The entirety of First Army will be held as a mobile reserve along with a Corps of the BEF in the vicinity of Amiens. To support this, the 1st and 5th Corps will change armies, such that the First Army will consist of the Cavalry, 1st, 3rd and 4th Corps.”
“Along the Maginot Line, 5th Army will be withdrawn in it’s entirety to form a reserve based around Nancy, with the borders between the Second and Third Army Groups adjusted accordingly. Of the existing reserves, the Corps in the North will be added to Seventh Army and the two in the South to Second Army Group as a Ninth Army to partially compensate for the withdrawal of 5th Army.”
“The intention of this is to provide powerful mobile reserves capable of reinforcing whatever area comes under attack within a few days. As Napoleon said, were we to distribute our forces evenly along the frontier all we would prevent is smuggling. Accordingly, the intention is for the forces along the border to hold for a few days until powerful reserves can be brought in to reinforce them. After much consideration we have confirmed that the main line of defence in Belgium will be the Eschaut line. We hope the Belgian army will resist for long enough to allow field fortifications to be built along it. The Dyle has been extensively considered as an alternative, but it was decided that it formed too weak a line, and would require the commitment of all our reserves to hold it.”
“General Gort, you have a question?”
“Several immediately if I may General Gamelin, and no doubt my staff will have further questions in the days to come.
Firstly, why do you want to split my force? While we have trained with you for some years now, we will still be more effective working with ourselves.
Secondly, how will I exercise my right of appeal to London if I have two Corps next to the Schelde and a third God alone knows where?
Thirdly, surely the decision to abandon most of Belgium is a political one – has this been agreed with Paris and London?
Finally, when will this decision become effective and the troop movements take place?”
“The first is simple: you have the most mobile force available to me, with all your troops being motorised. If I had a free choice, I would use the entirety of the BEF as my reserve with one French motorised Corps attached to it since the purpose of this reserve is to travel to any threatened area of front as fast as possible, without having to rely on potentially sabotaged Belgian railways. Unfortunately, the Minister would have a fit if I did so, and start asking questions as to whether the British are really here to fight with us at all. Accordingly, I am compelled to use the majority of the BEF in the line. As my most mobile force, assigning them the longest advance to the Eschaut estuary seems appropriate.
If your political masters should find it possible to provide a fourth Corps, I would be ecstatically happy to have that as part of my reserve and keep your original three Corps together.”
“So far as your right of appeal to London goes, I would suggest that this right be given directly to the command of the Corps you assign to the reserve. I am very conscious of your position, and will understand that General Blanchard does not overreach himself.”
“As for the decision to abandon Belgium, I consider this to have been forced upon my by military necessity. The Belgians will not permit us to reinforce them along the line of the Albert canal prior to a German invasion, and in the opinion of my staff the only line we can reliably hold within Belgium without the cooperation of their army is the Eschaut one. I am briefing the Supreme War Council tonight on this plan.”
“My intention is for the troop movements to start on Wednesday, and to be complete by the 1st of April.”
Dutch Consequenses
Hello, I am a fan of alternative 1940 TL's such as yours.
Have you given a thought to the effects on the Netherlands. If my memory is correct the Dyl Line plan forced the Dutch Army to man the Maas-Peel stelling. The problem with this that there was a 40 km gap between the Dutch and Belgium positions. If the "lichte divisie" is free to do other duties, what are the effects on the german airborne operations??
Yrs, Duckie
the Netherlands
Hello, I am a fan of alternative 1940 TL's such as yours.
Have you given a thought to the effects on the Netherlands. If my memory is correct the Dyl Line plan forced the Dutch Army to man the Maas-Peel stelling. The problem with this that there was a 40 km gap between the Dutch and Belgium positions. If the "lichte divisie" is free to do other duties, what are the effects on the german airborne operations??
Yrs, Duckie
the Netherlands
Good stuff. There have been no real leaps away from OTL, just a recognition on the French side that a strategic reserve is necessary, and that as a result the Dyle plan is unworkable.
Even without the increase in the size of the reserver, the changes are still going to make the German plan much more difficult to carry out. If they make their break through OTL (and I still don't see why they shouldn't - the Allies are still fixated on Belgium and there have been no changes to the leadership of the French Air Force), the Allied forces in Belgium will have a much shorter distance to retreat in order to avoid being cut off. Given that Guderian is now more than likely to run into organised defence a French collapse as OTL seems pretty unlikely.
Even without the increase in the size of the reserver, the changes are still going to make the German plan much more difficult to carry out. If they make their break through OTL (and I still don't see why they shouldn't - the Allies are still fixated on Belgium and there have been no changes to the leadership of the French Air Force), the Allied forces in Belgium will have a much shorter distance to retreat in order to avoid being cut off. Given that Guderian is now more than likely to run into organised defence a French collapse as OTL seems pretty unlikely.
Archibald
Banned
I like the way you put that. There would still be a German rush, first from Sedan to Abbeville [and eventually to Dunkirk]... except there would be much less soldiers trapped into the pocket.
Then what next ?
either
- a counterattack from "below" (north of Paris) to open the pocket
- or, at worse, more troops on the Weygand line, north of Paris on June 5, perhaps enough to resist the Germand advance south.
OTL only 1/3 of the french army was left, and one can't stop the Wermacht with that.
Or perhaps the German never reach Abbeville to close the trap, being stopped by a certain General either at Moncornet or at Abbeville itself. Or by Weygand - he had a plan for that around may 20.
I don't think the Germans will get as far as Dunkirk. OTL Guderian's tanks outran their own infantry but were able to keep going since there was no organised resistance in their path. Deighton even gives us the wonderful image of Panzers stopping and refuelling at wayside petrol stations in order to keep going.
If this panzer force runs into a force of French tanks backed with infantry and artillery (which is pretty much the reserve Gamelin is putting together TTL), they are not going to break through. I can see the attack being either blunted or the corridor cut long before they get anywhere near Dunkirk. The only help they can expect is from the Luftwaffe, and if the French do need to move they can nullify this by doing so at night.
At this point the Germans have pretty much shot their bolt and lost a large number of difficult to replace tanks. IMHO this would lead to much more of the sort of scenario that the Allies were planning for.
Do you have any sources on how much joint planning there was between the French and Dutch for a German invasion? At this point the French response to any Dutch request is more or less going to be that thanks to the Belgians they can't go any further than the Scheldt estuary initially, but once they've contained the initial attack they can look at providing further assistance. At this point Gamelin is thinking of the reserve mostly as a force for counter-attacking any German breakthroughs and reinforcing threatened fronts, but he's also aware that if the German offensive fizzles out he's got a powerful offensive force readily available (a secondary motive for having it all-motorised).
Actually, it gets worse for the Germans. The main line of resistance for the French is along the Belgian border until they reach the Scheldt, where it turns into Belgium. That is also pretty much the main axis of the planned German attack. OTL that line had mostly leapfrogged into Belgium so the Panzers could run up the back of it. ITTL it's still there, so they're forced inland significantly - right towards First Army at Amiens.
The real question is whether the Germans will actually turn towards the Channel at all ITTL once they realise the French haven't moved into Belgium. The prospect of encircling and destroying the main field armies as OTL isn't there any more, but Paris is right in front of them and weakly defended...
Thanks. I've deliberately tried to keep it to a single POD (Georges pushing Gamelin hard enough to give him second thoughts about the Dyle plan, and revert to the Eschaut plan).
That means that lots of woeful problems with the French Army and Air Force haven't been resolved. Poor morale, leadership and pay. Awful communications between high command and lower down units. Political infighting at the top. All this comes out in the plan I've got sketched out in my head, and if France survives then there will probably be a massive purge of the dead wood in the armed forces.
If they're going anywhere, it isn't Abeville - the French have First Army at Amiens, right between there and the attacking German forces.
I honestly can't see them pushing on once they realise the diversionary attack into Belgium has failed. The OKW were as nervous as anything about the whole scheme and when it came off OTL they couldn't contain their glee.
Guderian's first instinct would be to push on and try to destabilise the French from within, but almost nobody else on the German side would have been willing to throw away the panzer force on an ad hoc attack. Hitler had lapse in confidence OTL and tried to rein Guderian in a number of times. Given the much less favourable situation for the Germans TTL, I don't doubt that clear orders to pull back would be issued, and that Hitler would be backed up by most of his generals.
Historically, didn't Guderian and Rommel receive orders to stop and wait for infantry support, but they just ignored them, perceiving the opportunity to reach the Channel and cut off the northern armies?
If they get into a position where they perceive that the route to Paris was open, then I think it's plausible that they'd ignore similar orders. Particularly if an attack towards the north of Paris was able to cut the supply lines to Belgium.
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