Deleted member 1487
So OTL. They were in an economic slump for a while until the EEC (to simplify a series of ups and downs from WW1 through post-ww2.
http://luxembourg.public.lu/fr/publ...e-histoire/letz-economie-histoire-2007-EN.pdf
Realistic Allied WW2 victory without either the USSR or the US?
- Thread starter Medved
- Start date
http://luxembourg.public.lu/fr/publ...e-histoire/letz-economie-histoire-2007-EN.pdf
Germany could afford to deploy its full potential in the development of countermeasures for bombings. The British losses would have been simply unbearable.
I don't think it's very realistic that even without Churchill the UK signs a peace (that could happen) and then afterwards just sits back and relaxes. They knew Hitler's words weren't worth anything, so they'd be rearming and there's a good chance that when Barbarossa starts, they'll supply the Russian with arms and other stuff. Now either the convoys go unharmed to Murmansk, or the UK is at war again. And the UK + USSR will beat Germany IMO. But it will be the USSR 'liberating' Europe (a bit more about this, see in my reply on your scenario 2).
With the UK out of the war, the USSR will be better prepared for Barbarossa, because Stalin won't be lulled into belief that the Germans are building up for Sealion. This will slow the German advance.
There's also a chance that in the winter Mussolini will stir things up in NA or Greece, and the UK will jump in there. And then maybe Hitler has to rescue Mussolini again, and he'd be at war with the UK.
So anyways, there'll be lots of butterflies flapping. Pre-war there could also be lots of changes.
For the negotiating: with Churchill there won't be negotiating. Without him: see above.
If the Germans don't invade the USSR: the UK can't win on their own: they can't invade France. They can kick the Germans/Italians out of Africa, because their logistical situation is a lot better than that of the Axis. After NA, they may be able to take Sicily or other islands in the med, but that will be a stretch without the USSR in the war.
But Germany has no chance of invading Britain, so any peace, will just be a white peace.
If the USSR is still attacked, I can see the UK invading some islands in the med, maybe Italy. But just as in OTL the brunt of the fighting will be in the east and the USSR will eventually get on top, but it'll take longer than in OTL.
As for the US not providing anything meaningfull: well that changes strategies in the west as well. The UK will look for other ways. A major error they made in OTL was Bomber Command focusing on bombing Germany, while the long-range bombers would be more effective patrolling the Atlantic. Maybe not closing the Atlantic gap, but make it a lot smaller, and by patrolling the routes the U-boats took, making their life more miserable.
So again, lots of butterflies.
Apart from that, I have a hard time believing that even the most isolationist president would still do nothing if he sees one country after another falling to the Germans. He'd know that eventually the US would be the next.
In this scenario there's still a war on between the UK and Germany?
There's simply no possibility that the Germans reach the AA line in november 1941. Logistically impossible. If all went well, they might reach Moscow.
The question in this scenario is also what happens before the war? Will the USSR still sign the non-agression pact? Will they still invade Poland, the baltics and Finland. Again, lots of butterflies.
Its always wondrous to see the wikipedia warriors come out of the woodworks. Why don't you actually read some books about the campaign? As some recommendations:
To Lose a Battle: France 1940 - The best possible book you could ever read upon the subject and which notes multiple points where the course of the campaign could have been altered.
The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France - will certainly show you that the fighting around Sedan was hardly inevitably catastrophic for the French.
The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine 1919-1939 - Excellent to understand the French army and its weaknesses
French Foreign and Defense Policy 1919-1939: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power - Will give you a better understanding of the Maginot Line and French intelligence.
Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II - Important for understanding the Maginot Line and French troop deployments
If you want articles to understand the French army, then some good ones can include
A Clash of Military Cultures; German & French Approaches to Technology Between the Wars, by James S. Corum - Does much to relate reasons behind the structural differences between the French and German armies
Culture and Military Doctrine: France Between the Wars, by Elizabeth Kier - ditto
Strategy and Scapegoatism: Reflections on the French National Catastrophe, 1940, by Nicole Jordan - Looks at the problems of the French high command
L'Action de l'Armée de l'Air en 1939-1940: Facteurs Structurels et Conjoncturels d'Une Défaite, by Philippe Garraud - Excellent to understand the performance of the French air force
“Où est la Masse de Manoeuvre?”: Maurice Gamelin and the Lessons of Blitzkrieg in Poland, by Robert Parker - particularly well recommended and does much to show why the French adopted the plans they did.
1939-1940 French Armament, by David Lehmann - Good to understand the military equipment of the French army and some of its levels.
Repercussions of the Breda Variant, by Don W. Alexander - Given the Breda variant did in France, also highly important and useful.
The French DID have serious problems, and they DID majorly miscalculate, misplay, and mis-deploy, and their enemy was remarkably good and effective, but their defeat was by no means inevitable as any of these books can attest to you and as reading some of the articles will make clear. Very simple changes like a reduction of the number of divisions behind the Maginot Line, a non-adoption of the Breda variant, better action by the French reinforcement units at Sedan, different artillery and tactical deployments of the actual units holding Sedan, better luck for allied air forces, without even taking into account any of the huge amounts of different simple changes that would raise total French power could easily derail the 1940 campaign. The Fall of France was certainly not ASB or a fluke as people on this board sometimes are overly eager to proclaim, but NOR was it in any case inevitable, and you should actually read some articles and books on the subject rather than just idle quoting of wikipedia.
Also, regarding the 3rd scenario, why would one assume that because Stalin is not there and rearmament starts later the Red Army is necessarily weaker?
Not only could a less paranoid Soviet leadership avoid the Great Purge but if anything less equipment won't change much for 1941's Red Army because it was TOO large in the first place and overburdened logistically.
Not only could a less paranoid Soviet leadership avoid the Great Purge but if anything less equipment won't change much for 1941's Red Army because it was TOO large in the first place and overburdened logistically.
Medved
Banned
1. Quoting wiki is far more practical that the hundreds of books I have read about ww2/the French campaign. 2. The most decisive factor in the French Campaign was air power. Here the Germans have a massive advantage - even if the French do some/many thing different, there is no easy way to counter German air superiority. Especially considered their messy aircraft production and the lacking performance of the Dewoitine and Morane-Saulnier. Sure the French can achieve a stalemate if you change some/many things - but its far less likely than the Germans prevailing.
Air power was not, and is not, some instant-win button and in the specific case of the Battle for France had to be paired with effective ground forces and French maldeployments to deliver the Germans the victory they needed. In particular, the fact that the French troops defending Sedan were second-rate was quite important. Air strikes against the core of the French army in the engagements further north in Belgium proved much less tactically effective, owing to their better training letting them withstand the psychological blows and deal with the (quite minimal) physical damage. It was certainly not the most decisive element in the German victory. That would be the commitment of each sides forces to their respective plans in the spring of 1940. While it is true that a German victory was the most likely once the battle began, it took some luck to bring events to that point. Had either the French or the Germans chosen a different plan, it’s very easy to see the battle going a very different way irrespective of the situation in the air.
Medved
Banned
On 12 May, Sedan was captured without resistance. In the following days, the Germans defeated the French defences surrounding Sedan on the west bank of the Meuse. This was largely achieved by the Luftwaffe. As a result of German bombing and low morale, the French defenders were unable to mount a coherent defence. The Germans captured the Meuse bridges at Sedan allowing them to pour forces including armour across the river. On 14 May, the Allied air forces, the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) tried to destroy the bridges, and prevent German reinforcements reaching the west bank. The Luftwaffe prevented them from doing so. In large air battles, the Allies suffered high losses which depleted Allied bomber strength in the campaign.[15]
The Luftwaffe cowed the defenders, breaking them psychologically. The gunners, the backbone of the defences, had abandoned their positions by the time the German ground assault had begun. The cost to the Luftwaffe was just six aircraft, three of which were Ju 87s.[46]The French 55th Infantry Division was not prepared for such an attack. French soldiers had commented on the massive psychological effect of the bombardment, in particular the siren of the Ju 87. However, after the war, it was discovered that none of the bunkers had been destroyed by direct hits.[50] Moreover, just 56 French casualties were suffered.[50] It was the indirect effect that did the damage. The telecommunication cables were destroyed (most had been laid out in the open) through bombing, paralysing the division's communications, and the psychological damage crippled its defensive capacity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sedan_(1940)
The main reason for German superiority in the air was the poor state of French air units' operational readiness. The Luftwaffe had a smaller margin of numerical superiority over the ALA at the start of Fall Rot as the French aviation industry was starting to reach full potential in production. Some 2,000 French aircraft were available despite the loss of 787 aircraft (473 fighters, 120 bombers and 194 reconnaissance aircraft). The French had 2,086 machines available on 5 June 1940, the first day of Fall Rot, but component production did not match the production of airframes. It was slow and poor, and as a result only 599 aircraft (340 fighters and 170 bombers) were serviceable; a rate of just 29 percent.[15] After the opening of the offensive, the Luftwaffe "ran riot" over French air space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paula
The Ju 87 proved to be a useful asset to Army Group B in the Low Countries. In pitched battles against French armoured forces at Hannut and Gembloux Ju 87s effectively neutralised artillery and armour.[106]
During the battles of Montcornet, Arras, Bolougne and Calais the Ju 87 operations broke-up counterattacks and offered pin-point aerial artillery support for German infantry.[110]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87
Even assuming that the French stop the German advance at Sedan and at the Ardennes, it changes nothing about German air superiority. Sure the French can inflict higher casualties on the Germans than OTL, they can slow down the German advance significantly - but unless there is a MASSIVE aircraft industry related POD in the mid 1930´s- German air superiority will eventually grind down French forces and secure a German victory - even if it takes 6 months instead of 6 weeks.
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Wasn't the Germans air superiority, in part, a function of them running their air campaign at a massively higher intensity than the Allies?
This obviously have them a massive advantage in sortie rate over the Allies during the OTL Battle of France but it would have put their longer term sustainability of the Air Force in doubt of the Allies had been able to drag them into a long war.
This obviously have them a massive advantage in sortie rate over the Allies during the OTL Battle of France but it would have put their longer term sustainability of the Air Force in doubt of the Allies had been able to drag them into a long war.
Nothing in this account contradicts what I said: the Germans immediately followed up the air strike with a ground assault, leaving the French with no time to collect their bearings. This is little different then what one would expect from a heavy artillery bombardment directed against the same forces (probably the main difference is that arty would do more physical damage). And like such an artillery bombardment, had the Stuka attack not immediately been followed up by the ground assault, the French would have rallied their troops, patched up the damage to their equipment, and the bombardment would be remembered as largely ineffective. Additionally, as your own quote admits, practically all damage done was psychological and that can be attributed to the fact (again, as your own quote admits) that the air strikes were directed against second-rate troops who lacked the training and psychological preparation to withstand such bombatdment. Wander up to the Gembloux Gap, where all the French first-rate armored and mechanized forces as well as the bulk of their first-rate infantry forces are facing off against the Germans, and air strikes of similar intensity are not accomplishing very much.
Given the material superiority the WAllies had already achieved, the paucity of German resources, and their own looming economic collapse, the idea that the Germans could beat the French in a campaign of attrition, regardless of the situation in the air, is total fantasy. Even without much French air resistance, the Luftwaffe’s lack of stamina (which would plague it for the rest of the war) was becoming apparent by June with the Luftwaffe suffering from clear signs of operational exhaustion, requiring a month of rest and refit before it could launch the Battle of Britain, where it was soundly thrashed and rapidly ran out of steam. It certainly could not have sustained such tempos for six months straight... and neither could the Heer, which at the time of the French armistice was flat out running out of ammunition.
The Wehrmacht needed to win in the spring of 1940 or the superiority of the Allied economy and industry would have buried them, and to get that win they concentrated the best of their army into a handful of elite panzer divisions and flung them through the French lines in a threadbare breakthrough battle. Knowing what we know now, the French suffered from many weaknesses that made the historical German strategy likely to succeed once the Germans gained the initial breakthrough... but had they not and had those few panzer divisions been mauled in the early assault, Germany would have been done.
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Blunted sickle as has been mentioned earlier. Germans were at a massive logistical disadvantage. have the entente avoid the encirclement of the sicklecut by maintaining a less forward posture and things will start to look very grim for the germans as they are unable to sustain themselves.
Deleted member 1487
To be fair few troops were able to handle those sorts of bombardments among nearly any nation. During WW1 hurricane bombardments with artillery were conducted to stun and disorient enemy troops and were generally more effective than the ones that were spread out over a dozen hours or even days. Psychological is only part of it, physiologically the blast wave can do all sorts of things to the body, even for troops in bunkers, as WW1 again demonstrated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock#Physical_causes
That was the feint to draw attention away from the main effort to encircle Allied forces. They didn't concentrate air attacks anywhere has heavy as they did at Sedan, because for one thing they couldn't as the front was longer and more populated, so air support was more spread out and hitting many more targets. Plus by accounts the French had well camoflauged their artillery, so the Luftwaffe wasn't effectively able to spot it; since the French also had their functional fighters in the area, they were able to hinder German aerial recon and prevent them from identifying the artillery positions to silence them. When even somewhat supported by the air force French forces and more importantly AAA were able to ensure they weren't kept under relatively accurate aerial bombardment for hours uninterrupted and the artillery could do it's job without fear of attack.
Of course that isn't the say the Luftwaffe had no effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gembloux_(1940)#Mixed_results
The French field army had a lot more AAA than the units at Sedan, which was a pretty major difference in ability to deal with aerial attack. That and the defenders at Sedan couldn't disperse and avoid the air attack either, they were stuck in positions that were known and targeted without means to stop them or at least fight back to keep up morale.
Also French attacks did not do well against air attack at Gembloux:
Plus in the end the French got the worse end of the stick:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_Gembloux_(1940)
In part, but also because they had a larger air force, spending as much on it as the army.
The French actually had a worse accident rate by June than the Luftwaffe or RAF due to fatigue (many fewer pilots), while the RAF largely had abandoned the continent after losing 1000 aircraft. The ADA wasn't going to be able to sustain things better than the Luftwaffe if things were anything like OTL, but the ground fighting was bogged down. The RAF too had a problem projecting power to the continent even in 1940 and suffered very badly until they could withdraw across the channel. So having to deal with a longer air war isn't, as least in 1940, going to work out well for the Allies, especially given their lack of a functional radar network on the continent.
Medved
Banned
History doesnt agree with your assessment:
The Ju 87s participated in a huge aerial counter-offensive lasting from 16–31 July against a Soviet offensive at Khotynets and saved two German armies from encirclement, reducing the attacking Soviet 11th Guards Army to 33 tanks by 20 July. The Soviet offensive had been completely halted from the air.
In the final months of the war the ground attack groups were still able to impose operational constraints upon the enemy. Most notably the aircraft participated in the defence of Berlin. On 12 January 1945 the 1st Belorussian Front initiated the Vistula–Oder Offensive. The offensive made rapid progress. The Soviets eventually outran their air support which was unable to use forward, quagmire-filled, airfields. The Germans, who had fallen back on air bases with good facilities and concrete runways, were able to mount uninterrupted attacks against Soviet army columns. Reminiscent of the early years, the Luftwaffe was able to inflict high losses largely unopposed. Over 800 vehicles were destroyed within two weeks. In the first three days of February 1945, 2,000 vehicles and 51 tanks were lost to German air attacks. The Belorussian Front was forced to abandon its attempt to capture Berlin by mid-February 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87
The Battle of Montcornet, on 17 May 1940, was an engagement of the Battle of France. The French 4e Division cuirassée, under then Colonel Charles de Gaulle, attacked the German-held village of Montcornet with over 200 French tanks. The French drove off the Germans, but later had to retreat due to lack of support and the intervention of the Luftwaffe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Montcornet
By early June the superiority of the Luftwaffe was so great, that some units were sent home to Germany to refit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paula
As your previous statements: Doubtful. The Germans expected a long campaign and even if they are stopped and sustain larger tank casualties, the air war will mostly go as OTL. Meaning the Germans have total air superiority by early June, meaning all allied counterstrikes are stopped and the German advance continues - allthough at a much slower pace with larger casualties.
Its interesting to note that people seem to think that one of the most successful military campaigns in human history, can be changed into catastrophic defeat quite easily. However the Allies winning the war/never negotiating even WITHOUT 1 or 2 of the big three is considered a given. Despite the fact that OTL it took 3.5 years to do so, despite the titanic effort of all 3 big players.....
I'm amused by the images of German divisions being slowed down by armies of orange cones and a few flagmen. It reminds me of driving on I-77 in north Charlotte.
Oh, have to throw in some out of the way detours and the occasional surprise construction zone.
If the US aren't in the war then the UK doesn't need to fight Japan - if Japan want to get involved then they have to hit the US first so without the US (& USSR) it's a straight UK/Empire vs Germany & Italy fight and the UK has the advantage in manpower (the Indian Army being the largest volunteer force ever assembled), total domination at sea, air parity pushing to air superiority, a better economy and a better strategic position (thanks to not being almost totally surrounded by either enemy land, nations at least sympathetic to the enemy or seas dominated by the enemy).
It certainly wouldn't be easy but it's not that much of a stretch to say that the UK could beat Germany/Italy "alone".
1)Your quotes on wikipedia were painfully limited, almost a caricature of the battle, and with only a few minutes scanning of one of these books you proclaim to have read you could have provided something infinitely better.
2)The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, conversely places huge emphasis on the skills of the German infantry and traditional, effective, command in the assault on Sedan. German airpower was important, but not without counters: Allied airpower was growing at a faster rate than the Germans, the Allies were better equipped to fight a long campaign, anti-aircraft weapons exist, and of course airpower's effect can be limited through appropriate actions on the ground with deception, camouflage, night-movement, etc. The French had made their choice to reduce the number of sorties flown by their aircraft, in the interests of a long campaign, and had much learning to do about operational control: over time the skill gap between them and the Germans would have narrowed.
Airpower is a tool which is used within the context of a combined arms operation, and an important one, but not in of itself enough to instantly procure a win. One can see this in other operations in the West - in the 1940 Belgium Campaign, or in 1944, the side possessing air superiority did not instantly destroy their opposition, simply had an advantage as part of a larger set of capabilities.
3)New French anti-aircraft production which was ramping up in huge numbers in 1940, including the large orders of Hawker Curtis 75s, MB 167, DB-7, and production of LeO 451, Amiot 351, MB.75, D.520, VG-33, and Breguet-693, all capable of matching equivalent German designs. In any case French pilots were noted as exceptionally good, probably because they had throttled so much their quantity until too late so as to focus on the quality, and made what looked like obsolete equipment work well enough.
If you want something better than your constant usage of wikipedia (which is shown in the rest of the articles so I have my doubts about just how many books you have read when seemingly it is all you have...), then there is The French Air Force in 1940: Was it Defeated by the Luftwaffe or Politics? which documents that French production had surpassed the Germans. I have my doubts about the rest of the article and some of its conclusions, but the production statistics are correct. Furthermore the French had undertaken measures to dramatically expand pilot training, albeit this had brought away cadre from the front-line units temporarily, something which was stupidly done in Spring 1940 after having mobilized them earlier, as can be recounted in Neither Decadent, Nor Traitorous, Nor Stupid: The French Air Force and Doctrine in the 1930s.
Given a few months the Allied Air Forces would have painted a very different picture against the Germans indeed, and the Germans knew this - which is why they moved for such a quick and decisive campaign to defeat the French.
5)Admitting the French could produce a stalemate on your part thus fulfills the desire for a realistic Allied victory in WW2.
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It does, actually. Every time air campaigns have been studied from a perspective that does not rely on accepting one sided kill claims at face value and are subjected to rigorous studied, the amount of physical damage done has been found to be extremely modest. For example, at Mortain in 1944, USAAC tactical air forces claimed 252 armored kills. This turned out to be more AFVs then the Germans even had during the battle and the actual number of total German losses was 46, with 9 knocked out to air attack. Another example from the Eastern Front of 1943: on July 8th, the Germans claimed to have killed 50 Soviet tanks in the 2nd Guards Tank Corps using Hs-129. These are greater losses then the number of tanks the 2nd Guards Tank Corps reported taking from all causes on the same day.
Utter nonsense. Books such as David Glantz's "The Battle of Kursk" make it quite clear that the two armies in question (the 2nd Panzer and 9th Armies) were engaged in heavy defensive and counter-offensive fighting that inflicted heavy damage and slowed the attacking Soviets. They also make clear however that the Soviet offensive wasn't halted by either the fighting on the ground or the heavy air attacks: the Soviet armies would continue their assault for another month, steadily grinding forward until August 18th and ultimately achieving all of their assigned geographic objectives. The 11th Guards Army would proceed to continue advancing and reached the outskirts of Karachev by July 26th, almost cutting the rail-link between Bryansk and Orel and effectively encircling the German forces anyways. Only the timely arrival of the Grossdeutschland Panzer Grenadier Division, transferred in from the south, stemmed the Soviets long enough for yet more German forces to be shifted in and buy time to withdraw from Orel and escape the looming encirclement. Certainly the Soviets don't regard their losses to enemy air power as having much of an impact: their records show around 80 AFVs lost to air attack during the entire Battle of Kursk. Given all this information, it's clear that the Wikipedia articles claim that a air offensive halted the Soviet offensive by July 20th to begin with, much less by itself, is pretty much talking out of it's ass.
And mosying on over to Soviet sources show that "enemy air superiority" does not even appear as a reason for abandoning an immediate advance on Berlin. The necessity of clearing flanks and securing logistical lines, on the other hand, do. The Soviets do record the upsurge in German air activity in early-February, but they don't record very much damage from it. The figures of 51 tanks and 2,000 vehicles lost are German claims which, as previously established, aren't worth spit.
Again, an example of air power performing well against a 2nd rate unit. The 4th DCR was the newest of the DCR's, having been formed only a week beforehand, and hence lacked the training the older DCR's and the DLM's had received.
That the operational exhaustion of the Luftwaffe had begun after a point when WAllied air forces had lost any ability to even attempt to challenge the WAllies in the air does not change the fact that the Luftwaffe was undergoing operational exhaustion by June of 1940 nor the implications that entailed had the Germans not achieved a rapid breakthrough on the Sedan. It's worth pointing out that your very own source observes that the actual damage inflicted by the Luftwaffe was far less then what the Germans claimed both during and after the operation, which further reinforces my earlier point about the lack of reliability in taking the attackers claims about damage done at face value
The German generals were expecting a long campaign but did not expect that they would succeed in completely knocking out France. They believed they would overrun Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of France along the border with the Low Countries. before being stopped. None of them seem to have fully understood the strategic consequences of such a partial failure (although Hitler did and he lambasted them over it). Additionally, given the solid track record the Germans have of failing to reconcile their means with their ends in many other campaigns, that they believed they had the resources for a long campaign does not mean they actually did so and we have the historical inability as well as the exhaustion in supplies the Germans were experiencing towards the end of the historical short campaign to indicate they were wrong.
It’s interesting to note that people still seem to think the Germans achieved their successes effortlessly and with wide margins when the preponderance of scholarship has pointed out how much of a shoestring these operations really ran on and how much the Allies made mistakes which played into the Germans hands. Instead, they persist in confusing how spectacular the results of success were with what the odds of success were, when in reality these are two different things. It's also interesting to see how people who complain about determinism in averting the Allies successes (which I won't dispute is something of an issue around here: taking out the Soviet Union or the United States does increase the odds of German victory tremendously* and Britain completely by itself certainly has no chance post-Fall of France) then tend to bend over backwards in saying "it can't be done" when it comes to the question of averting the Axis's own successes in a very deterministic sort of way.
*Taking out the US even more so then taking out the Soviets, obviously.
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Medved
Banned
I asked for a realistic scenario - not some fantasy. HOW exactly are the British "winning" without LL food? Without US troops? Without US shipping space built in the US? The UK+Dominion build roughly 1/4 the aircraft, 1/7 the tanks and 1/5 the shipping space of the "Big Three". If this is enough to beat the Germans - then the Allies were complete fucking idiots OTL.
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Medved
Banned
I said that the French can win - allthough that its not very likely if there is not a mid 1930- POD that strenghtens/improves the French air force. All you and Badlogic could produce were dubious claims with no citation that the French can win even with the Germans dominating the skies and that air power is not that important - which runs completely contrary to everything that has happened in WW2.
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Deleted member 1487
Couple of issues with this assessment; most of the aircraft produced in May-June 1940 weren't operational due to missing critical components, though the air frames were ready. There was a huge shortage of pilots, as the AdA has skimped on pilot training, which was harder to generate than air frames and they were effectively running out of pilots as of June 1940; their rate of accidents was double that of the RAF and Luftwaffe due to fatigue, so the choice to cut back was driven by practical limits on their abilities, rather than simply doctrinal choice for a long war. This is also why they lost so badly in the air, they lacked the means to sustain their losses of pilots and didn't even have people to ferry ready aircraft to the military from the factory, so had to detach combat pilots to fly them to AdA bases to prep them for combat.
What pilots the French did have were good, but no better than their opponents on average, so their quality against quantity ploy didn't work out all that well, especially when their opponent actually already had combat experience in Spain and Poland and they had none. In the long run had they survived they'd have more aircraft than pilots, especially as the army sucked up more and more manpower to replace casualties and even the navy would be needed to fight Uboats and maintain LOC and deal with Italy.