A Better Decade - a British TL.
- Thread starter Sarthak
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Armed Forces
Chapter 19: Armed Forces
***
The Third French Republic had been the victor of the Great War with the Central Powers, alongside the Americans and British, however for all intents and purposes, the country which bled the most in the Great War, was the French. They had lost an entire generation to the fields of Northern France and Flanders, and the idea of a resurgent Germany had been their nightmares before even the ink on the Treaty of Versailles dried up, so much so that they had tried to push for ridiculous changes during the peace treaty, calling for the breakup of Germany into multiple states or deindustrialization of Germany, however thankfully, these notions were put to a full stop by the British and Americans, with some aid from the Italians mixed in as well.
Ever since the Peace Conference of Versailles, the French military planning had been largely dominated by the fear of a resurgent Germany, and military planning and tactics were largely centered around this fear and idea. This fear, which many foreign nations found irrational most of the time, wasn’t without base. The French had multiple leaks into Germany about the republican Weimar government trying to develop their own tanks using tractor technology and some research in aviation warfare on part of the Germans.
Because of these facts, the entire military strategy and armament process of the French revolved around the German revanchist fears. Because of this, the process of fortifying the border with Germany began, much to the protests of the Weimar government in Berlin for much of its existence, which repeatedly brought up the issue in League of Nations meetings and conferences calling for France to halt its aggressive fortifications on the Franco-German border.
Thus came into existence the Maginot line, named after the minister who funded its construction. It’s construction was nicknamed the ‘behemoth of modern day Europe’. Europe had not been stranger to fortifications. Much of its history revolved around castles and fortifications as such. However the scale in which the Maginot line was built was something that absolutely no nation on the planet had ever seen before.
Fortifications of the Maginot Line.
However this came at a fatal cost. Much of the French defense budget went towards the construction and upkeep of the Maginot line and the string of fortifications included in the Maginot Line. This meant that a good amount of money that could have been diverted towards the much needed modernization of the French army and the development sector of the French Armed Forces was forced to be diverted towards a fortification so large they clogged up a huge part of their budget.
Despite this, the Maginot Line was the pride of the French Armed Forces during the interwar era, calling it the herald of a new age for fortifications and defensive redoubts being used in warfare around the planet at the moment. Yet much doubt remained. However the Maginot Line wasn’t made for a permanent defensive war anyways. It was made to hold out for as long as possible giving the French time to mobilize both their own armed forces and their economy and diplomatic sources outside the nation.
It really wasn’t until the second half of the decade of the 1930s that the French began rearming in earnest over their worries about Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, and also partially due to the Soviet Union, whom Daladier once scathingly called ‘the Red Mongol Horde coming to ravage Europe once again’.
The French Parliament gave the parliamentary approval for a 14 million Franc rearmament plan called the Daladier Program on September, 1936, as a reaction against the remilitarization of the Rhineland. Unfortunately for the French Armed Forces and the nation of France itself, this period of time for the French was one of tumultuous disenfranchisement between the people and the politicians of the state, which led to great unrest throughout the nation with labour and worker strikes becoming the norm in many industries. It was not until the second half of 1938 that production lines in factories finally began to work at full capacity to meet the demands of the Daladier Program.
A Factory Strike in Marseille, 1937.
Ever since 1934, the elements of the French army such as Lieutenant Colonel Charles De Gaulle had taken an active interest into the armor technology and capability of the French Armed Forces and had advocated for a fully professional French Armored Corps, including it in the infamous 1934 De Gaulle plan, however neither did the army nor the politicians want a full professional armored corps in the French Armed Forces. The French government did not want an armored corps since it contradicted its essentially defensive tactical policy. Nor, for political reasons, did it want to see an army of professional soldiers within the French Armed Forces rather than the usual conscripts. Furthermore, in 1936, when the decision was reached to create 2 Armored Divisions, their entire organization was created with the idea of them being used as counterattacking force and breakthrough force was used by the French high command. Their formation was postponed to mid to late 1939 due to a lack of equipment due to some factory strikes on behalf of some disgruntled leftist industrial workers in French industries.
In terms of French tanks, the most numerous of French tanks were the Char B1 tank, the Somua 35 tank, and the Hotchkiss H39 light tank. These were all the standard French tanks within the French armed forces. The Somua 40 tank had begun production and testing within the Armed Forces by late 1939 as well. These tanks were more than a good match to any tank out there on the European mainland continent, however they faced chronic problems as well. The lighter tanks, which made up the bulk of the tank force of the French, were not equipped with radios, making the communication system in the French armies falter. Their main gun was operated by the tank commander in a one man turret making the life of the tank commander a very hazardous one, and the tank’s small petrol drinks gave these tanks a limited range to fight from, which was of course a part of the engineering, because of the fundamental defensive posture that the French had taken.
The Somua 40 Tank
However, the bulk of the tanks within the French army was not kept in tank brigades or divisions, however were spread throughout the infantry divisions as combat battalions.
Like much of its contemporaries around the world at this time, the French cavalry was a combination of traditional and modern technologies, with some wholly mechanized and motorized formations, however other’s remained horse drawn.
The new cavalry divisions formulated in 1932 (DC type 1932) contained only 2 horse drawn brigades (4 Regiments) and a light mechanized brigade (BLM) grouping together the motorized divisions and the GAM/RAM divisions. The engineers were also pretty motorized in these divisions as well.
The French equipment during this time, was also largely up to date. Each soldier had a ‘personal pack’ that had been formulated and implemented in 1934 by General Billote to make sure that individual rations and supplies were able to be kept under an orderly fashion. From 1935, each soldier’s weapons were also provided with a patterned design. For example, Alpine troops received weapons with white patterns to make them indistinguishable to the human eye from shooting distance far away, making enemy accuracy diminish. The French in their hand arms, mainly used the Chatelleraut FM 1924 Machine Gun within their infantry battalions, which had been adopted in 1929.
In small arms, the French armed forces largely used the 8mm 1892 gun and the Spanish 92 revolvers. However the French were also slowly but surely churning out modern 7.65mm automatic 35A guns. Inspired by the success of the British KLEN gun in Italian East Africa, the French had also invested a good amount of money into submachine guns and the French were slowly equipping themselves with the modern 7.65mm MAS38 Submachine gun.
The Armee de L’Air or the French Airforce was undoubtedly the most weak aspect of the French Armed Forces. France’s aviation industry had always been the weakest in France after the end of the Great War, and this showed in the French Air Force. At the outbreak of hostilities at the ending days of the year of 1939, the French Air Force had around 860 fighters, and 280 bombers in their service. The backbone of the French fighter fleet was the Morane-Saulnier M.S. 406 fighter, which numbered around 530 within the fighter fleet. This was a moderately good fighter plane, however there were doubts that it could hold up to the ones that both the Luftwaffe or the RAF could field. However the second French fighter, the Dewoitine D.520 was an excellent fighter, both modern and highly capable of outmatching several other modern planes in service throughout the world. The French had around 190 in service and active duty when the war broke out. The backbone of the French bomber fleet was the Bloch MB.200 bomber. This was a moderately fine aircraft, however it’s stabilization was almost always at doubt, and the range of this aircraft was quite limited, though it’s payload was not nothing to scoff at. The secondary bombers of the French Air Force was the Amiot 143 bomber, which by this point at the breaking of hostilities, a largely obsolete biplane bomber, and yet it formed around 35% of the French bomber fleet numbering at 70 to 80. This was largely due to the trade deficits and economic programs that France had faced during the time of French social upheaval during the factory strikes.
Illustration of the Dewoitine D. 520
At the outbreak of the war, the Marine Nationale or the French Navy was powerful force, the fourth largest navy on the planet. Between 1926 to 1939, the French had constructed 2 Battlecruisers, 7 Heavy cruisers, 12 Light cruisers and a good amount of sloops. The French navy also had around 76 destroyers and 71 submarines in their service. After Adolf Hitler had started to spend rambunctiously in the Kriegsmarine, the French had also retaliated by the construction of powerful naval battleship such as Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Richelieu, and Jean Bart. Perhaps the most glaring weakness of the French Navy at the outbreak of hostilities was that it only had one aircraft carrier, the Bearn, and that too was slowly growing older every day and the French Navy lacked a purpose driven naval air arm.
Even before the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the Weimar government of Germany had conducted multiple tests which would greatly aid the Nazis to rearm. Under the League of Nations mandates, they had been able to increase the peacetime troops of the German nation from 100,000 to 122,000 in early 1929. It wasn’t a huge difference, however each bit worked in the aid of the German Armed Forces and most importantly of all, the Reichswehr.
When Adolf Hitler assumed power in the German nation in 1933, the nation was very much from the getgo geared for rearmament due to many of the Weimar government’s policies and findings. Hitler would not let any of that go to waste.
From the very beginning, Hitler had not made his distaste for the Versailles treaty and hatred for the butchering of the German Armed Forces hidden. And it was no surprise to anyone following German politics closely that the one of the very first course of actions taken by Hitler was that of rearmament.
This was cemented in May 1933, when the Ministry of Aviation was set up in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles making the new Luftwaffe, or the German Air Force an independent part of the Armed Forces of the German state. This was partially achieved due Goring’s political weight within the National Socialist movement, the various functions he performed, and his influence within governmental machinery made this speedy decision partially responsible.
The Luftwaffe, for all intents and purposes, was the most developed sector of the German Armed Forces under the National Socialists. In 1935, the Luftwaffe, had around 900 flying officers, 200 anti-aircraft officers, and 17,000 non-commissioned officers and men. At the outbreak of hostilities, the Luftwaffe had around 15,000 flying officers, 3300 anti-aircraft officers, and 370,000 non-commissioned officers and men showing a growth rate of almost a staggering 13 percent.
In 1933, the Luftwaffe had been brought up into service with around 26 squadrons, with the majority of the pilots of the Luftwaffe squadrons being civilian pilots from Lufthansa, whose director had been an active proponent of the Luftwaffe and the creation of an aerial warfare sector of the German Armed Forces.
At the start of hostilities, the Luftwaffe had:-
1291 Bombers
380 Dive Bombers
912 Fighters
451 Heavy fighters
289 Fighter Bombers
526 Transports
For all intents and purposes at the starting of hostilities, the German airforce was by far the strongest on the planet, in numerical and qualitative terms, both. The backbones of the Luftwaffe, unlike its French opponent varied a great deal more. The Dornier DO 17 Light Bomber which also acted as a night fighter was a pretty strong monoplane, and the entirety of the plane was very efficient in its targeting during bombing raids as shown and proven in many practicing raids. As such, many production lines within German aviation industries were reserved for this Dornier DO 17 Light bomber, as it would prove to be the backbone of the German light bomber force; and make up the majority of the German night fighter force.
The Heinkell He 111 Medium Bomber, which sometimes operated as a transport plane as well, was perhaps the mainstay and the mascot of the bomber force of the Luftwaffe. It was particularly easy for recruits and trainee pilots to fly this plane, and the crew training for this plane was very easy in comparison to other bomber planes being produced. This made the He 111 an easy to be trained with and easy to use bomber, and its effectiveness in battle had been proven during the Spanish Civil War as these bombers rained down death and destruction to the Spanish Republican Forces in Valencia and Catalonia.
Perhaps, the most iconic of the German dive bombers was the Junkers Ju-87 ‘Stuka’ dive bomber. With its piercing shout during diving raids, the dive bomber was iconic, destructive and psychologically very damaging to its enemies. However one deficiency of the plane was that it was largely unable to hit moving targets and was largely used to target immobile objects and inanimate objects.
The Junkers Ju-88 Tactical Bomber/ Heavy Fighter was perhaps the backbone of the German heavy fighter fleet, and the large heavy fighter ade its presence known in the battlefield in the skies with it’s bulky feature (which probably wasn’t the best strategy) however this was made up with its heavy armor and its heavy punching capability against other fighters and bombers.
And finally, came the mascot of the entire German Luftwaffe, the Messershmitt BF-109 was the strongest, and most reliable fighter in the German fighter fleet and made up the bulk of the German fighter fleet giving the Luftwaffe a strong and reliable partner when in need. This plane’s strength in firepower made it a force to be reckoned with in the high skies and would prove its worth in the war to come. It had already proven its worth for many purposes during the Baltic War with the Soviets when squadrons of BF-109s were manned by Polish fighters.
Despite these, however the Luftwaffe had other tricks within its sleeves as well. Inspired by the four engine Vickers Wellington bomber of the British, the Germans had driven through with their development of their own four engine bomber, which was named the Heinkell He 177 bomber. However this was actually a double engine bomber, with the capability and range of a four engine bomber and had proven itself very capable in testing runs. The Luftwaffe had around 1 squadron of these beasts in active service when the war broke out.
Heinkell He 177
The new modern and better fighter that the Luftwaffe was currently producing, the Focke-Wulf FW 190 was also a direct result of the British rearmament of the RAF, which forced the Luftwaffe to pour more money into their development sector. The result was this plane. This plane had a higher maneuverability that the BF-109 and its firepower and horsepower were substantially higher than it’s predecessor. The Germans fielded around 1 squadron of this fighter of the skies when the war broke out.
Finally, the nearest plane in development and nearing production was the Heinkell He 219 Night fighter. Knowing the necessity of fighting an aerial war at night as well, Luftwaffe proponents had been important in the development of this plane, and currently production was planned to start in mid-1940.
The Kriegsmarine, headed by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had also undertaken quite the shipbuilding program, ever since the ambitious plan, called Plan Z came into fruition, and the German shipyards began construction of the ships in overtime. The Kriegsmarine, at the outbreak of hostilities however was a shadow of the once mighty High Seas Fleet of the German Empire which it had commanded during the outbreak of the Great War.
The Kriegsmarine, consisted of 16 Capital Ships at the outbreak of hostilities, with them being:-
Bismarck (Commissioned – November 29, 1939) (Battleship)
Gneisenau (Commissioned – August 1938) (Battleship)
Scharnhorst (Commissioned – December 1938) (Battleship)
Schelswig-Holstein (Commissioned – 1909) (Pre-Dreadnought Battleship)
Schlesien (Commissioned – 1910) (Pre-Dreadnought Battleship)
Admiral Hipper (Commissioned July 1939) (Heavy Cruiser)
Blucher (Commissioned – March 1938) (Heavy Cruiser)
Lutzow (Commissioned – 1933) (Heavy Cruiser)
Admiral Scheer (Commissioned – 1934) (Heavy Cruiser)
Admiral Graf Spee (Commissioned – 1934) (Heavy Cruiser)
Emden (Commissioned – 1926) (Light Cruiser)
Konigsberg (Commissioned – 1927) (Light Cruiser)
Karlsruhe (Commissioned – 1927) (Light Cruiser)
Koln (Commissioned – 1927) (Light Cruiser)
Leipzig (Commissioned – 1930) (Light Cruiser)
Nurnberg (Commissioned – 1936) (Light Cruiser)
Bismarck, flagship of the Kriegsmarine.
Two capital ships were in active construction when the war broke out. The second ship in the Bismarck class, the Tirpitz was currently being constructed projected to finish by the end of the year in 1940, and Heavy Cruiser Prince Eugen was also in construction for the Kriegsmarine.
The destroyer fleet of the Kriegsmarine wasn’t the most ideal either. They had around 24 destroyers within the Kriegsmarine, most of which were the Type 1936A class, Type 1936 class, Type 1934A class and the Type 1934 class destroyers. All of them were modern destroyers, however their short amount of numbers really hindered their capability of power projection, and the Kriegsmarine was ordered the Fuhrer Directive 3 which called for a huge cohesive shipbuilding construction program as the war began in the dying days of the year as the war began.
The submarine fleet of the Kriegsmarine wasn’t something to laugh at however. It boasted around 48 U-boats of which around 22 were long range U-boats, which posed a serious threat to the British and French shipping lanes in the Atlantic Ocean. It also meant that unlike the old and obsolete submarines that the Italians had used in the Italo-British War, the Germans had a disposal of strong and modern submarines, and in decent numbers all concentrated in one area, which made them quite deadly and Vice-Admiral Donitz knew this, and had already began planning for a massive U-boat offensive, irritating his higher officer, Erich Raeder.
On December 30th, the Fuhrer Directive 3 had been passed which called for a massive fleet construction of around 120 U-boats, 12 Destroyers, and 4 Capital ships. This amount of shipping construction would take the lion share of the shipbuilding capability of the German Reich and Hitler knew it, however he deemed it necessary as war loomed with the Western allies.
Finally came the massive heavyweight of the Germans. The Heer. When the war broke out in late 1939, the Heer had mobilized around 168 divisions, divided into 4 million active personnel, a mammoth total, and the Fuhrer Directive 3 also called for the expansion of the army into 180 Divisions which would bring the number up to around 4.5 million men.
In small arms, the Heer continued to use the old German Empire’s Mauser C96 pistol, which had proven itself to be useful and effective. The Sauer 38H and the Walther PP pistols were also widely used within the Wehrmacht with Astra 300 and FN 1922 also being used albeit in smaller and lesser numbers.
The Erma EMP machine pistol also was widely used within the Heer with them being spread out throughout the divisions of the army. Due to the financial restraints of the economic portion of the rearmament, the Erma EMP machine pistol had proven itself to be a cheap and effective weapon on the battleground and the Germans were currently employing heavy numbers of it within the Wehrmacht. In terms of Submachine guns, the Wehrmacht employed primarily two submachine guns. The MP35 and the new MP40 were the standard SMG guns of the Wehrmacht. They were largely inspired by the effective use of British SMGs in the Italo-British War, and the Germans had employed a bulk number of them throughout the Wehrmacht. However the mainstay weapon of the Wehrmacht was the iconic Karabiner 98K bolt action rifle which was used by the bulk of the military armed forces of the German state. The MG-13 remained the heavy machine gun of the Wehrmacht and the MG-34 and the MG-39 Rh was the mainstay light machine guns of the Wehrmacht.
MP40 SMG.
The German armored forces were also among the strongest in the world up there with Britain and the French at the top partially alongside the Soviets. The main bulk of their armored forces were made up off the StuG III tank destroyer and armored vehicle and the main tank was the Panzer IV. There were a good amount of Panzer IIIs which had been spread into the infantry divisions as combat battalions whilst the Panzer Divisions were made up of Panzer IV’s. During the Italo-British War, the prevalence of the Vickers Centurion, which had made its mark on the armored psyche of the German armored development, made the Panzer IV receive the 75mm barrel gun as well to make the german hitting power in their armored forces way more strong. New versions of the Panzer IV also had a sloped armor which made its defensive capability a whole lot better than before, though this variant had small numbers and only about 1 Panzer Division of about 24 Panzer Divisions had been fully equipped with the Panzer IV ‘B’ tank variant.
Panzer IV
The halftracks of these tanks had also been upgraded and modernized to the point, the proficiency of the German halftracks were probably not met in competition anywhere else in the world. This gave the German tanks, alongside their large petrol drinks a wide scope of battle and increased their range of fighting exponentially, making the Panzer Divisions of the Germans the heavy hitters of the Wehrmacht.
The Sd.Kfz. 251 armored vehicle was also the most used motorized weapon and armored car of the Wehrmacht. The ingenious use of halftracks in an armored car made the Sd.Kfz, 251 quite the engineering pioneering in the art of modern warfare, and the capability of this beast was still largely unknown to the French and the British as well as the Czechs.
Sd.Kfz. 251
The Germans had been able to tenuously rearm their nation into massive levels. Their military on the ground and the air was quite the beast and monstrosity when the war began. Multiple fake civilian factory fronts such as MEFO had been used to get public funding and international funding. The MEFO scam remained the greatest money laundering and scamming seen to date as the Germans literally scammed billions of Marks from international investors and managed to use these funds to place huge orders of military hardware from German industries such as Krupp etc. This not only made the nation rearm faster, it also made the nation’s unemployment problem vanish as the unemployed people started to gain employment within the industrial centers of the German nation.
However by early 1938, the German economy was facing a credit problem due to their large rearmament program, and thankfully the annexation of Austria managed to relieve a huge amount of these problems. The annexation of Danzig also made the credit problem a whole lot easier for the Germans, as the Germans were able to gain the rich credit trading system of the Danzig city state and the Danzig tolls, which made the German economy recover which intern made the German rearmament process accelerate. The Baltic War also made the Germans gain a hefty amount of foreign currency as the Poles bought German weapons en masse alongside German supplies. Scared by Soviet aggression at their borders, states such as Turkey as well as Romania had also bought a huge amount of German weapons which made the German economy grow even further and managed to make the German economy quite resilient to the woes of rearmament.
When the war broke out, the German War Machine was a powerful force, albeit lacking somewhat in the seas. It would prove itself on the field of battle for all to see in the following months, as the tactical finesse of commanders such as Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein would quickly show itself.
The German system of fortifications weren’t anything to scoff at either. Fearful of a French invasion whilst they were diverted elsewhere, the Germans had constructed the mighty Westwall, their answer to the French Maginot line, making any direct assault from the Franco-German border on the German side as well an exercise in bloody futility.
A bunker in the Westwall.
***
French Armed Forces
***
“You’ll live, only the best die.” – Charles De Gaulle
***
“You’ll live, only the best die.” – Charles De Gaulle
The Third French Republic had been the victor of the Great War with the Central Powers, alongside the Americans and British, however for all intents and purposes, the country which bled the most in the Great War, was the French. They had lost an entire generation to the fields of Northern France and Flanders, and the idea of a resurgent Germany had been their nightmares before even the ink on the Treaty of Versailles dried up, so much so that they had tried to push for ridiculous changes during the peace treaty, calling for the breakup of Germany into multiple states or deindustrialization of Germany, however thankfully, these notions were put to a full stop by the British and Americans, with some aid from the Italians mixed in as well.
Ever since the Peace Conference of Versailles, the French military planning had been largely dominated by the fear of a resurgent Germany, and military planning and tactics were largely centered around this fear and idea. This fear, which many foreign nations found irrational most of the time, wasn’t without base. The French had multiple leaks into Germany about the republican Weimar government trying to develop their own tanks using tractor technology and some research in aviation warfare on part of the Germans.
Because of these facts, the entire military strategy and armament process of the French revolved around the German revanchist fears. Because of this, the process of fortifying the border with Germany began, much to the protests of the Weimar government in Berlin for much of its existence, which repeatedly brought up the issue in League of Nations meetings and conferences calling for France to halt its aggressive fortifications on the Franco-German border.
Thus came into existence the Maginot line, named after the minister who funded its construction. It’s construction was nicknamed the ‘behemoth of modern day Europe’. Europe had not been stranger to fortifications. Much of its history revolved around castles and fortifications as such. However the scale in which the Maginot line was built was something that absolutely no nation on the planet had ever seen before.
Fortifications of the Maginot Line.
However this came at a fatal cost. Much of the French defense budget went towards the construction and upkeep of the Maginot line and the string of fortifications included in the Maginot Line. This meant that a good amount of money that could have been diverted towards the much needed modernization of the French army and the development sector of the French Armed Forces was forced to be diverted towards a fortification so large they clogged up a huge part of their budget.
Despite this, the Maginot Line was the pride of the French Armed Forces during the interwar era, calling it the herald of a new age for fortifications and defensive redoubts being used in warfare around the planet at the moment. Yet much doubt remained. However the Maginot Line wasn’t made for a permanent defensive war anyways. It was made to hold out for as long as possible giving the French time to mobilize both their own armed forces and their economy and diplomatic sources outside the nation.
It really wasn’t until the second half of the decade of the 1930s that the French began rearming in earnest over their worries about Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, and also partially due to the Soviet Union, whom Daladier once scathingly called ‘the Red Mongol Horde coming to ravage Europe once again’.
The French Parliament gave the parliamentary approval for a 14 million Franc rearmament plan called the Daladier Program on September, 1936, as a reaction against the remilitarization of the Rhineland. Unfortunately for the French Armed Forces and the nation of France itself, this period of time for the French was one of tumultuous disenfranchisement between the people and the politicians of the state, which led to great unrest throughout the nation with labour and worker strikes becoming the norm in many industries. It was not until the second half of 1938 that production lines in factories finally began to work at full capacity to meet the demands of the Daladier Program.
A Factory Strike in Marseille, 1937.
Ever since 1934, the elements of the French army such as Lieutenant Colonel Charles De Gaulle had taken an active interest into the armor technology and capability of the French Armed Forces and had advocated for a fully professional French Armored Corps, including it in the infamous 1934 De Gaulle plan, however neither did the army nor the politicians want a full professional armored corps in the French Armed Forces. The French government did not want an armored corps since it contradicted its essentially defensive tactical policy. Nor, for political reasons, did it want to see an army of professional soldiers within the French Armed Forces rather than the usual conscripts. Furthermore, in 1936, when the decision was reached to create 2 Armored Divisions, their entire organization was created with the idea of them being used as counterattacking force and breakthrough force was used by the French high command. Their formation was postponed to mid to late 1939 due to a lack of equipment due to some factory strikes on behalf of some disgruntled leftist industrial workers in French industries.
In terms of French tanks, the most numerous of French tanks were the Char B1 tank, the Somua 35 tank, and the Hotchkiss H39 light tank. These were all the standard French tanks within the French armed forces. The Somua 40 tank had begun production and testing within the Armed Forces by late 1939 as well. These tanks were more than a good match to any tank out there on the European mainland continent, however they faced chronic problems as well. The lighter tanks, which made up the bulk of the tank force of the French, were not equipped with radios, making the communication system in the French armies falter. Their main gun was operated by the tank commander in a one man turret making the life of the tank commander a very hazardous one, and the tank’s small petrol drinks gave these tanks a limited range to fight from, which was of course a part of the engineering, because of the fundamental defensive posture that the French had taken.
The Somua 40 Tank
However, the bulk of the tanks within the French army was not kept in tank brigades or divisions, however were spread throughout the infantry divisions as combat battalions.
Like much of its contemporaries around the world at this time, the French cavalry was a combination of traditional and modern technologies, with some wholly mechanized and motorized formations, however other’s remained horse drawn.
The new cavalry divisions formulated in 1932 (DC type 1932) contained only 2 horse drawn brigades (4 Regiments) and a light mechanized brigade (BLM) grouping together the motorized divisions and the GAM/RAM divisions. The engineers were also pretty motorized in these divisions as well.
The French equipment during this time, was also largely up to date. Each soldier had a ‘personal pack’ that had been formulated and implemented in 1934 by General Billote to make sure that individual rations and supplies were able to be kept under an orderly fashion. From 1935, each soldier’s weapons were also provided with a patterned design. For example, Alpine troops received weapons with white patterns to make them indistinguishable to the human eye from shooting distance far away, making enemy accuracy diminish. The French in their hand arms, mainly used the Chatelleraut FM 1924 Machine Gun within their infantry battalions, which had been adopted in 1929.
In small arms, the French armed forces largely used the 8mm 1892 gun and the Spanish 92 revolvers. However the French were also slowly but surely churning out modern 7.65mm automatic 35A guns. Inspired by the success of the British KLEN gun in Italian East Africa, the French had also invested a good amount of money into submachine guns and the French were slowly equipping themselves with the modern 7.65mm MAS38 Submachine gun.
The Armee de L’Air or the French Airforce was undoubtedly the most weak aspect of the French Armed Forces. France’s aviation industry had always been the weakest in France after the end of the Great War, and this showed in the French Air Force. At the outbreak of hostilities at the ending days of the year of 1939, the French Air Force had around 860 fighters, and 280 bombers in their service. The backbone of the French fighter fleet was the Morane-Saulnier M.S. 406 fighter, which numbered around 530 within the fighter fleet. This was a moderately good fighter plane, however there were doubts that it could hold up to the ones that both the Luftwaffe or the RAF could field. However the second French fighter, the Dewoitine D.520 was an excellent fighter, both modern and highly capable of outmatching several other modern planes in service throughout the world. The French had around 190 in service and active duty when the war broke out. The backbone of the French bomber fleet was the Bloch MB.200 bomber. This was a moderately fine aircraft, however it’s stabilization was almost always at doubt, and the range of this aircraft was quite limited, though it’s payload was not nothing to scoff at. The secondary bombers of the French Air Force was the Amiot 143 bomber, which by this point at the breaking of hostilities, a largely obsolete biplane bomber, and yet it formed around 35% of the French bomber fleet numbering at 70 to 80. This was largely due to the trade deficits and economic programs that France had faced during the time of French social upheaval during the factory strikes.
Illustration of the Dewoitine D. 520
At the outbreak of the war, the Marine Nationale or the French Navy was powerful force, the fourth largest navy on the planet. Between 1926 to 1939, the French had constructed 2 Battlecruisers, 7 Heavy cruisers, 12 Light cruisers and a good amount of sloops. The French navy also had around 76 destroyers and 71 submarines in their service. After Adolf Hitler had started to spend rambunctiously in the Kriegsmarine, the French had also retaliated by the construction of powerful naval battleship such as Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Richelieu, and Jean Bart. Perhaps the most glaring weakness of the French Navy at the outbreak of hostilities was that it only had one aircraft carrier, the Bearn, and that too was slowly growing older every day and the French Navy lacked a purpose driven naval air arm.
***
German Armed Forces
“Actions speak louder than words. In the days to come, the goddess of victory will bestow her laurels, only to those who are prepared to act with daring.” – Heinz Guderian, circa 1937.
German Armed Forces
“Actions speak louder than words. In the days to come, the goddess of victory will bestow her laurels, only to those who are prepared to act with daring.” – Heinz Guderian, circa 1937.
Even before the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the Weimar government of Germany had conducted multiple tests which would greatly aid the Nazis to rearm. Under the League of Nations mandates, they had been able to increase the peacetime troops of the German nation from 100,000 to 122,000 in early 1929. It wasn’t a huge difference, however each bit worked in the aid of the German Armed Forces and most importantly of all, the Reichswehr.
When Adolf Hitler assumed power in the German nation in 1933, the nation was very much from the getgo geared for rearmament due to many of the Weimar government’s policies and findings. Hitler would not let any of that go to waste.
From the very beginning, Hitler had not made his distaste for the Versailles treaty and hatred for the butchering of the German Armed Forces hidden. And it was no surprise to anyone following German politics closely that the one of the very first course of actions taken by Hitler was that of rearmament.
This was cemented in May 1933, when the Ministry of Aviation was set up in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles making the new Luftwaffe, or the German Air Force an independent part of the Armed Forces of the German state. This was partially achieved due Goring’s political weight within the National Socialist movement, the various functions he performed, and his influence within governmental machinery made this speedy decision partially responsible.
The Luftwaffe, for all intents and purposes, was the most developed sector of the German Armed Forces under the National Socialists. In 1935, the Luftwaffe, had around 900 flying officers, 200 anti-aircraft officers, and 17,000 non-commissioned officers and men. At the outbreak of hostilities, the Luftwaffe had around 15,000 flying officers, 3300 anti-aircraft officers, and 370,000 non-commissioned officers and men showing a growth rate of almost a staggering 13 percent.
In 1933, the Luftwaffe had been brought up into service with around 26 squadrons, with the majority of the pilots of the Luftwaffe squadrons being civilian pilots from Lufthansa, whose director had been an active proponent of the Luftwaffe and the creation of an aerial warfare sector of the German Armed Forces.
At the start of hostilities, the Luftwaffe had:-
1291 Bombers
380 Dive Bombers
912 Fighters
451 Heavy fighters
289 Fighter Bombers
526 Transports
For all intents and purposes at the starting of hostilities, the German airforce was by far the strongest on the planet, in numerical and qualitative terms, both. The backbones of the Luftwaffe, unlike its French opponent varied a great deal more. The Dornier DO 17 Light Bomber which also acted as a night fighter was a pretty strong monoplane, and the entirety of the plane was very efficient in its targeting during bombing raids as shown and proven in many practicing raids. As such, many production lines within German aviation industries were reserved for this Dornier DO 17 Light bomber, as it would prove to be the backbone of the German light bomber force; and make up the majority of the German night fighter force.
The Heinkell He 111 Medium Bomber, which sometimes operated as a transport plane as well, was perhaps the mainstay and the mascot of the bomber force of the Luftwaffe. It was particularly easy for recruits and trainee pilots to fly this plane, and the crew training for this plane was very easy in comparison to other bomber planes being produced. This made the He 111 an easy to be trained with and easy to use bomber, and its effectiveness in battle had been proven during the Spanish Civil War as these bombers rained down death and destruction to the Spanish Republican Forces in Valencia and Catalonia.
Perhaps, the most iconic of the German dive bombers was the Junkers Ju-87 ‘Stuka’ dive bomber. With its piercing shout during diving raids, the dive bomber was iconic, destructive and psychologically very damaging to its enemies. However one deficiency of the plane was that it was largely unable to hit moving targets and was largely used to target immobile objects and inanimate objects.
The Junkers Ju-88 Tactical Bomber/ Heavy Fighter was perhaps the backbone of the German heavy fighter fleet, and the large heavy fighter ade its presence known in the battlefield in the skies with it’s bulky feature (which probably wasn’t the best strategy) however this was made up with its heavy armor and its heavy punching capability against other fighters and bombers.
And finally, came the mascot of the entire German Luftwaffe, the Messershmitt BF-109 was the strongest, and most reliable fighter in the German fighter fleet and made up the bulk of the German fighter fleet giving the Luftwaffe a strong and reliable partner when in need. This plane’s strength in firepower made it a force to be reckoned with in the high skies and would prove its worth in the war to come. It had already proven its worth for many purposes during the Baltic War with the Soviets when squadrons of BF-109s were manned by Polish fighters.
Despite these, however the Luftwaffe had other tricks within its sleeves as well. Inspired by the four engine Vickers Wellington bomber of the British, the Germans had driven through with their development of their own four engine bomber, which was named the Heinkell He 177 bomber. However this was actually a double engine bomber, with the capability and range of a four engine bomber and had proven itself very capable in testing runs. The Luftwaffe had around 1 squadron of these beasts in active service when the war broke out.
Heinkell He 177
The new modern and better fighter that the Luftwaffe was currently producing, the Focke-Wulf FW 190 was also a direct result of the British rearmament of the RAF, which forced the Luftwaffe to pour more money into their development sector. The result was this plane. This plane had a higher maneuverability that the BF-109 and its firepower and horsepower were substantially higher than it’s predecessor. The Germans fielded around 1 squadron of this fighter of the skies when the war broke out.
Finally, the nearest plane in development and nearing production was the Heinkell He 219 Night fighter. Knowing the necessity of fighting an aerial war at night as well, Luftwaffe proponents had been important in the development of this plane, and currently production was planned to start in mid-1940.
The Kriegsmarine, headed by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had also undertaken quite the shipbuilding program, ever since the ambitious plan, called Plan Z came into fruition, and the German shipyards began construction of the ships in overtime. The Kriegsmarine, at the outbreak of hostilities however was a shadow of the once mighty High Seas Fleet of the German Empire which it had commanded during the outbreak of the Great War.
The Kriegsmarine, consisted of 16 Capital Ships at the outbreak of hostilities, with them being:-
Bismarck (Commissioned – November 29, 1939) (Battleship)
Gneisenau (Commissioned – August 1938) (Battleship)
Scharnhorst (Commissioned – December 1938) (Battleship)
Schelswig-Holstein (Commissioned – 1909) (Pre-Dreadnought Battleship)
Schlesien (Commissioned – 1910) (Pre-Dreadnought Battleship)
Admiral Hipper (Commissioned July 1939) (Heavy Cruiser)
Blucher (Commissioned – March 1938) (Heavy Cruiser)
Lutzow (Commissioned – 1933) (Heavy Cruiser)
Admiral Scheer (Commissioned – 1934) (Heavy Cruiser)
Admiral Graf Spee (Commissioned – 1934) (Heavy Cruiser)
Emden (Commissioned – 1926) (Light Cruiser)
Konigsberg (Commissioned – 1927) (Light Cruiser)
Karlsruhe (Commissioned – 1927) (Light Cruiser)
Koln (Commissioned – 1927) (Light Cruiser)
Leipzig (Commissioned – 1930) (Light Cruiser)
Nurnberg (Commissioned – 1936) (Light Cruiser)
Bismarck, flagship of the Kriegsmarine.
Two capital ships were in active construction when the war broke out. The second ship in the Bismarck class, the Tirpitz was currently being constructed projected to finish by the end of the year in 1940, and Heavy Cruiser Prince Eugen was also in construction for the Kriegsmarine.
The destroyer fleet of the Kriegsmarine wasn’t the most ideal either. They had around 24 destroyers within the Kriegsmarine, most of which were the Type 1936A class, Type 1936 class, Type 1934A class and the Type 1934 class destroyers. All of them were modern destroyers, however their short amount of numbers really hindered their capability of power projection, and the Kriegsmarine was ordered the Fuhrer Directive 3 which called for a huge cohesive shipbuilding construction program as the war began in the dying days of the year as the war began.
The submarine fleet of the Kriegsmarine wasn’t something to laugh at however. It boasted around 48 U-boats of which around 22 were long range U-boats, which posed a serious threat to the British and French shipping lanes in the Atlantic Ocean. It also meant that unlike the old and obsolete submarines that the Italians had used in the Italo-British War, the Germans had a disposal of strong and modern submarines, and in decent numbers all concentrated in one area, which made them quite deadly and Vice-Admiral Donitz knew this, and had already began planning for a massive U-boat offensive, irritating his higher officer, Erich Raeder.
On December 30th, the Fuhrer Directive 3 had been passed which called for a massive fleet construction of around 120 U-boats, 12 Destroyers, and 4 Capital ships. This amount of shipping construction would take the lion share of the shipbuilding capability of the German Reich and Hitler knew it, however he deemed it necessary as war loomed with the Western allies.
Finally came the massive heavyweight of the Germans. The Heer. When the war broke out in late 1939, the Heer had mobilized around 168 divisions, divided into 4 million active personnel, a mammoth total, and the Fuhrer Directive 3 also called for the expansion of the army into 180 Divisions which would bring the number up to around 4.5 million men.
In small arms, the Heer continued to use the old German Empire’s Mauser C96 pistol, which had proven itself to be useful and effective. The Sauer 38H and the Walther PP pistols were also widely used within the Wehrmacht with Astra 300 and FN 1922 also being used albeit in smaller and lesser numbers.
The Erma EMP machine pistol also was widely used within the Heer with them being spread out throughout the divisions of the army. Due to the financial restraints of the economic portion of the rearmament, the Erma EMP machine pistol had proven itself to be a cheap and effective weapon on the battleground and the Germans were currently employing heavy numbers of it within the Wehrmacht. In terms of Submachine guns, the Wehrmacht employed primarily two submachine guns. The MP35 and the new MP40 were the standard SMG guns of the Wehrmacht. They were largely inspired by the effective use of British SMGs in the Italo-British War, and the Germans had employed a bulk number of them throughout the Wehrmacht. However the mainstay weapon of the Wehrmacht was the iconic Karabiner 98K bolt action rifle which was used by the bulk of the military armed forces of the German state. The MG-13 remained the heavy machine gun of the Wehrmacht and the MG-34 and the MG-39 Rh was the mainstay light machine guns of the Wehrmacht.
MP40 SMG.
The German armored forces were also among the strongest in the world up there with Britain and the French at the top partially alongside the Soviets. The main bulk of their armored forces were made up off the StuG III tank destroyer and armored vehicle and the main tank was the Panzer IV. There were a good amount of Panzer IIIs which had been spread into the infantry divisions as combat battalions whilst the Panzer Divisions were made up of Panzer IV’s. During the Italo-British War, the prevalence of the Vickers Centurion, which had made its mark on the armored psyche of the German armored development, made the Panzer IV receive the 75mm barrel gun as well to make the german hitting power in their armored forces way more strong. New versions of the Panzer IV also had a sloped armor which made its defensive capability a whole lot better than before, though this variant had small numbers and only about 1 Panzer Division of about 24 Panzer Divisions had been fully equipped with the Panzer IV ‘B’ tank variant.
Panzer IV
The halftracks of these tanks had also been upgraded and modernized to the point, the proficiency of the German halftracks were probably not met in competition anywhere else in the world. This gave the German tanks, alongside their large petrol drinks a wide scope of battle and increased their range of fighting exponentially, making the Panzer Divisions of the Germans the heavy hitters of the Wehrmacht.
The Sd.Kfz. 251 armored vehicle was also the most used motorized weapon and armored car of the Wehrmacht. The ingenious use of halftracks in an armored car made the Sd.Kfz, 251 quite the engineering pioneering in the art of modern warfare, and the capability of this beast was still largely unknown to the French and the British as well as the Czechs.
Sd.Kfz. 251
The Germans had been able to tenuously rearm their nation into massive levels. Their military on the ground and the air was quite the beast and monstrosity when the war began. Multiple fake civilian factory fronts such as MEFO had been used to get public funding and international funding. The MEFO scam remained the greatest money laundering and scamming seen to date as the Germans literally scammed billions of Marks from international investors and managed to use these funds to place huge orders of military hardware from German industries such as Krupp etc. This not only made the nation rearm faster, it also made the nation’s unemployment problem vanish as the unemployed people started to gain employment within the industrial centers of the German nation.
However by early 1938, the German economy was facing a credit problem due to their large rearmament program, and thankfully the annexation of Austria managed to relieve a huge amount of these problems. The annexation of Danzig also made the credit problem a whole lot easier for the Germans, as the Germans were able to gain the rich credit trading system of the Danzig city state and the Danzig tolls, which made the German economy recover which intern made the German rearmament process accelerate. The Baltic War also made the Germans gain a hefty amount of foreign currency as the Poles bought German weapons en masse alongside German supplies. Scared by Soviet aggression at their borders, states such as Turkey as well as Romania had also bought a huge amount of German weapons which made the German economy grow even further and managed to make the German economy quite resilient to the woes of rearmament.
When the war broke out, the German War Machine was a powerful force, albeit lacking somewhat in the seas. It would prove itself on the field of battle for all to see in the following months, as the tactical finesse of commanders such as Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein would quickly show itself.
The German system of fortifications weren’t anything to scoff at either. Fearful of a French invasion whilst they were diverted elsewhere, the Germans had constructed the mighty Westwall, their answer to the French Maginot line, making any direct assault from the Franco-German border on the German side as well an exercise in bloody futility.
A bunker in the Westwall.
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I thought it was called the Marine Nationale?
