A better-prepared France in WW2

[Markus]

The original Dyle Plan was very good:

-you defend France inside Belgium
-you secure the most valuable part of Belgium and its military
-you actually shorten your lines and anchor them on two rivers(Meuse, Dyle)

The problem was the Breda extension. The Dutch called for help too and the allied Army Group 1 was given the task to Breda and link up with the Dutch army. Breda was twice as far away from France than it was from Germany and as if this was not bad enough, the Breda operation required committing the strategic reserve(7th Army) before the battle began. Interestingly the 7th had been stationed near Reims; much less than 100km away from Sedan.

 

[Cook]

Exactly. By concentrating most of their army in immobile defense works, the French just invited the Wehrmacht to cut the latter off from the center.

It was just a repeat of the Belfort defense of 1871 on a larger scale: the fortification was never taken by force, but the Germans didn't need to - they cut off the communication and supplies and let them fight on until an order of surrender came from Paris.

The bulk of the French Army was NOT manning the Maginot Line. Most French divisions, including the best equipped advanced north into Belgium in an attempt to refight the First World War.

They were cut off there along with the six divisions of the British Expeditionary Force when the Germans chose not to re-use the same plan that failed last time.

 

[usertron2020]

Please don't curbstomp me...

I'm writing this at 4:22am on a Sunday, maybe that's why I'm

sticking my neck out like this, but here goes:

I am a very longtime wargamer going back to the 1970's. These

include the well researched monster SPI games like War In Europe(WIE). I

don't know what significance this may have in this discussion, but there

are elements that I think might be appropriate to mention. WIE was so

huge it included every division and independent brigade/regiment of

EVERY nation in europe except the postage stamp countries and

Luxembourg but including Switzerland(It gave you a REAL good idea

why nobody ever took the SWISS on!).

The reason I write all this is I want people to know that the situation

in the west(for this game anyway) was that the minor powers' refusal

to engage in allied cooperation to defend their countries made the

defeat there a foregone conclusion. However, the POLITICS of the

day, which we in the 21st century see only thru a glass(darkly), demanded

that actions be made by each country involved that were military

madness and only made things easier for the Germans

The Dutch were determined to sit it out as they had in WWI. The

Belgians didn't want a violent conquest by the Germans(WWI again)

AND they had the handicap of a Pro-Fascist King! Alan Brooke

found out about the nature of the man in their final meeting. For the

French, as previous writers have written, every chance they could get

to advance the battleline forward they would take.

I needed to write all this to make a point about WIE and its'

accuracy vis-a-vis WWII. I am not talking ASB here.

When we were playing this game, we once decided to

do something different to spice the game up. We allowed

a more aggressive Italian war effort so that Malta falls and

logistics and reinforcement in North Africa became easier, and the

Italians are allowed to call back their army and cancel the Sidi

Barani campaign(The Italian army in North Africa doesn't get

curbstomped from the start). Now, in return, FREE DEPLOYMENT

of all combat ready units of the low countries, France, and the

UK. The end result is that when the Germans come in 1940

(the weather rules really don't allow an attack previous to OTL)

everyone is ready and waiting for them in the right positions.

The allies still have all of their unit weaknesses, but even the

Dutch held on long enough to make the Germans pay a serious

price for their actions. What was the result? The French STILL lost,

but not before the Germans exhausted virtually their entire armored

force leaving a very anemic army to invade Russia(They never made

it past Kiev!). And when did the French surrender? November!

No Battle of Britain...

My point to all this is all they had to do, even without better interwar

preparation, was to get in gear and get the troops where they

belonged, not where the politicians wanted them. But that would

have required a level of leadership that both the military and civilian

command structure of the Allies (including/especially the minors) simply

didn't possess. A poor time for european leadership. After Clemenceau

and before Degaulle.

Thank God we had Churchill(but then he was half-Yankee).

So, fire away!

 

[Hendryk]

So, fire away!

The one comment that comes to mind is:

Use a normal layout for your posts, or nobody will read them.

 

[usertron2020]

Normal Layout?

The one comment that comes to mind is:

Use a normal layout for your posts, or nobody will read them.

Thank you for the advice. I have had a number of posters' complaints
about numerous problems I have had. Too much double-spacing. Too
much single-spacing. Too many smilies. Not enough paragraphs.

Too many paragraphs. Too much hyperbole. Too much information.

I have tried to keep things straight and engage in corrective action
when I can, but to fix the Normal Layout problem I just need you
to please more specifically define the meaning of that phrase in this
context.

Thank you.

 

[Incognitia]

Thank you for the advice. I have had a number of posters' complaints
about numerous problems I have had. Too much double-spacing. Too
much single-spacing. Too many smilies. Not enough paragraphs.

Too many paragraphs. Too much hyperbole. Too much information.

I have tried to keep things straight and engage in corrective action
when I can, but to fix the Normal Layout problem I just need you
to please more specifically define the meaning of that phrase in this
context.

Thank you.

For some reason, the lines of your text stop less than halfway across the
page. It makes following your thread a little more difficult, and I imagine
would be the cause of the complaints.
Looking at myself typing this, I'm wondering whether you're hitting Enter
as you reach the edge of the 'Reply to Thread' text box?

Edit: looking at my test, I think that's it. Try just typing, letting the lines wrap over on their own, and the resulting posts will have a more conventional layout; then people should only complain about your content, not the presentation

 

[ranoncles]

Many fine posts here IMO and I would agree that France generally had the hardware to face the Germans on even terms.

If you look at the Battle of the Seine rather than the initial clash, it seems as if the French (infantry) was more than capable of dealing with the Germans. In fact, their leadership easily adopted the hedgehog tactic instead of the linear defence of WWI. So a change in tactics is not impossible in thought or ability. What led to their defeat was the lack of mobile forces capable of defeating German penetrations.

The clash between the French cavalry corps and 2 German Panzer Divisions (at Gembloux?) showed that the Germans had great difficultly tackling the French armor if the armor was established in defensive position so a scenario in which the French still have mobile divisions to seal off German penetrations after the initial German onslaught would perhaps not lead to outright victory but certainly a much harder fight for the Germans and perhaps even a stalemate under optimum French conditions.

But this was only possible if the French air force was willing to go all-out. Historically, the French expected a long, drawn out affair in which the country/alliance to best husband their strength would win, as had happened in WWI. For the air force, this meant that only limited sorties were flown, to preserve combat power. Meanwhile, the Germans were going for a knock-out blow and in particular maximized the sortie rate of their air force, providing a significant force multiplier.

Let us also not forget that the Germans were in fact planning on a repeat of their WWI strategy until the plans fell in the hands of the Belgians and Mansteins "plan B" gained ground. Had that original plan happened, it would have suited the French war plans admirably and the war might well have turned out very different....

 

[LordIreland]

Interestingly, no one has mentioned the political state of France. The 3rd republic did not have the most stable of political landscapes and tended to lurch from one crisis to another. For example in 1936 when Hitler marched into the Rhineland the French gov't was in crisis and unable to offer any form of meaningful response. Whilst many of the problems have been explored in some detail in this post already, I think its worth mentioning the lack of strong political leadership in France during the 1930s. There are many reforms that 'could' have been carried out, but without the political will to see them through they are so much dead wood.

This kind of political instability will have the effect of not really allowing any serious doctrinal changes to be put into effect.

 

[Redbeard]

Interestingly, no one has mentioned the political state of France. The 3rd republic did not have the most stable of political landscapes and tended to lurch from one crisis to another. For example in 1936 when Hitler marched into the Rhineland the French gov't was in crisis and unable to offer any form of meaningful response. Whilst many of the problems have been explored in some detail in this post already, I think its worth mentioning the lack of strong political leadership in France during the 1930s. There are many reforms that 'could' have been carried out, but without the political will to see them through they are so much dead wood.

This kind of political instability will have the effect of not really allowing any serious doctrinal changes to be put into effect.

France in the 30s certainly did have its problems, as did everyone else. But it is a myth that the French system was that much more paralyzed, and it wasn't the French who were the barrier towards a more stern line vs. Germany. For instance when the Germans reclaimed the Rhineland in 1936 the French actually preferred a military response, but the British didn't support that, and the French didn't wan't to go to war alone! The British had just concluded the Anglo-German naval agreement and basically felt that Germany wasn't a threat towards the Empire and thus not worth a fight - Rhineland or not.

After the war the many strikes and the lack of a strong presidential figure in the 3rd republic were handy scapegoats, but it is very difficult to see that they had any significant influence on military preparedness, production, doctrines, plans or whatever.

And BTW what other democratic nation was sufficently prepared for war in 1939? Certainly not UK, where the British could field a handful of Divisions the French had over 100! But where the British had the luxury of a Channel or the Russians of endless depth - the French didn't.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

 

[Faeelin]

After the war the many strikes and the lack of a strong presidential figure in the 3rd republic were handy scapegoats, but it is very difficult to see that they had any significant influence on military preparedness, production, doctrines, plans or whatever.

Well said. People often think of the 3rd Republic as a decadent state on the verge of collapse, riven by internal discord. But IMO it's worth noting that the most popular "fascist" group, the Croix de Feu, were basically proto-Gaullists; that when the "fascist parties" started to look like they were threatening the government in 1934, the other parties of the nation united in a "Popular Front" to preserve Democracy. And, of course, that they mobilized quickly.

My favorite WI has always been an earlier devaluation.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

Redbeard, sad but true. The Anglo-German naval accord was the first act of outright appeasement on the part of the UK and the intelligence behind the deal escapes me to this day.

Churchill summed it up as the Germans got to build as many warships as they could, as fast as they could, without limit for years until they had 35% of the RN's strength PLUS the restoration of the u-boats and the British got a scrap of paper swearing that once all this was done the Germans would absolutely not do any more.

 

[Riain]

Am I the only person who thinks that a tank with a one man turret (where the commander has to command, load and fire the gun) sucks dog balls? French tanks had good armour, exellent construction, reasonable guns but poor design and thus poor combat performance.

 

[DaleCoz]

A couple of points

1) While I'm pretty sure this wasn't the intention, allowing the Germans to do the naval expansion actually hurt the German war preps. The three most important constraints on the Germans were (a) Steel, (b) Number of workers, and (c) Oil. The German capital ships took up an enormous amount of steel and workers, and when the Germans briefly gave shipbuilding priority in the lead-up to the war it screwed up war preps badly. And of course it takes enormous amounts of oil to move a battleship around, which was why the Italian battleships (and to a lesser extent the German heavy stuff) spent a lot of the war in harbor.

2) The French cavalry really did want a tank with a two-man turret, and would have probably have been happy to have AMC-35s (also called AMC G1s) instead of an equivalent number of H35/H39s if the tank had worked as intended. As near as I can tell, the AMC-34 and then the AMC-35 were the only candidates for the role, though the Somua S35 ended up taking on some of the roles intended for the AMC-35. Maybe the what-if should be what if maybe FMC or one of other minor French tank suppliers had competed for the cavalry tank order. Of course even with one-man turrets the French light tanks would have been much more effective if they had gotten the longer-barreled 37mm gun into them in larger quantities.

 

[usertron2020]

Thank you Ingonitia

For some reason, the lines of your text stop less than halfway across the
page. It makes following your thread a little more difficult, and I imagine
would be the cause of the complaints.
Looking at myself typing this, I'm wondering whether you're hitting Enter
as you reach the edge of the 'Reply to Thread' text box?

Edit: looking at my test, I think that's it. Try just typing, letting the lines wrap over on their own, and the resulting posts will have a more conventional layout; then people should only complain about your content, not the presentation

I've yet to figure out even how to put spaces in at the start of my paragraphs! Thank you very much for this help, my ignorance on how to text is I know clear to one and all.

 

[usertron2020]

War In Europe

Ranoncles

I know wargames are not to be taken seriously, but I thought I should let you know that in the game I described the French(and Soviet) infantry have the
unique ability to make field fortifications. I realize now that those are the hedgehogs you are talking about. In the context of the game, they double
THEIR defense AND one other unit. The French are not allowed to do this
until 10 weeks after the entry of German troops into Belgium/France. I think this represents the learning curve of the French Army. We did a brief playtest of a 1940 campaign with the French Army already in a massive line of hedgehogs with the result that the Germans never got beyond the Low Countries

 

[usertron2020]

Economics

I'm not going to use anyone's recent quotes here. Too many, too good. I will only say what about the bifurcated nature of the economics of inter-war Europe? The economy of France in the 1920's wasn't the roaring engine of the USA, but it was far better than the situation to be found once the effects of the '29 crash and Smoot-Hartley reached the Continent. Does that explain the Maginot Line built in the twenties while there was perhaps more constraint in the thirties? This is only conjecture on my part, does anyone have the raw fiscal numbers available?