French Fleet
MARKUS
"Even if the French had voluntarily given the ships to the Germans, the Germans didn´t have the men to crew them."
That's because of the German recruit allocation formula, which gave 25% to the LW but only 9% to the KM. This was an artifact of Goering's political connections & Raeder's lack thereof, but replace Goering with someone like Kesselring & you could get a much more reasonable percentage for the KM. Make it something like 12 to 16% & the manning problem disappears,
WITHOUT crippling the LW.
ASTRODRAGON
"...the Germans would have had to find and train crews, so its unlikely they would have been ready before 1941."
A better option would be for Germany to insist that France use its entire military strength to defend Syria & Lebanon from Brit invasion in '41, including the committment of the French Fleet vs the Brits in the Med. This would have pitted the Richelieu, Dunkerque, Strasbourg, & a couple of CLs, possibly with the Italian Vittorio Veneto, Littorio, & Gorizia, against 3 QE-class BBs based at Alex. 3 new, fast BBs, 2 CBs, & a CA vs 3 old, slow BBs & a few CAs. Should have crippled the Brit fleet. This, of course, would involve the use of existing French crews. Once France was officially at war with Britain they could join the Axis, commit their ships in the N Atlantic, etc.
THEMANN
"I can't imagine the French fleet would willingly take an order to hand their fleet over to the Nazis..."
Right after the armistice, probably not. But after Mers-el-Khebir, Dakar, Casablanca, Alexandria, Syria, & Lebanon, Vichy France was in more of a mood to cooperate w/Germany, had the Germans insisted. Unfortunately for the future of Naziism, they didn't. Remember, the French air force bombed Gibraltar TWICE in retaliation for attacks on their fleet, & the French army fought the Brits for a month in Syria & Lebanon. The trouble was, Vichy ordered their army in Syria & Lebanon to fight, but gave it little support from home.