Fall Gelb fails: What does the French army/war effort look like in 1941/2?

[fester]

Yeah, in fact to expand on the U-boot thing, the aspect I forgot to mention is that British supply wouldn't be disrupted by the loss of France (which sent materials and such) and the disruption by U-boots would be reduced. If we also add the effects of basically not being bombed (which disrupted some factories) and not having to build extra transport shipping to invade France and support a much larger war, the British can also devote far more ressources to the production required for a land army so the ramp up in 1940-42 will be faster.

Ignoring the OTL Dunkirk effect of maintaining production of some old gear because for all we know the high attrition caused by fighting in France might have resulted in the same policy still, and also the fact that some equipment being delayed had nothing to do with the Dunkirk effect.

I would actually disagree with the con being a con for the following reasons:
- naval help is not particularly required anyway
- in terms of material help, US assistance would actually be somewhat higher than OTL because the ramp up of military production was abruptly slowed down by the loss of French financing. This was also a factor in a France Fights On scenario because FFO France can send its gold, but here it would be further reinforced by France keeping its metropolitan income to further fund US industrial buildup.
The economists and historians calculated the potential benefit of continued French financing for FFO (which would allow the US to switch to more shifts because there was still a lot of slack in the US industry): 28.75% increased production compared to OTL in the 2nd semester of 1940, 30-40% extra production over OTL in 1941. Note this is total production including US defence demands, and it actually corresponds to a doubling of the value of production for the French in 2nd semester of 1940, and quadrupling in 1941.

That said, I still included that factor in the "material strength ratio of the Entente over Germany is not as lopsided as in 1943-45".

Almost as importantly, the UK won't be maintaining multiple field armies half way across the globe --- Egypt will have a nice garrison and a training station for Indian, Australian and New Zealanders for division sized exercises before being shipped to Marseilles and Toulon but not an operational army, and the resource sink of Burma and the Indian campaign is highly likely to be waived away as the Japanese won't pick up French Indochina on the cheap. Finally, the Med will be open and the British can run convoy-less shipping through the sea --- convoys are likely needed for the Western Approaches, but otherwise... shipping is way more efficienct and mostly being used on pre-war patterns.

 

[Riain]

Something like 80% of shipping movements daily worldwide monitored by the RN were coastal shipping in UK waters in WW2. And its frankly delusional to say either in 1914 or 1940 that the Germans had the capability to interdict it other than very temporarily and intermittently. 10-15 S boats will not to the job in 1940 and as far as the Race to the Sea in 1014 is converned the Entente has already won it. The Belgian army retreats out of Antwerp along the coast and conforms to the French army around Dixmunde. The whole race to the sea is outflanking movements by the French and German armies that mutually fail to achieve anything except the lines for the early part of WW1. Incidentally the force for the first of these is the German screening force from Antwerp, if thats not there and so the Belgian army freed up the whole line moves East a little.

Sorry for the thread hijack, however I was asked to compare this ATL WW2 to an ATL WW1.

Firstly, in OTL WW1 holding a mere 50km of Belgian coast with a pair of small ports that in an October 1914 appraisal were dismissed as useless stationed 1 growing to 2 flotilla of coastal uboats from early-mid 1915. These flotilla consisted about 25% of the KM uboat strength and suk about 25% of KM tonnage achieved by uboats. Admiral Bacon of the Dover Patrol said that if the shipping through the Dover Strait was stopped, even for a period of time 1/3 of London's population would have to be evacuated to where they could be fed. He believed the biggest threat was from destroyers at night and that the Germans lost a major opportunity by not using them. The Dover Patrol and Harwich Force put a lot of effort into containing the KM position in Flanders because of the threat it represented.

Secondly, it is widely accepted that Moltke didn't execute the plan he created very well in practice. He was out if touch with his armies and didn't follow the principle of keeping the right wing strong, by send right wing corps to reinforce the east and by allowing an offensive on the left wing. If instead of the left wing offensive Moltke had forced the 6th and 7th armies to move to the right wing Germany would likely have won the so called "race to the sea".

Thirdly, holding the French channel coast from 1914 doesn't mean the Germans will close the channel, only that the threat Admiral Bacon talked about is made vastly greater and countering the threat a much, much more difficult task. Holding the channel coast being a war winner is like a team being a premiership team, sure there are some standouts but everyone has to play their part and the team has to gel together.

But anyway this thread was about WW2, which is much less interesting than WW1.