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Sure, but the 1st, 2nd, and 10th Panzer divisions were not rendered combat ineffective by the fighting near Sedan as casualties claimed would have rendered them.
Not clear what your point is as it has nothing to do with mine.
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Sure, but the 1st, 2nd, and 10th Panzer divisions were not rendered combat ineffective by the fighting near Sedan as casualties claimed would have rendered them.
My point is tangentially related to yours.Not clear what your point is as it has nothing to do with mine.
Yes I was saying that this, among other issues with their doctrine and readiness, meant that the French were not in a position to do what was necessary to stop the Germans and it really required a pre-war POD that even removing Gamelin doesn't fix. There was also the issue of airpower, which the Germans had a serious advantage in at Sedan and used it heavily during the battle for Sedan.Had the French actually counter-attacked, the Germans would have been in serious trouble. But as Wiking has alluded too (or at least I think alluded too) in his posts, for the French to have the mindset to counter-attack they would have first also have had to have a more aggressively minded doctrine. That requires a rather earlier PoD.
Of course, the tiny Belgian army can resist better than the (always inept) French. What really matters to @wiking in the end, is that the almighty German forces can't be defeated, or if they ever are on the brink of defeat, wonderwaffe will save the day. Then again, there is this https://forum.axishistory.com
It explains a lot of things. Seems we have a fanboy here...
There was also the issue of airpower, which the Germans had a serious advantage in at Sedan and used it heavily during the battle for Sedan.
The French were already unable to get into position in that period, in part due to airpower and it's effects (they were inundated by fleeing reservists, psychologically broken in part by air attack).I don't think air power would have necessarily saved the Germans had the French launched a heavy attack on the 13th or 14th. The main effect of air power is psychological. 3e's men was made of sterner stuff then the reservists who the Germans had crossed against at Sedan and were less likely to break in the face of an air attack, although it is still conceivable. But the question is moot all the doctrinal and readiness issues you and I mentioned basically renders the question moot.
The 4th DCr (de Gaulle), attempted to launch an attack from the south at Montcornet, where Guderian had his Korps headquarters and the 1st Panzer Division had its rear service areas. During the Battle of Montcornet Germans hastily improvised a defence while Guderian rushed up the 10th Panzer Division to threaten de Gaulle's flank. This flank pressure and dive-bombing by Fliegerkorps VIII (General Wolfram von Richthofen) broke up the attack. French losses on 17 May amounted to 32 tanks and armoured vehicles but the French had "inflicted loss on the Germans". On 19 May, after receiving reinforcements, de Gaulle attacked again and was repulsed with the loss of 80 of 155 vehicles.[144] Fliegerkorps VIII attacked French units massing on the German flanks and prevented most counter-attacks from starting. The defeat of the 4th DCr and the disintegration of the French Ninth Army was caused mainly by the fliegerkorps.[145] The 4th DCr had achieved a measure of success but the attacks on 17 and 19 May had only local effect.[146]
The French were already unable to get into position in that period, in part due to airpower and it's effects (they were inundated by fleeing reservists, psychologically broken in part by air attack).
But in terms of what air attack did achieve against a threatening French counterattack with an armored division:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France#Central_front
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Montcornet
Basically in the same area against the 10th Panzer (fought at Stonne) a few days later.
The French needed some serious overhauls in doctrine and readiness, especially among their air force so that it could provide effective air cover and deny the Germans the use of the Stukas, to have had a fighting chance.
You can misread history all you want, but the lesson of Normandy was that conducting offensive action in the face of enemy air superiority is impossible. You can fight defensively for a time, but you will lose.Wking,
Those of us who aren't worthless fantasists have already noted the ability of decent ground troops to sustain operations under attack from the air (see also Normandy 1944).
As Obsessed Nuker has already noted, while the AAS had some issues, the problems with the French in 1940 were mostly about ground doctrine.
You can try and bait me all you want, but your consistent ignorance to the realities of the air war show you shouldn't be commenting on things you know little about. The Luftwaffe, as with the Soviet and Wallied air forces, were critical components to the success of their ground units. Remove that air support component and the ability to win on the ground for the German in 1940 is not there. The Wallies in 1944-45 could still win without their air support, but it would have been a LOT more costly and drawn out; the Soviets too could have likely won without it, but probably would have experienced prohibitive cost. The Allied militaries didn't spend billions of dollars on their air forces on a lark.Anyone thinking that the problem was "especially among their air force" really needs to lay off the fantasies about the triumph of the will and look at objective conditions, which show the German Army beat the French Army on the ground.
You can misread history all you want, but the lesson of Normandy was that conducting offensive action in the face of enemy air superiority is impossible. You can fight defensively for a time, but you will lose.
An example of armor offensive in the face of Allied air supremacy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lüttich#Allied_air_strikes.E2.80.94the_offensive_stalls
Even with the majority of AFVs not being destroyed by air, the rest of the equipment was and the dispersal of attacking units to hide from air attack doomed the offensive.
Same thing happened to the French on the 17th of May 1940.
You can try and bait me all you want, but your consistent ignorance to the realities of the air war show you shouldn't be commenting on things you know little about. The Luftwaffe, as with the Soviet and Wallied air forces, were critical components to the success of their ground units. Remove that air support component and the ability to win on the ground for the German in 1940 is not there. The Wallies in 1944-45 could still win without their air support, but it would have been a LOT more costly and drawn out; the Soviets too could have likely won without it, but probably would have experienced prohibitive cost. The Allied militaries didn't spend billions of dollars on their air forces on a lark.
Stonne was indeed the best chance the French had to staunch the German penetration at Sedan, the problem was the French were too passive with it... as their doctrine told them to be. Stonne was a small town on a plateau to the south of Sedan, control of which would allow the French a good position to subsequently attack down into the German bridgehead. The powerful French 3e DCR armoured division, including several of the heavy Char B1 tanks arrived outside Stonne in the early morning of the 14th of May, joining the 3rd Motorized Infantry division already in position and ready to launch a counter attack on Guderian's brideghead. Instead the commander of 3e DCR was handed the following orders:
"(a) Take up positions along the second line to the east of the Bar and contain the bottom of the pocket created by the enemy.
(b) Having contained the enemy, counter attack at the earliest in the direction of Maisoncelle-Bulson-Sedan."
-Alastair Horne, "To Lose a Battle," p.385
The problem, as Horne perceptively notes, is that these two directives directly conflict. Containment involves establishing a cordon, which involves dispersing troops along a wide front in small packets. Attacking requires concentration, with all forces gathered into a single powerful mass on a very small front. A mere two formations cannot effectively do both. Even worse, counter attacking works best when launched against an enemy while he is still disrupted from his own manuevers, something that first containing the Germans would logically prevent. The orders given to the 3e DCR were impossible to reconcile. The French command might as well have asked for a round square.
So the 3e DCR spent the 14th dispersing itself into defensive positions around Stonne, sacrificing the chance for a counter-attack on the still vulnerable bridgehead just 15km away. Guderian, making the most of a German tradition that institutionalized calculated insubordination, disobeyed directives to establish a defense and instead launched an attack to pre-empt the French. On 15 May, with the two Panzer divisions he already had across he attacked west, past the French defenses (the French had mistakenly assumed he would attack south, to outflank the Maginot Line), while sending only the elite Grossdeutschland infantry regiment south to pre-emptively seize Stonne. Caught off guard, the French committed 3e DCR and 3rd Motorized divisions piecemeal into the battle, hastily sending in one small defensive packet after another. They were unable to launch one massive blow that could have routed the badly outnumbered and outgunned German regiment, because their forces had all been previously dispersed for a defense. Control of Stonne swayed back and forth for two days before additional German reserves crossed the river and ultimately pushed the French back on the 17th, but even before it started the French had already lost. Their own deployments had squandered the chance for an immediate attack on the 14th and reduced them to an indecisive (though lethal) shoving match on the flank of the growing penetration. Even had the Grossdeutschland collapsed on the 15th, the French would have been in no condition to launch a larger counter attack down into Sedan.
Had the French actually counter-attacked, the Germans would indeed have been in serious trouble. Even a single tank division rolling up to the Meuse on 14 May would have seriously damaged the entire German plan. But as Wiking has alluded too (or at least I think alluded too) in his posts, for the French to have the mindset to counter-attack they would have first also have had to have a more aggressively minded doctrine. That requires a rather earlier PoD.
And after the German breakout on the 15th, there really was nothing more the WAllies could have done.
In consequence, the 3rd Armoured was ordered to disperse itself defensively over a front of some twelve miles, from Omont west of the Bar to Stonne. On all tracks and potential corridors of penetration it was to form ‘corks’, each comprised one ‘B’ and two H-39 tanks. During the night this powerful, modern unit was thus broken up into a series of penny packets. ‘From then on,’ says Colonel Goutard, ‘there was a line, a few tanks but no 3rd Armoured Division. The steel lance was buried for ever, and so was the counter-attack.’ The best – and last – opportunity of administering a severe check to Guderian before he burst out of his bridgehead had been thrown away. It was a tragic error of judgement. [And it seems to end there]
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Reacting in a manner typical of the epoch in which the Maginot Line had come to be regarded as the be-all and end-all of French military policy
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-Alastair Horne, "To Lose a Battle,"
True to its training, the Grossdeutschland did not just sit still and wait to be attacked by the French. Early in the morning it was pushing forward up on to the high ground on both sides of Stonne, with orders to establish its defence line around this key village. This unexpected movement further helped throw Flavigny off balance, and he was forced to commit piecemeal in the defence of Stonne some of the tanks and infantry that were being husbanded for the afternoon’s set-piece attack.
It was very largely thanks to the impressive celerity with which the Grossdeutschland was able to deploy its anti-tank guns (once more an attribute of the excellence of Wehrmacht training, at its best, in 1940) that the regiment was not overrun at Stonne on the 15th.
To be fair, Inadvertant Escalation is essentially about the 1980s and 1990s, at which point we have weapons with somewhat better range than in the 1940s.
Standard Western defensive frontages for brigade-size units are about 10-20 kilometers...
Victory Misunderstood:
What the Gulf War Tells Us About the Future of Conflict
The divisions of these two [French] army groups held frontages of up to sixteen kilometers, more than twice the normal frontage for these units.
-Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II
Or to put it differently...
There were 10 panzer divisions.
1 was send North, crushing the Netherlands
2 made a faint in the Belgian plain in Namur, Gembloux and Hannut, and were repelled by the French (with heavy losses) "as planned"
The 7 others made the breakthrough in the Ardennes, over a 50 miles wide corridor.
3 were concentrated in Sedan, the other 4 were send in two pairs, north of Sedan.