Motorized Attaque à Outrance?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attaque_à_outrance
This philosophy was a response to the increasing weight of defensive firepower that accrued to armies in the nineteenth century, as a result of several technological innovations, notably breech-loading rifled guns, machine guns, and light field artillery firing high-explosive shells. It held that the victor would be the side with the strongest will, courage, and dash (élan), and that every attack must therefore be pushed to the limit.[1] The invention of machine guns and barbed wire as well as the subsequent development of trench warfare rendered this tactic extremely costly and usually ineffective.
What if WW1 was delayed into the 1920s or 30s and without the experience of WW1 in 1914 the French continued to develop the idea of the Attaque à Outrance, but with motorization, SP artillery, and automatic weaponry? Would it be a more viable battle doctrine with the right weaponry and technology to support it on the attack or would it just lead to disaster against a better armed defender?
 
It might be tricky to pull off into the 1920s as I would argue that the key handicap was lack of communications equipment but in the 1930s lighter weight, more reliable and above all cheaper radio sets would allow the co-ordination of artillery with infantry and armoured cars and thus enable a much greater degree of effect.

Even in the 1920s the ability of a motorised army to exploit any gains made would be an order of magnitude greater than in the 1910s. Still I suspect that the defender would enjoy an advantage in most tactical scenarios in that period.

It was the speed of communications offered by mobile radio that enabled the offensive to become so much more effective in the Second World War. It did this by enabling the massive firepower already available to armies in the early 20th Century to be directed against enemy strongpoints in a timely fashion.
 
If you're adding motorization, IMO, you're a big step toward blitzkrieg doctrine. Executing successfully does require radio, but...
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attaque_à_outrance
What if WW1 was delayed into the 1920s or 30s and without the experience of WW1 in 1914 the French continued to develop the idea of the Attaque à Outrance, but with motorization, SP artillery, and automatic weaponry? Would it be a more viable battle doctrine with the right weaponry and technology to support it on the attack or would it just lead to disaster against a better armed defender?

What domed french planning was not the concept itself but the balance of forces. The French plan was to launch a secondary attack in the south, then when the Germans had deployed the bulk of their forces, to cut them off with a surprise attack in the centre, cutting northeast across so the Ardenes. In fact it was pretty much a reverse plan yellow.
The problem was that their main attack fell not on a weak sector, but on advancing German armies that actually outnumbered their attackers, while bad estimates of German strengh and intention left the French north wing dangerously exposed to superior forces.

Mechanisation would work if it was assimetrical, the French mechanizing and the Germans not (unlikely) or if the french actually had accurate intelligence of German forces weaknesses and could exploit a weak spot (after an extra decade of arms race, they would certainly get more intel, but finding a weak spot would be a lot harder, Germany having more money and population.)
 
My first thought is the dangling right flank would be a lot more vulnerable.

German right flank?
The Schliefen plan was not purely manoeuvre based. The detailed planning and speed of execution wer expected to overwhelm the reaction capability of the French General Staff. The Germans didn't expect the French 5th army to be able to conduct a fighting withdrawal nor the French Army to be able to organise an opportune response.
If the French are mechanising their forces, their focus is clearly on manoeuvre and the Schliefen plan wouldn't make sense.
It would, anyhow, have probably been abandoned before the 20s
 

Deleted member 1487

German right flank?
The Schliefen plan was not purely manoeuvre based. The detailed planning and speed of execution wer expected to overwhelm the reaction capability of the French General Staff. The Germans didn't expect the French 5th army to be able to conduct a fighting withdrawal nor the French Army to be able to organise an opportune response.
If the French are mechanising their forces, their focus is clearly on manoeuvre and the Schliefen plan wouldn't make sense.
It would, anyhow, have probably been abandoned before the 20s

The plan was to abandon it in 1916, so it wouldn't be in effect before the French can motorize. Likely any German war plan would be defensive in the west after 1916 due to the Russians being such an enormous threat once it advances it rail construction plans.
 
As AdA said earlier, a lot would depend on exactly how much the Germans have left in the west. If the German sense of the threat from Russia is large enough, and they give their eastern front enough vs the western front, the French attack might go somewhere.
 

Deleted member 1487

As AdA said earlier, a lot would depend on exactly how much the Germans have left in the west. If the German sense of the threat from Russia is large enough, and they give their eastern front enough vs the western front, the French attack might go somewhere.

If the Germans do their own West Wall would the French go through Belgium?
 
I think they might consider it.



The French didn't seem to have any actual plan to fight in Belgium, given how reluctant they acted in 1914. The Belgium fortress areas being strong enough to keep the Germans out, theoretically. The French probably expected the Germans to get chopped up in front of the French border forts, as happened in the Russo-Japanese war.
 
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If you're adding motorization, IMO, you're a big step toward blitzkrieg doctrine. Executing successfully does require radio, but...



I may be wrong, but the 1914 plan was practically a blitzkrieg for the time. The Franco-Prussian came close, too. I've seen it argued that had the Germans in Belgium even been on bicycles it would have been. Rather like Singapore. Radios were unreliable and wire was always laid slower than the troops moved. The German commanders kept pushing and the French didn't.
 
The French didn't seem to have any actual plan to fight in Belgium, given how reluctant they acted in 1914. The Belgium fortress areas being strong enough to keep the Germans out, theoretically. They probably expected the Germans to get chopped up in front of the French border forts, as happened in the Russo-Japanese war.

Well, the OP specifies WW1 being delayed into the 1920s-30s. Much could change in that time.
 
The French didn't seem to have any actual plan to fight in Belgium, given how reluctant they acted in 1914. The Belgium fortress areas being strong enough to keep the Germans out, theoretically. The French probably expected the Germans to get chopped up in front of the French border forts, as happened in the Russo-Japanese war.

If all went according to plan, the German forces in Belgium would be cut off when the French attack in the centre by third and fourth army cut through their lines of communication. So, the more German forces in Belgium, the better.
 
I may be wrong, but the 1914 plan was practically a blitzkrieg for the time. The Franco-Prussian came close, too. I've seen it argued that had the Germans in Belgium even been on bicycles it would have been. Rather like Singapore. Radios were unreliable and wire was always laid slower than the troops moved. The German commanders kept pushing and the French didn't.
I hope that they would have remembered to put the horses hauling the supply wagons on bicycles too.
 
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