Paris Victory parade air raid.

Apparently the Germans were preparing a large victory parade for Paris in mid 1940, however they feared that RAF would pay it a visit and ruin the event so they cancelled it.

WI the event went a ahead and the RAF attacked it?
 
Probably a huge retaliatory raid on London. I won't bother to think of the logistics of either raid.
 
I could not imagine such a parade taking place without all available fighter planes of the Luftwaffe amassed around Paris and along the air approaches...

The result would be a fur ball of insane proportions...
 
At that point of time , the RAF had not massively bombed Berlin or other German cities yet. The French might be a bit startled to be the first victim of the British campaign in the air.

Of course, they wouldn't have a lot of pity for the Wehrmacht casualties, which is understandable. But imagining the route of the parade, we talk about bombardment of the Champs-Elysees, maybe Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre suffering some hits. There would be a lot of killed Parisiens who stayed at home rather than watching the Germans.

The effect on French decision making is hard to tell IMHO.

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On behalf of the Royal Air Force, they might be very misguided to try this at such an early stage. It might become a very costly show of force.
 
First, I thought the Germans did stage a fairly big victory parade. Regardless, I think any RAF raid on Paris at that point would be an extremely bad idea, diplomatically. First, the general world consensus at the time was that the European war was basically over. A British attack on the capital of France, aimed at the historic heart of the city, could be seen as the desperate act of a vindictive loser against its defeated ally, not an act of defiance against the German victor. At least, the attack on the French fleet at Oran was aimed at a legitimate military objective and made some strategic sense. Also, militarily, it could be a disaster for Britain. In 1940, a daylight attack force would be composed almost entirely of obsolescent twin engined Whitleys, Blenheims, and possibly Wellingtons, operating in relatively small formations. Based on previous experience, they might be decimated by the Luftwaffe.
 
Since the french had declared Paris an open city the brittish would make one of the first atrocities of ww2 and the PR-value of that would be a big boost to Germany and the pictures of a damaged Eifel tower would have made it harder for FDR to help UK
 
I think it depends on how it is done. If the RAF just tries to plaster Paris with bombs on the day then I think there will be a big air battle and indiscriminate bombing which will go badly for the RAF and Britain. But if the RAF tried something special, along the lines of the Dambusters and the Mosquito raid on the Gestapo prison, and a handful of planes managed to bomb and strafe the parade without much collateral damage then the French would love seeing the Germans slapped when they were gloating.
 

terence

Banned
I think it depends on how it is done. If the RAF just tries to plaster Paris with bombs on the day then I think there will be a big air battle and indiscriminate bombing which will go badly for the RAF and Britain. But if the RAF tried something special, along the lines of the Dambusters and the Mosquito raid on the Gestapo prison, and a handful of planes managed to bomb and strafe the parade without much collateral damage then the French would love seeing the Germans slapped when they were gloating.

In 1940 The RAF and the Air Ministry was still run by asinine Col. Blimps.
The derring-do of the Lanc and Mosquito pilots was still in the future, the planes of 1940 were not up to pinpoint attacks. Fighters could not have reached Paris and daylight bombers would have been shot to ribbons. For reasons that others have given, an indiscriminate daylight attack would make the attack on the French Fleet look like a French-Kiss.
 
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