Plausibility check;French airborne invasion of England

Basically, if we assume a Red rise to power in the same time frame as Hitler's, there's no reason to expect the British to be any more prepared than they were OTL. Which makes them pretty screwed.

The problem being that it would require a rise to air power at levels never achieved by Hitler. The increase in force and the necessary development of new aircraft and tactics, by a hostile neighbor, taken to the level necessary for this operation to succeed, couldn't help but draw Britain's rapt attention.
 
I'm toying with the idea of a WW2 that opens with a communist France launching an airborne invasion of the UK in the summer of 1939.

Assume that the French achieve strategic surprise - the British didn't see this coming - at all.



.

A secret non-aggresion pact with Germany would probably help with the surprise part. The Germans/French continue to sabre rattle while they secretly sign the pact. The Brits wait for the commies (French/USSR) to come to blows with the Nazi's and get caught with their pants down.

Still don't think the frogs are successful and the Fuhrer probably stabs them in the back but it'd be interesting....
 
Well, don't forget that this is the same Red France that offered Liebknacht assistance in the Spartacist Uprising, which later led to the Franco-German Union of Communist Republics!

;)
 
War breaks out, and with an airforce matching the OTL Luftwaffe, France dominates the air over the English Channel, making an air/sea born invasion of Britain a piece of cake...

...and as long-lasting as a piece of cake, too. It's just the same problem as OTL - the French air force will be pretty bad at dealing with the RN during daytime, and totally ineffective at night or during bad weather at day. Strategic surprise may give you air superiority, but the old problems of supply remain.
 
We pointed out the many flaws and you posted quibbles in return. While you did mention a few ASBs like a pacifist/unarmed UK, you also repeatedly stacked the deck in favor of your idea. You proposed that the UK be armed at an OTL June '39 level deliberately ignoring the effect a Red France would have on the UK. You had Red France win it's BoB, Red France drive the RN out of the Channel, and Red France pulling off a "Crete" despite the vast differences in situation among other things. Then, when all this nonsense was pointed out, you actually kept defending the idea.

I have done nothing of the sort. Maybe you haven't grasped that the there's is no proposition in the OP, no "this would have worked". The question posed in the OP isn't even really "could this have worked?" but rather "what would it take for this to have worked - short of ASB". So you what you percieve as me "defending an idea" is actually me seeking an outcome by changing the circumstances - "stacking the deck" is not a bad analogy, actually.

As for France winning a BoB, I might have been unclear, but when I spoke about knocking out fighter command, it was not supposed to be by dint of defeating it in the air or even bombing the airfields a la Barbarossa, but rather by seizing its airfields in a night air drop. At the time, night interception was in infancy so once the transports are flying, there is very little the British could have done to stop the paras from reaching the ground.

Of course, that is when the real difficulties would have begun, and not before.

You could boil the problem down to this - how many airfields would have to be captured by paratroopers and/or gliders (the first wave) to cripple Fighter Commands southern groups so that they were unable to seriously oppose the follow up air bridge? And even more importantly, how many paras would it take to capture an airfield before dawn?

The answer to both questions depend on the strenght and preparedness of the British. Say that it would take capturing fifteen to twenty airfields, and that capturing each would require a regiment of paras. Then the operation is doomed from the start, because even two airborne divisions totalling six regiments in the first go is stretching into ASB territory.

Say on the other hand that the British guard the airfields far more weakly, and that only half a battallion is needed for each - then there's a chance, because then one divison of nine battallions could reliably capture eighten fields.

The OTL level of British armament was proposed as a baseline for comparison in the OP, not as an assumption. For the airborne invasion to work, would it suffice for the British to have historical strenght? Even weaker? Once the neccessary level of weakness has been established one can work backwards from there to find a plausible explanation for it.

See the method in my madness? :D

I did briefly toy with the idea that you were starting Yet Another Sealion Thread with some Red France camouflage.
I did infer from your level of vehemence that you had substituted some reading of the OP for assumptions based on earlier debates. For the record, I too believe the Nazis would have had to be extraordinarily lucky to achieve anything but disaster with that operation.
 
Lion de mer

There's a number of challenges to be overcome:

1) Strategic surprise

2) Quality of airborn/seaborn forces involved

3) Maintaining superiority in/over the English Channel


As far as (1) goes, I think that's perfectly achievable. The Nazis achieved strategic surprise all the time against the Allies. Even though there was a crisis before the invasion of Poland, the Allies were simply unprepared on a *strategic* level. In the days beforehand, they realized war was coming, but that didn't help because their war machines weren't ready. They were surprised again in Norway and Denmark; again, the knew there was something up, but the Nazis struck first and won. And they surprised the Allies AGAIN in their conduct of the Battle of France. Stalin, sworn foe of the fascist was caught utterly by surprise by Barbarossa. All this points to the leadership of Britain just not being very ready for war. Tactically, they might be ready for the ATL war, units on alert and everything. They may even be well into a military build up, as OTL. But everything from OTL suggests "surprises" are *startlingly* easy to achieve, and the results are devastating.

With (2), once again we have to look at the Nazis. Why would France build up its war making potential? There's lots of viable places in OTL. As I suggested earlier, a war with Germany could give France the motivation and experience needed, as could expeditions to Spain. Admittedly, Germany had more latent potential than France did in the 30s, but I think they're on broadly similar levels.

With (3), what we're basically asking is "If Hitler had the Marine Nationale instead of the Kreigsmarine, would Sealion be possible?" That alone goes a long way to making Sealion workable, but then we have to factor in other advantages; OTL Sealion was 1940, Lion de mer is 1939. The British are going to be that much less prepared. IOTL, the RAF was routed in the Battle of France. Who's to say their first encounter with the French Red Airforce won't be equally disastrous?
 
I also doubt that the infantry and airborne divisions that could be brought over, assuming the initial landing succeeds, would be able to defeat the British army and occupy significant amount of territory before being destroyed. First and foremost antitank weaponry will be mostly ad hoc, as anti tank guns will take time to be brought over, a critical delay which will leave the airborne troops defenseless. Further up until this point no serious airborne operation on this scale will have been attempted; this inevitably equipment and doctrine will have many flaws which will greatly hamper the operation. Aerial tactics will also be undeveloped, leading to crippling bomber and transport losses to British aircraft operating from the Midlands. Finally, sheer British numbers and the inability of the paratroopers to quickly concentrate their strength will result in their eventual defeat.

As far as (1) goes, I think that's perfectly achievable. The Nazis achieved strategic surprise all the time against the Allies. Even though there was a crisis before the invasion of Poland, the Allies were simply unprepared on a *strategic* level. In the days beforehand, they realized war was coming, but that didn't help because their war machines weren't ready. They were surprised again in Norway and Denmark; again, the knew there was something up, but the Nazis struck first and won. And they surprised the Allies AGAIN in their conduct of the Battle of France. Stalin, sworn foe of the fascist was caught utterly by surprise by Barbarossa. All this points to the leadership of Britain just not being very ready for war. Tactically, they might be ready for the ATL war, units on alert and everything. They may even be well into a military build up, as OTL. But everything from OTL suggests "surprises" are *startlingly* easy to achieve, and the results are devastating.

The allies were quite prepared for war against Nazi Germany and had been building up for years. The problem was that, unless they collapsed their economies, there's simply no way they could mobilize rapidly enough to launch a concerted campaign to support Poland. Further there was also doubt about whether German would actually invade in the face of certain war. You confuse strategic surprise with strategic realities and the fog of war, which made it difficult for the Allies to react optimally.

The Allies were not strategically surprised in France. They were fully prepared for an attack. The problem was that they lacked the level of quality of German forces. Their poor deployment was a matter of blind German luck. By losing their plans to the Allies in a plane crash they had to completely alter their strategy, which resulted in Allied forces being out of position (Though it's doubtful they would have had much success in open battle anyways).

Finally Barbarossa is a completely unique scenario unforeseen in the history of warfare. Stalin had plenty of warnings (Though most sources believed the invasion would come in May rather than June, muddying the waters), and the Red Army was partially mobilized. It could certainly have done much better. However, Stalin correctly believed that the Red Army was not prepared for a war, and that mobilizing completely would only provoke Germany. He believed that a German invasion would not be one of total extermination, but a normal war with limited demands and objectives which he could delay through appeasement. Neither he, nor anyone else, could fathom that Hitler was not playing by the "rules" of diplomacy and warfare. The invasion of the Soviet Union was a surprise because it had never happened before; up until that point the Soviets had been model allies, and there was no "normal" reason for Nazi Germany to attack then and there. The war launched was one more total than any seen before; it had no objectives or demands, no territory that could be ceded or wrongs that could be righted through diplomacy. The only goal was the complete destruction of the Soviet state, occupation of all of it's territory, and the enslavement or slaughter of it's populace.
 
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I read up on Fighter Command at the outbreak of WW2, and it would seem Groups 10 and 11 (Southern England) were distributed between 23 aerodromes (Sector Stations and Satellites).

If most of these could be captured by the first wave before dawn, then surely that would cripple the RAFs ability to prevent additional forces being flown in during the following day.

If we assume the first wave to be limited to little more than one parachute division (perhaps with some additional light infantry in gliders), then this leaves at most one to three companies per aerodrome. I have found no information at all on what kind of ground defence the RAF aerodromes would have had during peacetime, but I would imagine it would be more along the lines of security details to keep out spies and saboteurs, not a force able to fight off a few hundred determined paras. But again, I have no info.

Assuming the first phase goes as planned, then it becomes a race between France flying in additional forces and the British Army scrambling its forces to retake the airfields and wipe out the paras.

I must say, I can't really see how the French could pull off that stage. The British army at the time was professional, so no need to mobilise. Even if completely surprised and unprepared, the British would hit the airfields with perhaps as much as 10 divisions, including armour, within 24 hours. Only possible source of hope for the French is if their new-won air superiority allows them to interdict the roads during the day, but even so, airmobile troops alone are not going to defeat the British army. A follow up invasion across the Channel is going to be necessary, but in order to achieve surprise it can't possible have been assembled beforehand, there is no way the British could miss an invasion fleet assembling in French ports. Even if pre-planned meticulously, it will take days for the sea invasion to sail and the RN will not allow that to happen. It will run a terrible gauntlet, but French air power can't be everywhere at once - supporting the beleaguered invasion force, attacking the RN in the channel etc.

So basically, even if the first phase is a resounding success, I don't see how the French could not be trashed thereafter, assuming Britain to be no less prepared than OTL summer 1939.
 

Kongzilla

Banned
It might be possible, If it's a Communist France allied with the USSR, they might have more than enough Planes and pilots if the USSR is willing to supply volunteers. Probably very unlikely though if the Purges happen as OTL.
 
So this is lion de mer?

:D

The OP refers to "stratigic suprise". That sounds a bit odd, and it does not address if there is suprise tacticlly/operationally. So, the question of tactical suprise is open and which way that goes dictates a lot as the sucess.

For example 'stratigic suprise' means the Brit. government may have no political preperations, the citizenry are confused, no industrial war preperations are started, or perhaps not even planned. There is not likely to be any large call up of Territorials Reservists for the British military. The Royal Navy would be scattered across the globe at its peace time stations, with only a smaller portion of the fleet in the home ports.

If however there are a few days, or a days, warning then tactical suprise wont be had. At least the active service soldiers, sailors, and airmen will be alerted and a handfull of reservists reported in, while the bulk of the Territorials & Reservists have been warned call up is imminent.

I'd also note that in August 1939 the Home Chain radar stations had completed technical testing, were linked by phone to the control system, and Fighter Commands control system just stood up. That would give the Brits between thirty and sixty minutes warning French aircraft were headed north across the Channel.

There is also a remark or two here indicating the French navy would be ineffective. Actually it was fairly capable in the 1930s, reasonablly trained and technically skilled. If the French have stratigic suprise then they may have concentrated enough light ships in the Channel, and submarines or heavier ships on the approaches to the Channel, to achieve a temporary naval superiority there. The Brits homeported few major war ships in the Channel ports and it would require at least a day to assemble countner attacks groups from the other ports. Even if the Brits catch on a day or two early they cant guarantee imeadiate control of the Channel.
 

Kongzilla

Banned
How would the French go communist in this Scenario. If it's due to the CP winning during WW1 it would be incredibly ironic for the British to start supplying the French with weapons and aircraft only for it to be turned on them.

Maybe the BEF is in france ready for an attack or something. they get rounded up. what effect could that have.
 
To help the French invaders pull through the second phase, might it be possible for them to have sent a few merchant ships packed with troops to seize some of the Channel Ports?

I'm thinking trade is going on between France and Britain prior to the outbreak of the war, so French merchants arriving in British ports is nothing out of the ordinary, in this case it could even be expected shipments arriving on schedule albeit with a very different cargo...

This would allow the French to get more troops on the ground in the first go, and give them some heavy equipment too. If some of those merchants carry supplies, this could also go some way in alleviating the supply conundrum until the RN can be chased from the Channel by air power.

Of course, this scheme presuposes the British are really, really not expecting any trouble from France. How could they plausibly be so complacent?
 
:D

The OP refers to "stratigic suprise". That sounds a bit odd, and it does not address if there is suprise tacticlly/operationally. So, the question of tactical suprise is open and which way that goes dictates a lot as the sucess.
I was thinking much along the lines you describe - the war catches the British like a bolt out of the blue. There are no territorial troops called up, the RAF and RN are at peacetime preparedness etc.

As for the Red French Nayv, I was thinking along the lines it had withered since WW1 during the years of French post-war weakness (as someone had guessed, I had a CP victory in mind as reason for France going commie, one caused by Britain staying out of WW1 entirely).

But it might be neccessary to allow the French more substantial sea power in order to pull this off.

I'd better post a summary of the timeline.
 
I read up on Fighter Command at the outbreak of WW2, and it would seem Groups 10 and 11 (Southern England) were distributed between 23 aerodromes (Sector Stations and Satellites).

If most of these could be captured by the first wave before dawn, then surely that would cripple the RAFs ability to prevent additional forces being flown in during the following day.

If we assume the first wave to be limited to little more than one parachute division (perhaps with some additional light infantry in gliders), then this leaves at most one to three companies per aerodrome. I have found no information at all on what kind of ground defence the RAF aerodromes would have had during peacetime, but I would imagine it would be more along the lines of security details to keep out spies and saboteurs, not a force able to fight off a few hundred determined paras. But again, I have no info.

Assuming the first phase goes as planned, then it becomes a race between France flying in additional forces and the British Army scrambling its forces to retake the airfields and wipe out the paras.

I must say, I can't really see how the French could pull off that stage. The British army at the time was professional, so no need to mobilise. Even if completely surprised and unprepared, the British would hit the airfields with perhaps as much as 10 divisions, including armour, within 24 hours.

I'm farily certain the Brits had fewer than ten division HQ active in August 1939, and the active divisions were not full strength, most depending of territorial battalions to fill one or more brigades in each division. I also know the Royal artillery was reorganizing at the time and many artillery regiments were in some disarry. Also the RA transport is problematic as a portion of the vehicles were in storage, @ service depots, or otherwise not available.

Even with 48 hours notice the Brits would be hard pressed to field a half dozen infantry divisions in the invasion are, and those would be at or near 50% effective strength. No real combined arms armored or mechanized force existed then. Any tank regiments or armored cavalry would be in the form of battalion size independant units, probably attached to the infantry.

On the French side air superiority will be problematic. The French fighter planes had the same range problem the Germans had a year later & will not be able to loiter over the battlefield or range past London. Worse there is no effective ground cooperation doctrine. Unlike the Wehrmacht the French system of tactical air support, ground liasion, and tactics are to slow and awkward to be effective in this situation. The poor preperation for radio communications in 1939 will be a severe problem for these French paratroopers. While the necessary longer ranged radios might be supplied the French army did not have the doctrine or training for speedy use of radio communications on a fluid battlefield.

This all looks like a incredible mess with a week or so before the Brits can field/concentrate enough ground units to eradicate the last invaders.


Only possible source of hope for the French is if their new-won air superiority allows them to interdict the roads during the day,

In 1940 the French ordered up a major effort at interdicting the attacking German columns on the roads. They failed with the Germans slowed by only a few hours. Attacks on bridges failed to destroy any imortant brossings. At the Sedan bridgehead the French set over 140 aircraft against the crossing site in a single day. Their bombers failed to hit either pontoon bridge or any of the ferry boats operating there.

QUOTE=The Yogi;7096186] but even so, airmobile troops alone are not going to defeat the British army. A follow up invasion across the Channel is going to be necessary, but in order to achieve surprise it can't possible have been assembled beforehand, there is no way the British could miss an invasion fleet assembling in French ports. Even if pre-planned meticulously, it will take days for the sea invasion to sail and the RN will not allow that to happen. It will run a terrible gauntlet, but French air power can't be everywhere at once - supporting the beleaguered invasion force, attacking the RN in the channel etc.

[/QUOTE]

Other than seizing a few beaches or a port or two with small battalion size groups nothing could be accomplished at first. By the time larger corps size formations are embarked the Brit warships will be pressing into the Channel. The Royal Navy had a solid night fighting doctrine and had trained at it in the 1930. Night will be advantageous to the Brits with one or more of the French sea transport efforts massacred. In day light RAF bombers will be harrassing the French sea crossing efforts, and more than a few Brits destroyer or cruisers will risk air attack in daylihgt to get at any transport ships.
 
If we look at the 18th/19th century reponses to threats of french invasion then we see huge rises of volunteer regiments across britain. Matching this to the OTL model of the Home Guard and choose the 3+ year old Home Guard as a best match to a well established volunteer regiment system then you have a local ground force able to inflict considerable damage and delay to invading troops and locally defeat them whilst the regular/TA forces deploy and counter attack.

It would be a very high quality invading division that could work it's way through a 1943 Home Guard one at any speed.

The sheer numbers of transport capable aeroplanes and shallow draught landing adapted small ships necessary to land a plausible invasion force would give away it's intent to even the dimmest intelligence set up.

Modifying the USM model we have to factor in a much larger enemy navy. If it is a Franco-German force then they could be strong enough to attempt a classic fleet action against the Home Fleet, ideally where the Franco German air forces can give air cover and strike from both land bases and using French carriers. The attacking force must fear the Royal Navy stopping resupply more than it stopping the initial landing.
 
How would the French go communist in this Scenario. If it's due to the CP winning during WW1 it would be incredibly ironic for the British to start supplying the French with weapons and aircraft only for it to be turned on them.

Maybe the BEF is in france ready for an attack or something. they get rounded up. what effect could that have.

I had something like this in mind (but can change as needed, not set in stone).

1914 - Germany stands on the defensive in the west and Britain therefore does not DW over violation of Belgian neutrality. Despite strong numerical superiority over the Germans, the French cannot advance in Alsace-Lorraine becaue of the narrowness of the front. The western front congeals into trench warfare.

1915 - Russia is in dire straits under the focused Austro-German onslaught. France convinces Italy to join the entente and as they attack AH, France simultaneously tries to outflank the German defences in Alsace-Lorraine by invading through Holland and Belgium. The British protest strongly but are not willing to DW France. Only determined resistance by the Belgian and Dutch armies give the panicked Germans time to transfer troops back from the east in the nick of time to halt the French, well into the north German plain. The Ruhr is at the southern shoulder of the French advance and is held however.

1916 - The overextended French forces in northwestern Germany are slowly pushed back into the low countries.

1917 - The war ends with Italy collapsing after catastrophic defeats and first Russia and soon after France descending into communist revolution (led by Trotsky in Russia, not Lenin). The CP are bled dry too. In the east, there's someting similar to OTL Brest-Litovsk. In the west, the Germans settle for the rest of Lorraine, including the ore deposits and some of the more valuable colonies.

1918-20 - The French left is pacifist and anti-war, so the new Red French regime is at first a paragon of peace-loving pacifism. They embark on a program of granting independence to their reminding colonies. For their troubles, Britain and Germany seize most of them without encountering much opposition. After Germany helps quell Red rebellions in AH and Britain in the colonies, the two conservative powers become gradually more united against the Red menace, a growing friendship sealed by a naval treaty putting an end to the naval race between the two.

1920s - France, although embittered, remains peaceful and mostly disarmed. The extreme left movements gains many followers in the other western countries. In Italy, this causes Socialist leader Benito Mussolini to march on Rome with his Redshirts and seize power. The British and German governments are not amused and begin to bully France, thinking it the source of sedition. The French edge closer to Trotskyite Russia and begin limited rearmament.

1930s - Revanchist Trotskyite hardliners led by Maurice Thorez gain the upper hand in the French CP and start rearming France in earnest although secretly at first. In 1936, France responds to calls for aid by the Spanish Republic with a massive intervention which quickly crushes the Nationalist insurgents. Thus France gains a communist ally across the Pyrenees and control of the Spanish ore deposits make up for the loss of those of Lorraine. Although worried, the British exlacim "Thank God for the German Army!" and their rearmament is geared mainly towards the RN and the RAF.
 
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