"It better be house broken lad. If it messes up the carpets you're paying for new ones".
The Forge of Weyland
- Thread starter Astrodragon
- Start date
I think the current head of the French Air Force is trying to Husband his aircraft and manpower right now for the inevitable French defeat he sees coming.
I think we're patiently awaiting the outcome of the following post for May 16, 1940....
"The French also press Churchill for more support, especially air support which can be involved quickly. The British point out that they are actually flying more sorties to support the Northern armies than the French are, and while they will try and do more to cover Holland and Belgium, surely the powerful French Air Force can do more itself? Churchill also promises more ground forces, although these will take a few weeks to arrive.
In the afternoon, Reynaud has an acrimonious meeting with the French Air Force chief of staff, General Joseph Vuillemin. Reynaud demands that he finds more aircraft to support the Army in the desperate defence of France. Vuillemin seems unworried by the accusations that the Air Force is not doing all it can, explaining that it needs to husband its resources. Reynaud points out acerbically that if the current situation is not the one that the resources have been kept for, then what is? Vuillemin is sent away with the instruction to find more planes immediately, the unspoken addition being that if he can't, someone else will."
Ah we are waiting,and surprise, now that the 1AD knows about the 88mm, AAA, and will keep their SPGs close.I could be wrong, but I feel I'm detecting a certain lack of concern at the idea of Rommel sticking 7th Panzer into a turbo-powered meat grinder
I've heard of buckshee kit before, even up to the AAC picking up a mislaid US Army truck in GW1. A regiment worth of Panzers is a new one on me though - I'd love to see the RQMS explain it...
17 May 1940 part 1
17th May 1940
German High Command.
The news of new French armour to the rear of the panzer advance had been most unwelcome news, and it was made worse once the news of 5th Panzers defeat was added. Many of the generals had been more than unhappy at the idea of the panzers flinging themselves forward, trusting to speed to keep them out of trouble, and some were hoping to use this as an excuse to stop and reorganise for a more methodical advance, with proper flank protection and logistics.
Hitler himself expressed the view that the rapid thrust was leaving the southern flank of the German front dangerously open to a French counter-attack, especially with the loss of the area south of Sedan, which was seen as the likely point of a French counter-attack. Protecting the invasion’s left flank in fact soon became an obsession, and when Hitler visited Army Group HQ at Charleville on the morning of the 17th, he warned von Rundstedt that everything was to be done to secure the flank. He also ordered von Kleist’s armour not to proceed beyond the Oise until further orders, while General List’s Twelfth Army was to swing south-westwards and take up defensive positions.
There was less concern about the northern flank; it was known that the British were mainly in Belgium, and while the force had been reported by 5th Panzer as 'a panzer corps', this was discounted as an exageration. One of the problems the Army had encountered on the 16th was the reduced aid from the Luftwaffe, and the need to concentrate of trying to hold Sedan. This had allowed French armour to move south, and while the Luftwaffe had slowed and damaged them, it had not stopped them. The British to the north had been missed - in fact, some of their armour had been spotted but misidentified as German armour, known to be in that area.
While Hitler was still demanding Holland be attacked, the High Command managed to get this delayed. They pointed out that there were still fighters defending the country, and that had disrupted the raid. Pausing a few days while they made proper plans would only help the attacks, and probably lead to Holland surrendering more quickly. Of course their real reason was to have more of the steadily-dwindling aircraft helping west of the Meuse, but they could hardly point this out to the Fuhrer.
Early on 17 May General Guderian received a message from the Panzer Group; the advance was to be halted at once and he was personally to report to General von Kleist, who would come to see him at Guderian's airstrip at 0700. Von Kleist was peremptory with Guderian, informing him that he needed to halt and regroup immediately, and do something about his lines of supply before the French decided to attack these as they had 6th and 8th Panzers.
Guderian was extremely unhappy at this - his own supply line was, at the moment, reasonably intact, and he argued that continuing the attack would cause the French to collapse faster and avoid the need to regroup and lose the initiative. His argument didn't impress von Kleist, and Guderian offered to resign on the spot. General Kleist simply nodded and accepted his resignation.
Guderian then contacted Army Group von Rundstedt to inform him of the situation, and was told to remain where he was and wait for the arrival of Colonel-General List, who was in command of the Twelfth Army that was following behind and who had been instructed to clear this matter up. Until the arrival of Colonel-General List, all units were to be ordered to remain where they were.
Early that afternoon Colonel-General List arrived and asked Guderian what on earth was going on here. Acting on instructions from Colonel-General von Rundstedt, he informed Guderian that he would not accept his resignation and explained that the order to halt the advance came from the Army High Command (the OKH) and therefore must be obeyed. He quite understood his reasons, but in view of the Allied counterattacks, and the threat to the panzers supply lines, Guderian needed to be prepared to attack east to restore the situation. Guderian acknowledged this, but requested a drop of fuel and some ammunition for the panzer units, as 6th and 8th Panzer in particular needed resupply. That would be arranged late in the day; a needed effort, but one which once again reduced the effort the Luftwaffe could put in attacking the Allied forces.
While the arrangements going on to stop and possibly turn around the panzers had been necessary, they had bought the French what they badly needed, a day. However the halting of the panzers had not halted the Luftwaffe, who were doing their best to disrupt the French as they attempted to strengthen their field fortifications and bring up more units.
The delay was only really affecting the panzer advance. In the Sedan area, both sides were busy - the French consolidating their gains, the Germans trying to untangle their logistical support, and on both sides the men recovering from the battle. The instruction to 12th Army to swing south-west was a bit more complicated to implement. While nine infantry divisions were available, these were not terribly mobile, and now that the Sedan bridges were no longer available, they had to squeeze through the crossings further north. 25th Infantry division did move cautiously wet to Fumay, but while the French 61st Divsion wasn't actively defending the town, before they left their engineers had made sure the bridges were now on the bottom of the river, leaving 25th division still on the wrong side of the Meuse. While they put men ashore in small boats, it would take a while to get the bridging equipment forward, and crossings built that would take the vehicles and tanks.
The forward move wasn't helped by the presence of a number of French units. While the earlier breakthrough by the panzers had destroyed them as organised units, there were still pockets of resistance and smaller units still determined to defend their part of France stubbornly. It was all possible to do, but it would take a few days, even against the limited opposition. While south of Nouzonville they were at least across the Meuse, they couldn't cram most of an army through the limited road system.
Further north at the Meuse crossings around Dinant, the situation was even more confusing. The French had four infantry divisions in the area, in various states of organisation, indeed as further south some had been badly handled by the advance of 5th and 7th panzer, and needed time to get themselves together. However 1DCR was holding the ground north-east of Flavion, and was an obvious threat to German attempts to push more troops west. Indeed some of the divisions light forces were already probing the area west of the Meuse, and 5th Panzer wouldn't be in a condition to stop a determined thrust until they received replacement tanks. The logistics were again in a mess, this time the retreating tail of 5th Panzer getting in the way of the infantry trying to move in the opposite direction. It was expected to take a day at least to get it all into some sort of order.
The Allied High Command was having problems of its own. It had become more and more obvious over the last week that General Gamelin was not in control of his armies, and the various information coming from the few reconnaissance planes showed his handling of his units was so far behind what was actually happening on the ground as to be actively dangerous. Attempts to get him to react more quickly had proven futile, and on the 17th Reynaud decided that enough was enough, and relieved him. General Billotte, who at least seemed to have an idea about where most of his units were, and some ideas about what to do with them, would take over.
This wouldn't actually make much practical difference in the short term; it was Billotte and his subordinates who were fighting the German advance, and nothing would change there until the situation had stabilised. The other problem was air support. The French Army calls for greater support had got more and more strident as the Luftwaffe attacks kept hitting their troops, and the French Air Force didn't seem to be responding. Some attacks had been made, but the number of aircraft being used to defend France seemed too small. The British had been asked if they could provide more support, in particular more fighters, and they had agreed to do so. However they had pointed out to the French Government that RAF planes were actually making more sorties in defence of France than the French Air Force at times, and surely they could find more planes and make more of an effort? Some days ago the French Air Staff had been given what amounted to a polite ultimatum - find more aircraft somewhere, or someone else would, This had got the government no-where, and the embarrassment of the British apparently doing more to defend France than their own Air Force meant that someone needed to be found. After some agitated discussion, General Vuillemin was dismissed. General de la Vigerie was appointed in his place. His orders were to get the maximum number of French aircraft supporting the army as fast as possible. While he pointed out that arranging this would take, even with the best efforts, some days, maybe a week, he offered to use the existing aircraft to fly more sorties. This could only be done for a short while before the pilots became too fatigued, but it would help plug the gap until more planes could be brought into action.
While this replacement of Commanders would not really have an immediate effect, it did persuade the British to release more fighters to aid the defence of northern France. Originally the French had asked for ten further squadrons of fighters, which had been strongly resisted by Air Marshall Dowding as leaving Britain too weak to defend itself in the air if France fell. With more confidence now that a fresh commander was in place, a compromise was finally reached at four squadrons, and the British would extend their air cover south to allow France to concentrate on the breakthrough around Sedan.
German High Command.
The news of new French armour to the rear of the panzer advance had been most unwelcome news, and it was made worse once the news of 5th Panzers defeat was added. Many of the generals had been more than unhappy at the idea of the panzers flinging themselves forward, trusting to speed to keep them out of trouble, and some were hoping to use this as an excuse to stop and reorganise for a more methodical advance, with proper flank protection and logistics.
Hitler himself expressed the view that the rapid thrust was leaving the southern flank of the German front dangerously open to a French counter-attack, especially with the loss of the area south of Sedan, which was seen as the likely point of a French counter-attack. Protecting the invasion’s left flank in fact soon became an obsession, and when Hitler visited Army Group HQ at Charleville on the morning of the 17th, he warned von Rundstedt that everything was to be done to secure the flank. He also ordered von Kleist’s armour not to proceed beyond the Oise until further orders, while General List’s Twelfth Army was to swing south-westwards and take up defensive positions.
There was less concern about the northern flank; it was known that the British were mainly in Belgium, and while the force had been reported by 5th Panzer as 'a panzer corps', this was discounted as an exageration. One of the problems the Army had encountered on the 16th was the reduced aid from the Luftwaffe, and the need to concentrate of trying to hold Sedan. This had allowed French armour to move south, and while the Luftwaffe had slowed and damaged them, it had not stopped them. The British to the north had been missed - in fact, some of their armour had been spotted but misidentified as German armour, known to be in that area.
While Hitler was still demanding Holland be attacked, the High Command managed to get this delayed. They pointed out that there were still fighters defending the country, and that had disrupted the raid. Pausing a few days while they made proper plans would only help the attacks, and probably lead to Holland surrendering more quickly. Of course their real reason was to have more of the steadily-dwindling aircraft helping west of the Meuse, but they could hardly point this out to the Fuhrer.
Early on 17 May General Guderian received a message from the Panzer Group; the advance was to be halted at once and he was personally to report to General von Kleist, who would come to see him at Guderian's airstrip at 0700. Von Kleist was peremptory with Guderian, informing him that he needed to halt and regroup immediately, and do something about his lines of supply before the French decided to attack these as they had 6th and 8th Panzers.
Guderian was extremely unhappy at this - his own supply line was, at the moment, reasonably intact, and he argued that continuing the attack would cause the French to collapse faster and avoid the need to regroup and lose the initiative. His argument didn't impress von Kleist, and Guderian offered to resign on the spot. General Kleist simply nodded and accepted his resignation.
Guderian then contacted Army Group von Rundstedt to inform him of the situation, and was told to remain where he was and wait for the arrival of Colonel-General List, who was in command of the Twelfth Army that was following behind and who had been instructed to clear this matter up. Until the arrival of Colonel-General List, all units were to be ordered to remain where they were.
Early that afternoon Colonel-General List arrived and asked Guderian what on earth was going on here. Acting on instructions from Colonel-General von Rundstedt, he informed Guderian that he would not accept his resignation and explained that the order to halt the advance came from the Army High Command (the OKH) and therefore must be obeyed. He quite understood his reasons, but in view of the Allied counterattacks, and the threat to the panzers supply lines, Guderian needed to be prepared to attack east to restore the situation. Guderian acknowledged this, but requested a drop of fuel and some ammunition for the panzer units, as 6th and 8th Panzer in particular needed resupply. That would be arranged late in the day; a needed effort, but one which once again reduced the effort the Luftwaffe could put in attacking the Allied forces.
While the arrangements going on to stop and possibly turn around the panzers had been necessary, they had bought the French what they badly needed, a day. However the halting of the panzers had not halted the Luftwaffe, who were doing their best to disrupt the French as they attempted to strengthen their field fortifications and bring up more units.
The delay was only really affecting the panzer advance. In the Sedan area, both sides were busy - the French consolidating their gains, the Germans trying to untangle their logistical support, and on both sides the men recovering from the battle. The instruction to 12th Army to swing south-west was a bit more complicated to implement. While nine infantry divisions were available, these were not terribly mobile, and now that the Sedan bridges were no longer available, they had to squeeze through the crossings further north. 25th Infantry division did move cautiously wet to Fumay, but while the French 61st Divsion wasn't actively defending the town, before they left their engineers had made sure the bridges were now on the bottom of the river, leaving 25th division still on the wrong side of the Meuse. While they put men ashore in small boats, it would take a while to get the bridging equipment forward, and crossings built that would take the vehicles and tanks.
The forward move wasn't helped by the presence of a number of French units. While the earlier breakthrough by the panzers had destroyed them as organised units, there were still pockets of resistance and smaller units still determined to defend their part of France stubbornly. It was all possible to do, but it would take a few days, even against the limited opposition. While south of Nouzonville they were at least across the Meuse, they couldn't cram most of an army through the limited road system.
Further north at the Meuse crossings around Dinant, the situation was even more confusing. The French had four infantry divisions in the area, in various states of organisation, indeed as further south some had been badly handled by the advance of 5th and 7th panzer, and needed time to get themselves together. However 1DCR was holding the ground north-east of Flavion, and was an obvious threat to German attempts to push more troops west. Indeed some of the divisions light forces were already probing the area west of the Meuse, and 5th Panzer wouldn't be in a condition to stop a determined thrust until they received replacement tanks. The logistics were again in a mess, this time the retreating tail of 5th Panzer getting in the way of the infantry trying to move in the opposite direction. It was expected to take a day at least to get it all into some sort of order.
The Allied High Command was having problems of its own. It had become more and more obvious over the last week that General Gamelin was not in control of his armies, and the various information coming from the few reconnaissance planes showed his handling of his units was so far behind what was actually happening on the ground as to be actively dangerous. Attempts to get him to react more quickly had proven futile, and on the 17th Reynaud decided that enough was enough, and relieved him. General Billotte, who at least seemed to have an idea about where most of his units were, and some ideas about what to do with them, would take over.
This wouldn't actually make much practical difference in the short term; it was Billotte and his subordinates who were fighting the German advance, and nothing would change there until the situation had stabilised. The other problem was air support. The French Army calls for greater support had got more and more strident as the Luftwaffe attacks kept hitting their troops, and the French Air Force didn't seem to be responding. Some attacks had been made, but the number of aircraft being used to defend France seemed too small. The British had been asked if they could provide more support, in particular more fighters, and they had agreed to do so. However they had pointed out to the French Government that RAF planes were actually making more sorties in defence of France than the French Air Force at times, and surely they could find more planes and make more of an effort? Some days ago the French Air Staff had been given what amounted to a polite ultimatum - find more aircraft somewhere, or someone else would, This had got the government no-where, and the embarrassment of the British apparently doing more to defend France than their own Air Force meant that someone needed to be found. After some agitated discussion, General Vuillemin was dismissed. General de la Vigerie was appointed in his place. His orders were to get the maximum number of French aircraft supporting the army as fast as possible. While he pointed out that arranging this would take, even with the best efforts, some days, maybe a week, he offered to use the existing aircraft to fly more sorties. This could only be done for a short while before the pilots became too fatigued, but it would help plug the gap until more planes could be brought into action.
While this replacement of Commanders would not really have an immediate effect, it did persuade the British to release more fighters to aid the defence of northern France. Originally the French had asked for ten further squadrons of fighters, which had been strongly resisted by Air Marshall Dowding as leaving Britain too weak to defend itself in the air if France fell. With more confidence now that a fresh commander was in place, a compromise was finally reached at four squadrons, and the British would extend their air cover south to allow France to concentrate on the breakthrough around Sedan.
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The worries about the advance on the German side are pretty much OTL, with some modifications to allow for the changes.
Given there are tanks in his rear, I considered that even Guderian would think twice about still charging west, although he still protests the pause.
The French aren't looking at a purge of commanders -yet - but they have to do something about the ones who are blatantly useless. Especially if they want more help from Britain.
Given there are tanks in his rear, I considered that even Guderian would think twice about still charging west, although he still protests the pause.
The French aren't looking at a purge of commanders -yet - but they have to do something about the ones who are blatantly useless. Especially if they want more help from Britain.
Well they could always take the more useless and criminally incompetent ones to have a chat with Madame La Guillotine she has a way of cutting to the heart of the problem.
Derek Pullem
Donor
East? Unless my idea of who is where is completely messed up?
The crossing at Dinant would seem worthy of another maximum effort by the RAF and AdA
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Holland is in a tough spot: it is the most densely populated part of the Netherlands and its airspace doesn't have any defence depth, so even the 1940 Luftwaffe can cause 1944 levels of damage. Rotterdam and The Hague are ruined. I guess Utrecht is ruined as well by artillery as it is located at the very end of the Waterline. That leaves only Amsterdam as a still standing dutch city.
The Dutch Army has limited artillery and ammunition stocks. If the Germans invest another infantry corps against the Waterline, Holland will fall. In any case, its strategic position is important mostly to the Luftwaffe as a base to bomb Britain.
I was under the impression that his logistics were through Sedan and the logistics of the 6th and 8th were through Mezieres.
Now that the French got their 24 hour window, they can feed infantry divisions in the Sedan salient more quickly than the Germans can bring infantry through the Ardennes against the salient.
There is also the matter of the independent tank battalions. The French Army had more than 30 in May 10th, equipped with R35s and H35-H39s. Now that they have proper DLMs and DCRs against the 1st,2nd, 6th and 8th Panzers, they can use their tank battalions as intended: supporting infantry divisions. The light french tanks are inadequate against Pz IIIs and IVs, but they are more than adequate against infantry divisions. I guess that the german infantry divisions arriving through the Ardennes will have to deal with dug in french infatry supported by tanks. In OTL the BCCs were fed piecemeal against the panzer divisions. Now there is nothing dissuading Billotte from providing his infantry divisions along the Meyse with let's say 500 R35s and H35s.
The great news of this update is that the Allies have caught up with events and are somewhat ahead in the decision loop.
Sorry, should have been east. Fixed.
Mind, Guderian would prefer to be going west
Hi logistics are (were!) going through Sedan, but he's thinking of what he has with him. When that runs out, he has problems, which is why the Ju52's are being asked to supply them
I wouldn't say the allies are ahead yet, just that now everyone is equally confused!
But the French task is now simple. Stop the advance west of the Meuse.
the accidental typo made me smile - they would move cautiously WET if they are crossing in small boats 🤣
that aside another awesome update that distracted me from work again ........