Victory at Dunkirk!

I'm sure this has been asked before, but...

So, in every Dunkirk WI I've read, an Axis-wanker suggests that the German vanguard should not have been held up, and that if their reigns had been let loose, the Allies would have been pwned at Bolougne.

The naysayers than assert that the German vanguard was ragged and tired and needed reformation time.

Let's say that the Germans continue to pound against the Allies. Throwing caution to the wind, they attack attack attack.

Is it possible for them to get so mauled that an Allied recovery is possible?
 
I'm sure this has been asked before, but...

So, in every Dunkirk WI I've read, an Axis-wanker suggests that the German vanguard should not have been held up, and that if their reigns had been let loose, the Allies would have been pwned at Bolougne.

The naysayers than assert that the German vanguard was ragged and tired and needed reformation time.

Let's say that the Germans continue to pound against the Allies. Throwing caution to the wind, they attack attack attack.

Is it possible for them to get so mauled that an Allied recovery is possible?


No because the best formations (and the most mobile) of the french and British army where now out of the picture (even if they inflict a bloody nose on the Germans on their way out the forces to the south are still too weak to break through and rescue them, and its too dangerous for them not to evacuate)

If Guderian didn't spread out his corps to attack Calais and Bolounge but instead concentrated everything against Dunkirk (allowing for only a minimal delay to reform and refuel) he could have cut off perhaps 20 % of the BEF although this would have cost him a massively pitched battle where the British would have given as good as they got but still been consumed once their ammo ran out so instead of 338k evac'ed they maybe only get 260-275k out (but this costs the Germans over 100 tanks and a good quantity of infantry) the net to the british is the same because they would be able to evac more troops out of the other channel ports since Guderian wouldn't have boxed them all in

Guderian's corps was too small to surround the entire position by itself (dunkirk) and defeat it, they utterly needed the infantry from army group b to form up on the east side of the pocket and provide fresh troops and artillery for the assault
 
Given that most of the German officers at the time ridiculed the very idea that anything of significance happened at Dunkirk this would be difficult to arrange. I believe it was Rommel who scoffed at the idea that the number of soldiers evacuated had been as high as 100,000.

Of course, many German officers who survived the war decided to 'correct' their journals and memories after the war...
 
Given that most of the German officers at the time ridiculed the very idea that anything of significance happened at Dunkirk this would be difficult to arrange. I believe it was Rommel who scoffed at the idea that the number of soldiers evacuated had been as high as 100,000.

Of course, many German officers who survived the war decided to 'correct' their journals and memories after the war...

Guderian himself was a complete lying douche about the situation. He was perfectly willing to threaten and then actually tender his resignation days before when his leash was being tugged too tight by high command, yet he is told to halt before dunkirk, and he suddenly obeys but disagree's in his heart only?

The main problem was that LW recon did a terrible job (partly because of weather, partly because they where tremendously busy over 500 miles of front) of actually discerning that the entire BEF was balling up into a small perimeter and that it might be a clever idea to reorient the army's lines of advance to inderdict them... Hitler listening to Keitel's nonsense played a significant part as well
 

Cook

Banned
Given that most of the German officers at the time...

You can understand why, nothing like the evacuation of Dunkirk had been tried before. The only recent major amphibious evacuation was Gallipoli in 1915 with some 50,000 men being withdrawn from Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove over a period of 11 days with no interference from the Turks. Dunkirk saw 338,000 men evacuated in 9 days while under sustained air attack from the Luftwaffe. It seemed incredible to the British that they could evacuate so many, hardly surprising then that the Germans, with no maritime experience, should think it flat out impossible.

The Germans were expecting the B.E.F. to behave like a regular European Army; remain bottled up inside the Dunkirk perimeter until the lack of supplies and constant air attacks forced them to surrender.
 
Guderian himself was a complete lying douche about the situation. He was perfectly willing to threaten and then actually tender his resignation days before when his leash was being tugged too tight by high command, yet he is told to halt before dunkirk, and he suddenly obeys but disagree's in his heart only?

The main problem was that LW recon did a terrible job (partly because of weather, partly because they where tremendously busy over 500 miles of front) of actually discerning that the entire BEF was balling up into a small perimeter and that it might be a clever idea to reorient the army's lines of advance to inderdict them... Hitler listening to Keitel's nonsense played a significant part as well

Not perhaps just a poor job, more the classic failing of seeing what you expect to see. Noone (not even the RN) thought that the whole army could be brought off from Dunkirk; seeing as how its 'impossible', things will be interpreted the way they are expected to be.
 

Markus

Banned
The naysayers than assert that the German vanguard was ragged and tired and needed reformation time.

No idea if that was the case BUT the Allies definitely were ragged and tired and needed much more than just reformation time.

Let's say that the Germans continue to pound against the Allies. Throwing caution to the wind, they attack attack attack.

Is it possible for them to get so mauled that an Allied recovery is possible?
I don´t think so. First of all the Germans had air superiority over the theater of operations as a whole and second the allied ground forces had clearly not come to grips with the kind of warfare where situations changed by the hour.

IMO the best realistic scenario is a successful counterattack at Arass combined with a pre-planned general withdrawal from north-west France. This would save the BEF and the cream of the French Army but for how long is another question.

edit: Without hindsight it also made sense to let the Allies stew in their own juices at Dunkirk. They could not attack and they could not be evacuated with their heavy weapons. Without them they could not re-enter the battle on short notice. Hence it made sense to assume that the troops in the pocket would play no further role in the war.
 
Markus, unfortunately such a counter-offensive was not realistic.

One of the reasons Gort made the decision to start withdrawing through Dunkirk was when he was told about the counter-attack by Weygand, after which Blanchard and Fauvelle made clear that the French forces available for the attack did not have anything like the force level Weygand claimed, leaving Gort to decide whether Weygand was dishonest or merely incompetent.
 
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