WI: German Plans for Fall Gelb not recovered by Allies

In 1940 the Germans were working out a plan for the invasion of Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and France.
In January 1940 the initial plans for the invasion were recovered by the Allies, as a German plane carrying them landed in Belgium by mistake due to bad weather conditions.
The entire German plan was until then based on an invasion through Belgium. Following this development, the plan was revised and the initial Manstein-Guderian-plan was reconsidered and in the end adopted. The Germans went through the Ardennes.

So what if that plane never landed in Belgium and the plans were never recovered by the Allies? Let's say that the fog was not that bad or the pilot noticed the Rhein and corrected his course.

How would this influence the result of the war?
 
If meomry serves right than they pull off another Schlieffen plan, which ends in trench warfare, and Germany losess a lot sooner.
 
Germans can't really expect to do better than in OTL. Maybe complete obliteration of BEF

I agree that they probably wouldn't do any better.
But it would be interesting to know, if Fall Gelb would take more time than it did in OTL.
Could this lead to more British troops, aircraft and equipment coming over to France? Could this mean that the RAF would take a lot more of a beating than in OTL? Could this mean that the Germans may be able to capture more British troops than in OTL?
Could this bigger defeat make Britain sue for peace or perhaps make the Germans attempt "Mission Impossible" (aka Sealion)?
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
I agree that they probably wouldn't do any better.
But it would be interesting to know, if Fall Gelb would take more time than it did in OTL.
Could this lead to more British troops, aircraft and equipment coming over to France? Could this mean that the RAF would take a lot more of a beating than in OTL? Could this mean that the Germans may be able to capture more British troops than in OTL?
Could this bigger defeat make Britain sue for peace or perhaps make the Germans attempt "Mission Impossible" (aka Sealion)?

Why do you assume that the Germans would have won? IIRC the original Fall Gelb plan was everything the Allies hoped and planned for. The Germans could very well have been stopped in Belgium, with all consequences.
 
If meomry serves right than they pull off another Schlieffen plan, which ends in trench warfare, and Germany losess a lot sooner.

Except trench warfare would have been completely impractical what with fleets of Messerschmidts, Junkers etc bombing the crap out of trenches
 
With the advances in tank technology, I highly doubt there would be any trench warfare. You would probably see a more prolonged and dragged out offensive in the west, with the French able to use their numbers to their advantage instead of being cut up piecemeal. Although because the Allies never fully grasped the concept of Blitzkrieg until later in the war, I can see the Germans gaining a victory or a victory enough to force France to the negotiating table and Britain to evacuate the the country.
 
Why do you assume that the Germans would have won? IIRC the original Fall Gelb plan was everything the Allies hoped and planned for. The Germans could very well have been stopped in Belgium, with all consequences.
Agreed... that's what we were focused on, hence the lack of attention paid to crzy ideas like going through the Ardennes...
 

Markus

Banned
So what if that plane never landed in Belgium and the plans were never recovered by the Allies? Let's say that the fog was not that bad or the pilot noticed the Rhein and corrected his course.

How would this influence the result of the war?

The Germans will attack just the way the Allies expected them to and thus run into a superior number of prepared first rate divisions. In all likelyhood the Wehrmacht is screwed.
 
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