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Writing out the script for the Curtiss Hawk, noticed this: What I saw:  What I expected:  What I got: 
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Dec 17, 2020 04:10
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I tracked down the quote. It's from A World at Arms by Gerhard Weinberg. He says: "General Gamelin, who both insisted, against the advice of his generals, that the main French reserve, the French 7th Army, be assigned to the rush into Holland at the extreme left flank, and also that half of the total French forces available be assigned to the Maginot Line, so that there were no readily available reserves of any kind". pg. 124-5 So if the French hadn't over committed to the attack in the Low Countries they'd have had an army in reserve. According to Wikipedia it had three infantry divisions, two motorized divisions, and one light mechanized division. So it probably wouldn't do much against an Army Group assuming it could have responded in time. Jobbo_Fett posted:Even if the French over-allocated at Maginot, it didn't prevent breakthroughs of the Maginot Line, whether before or after the secret talks of capitulation had started. They started pulling units away from it to make up their losses in Belgium so by the time the Germans attacked it might have been severely undermanned.
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Dec 17, 2020 04:21
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White Coke posted:I tracked down the quote. It's from A World at Arms by Gerhard Weinberg. He says: Could I get this in French? If it's reasonably practical I like to read the original for nuance.
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Dec 17, 2020 04:30
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White Coke posted:I tracked down the quote. It's from A World at Arms by Gerhard Weinberg. He says: Worth noting that a French light mechanized division is basically the same as a German armoured division, the two motorized divisions would also be equipped with the most modern weapons. The key thing about the German breakthrough is that they burst through Sedan with an armoured corps. The French had a single shoddy reserve infantry division there, and so they had to scramble reinforcements from Belgium while the Germans sprinted for the channel opposed by practically nothing. The presence of an armoured and modern French mobile force really changes the equation here. In practice, French and German armoured forces tended to obliterate each other on contact, but that slows the Germans down and keeps their BEF and French 1st Army intact. Still would have lost though, but would take out more Germans on the way out.
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Dec 17, 2020 04:47
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The Lone Badger posted:When a unit is described as 'mechanised infantry', does that literally mean "APCs for everyone!" or just that there's a bunch of trucks organic to the unit? As far as the US Army is concerned a mechanized unit uses tracked vehicles and a motorized unit uses wheeled vehicles. Each has its own military symbol used on map graphics and whatnot.
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Dec 17, 2020 04:55
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If the mech unit has to go somewhere with roads and without expected enemy contact, would the APCs be used as transport or would everyone get on trucks because they're cheaper to run?
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Dec 17, 2020 05:09
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The Lone Badger posted:If the mech unit has to go somewhere with roads and without expected enemy contact, would the APCs be used as transport or would everyone get on trucks because they're cheaper to run? Would the carriers also be transported on trucks or how would they follow? For strategic transitions, this or train transport is preferable to save on maintenance time needed, but not always practical. Note that mechanized infantry is not just infantry put on tracks, they're a specialized unit trained in mechanized warfare and organized to fit in the constraints of an infantry fighting vehicle or tracked APC. Just look at how ridiculous the organization of a Bradley platoon looks with three squads split between four vehicles. 
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Dec 17, 2020 05:31
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It depends on the situation, a commander could be expecting contact but have his troops dismount and move on foot if he's trying to surprise the enemy for example. The wheeled vehicles used in a mechanized unit are primarily used for moving equipment and supplies around, not people. But there's also nothing to stop a commander from using their supply trucks to shuttle people around if the situation demanded it for whatever reason, such as to not have their tracked vehicles tear up the local roads. I highly doubt any brigade commander is going to factor in the cost of fuel into his decision making but rather how much they have available, if that is even a concern for them at all. Typically the issue is getting the fuel to where it needs to go rather than not having enough. Mustang fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Dec 17, 2020 |
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Dec 17, 2020 05:35
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Xiahou Dun posted:Could I get this in French? If it's reasonably practical I like to read the original for nuance. There isn't a footnote, nor is it attributed to anyone so I don't know the precise source for where Weinberg got his info there. It was partly why I asked about it, since I didn't recall any specific source being mentioned. If you want to read the book, I'm using the paperback edition of A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II New Edition by Gerhard L. Weinberg.
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Dec 17, 2020 06:05
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From what I have picked up, the french refusal to use radios for communication probably did as much to cement their defet as th Maignot line did.
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Dec 17, 2020 11:04
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Arban posted:From what I have picked up, the french refusal to use radios for communication probably did as much to cement their defet as th Maignot line did. The French loss was due to strategic shortcomings like having a small professional army and being reliant on conscription, command failures, and luck on the Germans part. Yes the French had equipment problems and shortcomings, but they didn't lead to the loss.
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Dec 17, 2020 12:45
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Dance Officer posted:The French loss was due to strategic shortcomings like having a small professional army and being reliant on conscription, command failures, and luck on the Germans part. Wasn't that everyone in the war?
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Dec 17, 2020 13:12
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I consider the doctrinal choice of relying on couriers instead of radios, and the resulting communications lag and slow response to changing battlefield conditions to be one of those strategic shortcomings.
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Dec 17, 2020 13:20
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ChubbyChecker posted:Wasn't that everyone in the war? Yes but the French had too small a professional army at the start of the war for all the things it needed to do, like train recruits and man the borders. This was done knowingly by the French government because it feared making the army too strong would lead to a military coup.
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Dec 17, 2020 13:34
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Dance Officer posted:Yes but the French had too small a professional army at the start of the war for all the things it needed to do, like train recruits and man the borders. This was done knowingly by the French government because it feared making the army too strong would lead to a military coup. Yeah the rapid buildup of the army made the french infantry divisions really poor and sluggish- it's why you see situations where there's these wide open avenues of counterattack and the attack never materializes or materializes late. These divisions are under-trained and completely raw, even though they have a relatively modern MTOE. The DLMs and DCRs are serious business, but the weakness of the infantry made the cordon around the Ardennes intensely porous. The cavalry also proved to be a non-factor as the 1940 armies really had no experience resisting blitz attacks this way. The main antitank weapon of the time was the antitank gun and the French deployed theirs in an even way, as most everyone did in 1940, thusly a road column of tanks could break through this defense fairly easily after maybe losing a single vehicle. This kind of thing really hammered the Soviets in 1941, too.
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Dec 17, 2020 13:45
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People kind of get screwed up on first glance at the DLMs if they don't look at TOE because legere really refers to mobility even though it's commonly translated as light. One of the I think maybe interesting what-ifs is if 1er DLM had not been separated from the Corps de Cavalerie and sent to Brabant just in time to turn around and drive back. This rendered most of its vehicles combat ineffective. It probably doesn't have an overall strategic effect but certainly would have improved French performance in Belgium since the best trained and equipped French division did very little actual fighting.
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Dec 17, 2020 13:55
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White Coke posted:I read somewhere that the reason why the French didn't have a reserve that could have responded to the Germans coming through the Ardennes was that they had deployed a huge number of divisions in the Maginot line, around 50% of them (or maybe it was 50 divisions total, I'm not exactly sure). Was it true that the French over deployed soldiers in the Maginot line, and would they have been able to form a reserve large enough to make a difference if they hadn't? I thought the literal point of the Maginot line was to save on manpower (which France was indeed short on in this period thanks to demographic reasons if nothing else).
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Dec 17, 2020 16:34
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feedmegin posted:I thought the literal point of the Maginot line was to save on manpower (which France was indeed short on in this period thanks to demographic reasons if nothing else). The purpose was to push any invaders north and fight the war on someone else’s farmland. Also that stretch of border is where the Prussians smashed through in 1870. It’s been fortified to hell historically because it’s great terrain to launch an invasion through and have a clear run to Paris on the other side.
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Dec 17, 2020 16:48
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Dance Officer posted:Yes but the French had too small a professional army at the start of the war for all the things it needed to do, like train recruits and man the borders. This was done knowingly by the French government because it feared making the army too strong would lead to a military coup. I guess that's probably plausible considering France's history before and after the war, but was there anything in particular that was causing civil unrest that they were worried about? Or did they just think that some charismatic officer could take hold of the entire army and coup the federal government without needing some wedge to build public support?
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Dec 17, 2020 17:50
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SlothfulCobra posted:I guess that's probably plausible considering France's history before and after the war, but was there anything in particular that was causing civil unrest that they were worried about? Or did they just think that some charismatic officer could take hold of the entire army and coup the federal government without needing some wedge to build public support? The French political situation in the Third Republic was incredibly unstable. There was a strong Fascist element during the Third Republic. The 6th February 1934 crisis was widespread right-wing antidemocratic demonstrations and violence. It looked a lot like the precursor to a coup. There were many strikes in 1936 in particular, and the Popular Front's policies were hated by the right and center-right.
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Dec 17, 2020 17:58
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This channel did a really good Barbarossa animation that was posted in the last thread and this year they made one for the Battle of France: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36UrLDiTLvU&t=687s
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Dec 17, 2020 18:09
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OctaviusBeaver posted:This channel did a really good Barbarossa animation that was posted in the last thread and this year they made one for the Battle of France: Might want to remove the start time from your link.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:21
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Memento posted:British machine guns were originally part of the Royal Artillery but after the first year of butchery in WWI they were reorganised into their own Corps. You sure about that? They were organic assets in 1914, two per battalion in their own machine-gun section. The Machine Gun Corps was founded by abstracting the Vickers gun sections from the infantry, who got the man-portable Lewis guns instead. The smallest thing the RA had was the pom-pom gun.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:35
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SlothfulCobra posted:I guess that's probably plausible considering France's history before and after the war, but was there anything in particular that was causing civil unrest that they were worried about? Or did they just think that some charismatic officer could take hold of the entire army and coup the federal government without needing some wedge to build public support? I mean there was absolutely precedent for that sort of concern in the Third Republic.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:40
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feedmegin posted:I thought the literal point of the Maginot line was to save on manpower (which France was indeed short on in this period thanks to demographic reasons if nothing else). That was a factor. There was a pre WW1 booklet about how the French need to increase their birthrate to avoid being outnumbered by the Germans. It had two Frenchmen fighting five Germans, which were the comparative birthrates at the time, on the cover. Are there any good books or other sources that talk about how France's slow demographic growth effected it in the 19th and early 20th century?
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Dec 17, 2020 18:53
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Apologies for taking a while, this part was a pain to write. How Finland became Finland Part 4: Russification and independence Russification Near the end of the 19th century Russia was backwards Empire, which was lagging behind western powers. Its agriculture was inefficient, it industrialized slower than other European countries, and its economy was not strong. The empire was multi-ethnic, with several minority peoples with varying amounts of freedoms, and number of non-Russians has been estimated to have been larger than the number of ethnic Russians in the Empire. The bureaucracy was slow and inefficient, and it had the issue that several parts of the Empire had their own laws and were using their own languages instead of Russian. The Grand duchy of Finland was no exception The state sought to strengthen itself by means of Russification, a program meant to strengthen the position of Russian language in every part of the Empire, at the expense of minority languages. Additionally, the state sought to curb freedoms and privileges granted to different parts of the empire, streamline the bureaucracy and improve the effectiveness of its processes. These too happened at the expense of minority peoples, like Jews, Poles, people from the Baltic nations and Finns. The rising tide of nationalism also had an effect, and there was a rising sentiment that Russian Empire should contain only Russians, which meant that everyone living there should adopt Russian language and culture. Naturally, this didn’t go down well. Russification of Finland 1899-1905 Finland had lots of small perks and freedoms that annoyed many Russians. It had its own customs, which were lower than Russian customs, and Russian couldn’t use their own language for almost anything there. Official positions within the Grand Duchy were closed to ethnic Russians, and reserved for Swedish-speakers, whereas many Finns could move to Russia and have successful career in the military, as long as they learned Russian, of course. Russia started relatively small in 1890 by dissolving the Finnish postal office as a separate organisation and absorbing it to Russian postal office, which was a blow to Finnish self-esteem, but not otherwise threat to autonomy. It did cause some protests, and Finns stubbornly pasted their own postmarks to letters in addition to the then only allowed Russian postmarks. Things didn’t truly get serious until 1899, when Nicholas II issued the February manifesto, which decreed that Finland could not pass any laws concerning Finland anymore. Henceforth, all laws concerning either the whole empire or Finland specifically would be legislated in Russia, with Finnish senate allowed to provide opinions but have no other effect. Finns were shocked, but thought it had to be a some sort of mistake. The Czar was good, so this had to be a plot by evil counsellors. The Finns decided to appeal straight to the emperor and gathered over 500 000 signatures for a petition, which they delivered in two dozen heavy leather-bound books to St Petersburg. The Czar refused to mee the delegation, but his secretary delivered the message that the Czar was not angry, and the delegation would not be punished for impertinence, as long as they went home straight away. Finns felt betrayed, since they had interpreted the promises of Alexander I in 1809 and binding constitutional treaty between Finnish people and Russian Empire which was now being violated. The Russians simply saw Finland as part of Russian empire, which they could handle as they saw fit, and never accepted the Finnish version of events. The “First period of Oppression” had begun. In 1900 Russian was decreed to become the official language of the highest levels of government in Finland, replacing Swedish. School curriculums were changed to have Russian language, history and geography as subjects. Newspapers criticizing the changes were censored or shut down. In 1901 the Finnish army as a separate unit was discontinued and henceforth Finns would be selectively conscripted for 3 years of service in the Russian army. Finns refused to accept this, and wouldn’t answer when called, and point-blank refused to serve. This caused lots of protests, some of which turned to riots, and Cossacks were deployed to smash the protestors. In the end, Finns were exempted from service in Russian army, but in return the Grand Duchy had to pay separate reparations for the exemption. In 1903 the General-Governor of Finland, Nikolai Bobrikov, was given full dictatorial rights to pacify the Grand Duchy and bring its people to heel. He didn’t get to enjoy them very long however, since he was assassinated in the 1904. And that bring us to our next topic. Finnish reactions and resistance to Russification The Finns had realized that Russia was serious about curtailing Finnish autonomy and the Emperor would not help. Opinions differed about what to do next, but can be roughly divided to those who cautioned acceptance and not resisting in order to preserve autonomy and avoid more heavy-handed repression, those who favoured passive resistance in protest, and those who were willing to resort to direct action, and even very drastic measures. A minority were even A-OK with Russification, either because they already had a career in the Russian army or civil service, or had somehow gotten the impression that the Emperor was going to take land away from rich landowners in the Grand Duchy to break their power and redistribute it to poor people. The activists printed underground leaflets and newspapers, conducted sabotage, organized strikes and demonstrations and also resorted to political violence. The most famous activist was ironically not a member of any underground organisations, but a socially awkward, partially deaf and sickly minor civil servant by the name of Eugen Schauman, who had gotten beaten up Cossacks during some protests and rejected by the woman he was courting. It came as a huge surprise when he strolled into the Senate and shot General-Governor Bobrikov dead and then killed himself, leaving behind a letter explaining his actions. The Senate and major newspapers condemned the cowardly murder, of course, but to many Finns Schauman was a hero, a slayer of tyrants and a martyr. Our current crop of extreme right-wing fuckheads hold rallies on his gravesite, which is ironic since our right-wingers are pro-Putin and Pro-Russia. But they just love a militaristic strongman whose country is anti-LGBT, pro-Christianity and anti-feminism. The murder didn’t actually achieve much, but caused the Russian Empire to further crack down on dissidents and censor even more. Russification halted What made the Russian Empire temporarily stop their campaign of Russification was their own internal troubles. Russia lost the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which increased unrest within the empire and caused lots of protests and strikes. There was a massive empire-wide general strike which also spread to Finland. Factories, schools, shops and offices all closed and people took to the streets. Even some Russian soldiers mutinied in 1906, although the mutinies were squashed While most Finns participated on the strike, their goals and demands were far from united. Some people simply wanted Russification to stop, while others demanded a parliament of their own to legislate Finland. Some even wanted the senate dissolved and Finland to try for independence. The Czar had to capitulate and promise a parliament for Russia (the Duma) and Finland both. The Czar proclaimed the November Manifesto of 1905, which halted the Russification of Finland and cancelled some of the changes which had already been implemented. Finland had its first parliamentary elections in 1907, where both men and women of 24 years of age could vote and stand as candidates. 200 members of parliament were elected to a one-chamber parliament (“eduskunta” in Finnish) for four years at time. This event also saw the dissolution of the four estates of Finland and the Diet of Finland was formally abolished. The Social Democratic Party of Finland, founded originally in 1899 as the Workers’ Party of Finland was the biggest party, and got 80 seats, but the bourgeois parties had more seats in total, which mean SDP didn’t get to form a government, but ended in opposition instead. Finns were initially were hopeful about their shiny new parliament, but would eventually become disillusioned, since the Czar had to sign their laws to get them passed, which he didn’t do often, and he dissolved the parliament often, with elections held in 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1916. It didn’t help that the largest party which tried to improve the lot of the common man was kept out of power by forming coalitions, and municipal elections were still based on property, which meant that for most Finns their hometowns were dominated by the rich and powerful, who got more votes per person thanks to their wealth, whereas the poorest didn’t get any votes. The Second period of Oppression 1908-1914 In 1908 Russia passed a law which curtailed Finnish Minister-Secretary’s access to the Czard, and hencefort he had to go through the Russian government first. This was seen as the first move of the second period of Russification in Finland. In 1910 Finland lost the right to legislate itself, and all laws would be passed in Russia, and Finland was invited to send a delegate as observer, which Finland refused to do as a protest. In 1912 Russian citizens gained full access to all levels of civil service in Finland, and had not war broken out in 1914, the Russians would have completely Russified all levels of government in Finland, but that had to be put on hold. Finnish people were more united in their opposition, but they lacked the means of resisting Russia, or the suitable opportunity to stage a revolt without getting crushed, since Finland had its small army abolished in 1901. Finns would get their chance soon, and the outbreak of war in 1914 both diverted Russian attention elsewhere and also demonstrated its weakness relative to the might of Imperial Germany, which caught the attention of many activists. Finland during WW1 Finland was a not a battleground of WW1, and Finns didn’t have to serve in the Russian army, albeit a couple of hundred of volunteers joined the Russian army, for various reasons. The Russians did start a program of building a series of fortifications in Finland, anticipating a possible German attack through Finland towards St Petersburg, which offered employment to many Finns. Russia also garrisoned more troops than usual in Finland, reaching 70 000 at one point. Finland was wholly dependent on peaceful trade in Europe, and the war messed that up. Finland wasn’t, and isn’t, self-sufficient in food, which meant that things started to get dicey as unemployment increased at the same time as the prices of food went up. Things got even worse with bad harvests, and 1917 in particular was very bad, and the food shortage started to approach almost the levels of famine in certain parts of Finland, which was one of the destabilizing factors that led to the civil war of 1918. Finnish activists sought help from Sweden in their quest for independence but as a neutral nation, Sweden refused. Germany was far more willing and offered to train Finnish volunteers and provide them with arms, in exchange of Finns rising up in rebellion against Russia. It should be noted that the idea of violent revolt wasn’t widely accepted, and opinions differed radically about what Finns should do, but the active minority was tired of waiting and saw their chance. About 2000 young Finnish men left the country in 1915-1916 and served in the German army, where they saw combat against Russia in German eastern front. These volunteers are called “Jääkärit” or “Jägers” in Finnish. The volunteers came from all walks of society, but university students and people from the western coast were over-represented. Some of them were from working-class backgrounds and some harboured socialist leanings, but when the Jägers were returned to Finland in February 1918, the so-called “Red Jägers” were left behind, because the Germans didn’t want them joining the wrong side during Finnish Civil War. Towards an uncertain future After the February Revolution of 1917 Finland entered a very uncertain stage, where revolutionary Russian sailors and soldiers, often drunk and belligerent, where often seen in city streets and nobody knew what would happen. Finland didn’t have an army, and very little police forces, so there was vacuum. The workers started organizing and arming themselves, founding paramilitary Red Guards to protect themselves and their rights, while farmers and the middle-class formed paramilitary White Guards to keep order and protect their possessions. Tensions started rising, which was unsurprising when a country has two non-professional armed forces who are very opposed ideologically. The Red Guards didn’t start full on revolutionary forces, but they would gradually become so as the problems in Finland caused the moderates within them to lose support, and workers became more willing to fix all societal issues with huge sweeping changes. The Social Democrats had gotten a majority of 103 MPs in the parliament, and tried to pass the Power Act which stated that parliament would now hold all powers of legislation, but Russia would still handle foreign policy and military issues, and also declared that it could be dissolved only by itself. The bourgeois parties were damned if they were going to let filthy socialists emancipate Finland, so they tattled to Kerensky’s provisional government in St Petersburg, which dissolved the Finnish parliament. SDP was considering not complying, but the other parties would not support them, so new elections were held, where the disillusioned and unhappy workers didn’t show up as much as before, and other parties campaigned more actively, which led to SDP losing its majority. This was one of the events that moved SDP further towards left, and radicals within the party gained more support, and the idea of revolution became more accepted within the Finnish political left. On the first of November, SDP published their “We demand”-manifesto, where they, well demanded, sweeping societal changes and more equality, but the Finnish cabinet rejected it, which increased the support the of the radical, revolutionary wing of SDP. On November 7th, the Bolsheviks started their revolution in Russia. Simultaneously, they were in contact with Finnish leftists, and urged them to start and revolution of their own, and then prepare to repel possible German assault towards Russia through Finland. A general strike started on 14th of November, and there was major unrest, and clashes between paramilitary White and Re Guards and a few dozen people died, but the radicals in SDP drew back, and refrained from trying to start an actual revolution, which was something the Bolsheviks gave them a lot of poo poo for later. The cabinet passed laws reducing the working day to eight hours and changed how municipal elections were held, but it was too little, too late. Finnish society was becoming so divided and there was so much unrest that it was only a matter of time before things went to hell. Both the Red and White Guards further organized and armed themselves as well as they were able during the general strike, and tensions rose even higher. Violence was in the air, and in late 1917-early 1918 Finland saw armed robberies, assaults, and murders almost weekly. Declaration of independence Finnish parliament decided on independence in November 1917, but there were two competing proposals for the declaration and how to go about it. SDP wanted to co-operate and negotiate with the Bolsheviks, but the bourgeois parties over-ruled them, and decided on unilateral declaration, which was presented to the parliament on 4th of December, and which passed the majority vote on the 6th of December. Finland immediately started seeking recognition, approaching Great-Britain, Sweden, the United States, France and Imperial Germany. Everybody told them to square things with the Bolsheviks first, and Great-Britain and the US were suspicious because their spies had reported Finnish volunteers joining the German army. Speaking of Germany, it was in the middle of negotiations with the Bolsheviks, and their preliminary drafts for what would become Brest-Litovsk Treaty had Finland as independent, neutral nation. Germany would change its mind about that in early 1918 after Trotsky pulled his “No war, no peace” gambit and walked out of negotiations to avoid having to make huge territorial concessions. Finnish cabinet didn’t initially want to ask for recognition from the Bolsheviks, since that would be the same as recognizing their legitimacy as the government, but on 20th of December the parliament voted to seek recognition from Russia. Social Democrats’ most pro-revolutionary members were in contact with the Bolsheviks through December, who were curious whether their Finnish comrades were going to cast of the shackles of capitalist overlords or if they were all talk. They did agree to recognize Finnish independence, should it be sought. Finnish cabinet sent a delegation to St Petersburg, and on 31st of December 1917 Lenin and the Bolsheviks recognized Finnish independence. Germany, France and Sweden followed suit on the 4th of January 1918. Great-Britain and the US did not, and would not do so until May 1919, because of the events that were about to transpire in 1918. Why did Lenin recognize Finnish independence? Many reasons, primarily because Russia had bigger fish to fry with impending civil war of their own. Also, Bolsheviks were ostensibly all about peoples’ right to self-determination, although they never truly respected it. They had strong influence on the Finnish left and were exhorting their Finnish comrades to start a revolution, promising weapons and troops and all kinds of aid. Russia wanted Finland on their side, preferably with as little Russian blood shed as possible, since they really did not want to grant German demands in exchange for peace, and were anticipating a possible German push towards St Petersburg through Gulf of Finland and Karelian Isthmus, and Finnish cabinet had let it be known that if that happened, Finland would be neutral. So the Bolsheviks needed a regime change, but if they had tried to attack Finland, it would have provoked Germany, which they tried to avoid. Also, while the leadership of SDP's radical wing were on Russians' leash, the vast majority of the workers of Finland would have rallied to defense of Finland, since the attack would have been seen as further Russian aggression once again, not an attempt to liberate the workers. In fact, that's exactly what would happen in 1939. ------------ Phew, that took more out of me than I thought. Next time, Civil war, White and Red Terror, Finland almost becomes a monarchy, and Finnish adventurers try to carve up Russian territory in the name of nationalism.
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Dec 17, 2020 19:22
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feedmegin posted:I thought the literal point of the Maginot line was to save on manpower (which France was indeed short on in this period thanks to demographic reasons if nothing else). The main point of the Maginot line was to hold out for two weeks or so in case of a German attack, to allow the French time to mobilize the army and not lose their industrial heartland. Which is what happened in world war 1
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Dec 17, 2020 19:30
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It's probably a more accurate read to say that the Maginot line was built to ensure that the next war with Germany would be fought on Belgian soil rather than French.
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Dec 17, 2020 19:39
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The Maginot line was never considered impenetrable by french command, afaik.
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Dec 17, 2020 19:47
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:It's probably a more accurate read to say that the Maginot line was built to ensure that the next war with Germany would be fought on Belgian soil rather than French. As a bonus you can then trust on Britain joining the war even if they otherwise didn't. A sole Germany vs. France war ca. 1940 is an interesting hypothetical in itself. Hitler settles disputes with Czechoslovakia and Poland without war and aims at France instead. Germans will neither invade Belgium nor immediately attack the Maginot line. If UK stays neutral, does France have enough naval power and reach to North Sea to block Germany's trade? Would U-boots be able to harm France's supply?
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Dec 17, 2020 19:48
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Dance Officer posted:The Maginot line was never considered impenetrable by french command, afaik. No set of fortifications ever is, but if your choices are between the forts or give Belgium another shot, Belgium starts to look a lot better. It was certainly designed to influence German planning. It's very hard to under estimate the effects that fighting almost all of WWI on the Western Front in France had on French strategic thinking based on the strong desire that they NOT fight the rematch on French soil to the degree practicable.
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Dec 17, 2020 19:52
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This is "Gay Black Maurice Gamelin", but was there any plausible way for France to hold out in 1940? Barring perfect knowledge of the future I mean. If France had held on even partially the war would have gone wildly, totally unpredictably different but I have to believe that would be a better timeline than the one we got. That the Nazis were effectively unstoppable in 1940 Europe is kind of gross and sickening, honestly.
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Dec 17, 2020 20:06
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Uncle Enzo posted:That the Nazis were effectively unstoppable in 1940 Europe is kind of gross and sickening, honestly. First and foremost, don't buy into the myth of nazi invincibility. As to 1940: One thing to consider is that the Wehrmacht drastically revised their plan to attack in January 1940 due to one of those strange historical flukes. In tl;dr terms a Luftwaffe major named Helmuth Reinberger crashed in Belgium while carrying a copy of the plans for the upcoming invasion. (Link.) (Link.) These plans were rather conservative. The German army was to push into Belgium and Holland so as to seize territory and airfields, which would be used as a staging point for a subsequent round of attacks on France itself. This was pretty much what the Allies expected at the time and had prepared for. Such an attack would have run right into the French armor and may well not have even achieved its limited objectives. It would have left the German army dangerously exposed to a counterattack. It certainly would not have caused the fall of France, and who knows how things would have gone from there. As it is, the day for the attack came and went, which led the Allies to think the plans weren't legitimate. And there is a distinct possibility, albeit unproven, that the Germans revised their plan for the invasion into the more aggressive version that led to France's defeat because they knew the Allies had captured the prior version. No, none of this is set in stone and counterfactuals only go so far. But I think it is possible that if that Luftwaffe major hadn't crashed in Belgium the German attack could have gone differently and it might have gone a lot worse for Germany.
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Dec 17, 2020 20:44
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White Coke posted:Source? [Re: German pilot losses in Ju52s over The Netherlands] This is the problem with finding interesting stuff after falling down a rabbit-hole of links and archived .pdf papers on ww2aircraft.net - I can't track down the article in question. I'll keep looking. Cessna posted:This was pretty much what the Allies expected at the time and had prepared for. Such an attack would have run right into the French armor and may well not have even achieved its limited objectives. It would have left the German army dangerously exposed to a counterattack. It certainly would not have caused the fall of France, and who knows how things would have gone from there. Wasn't part of the problem also that Belgium declaring absolute neutrality in 1936 also greatly upset the French plans to resist invasion and make best use of the Maginot Line? As I recall the plan, stemming from the post-WW1 Franco-Belgian defence pact, was that (assuming forces from Germany went around the top of the Maginot Line as intended) the Belgian Army would take up a strong defensive line along canals and rivers to resist the initial advance while the French Army moved across Belgium to reinforce, ideally before the invaders broke through the original defense and at the very least halting them before they reached French soil. When Belgium withdrew from that pact that gave the French less preparation time and so they met the Germans on a weaker line well west of the Meuse.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:00
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Keep Finnposting. This rocks.
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Dec 17, 2020 22:16
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Nenonen posted:As a bonus you can then trust on Britain joining the war even if they otherwise didn't. The German navy is somewhat competitive against the French, but the U-boats dont have the range to threaten French routes to the Biscay ports or Mediterranean. German trade is mostly continental. There was China, but the Japanese invasion put an end to that. Oceanic trade is mainly with the UK, US, and France, and so itll likely dry up without much intervention unless cursed Albion betrays France. Uncle Enzo posted:This is "Gay Black Maurice Gamelin", but was there any plausible way for France to hold out in 1940? Barring perfect knowledge of the future I mean. If France had held on even partially the war would have gone wildly, totally unpredictably different but I have to believe that would be a better timeline than the one we got. France could have turned the Western Front into another brutal quagmire imo, but they would still be losing on account of having a bad air force and communications suite. Nazi Germany was surprisingly fragile in the early war, so a long war in France had a modest chance of seeing some officer's coup.
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Dec 17, 2020 22:19
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Nazi Germany was surprisingly fragile in the early war, Also the late war: 
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Dec 17, 2020 22:52
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Cessna posted:Also the late war: Actually the opposite of that. If it was fragile then Hitler would have been shot by someone else than Hitler, much sooner than April 1945 and at the very least everything would have collapsed at that point rather than dragging on for another week or so. Nazi totalitarian command was really firm in 1945, it just was getting crushed alive.
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Dec 17, 2020 23:12
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My dude, it was a joke.
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Dec 17, 2020 23:18
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:People kind of get screwed up on first glance at the DLMs if they don't look at TOE because legere really refers to mobility even though it's commonly translated as light. Yeah I imagine most people reading this thread know this but the "light" translation in a lot of french milhist is often misleading and it most definitely is for the DLMs. The "light" refers to mobility entirely, so it works 90% of the time. Light infantry vs heavy infantry yeah, the lights will run faster and longer but sacrifice weapons and gear so they might not be able to stand up to the heavy infantry 1v1. Stuff like that. But the DLMs or "light" mechanized divisions were not lightly armed, they were cream of the crop cavalry divisions who on paper were perfectly equivalent to a german panzer division, and certainly put paid to the myth that the allies hadn't thought of an armoured division until Rommel was in Paris. And the DLMs were riding partially in the heaviest armour the french had outside of the B1. I'm extremely biased in talking them up though because honestly, I think the S35 is the sexiest vehicle yet to exist.   Get the gently caress out of here with your panthers and your t-80s
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Dec 17, 2020 23:37
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