Saturday, March 30, 2024

Is it accurate to say that Germany's victory in France in 1940 was lucky and could be blamed on France?




Turns out that the only advantage enjoyed by the German army was a fully operational radio based comm system achieving comms that meet todays standards.  I have seen those big clumsy boxes ,but the surely worked.

The French had none of this and had a four day turn around between their main headquarters and the frront. sound ridiculous, but way more damaging  was no local comms to their tanks.  not good.

It is noteworthy that this failure has remained almost secrete to this day.  


They had the trained men and better hardware just not talking to each other.  Strategic failure certainly gave the Germans victory but it was reversable by swift mobalization of corps to change direection.  Swift was not an option.


Is it accurate to say that Germany's victory in France in 1940 was lucky and could be blamed on France?


It was exclusively on France.


Panzers at Sedan

See, in 1940, French army was superior to the Wehrmacht. It had two tanks to each German tank, and French tanks were substantially better than German tanks on average. The only credible tanks Germans had were Czech Pz38(t) and their own Panzer III and IV tanks, these combined represented perhaps one fifth of the German tanks. The French had several times that number of competitive models - Char B1 was fearsome in 1940, the S35 tank as good or better as Panzer III/IV and outnumbering both. The R35 was larger, more powerful and more numerous that Panzer IIs in the image above. The French also had an advantage in artillery, approximately two guns to each German gun. The British expeditionary corps were no slouches either.

Germans only had two advantages. The smaller advantage was the air power, Luftwaffe was twice as large as their adversaries, had better pilots and flew better planes. This would have made an impact, you would expect serious French and British losses due to that. The Allied air forces would be able to interfere, but not stop Luftwaffe operations no matter what happened. The big advantage however was communications.

In a way, the Fall of France was the first war decided by flow of information. French messages were sent by curier or pigeon, to a headquarters outside Paris, then the same way back. It took approximately 48 hours for news from the front line to reach the high command and another 48 hours back. By contrast, Germans used radio, it took minutes for information to reach the decision-makers, and minutes back. In some instances, air support was called in and bombs delivered on target within 20 minutes - good by modern standards. This was what doomed France and yes, stupidity is a good name for it. The French willingly sabotaged their own war effort, believing information security was more important than delivering information to intended recipient. The French believed the greatest threat was Germans knowing of their plans, but it turns out Germans knowing their own plans was far more important.

This plus the lack of strategic depth between Paris and German border is why France fell so quickly. A combination of luck and French stupidity would be a good way to describe it.

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