Battle of France - WI?

[Bernard Woolley]

This thread may be of interest.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

As the management consultants say; the fish rots from the head first. Gamelin & his fellow thinkers had been influential in the army for two decades. Gamelin himself had been chief of the Army from 1936. His over focus on methodical warfare doctrines to the inability of the commanders at all levels from battalion to army to act with the same speed as the Germans. Detailed orders were the training norm for the French officers, operations were conducted to elaborate schedules.

In defense of the French the Germans also had training in writing through battle plans, but their training took it to the next level. This is not because the Germans were smarter, but because they were allowed more training time. By the mid 1920s it was clear the French Army would not be funded to the point where officer & NCO training could be as extensive as wanted. When the Depression came the budget was cut further. During most of the 1930s the French conscript had 18 months of active service training, vs the 36 months of the German conscript. The NCO and officer training was similarly shorter. The nazis funded their military with little regard to fiscal realities, driving Germany into accounting fraud to fund weapons, manpower, and extended training. Fiscally responsible France purchased the army it could afford.

So, 90%+ of the French officers were reservists whos two or three years of training were far less complete that their German counterpart with three full years of active training at the start and more months of refresher training that the French officer or NCO. This allowed the German army to refine their leaders training with extra months of things like missson orders, building tactical judgement, ect...

Risky deficit spending, and looting the treasury of the Austrian & Cezch governments allowed Germany to build a better trained army.

 

[BlondieBC]

The easiest POD would probably be revolving around the decisions made by the French to commit their entire reserve into ill advised and unfortunate foray into the Netherlands and expansion of the front that resulted. This change could easily result in a stalemate on the Western Front would probably result with more troops being available for counterattacks and the Ardennes line manned by much higher quality of troops, perhaps making all the difference.

What line are you recommending the French/British try to hold initially in Flanders? Belgium-French Border? Somme?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

What line are you recommending the French/British try to hold initially in Flanders? Belgium-French Border? Somme?

Back in the 1960s I remember historians claiming the less ambitious "Escaut Plan" might have been better than the "Dyle Plan". When I plot that one out on the map it is a 10-15 % longer front, and requires the Belgians retreat in the face of the German army. Odds are most of the Belgian army will never make it and the French Brits left holding a longer front with maybe seven or eight out of twenty two Belgian divisions surviving.

Forming a defense on the Franco Belgian border presents a even longer front and a low number of Belgian soldiers survive the retreat. The one advantage is the frontier fortifications renovated in the winter of 1939-40 would be occupied. However it took Guderians Mechanized corps a single day to smash though the field fortifications at Sedan, so they would not be a big advantage.

The Dyle Plan attempted in OTL shortened the defense front by 15 - 20 % and was to rescue a majority of the Belgian army. The "Breda variant" with the 7th Army was to ensure the Scheldt estuary remained open to Antwerp and rescue part of the Dutch army.

 

[HJ Tulp]

See pdf27's truly excellent 'A Blunted Sickle' for this scenario.

 

[wkwillis]

POD is failure of German invasion of Norway.
British get the order of battle and send aircraft out to spot the German invasion fleet is where it is said to be, the subs lurking outside the British naval harbors are where they are said to be, etc. The British navy destroys 90% of the German surface fleet and an equivalent amount of the German invasion army delegated to Norway.
When the Germans attack in Belgian one month later, the French counter invasion forces are still in La Havre and are thrown into battle, and as they advance forward they are pushed east by refugees from Belgian clogging the roads in front of them, making them perfectly arranged to defend the Luxemburg border.
The Sickel doesn't Snik until after the Dutch, Belgian, French, and British units have been pushed back so far that they are too far south to be cut off.
Italy stays out of the war, the German sub bases are restricted to Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands, Germany doesn't get supplies from France, etc.