jj3
1042 replies · 8348 views
LMAO, so does that mean u cut out the bread in the shape of Snoopy too? 
Let's only say Nutella make me too wild to do that with the bread
No comment!
Well since you never tasted Nutella you can't understand me 
I have and it's why I have my opinions on it
You're only a Nutella Hater ! 
I'm actually not too fond of the French either now that I think about it 
You have bad tastes, that's something well known
^ Pfft, have you not seen what I eat?
7 hours ago, jj3 said:
What kind of things you learned and found the most interesting about the Battle of FR ?
It was interesting reading a detailed tactical/operational account and comparing it to what I know about Barbarossa and Normandy 44'. The battle was also a contest of competing military ideologies- The French and the British believed in methodical battle while the germans were pure manueverists (the soviets were in-between). I have also read most of "The Caucasus and the Oil"- the final german strategic offensive- a much more screwed up offensive than Fall Gelb/Fall Rot
Some new things that I didn't know:
-The french tank units did reasonably well in tank duels, such as Hannut. It reminds me of the germans in 1944/1945.
-France 1940 was one of the very few offensives of the germans ww2 that had good logistics and a margin of error (they had planned for a much longer war) & were somewhat close to the same strength as their enemies. Pretty much it was as good as it gets for them.
-The performance of British and French infantry divisions were very bad across the board- I didn't know this before (usually narratives focus on armor and breakthrough at the Sedan).
-The German operations were very strong- stronger in fact than most of the rest of the war in tactical density and mobility. Overall, the battle of France-while much smaller than Barbarossa and at the same level as Case Blue- was the highest quality operation. Not only this but the quality of the generalship and combat leadership was better than later on in the war. It was more professional.
-The German airborne operations were more troubled than I thought,
-The breakthrough at the Sedan was a risky gamble- la feat that would have been difficult to repeat later on in the war.
15 hours ago, ILUVAdrianaLima said:^ Pfft, have you not seen what I eat?
You talk about the chips ?
13 hours ago, Cult Icon said:
It was interesting reading a detailed tactical/operational account and comparing it to what I know about Barbarossa and Normandy 44'. The battle was also a contest of competing military ideologies- The French and the British believed in methodical battle while the germans were pure manueverists (the soviets were in-between). I have also read most of "The Caucasus and the Oil"- the final german strategic offensive- a much more screwed up offensive than Fall Gelb/Fall Rot
Some new things that I didn't know:
-The french tank units did reasonably well in tank duels, such as Hannut. It reminds me of the germans in 1944/1945.
-France 1940 was one of the very few offensives of the germans ww2 that had good logistics and a margin of error (they had planned for a much longer war) & were somewhat close to the same strength as their enemies. Pretty much it was as good as it gets for them.
-The performance of British and French infantry divisions were very bad across the board- I didn't know this before (usually narratives focus on armor and breakthrough at the Sedan).
-The German operations were very strong- stronger in fact than most of the rest of the war in tactical density and mobility. Overall, the battle of France-while much smaller than Barbarossa and at the same level as Case Blue- was the highest quality operation. Not only this but the quality of the generalship and combat leadership was better than later on in the war. It was more professional.
-The German airborne operations were more troubled than I thought,
-The breakthrough at the Sedan was a risky gamble- la feat that would have been difficult to repeat later on in the war.
I think we can't study very hardly the Battle of France, the German forces, tactic and strategy, the material too... But for me, the MAIN reason of the defeat of the democraties in this battle was the defensive attitude of the British and French forces. You should have attacked the Reich when thier forces were busy in Poland ... We lost the war even before to start it...The funny war was a non-sense...
We must keep in mind that WW2 is happened only 20 years after the previous one ...
Yes, the overly conservative risk management and fear of heavy infantry losses ended up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This fear of investing in infiltration operations and capabilities. The Gamelin methodical battle playbook was fundamentally defensive or straddling (fire superiority oriented), then offensive- and the British still used this type of doctrine in Normandy 44'. This is the opposite of France and other powers in WW1.
Funny fact, here in France, when we mention the name of Gamelin, no one know who he was. When i was in highschool, his name was not even mentioned in the History books ... Incredible to imagine he lived until 1958 ...
was he 'erased' from history or marginalized?
Oh no we doesn't erase History here lol We're not USSR
Marginalized i would say. As we know that the Battle of France has been a huge fail, we just don't talk a lot about it...Since de Gaulle, we focus especially on the Free French Force or interenal Resistance... We have a word to describe this processus, we call that "Le Roman National" hard to translate the principe. It's like a mix between "official History" and focused episodes ...a whole concept ...
^
I don't quite know what you are referring to about 'roman national'.
The thing with methodical battle (eg. Gamelin, the British) is that against an equivalent opponent, it may work very well in the future if the technology and opposing dynamics fit in. Most certainly modern "smart" weapons and communications make it more feasible. It was just that WW2 was the wrong place to use it as french/british tactical edges were not there. Gamelin is a very good moral parable in a way- preparing to fight yesterday's war is putting oneself in peril, too much bureacracy/inertia, and defensive at the expense of offensive.
I was able to make notes on the casualty rolls of the Wehrmacht and the axis allies (have seen the records now). The records start becoming more and more incomplete starting 1943 (eg. Jan 1943- the destruction of several armies is missing).
But roughly speaking, 4.3 million german soldiers became casualties in the USSR/500,000 Axis allies losses by the end of May 1944. The actual figure is several hundred thousand more due to the lost records. This is higher than I originally thought- although some casualties are double and triple counts. The data from the June 1944- May 1945 are too incomplete to use.
I would describe the "Roman National" like the way we see our own History...We put the highlight on the some episods, and choos to "forgot" some others ...I guess every countries do that...
Yes, i agree with what you said about metodical battle. But once again, to practice it, we must be two or more. I don't quite see we will see that during our personal life time.
Francs-tireurs or as we call it now "guerrilla" is for me still the futur of the war during the 21th century...
@Cult Icon what's your source?
@jj3 what's the name of the documentary?
Anyway if you guys are interested in Operation Barbarossa, you should check out this series. It's the first documentary I've seen from a Soviet perspective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhXKlYnSWjA&index=1&list=ELlzBS5WrPu4s
1 hour ago, F 4 5 H U N said:
It was a documentary on French TV, here a link to the trailer : http://www.programme.tv/c18080334-les-dossiers-secrets-du-iiie-reich/le-projet-d-ix-99279759/#videos, i see the doc. come from UK, i guess there's an english translation as well 
Yes, thank you for the link ! Sounds interesting !
In French, but here an awesome doc. about Stalin and the born of USSR, they talk a lot about Barnarossa too
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cqFqp2KvHA
Lots of images are never seen before, so, still interesting i think.