Thread: French armed forces

Ok I cant deny some people way over state it sometimes but I do think it was further along than the allies knew (till the end of the war when they got a nasty shock) and that he might have had a Nuclear weapon by 1947.
Oh I have heard that when the war ended A variant of the V2 capable of reaching even new york was found by the allies and needless to say scared the S*** out of them. Now I dont know how true this is but it seems fairly plausable given how far along the germans were in misile tech. anyway perhaps the board can shed some light on this little gem.

Originally Posted by ARW_cpl

Ok I cant deny some people way over state it sometimes but I do think it was further along than the allies knew (till the end of the war when they got a nasty shock) and that he might have had a Nuclear weapon by 1947.

No, he couln't. The research was not that far along. The Americans in fact were further ahead.

Originally Posted by Blademaster

Which german general of WWII do you rate highest?

One question, why are German generals of WWII held in high esteem for their military knowledge and capability even though they lost the war?

Someone once said, Germans are excellent at tactics, but sucked at strategic thinking.

no matter how good german generals were, they were fighting against the rest of the world! sure, they had the 2. biggest economy of the world before the war and fairly modern, big and well-trained army, but they still had to fight the whole world!

Hellinas To say the RAF planes were not as good as the German ones is incorrect as they were in fact better but there was to few of them. The RAF were nearly beaten by weight of numbers and when Hitler at last had them on their knees in a grand show of stupidity (like a loy of things he did) he switched from bombing RAF airfields to bombing cities allowing the RAF to get back up and finally defeat the Luftwaffe. As for the Maginot line I'll give a simple but effective idea of what happened.The German forces went around the Maginot line through Holand, French forces were sent from the line to try and stop them and when the line was left undermaned and under strength and so the German forces simply rolled on through. . Greece you say I take it you are familiar with what happened at Crete then when Student and his paras showed up. As for Russia Hitlers plan was delayed because of that fool Mussolini who roused problems in the Balkans and Germany had to clean up the mess he created before going anywhere thus delaying the invasion by 2 or 3 months which had major repercusions.

Yes and so started the wonderfully pathetic bombing campaign which achieved an outstanding lack of results and was in fact directly part and parcel to the failure of operation market garden. That statement may seem a bit mad just ask and I will explain it.

Gentlemen,

You two are mixing up events that is going to make both your arguements impossible to make.

The Maginot Line suceeded. A single company was able to hold off an entire corps until after Dunkirk. Where it failed was that it wasn't long enough. The Wehmarcht went through the Ardennes which was thought impossible to pass. However, trees didn't shoot back.

Greece didn't have an effect on Operation Barbarosa. Stalin was over-confident. He had years to get ready. Six months more wasn't about to make any difference. It was not until the Wehrmacht started Barbarosa that people started realizing just how much trouble they were in and started fixing things (like calling Zuhkov back from Siberia).

To say the Whermacht was the best army on earth was really overstating things. The victories they won were hard and bloody. They were not walk overs by any stretch of the imagination. Even the famous delay at Dunkirk, attributed to Hitler trying to show some honour, was actually the Whermacht trying to resupply itself. They had run out of gas and bullets. Had the British committed the two Canadian Divisions held in reserves in Great Britian instead of the evacuation, the Whermacht would have been chased back to Germany, having no fuel and no bullets.

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

To say the Whermacht was the best army on earth was really overstating things. The victories they won were hard and bloody. They were not walk overs by any stretch of the imagination. Even the famous delay at Dunkirk, attributed to Hitler trying to show some honour, was actually the Whermacht trying to resupply itself. They had run out of gas and bullets. Had the British committed the two Canadian Divisions held in reserves in Great Britian instead of the evacuation, the Whermacht would have been chased back to Germany, having no fuel and no bullets.

"Had the British committed the two Canadian Divisions held in reserves in Great Britian instead of the evacuation, the Whermacht would have been chased back to Germany, having no fuel and no bullets."

That is definetly overstated!

Originally Posted by xxxxx

That is definetly overstated!

When you have 35 battalions stretched across an entire front without any gas, meaning 35 big holes across an entire front. No, it's not overstating things.

I am sorry to say on this one you are far afr from right ooe.
First Hitler was not trying to show any honour at all it was goering who demanded he (the luftwaffe) be allowed do the mop up. To add to his troubles fog showed up obscuring the BEF from the planes. Oh and if the BEF had been capable of "chasing the whermacht (at the time the best trained and most well equiped army in the world) back to Germany" they would have done so long before Dunkirk. Greece made a difference in that it delayed Hitlers plans allowing the winter to save the Russians who were until winter 1942 in full retreat. Had the Whermacht (who were not short on supplies).

As the Panzers cut accross France, the BEF was within Hitler's grasp. The Panzers were only a few miles south of Dunkirk and facing no serious opposition. Hitler ordered the Panzers to halt. Some believe that he hoped this gesture would help convince the British to comes to terms, other believe that is was just as it was described at the time, aneeded pause to regroup and prepare for a more coordinated assault. [Davidson, p. 408 and Fest, p. 630.] What ever the reason, this 48-hour respite allowed the British to organize a defensive perimter around Dunkirk and begin an almost miraculous withdawl. Nearly 340,000 men were evacuated from Dunkirk, including French and Dutch sholdiers. This is even more important that it sounds as akmost all if the British sholdiers were regulars and would form the corps of the future British Army that would play such an important role in the War. All of the BEF's equipment, however, was lost.

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taken from http://histclo.hispeed.com/essay/war...w2-ware39.html. Next time I suggest you check your facts before you make a broad statement like that .

Market Garden??? Market Garden was to secure to bridges across the rivers in Holland so that the Allied army could advance fast north and hen turn left into the lowlands of Germany... outpassing the Siegfried line... correct? But what that has to do with the London bombing?

No no not the london bombing but the "strategic" bombing campaign which resulted from the Blitz.
Ok now to explain what may appear as a mad comment. As you may be aware Market Garden worked on a system of drops staggered over 4 days and this in itself is widely held to have contributed in a big way to market gardens failure. Now the reason the drops were staggered is because bomber command (scumb) refused to releasse the planes required to drop all on the first day (they were using them for important things like killing civilians). Major general Sosabowksi of the polish independant brigade was himself extremely sceptical of the idea of a staggered drop. In fact his troops and other paras were delayed getting to Arnhem sector for a number of days because the weather chnged. Had They all been dropped on the 1st day this would not have been a problem. Thats what I meant if you need further explanation or I havent highlighted my point clearly simply say so and I will post more.

Originally Posted by ARW_cpl

Greece made a difference in that it delayed Hitlers plans allowing the winter to save the Russians who were until winter 1942 in full retreat.

All serious historians have long since discounted the effects of winter on the Whermacht. It worked both ways, the Russians themsevles were freezing and they were no better at it than the Germans.

In either event, the deciding point of that war was Stalingrad. With or without Greece, that would not have changed.

Originally Posted by ARW_cpl

taken from http://histclo.hispeed.com/essay/war...w2-ware39.html. Next time I suggest you check your facts before you make a broad statement like that .

I do have my facts. The Whermacht were relying on capture stocks. Even Rommel ran out of gas. The Whermacht's brilliance on the battlefield is not in dispute. Their ability to carry out the assualt without the 3 day delay at Dunkirk was.

A co-ordinated assualt at the divisional level would have put the entire Whermacht in disarray, not knowing which units are capable of fighting.