Well, I was talking about something more seriosu than tha Saar offensive, a full offensive, I am sure if the frogs managed to get , let say 75 or 90 km inside Germany Hitler would be forced to withdrawn at list 50 % of his Army fighting in Poland.
In this way,catching the germans between 2 sides. That likely buyed time for the poles and prevented a Dunkerke escape with the britons leaving in disarray.
Well, no matter what the “Frogs” did, Uncle Joe Stalin was always there to finish off the Poles. Secondly, the French were at first overconfident (ironically), but then were shocked and spooked by the quick collapse of Poland, whom they believed should have lasted much longer. Another problem was that the French Army wasn’t ready for any sustained offensive beyond what we know today, and while the Germans were somewhat vulnerable on their West wall, we can’t say for certain whether a big French offensive–slow and “methodically” plodding–would have done much to prolong the Battle for France, or whether the fatal result given the state of French strategy and thinking at the time was inevitable. Not too mention that there was no real coherent French plan for an offensive in 1939…
The French also rightly knew that they had time on their side, and that in a battle of attrition, that Germany would face an almost certain collapse as the Entente alliance had the industrial advantage and natural resources available in the long run. With the battle in Poland, the French realized that they were facing a Wehrmacht enemy that simply was fighting on another level, and that it would take time for them to match the Heer in a large, mobile battle. Also don’t forget the critical factor contributing to the French passivity was the German 2:1 advantage in military aged males, which was why the French thought they must fight a defensive campaign, initially, in order to blood the Germans and set the stage for their proposed 1941 grand offensive into Germany…
Is possible that it would cause no real damage but still there is a chance, France also had plans to help Finland, I think the Foreign Legion wich disimbarqued in Norway was infact heading to Finland but eventually were redirected to counter teh germans after the finnish capitulation in march 1940. Now France vs Russia, that would be interesting to see in an infantry plus armor vs armor plus infantry macht, at list in 1940. In later years the evolution of soviet tanks would be too much for teh french armored vehicles.
The French also rightly knew that they had time on their side, and that in a battle of attrition, that Germany would face an almost certain collapse as the Entente alliance had the industrial advantage and natural resources available in the long run. With the battle in Poland, the French realized that they were facing a Wehrmacht enemy that simply was fighting on another level, and that it would take time for them to match the Heer in a large, mobile battle. Also don’t forget the critical factor contributing to the French passivity was the German 2:1 advantage in military aged males, which was why the French thought they must fight a defensive campaign, initially, in order to blood the Germans and set the stage for their proposed 1941 grand offensive into Germany…
Agreed 100 %, with the somewhat primitive tactics sported by teh french high command you going to need numbers superiority to achieve something.
I guess that an “what if” french victory is married with quite different tactics that the ones actually used in 1939-40. Too different to became reality eventually.
Hello!
There were also plans from both british/french sides to bomb BAKU - to help Finland.
Of course knowing their fast decision making process, the war ended for the time they made the first decision about the dedicated bomber units.
TGR
Helping Finland was a cover for the British and the French to seize the Lulea iron mines in Sweden–the expedition would be “sidetracked” to capture the iron and cut off Germany’s iron supply: at least 10 million tons annually were imported from Sweden, and the only port available to ship from in the winter was Narvik, Norway
Found a great book in the library about the Norwegian Campaign, including an in-depth political background. I can’t recall the name or the author at the moment…
Is interesting to realize how fast the Soviets became “the good ones” just some 48 hours from the 21 of june to the 23 of june 1941.
After Barbarossa started? The curse of Tamerlane…
Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I think that by 1941 the British were willing to ally with anyone they could
Yes, they surely will. I keep thinking about this because the French, in spite of being always accused of playing with comunist ideas , recognize the great menace of a soviet Rusia as early as 1919 when they send troops to help the white russians.
In case of an speculative Russina vs Francia in 1940 “What if”… well I only can say the frenchies would need more and better tanks in order to win.
The AMX “Tracteur” rupture tank.
Before the beginning of the war there were some interesting concepts of heavy and superhevy tanks. One of those is the 1939 CHAR AMX TRACTEUR C. Projected dimentions was more than 9 meters long and 3 meters width. It used a twin turret in with 105 and 47mm. Close range defense was provide by 4 Reibel Drum fed 7,5 mm machineguns.
It also was powered with a sofisticated petrol-electric drive wich avoided the need for a gearbox but elevated the fuel rate comsumption.
The weight of this monster was 120 tons.
And you thought that the KIng Tiger was heavy… 
I found this one when reading about the Char 2c: The FCM F1
The French sure liked the dual turrets didn’t they?
Here’s a little bit of information about it:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCM_F1
Wao… :shock: nice find Navyson, FCM means Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranie, a shipyard so I suppose that 90mm gun is naval in origin. This heavy tank has an strong russian look, remembers me the SMK.
I think that with 150-200 of these (well commanded) the frenchs could broke the Sigfried line in early 1940 and send Hitler back to the painting bussines.
Really a nice post Panzerknacker. Just a little story on B1 Bis, French soldiers found letters from German soldiers undistributed in which they spoke of a B1 Bis “Kolossal Machin” proof of the fear inspired by the tank at that time.
Friendly Fred
Hardly it can treat to GErman army. More likely it would be lost in rural in few first miles of way to the front. As it happends with soviet T-35. The multi-turret monsters like this was proved to be absolutly uneffective and sensless peice of shit in ww2.
Not to mention that the production of 150 such a super-expensive monsters should devastate the all the another tank units of France.
Nobody finished Poles. The Stalin just “gathered” what was lost.No battles were in the East. Poles though hold the front almost 3 weeks - enough time for the west to do something( or at least to begin to do or even simulate it). They pomised to Poles the military help already within 2 weeks of war…[/QUOTE]
And a bigger petrol tank…
I agree. The French really may not have need super-tanks to break through the West Wall at all. How far they would have gotten, and what would have happened after that, is anybodies’ guess…
Three weeks was far too little time for the cumbersome French Army to mobilize, and the premise of launching a quick strike offensive was completely out of the question for the stogy old French high command. They had little in the way of a coherent offensive doctrine–other than some nebulous notions regarding a ‘methodical battle’–as they always envisioned having to fight defensively first in order to grind down the superior German manpower advantages. The actual numbers of trained, professional French troops necessitated for such an offensive were busy either training called-up reservists or guarding the Maginot Line as the question of maintaining a professional, mechanized counter-attack/reaction force had been settled long ago with visionaries like De Gaulle cast aside in favor of an essentially wholly conscript ‘peoples army.’ So, the French were thusly pursuing a ‘long war’ strategy of strategic blockade and envelopment conducive to the Anglo-French economic advantages to be punctuated by a coup de grâce offensive in the middle of 1941 or so. However, if the Poles had been able to hold out longer and impose a higher toll on the Germans (not that the Poles didn’t exact a decent sized pound of flesh from the Wehrmacht as it was), there would have been undeniably more political pressure for Generalissimo Gamelin to be more proactive…I agree that the potential in the Saar Offensive is fascinating. But even by that point, the Wehrmacht was already withdrawing air and ground assets from Poland, and having to go into the Saar region was a very sign of French weakness, as the best route into Germany was through (now neutral) Belgium whereas the Saar was a heavily forested depression not conducive to sustained mechanized offensive. But it was all they had…
That is all fair. However the allies had an operative plan of anti-german contr-offensive. In case of German attak.Which was fully phony if to consider a facts above.The plan was failured coz of quick polish collaps as i understand. But poles claims the plan supposed to Poland to fight alone NO more then 2 week. And they had almost realized this plan from their side.
I agree with you Nickdfresh, we could not respond in the Saarland, the government policy of France at that time was the especially not making waves with “Herr Hitler”, more as you point out very well, the doctrine of the French army was still that of the sliced and despite the mechanization of the army corps made this one remained on the defensive, something completely ridiculous at the same time when the German army was on it a doctrine of the attack on all fronts, this largely explains why during the reconquest of the Saarland by the German army, no one in the French camp has moved. If you look out the balance of power at the time, we (French) had more than enough to force the German reduce the number of French Division was then well above that of Germany, in terms of armored unfortunately few generals considered the weapon as a decisive battle, we were still mired in the doctrines of 14-18 fights and especially our general aviation had absolutely no vision of what the couple would mechanized force and air cover, more than they absolutely did not trust their reconnaissance planes into evidence a recognition of the airmen had reported the presence of large armored forces in the Ardennes, this message was never considered it preferable that the pilot told anything, this speaks volumes about the inability of our generals to understand the evolution of the doctrines of war and the neglect with which they treated the information that reached them.
Friendly Fred
