Comments on: From the Collapse of France to Empire Total War – Top Forum Discussions http://www.armchairgeneral.com/from-the-collapse-of-france-to-empire-total-war-top-forum-discussions.htm All things military history! Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:45:27 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: paul penrod http://www.armchairgeneral.com/from-the-collapse-of-france-to-empire-total-war-top-forum-discussions.htm/comment-page-1#comment-8156 paul penrod Thu, 28 May 2009 16:50:37 +0000 http://www.armchairgeneral.com/?p=5061#comment-8156 The collapse, or certainly the rapid collapse of France in 1940, could be laid at the feet of General Gamelin and the French command structure, whose misunderstanding of how war had changed proved to be a great detriment to the French Army's corps and division commanders-a good number of which knew what they were doing. Thed lack of an efficient signals and communications network didnt help, either. In 1944 the roles were reversed, with the Germans mirroring the French in 1940-too many layers of command, disrupted communications, overly dependent on fixed fortifications, outclassed in the air, having the biggest and best tanks but too many units dependent on horses and the rails for mobility- If the French held held there would be no Battle of Britain, no involvement in the war by Italy (meaning no desert war and no Rommel) and certainly no Barbarossa. The US probably would not gave gotten involved past the lend lease stage-the French campaign of 1940 shaped the entire European Theatre. As far as the Graf Zeppelin, the main German problem was techinical. They had no experience in carrier aviation and only proposed altered land based aircraft for carrier missions. One could theorize that Japanese advisors could train the German pilots and flight crews. The best scenario for the use of the Graf Zeppelin would be as part of a task force with Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen and support ships to operate in 1942 in conjunction with U-boat and Luftwaffe units against the northern convoys- a possibility for actions versus RN and USN vessels The collapse, or certainly the rapid collapse of France in 1940, could be laid at the feet of General Gamelin and the French command structure, whose misunderstanding of how war had changed proved to be a great detriment to the French Army’s corps and division commanders-a good number of which knew what they were doing. Thed lack of an efficient signals and communications network didnt help, either.

In 1944 the roles were reversed, with the Germans mirroring the French in 1940-too many layers of command, disrupted communications, overly dependent on fixed fortifications, outclassed in the air, having the biggest and best tanks but too many units dependent on horses and the rails for mobility- If the French held held there would be no Battle of Britain, no involvement in the war by Italy (meaning no desert war and no Rommel) and certainly no Barbarossa. The US probably would not gave gotten involved past the lend lease stage-the French campaign of 1940 shaped the entire European Theatre.

As far as the Graf Zeppelin, the main German problem was techinical. They had no experience in carrier aviation and only proposed altered land based aircraft for carrier missions. One could theorize that Japanese advisors could train the German pilots and flight crews. The best scenario for the use of the Graf Zeppelin would be as part of a task force with Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen and support ships to operate in 1942 in conjunction with U-boat and Luftwaffe units against the northern convoys- a possibility for actions versus RN and USN vessels

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