The Battle of France

From 'The Blitzkrieg Legend" (P 28)

"All victories were won......without any Panzers,only by virtue of the infantry's spirit of attack. In that way,the infantry erected an eternel monument to itself .



From the War Diary of AG B,4 june,after the fall of Dunkirk .

 

Only marginally coherent and largerly irrelevant. Does illustrate either your ability to create straw men or your inability to comprehend standard English.

Apparently you are trying to support the lack of English comprehension theory.

From putting what he said in context it looks to me like he was saying that the allies had rough parity with the Germans as far as mobile divisions go in 1940 while there was no such parity in 1944.

Helpless? Certainly not. At their strongest? Again cerainly not. When facing a combined arms force careless exposure of a single arm often results in that arm suffering significantly. Not sure what your point was though.

Interesting quote. Not sure how it's relevant other than to counter some of the straw men you've created though.

 

What would have been the best situation for Germany

A Failure of von Kleist and success of von Bock?


B Success of von Kleist and failure of von Bock ?


The answer is of course A :if von Kleist had failed at the Meuse,von Bock would still be at the French-Belgian border,Belgium and Holland would be lost and the Allies would have lost 32 indespensable divisions .

If B had happened (von Bock blocked at the Albert canal and Kleist at Abbeville),the result would be a disaster for Germany :if Kleist was lucky,he could return to Germany with the tail between his legs (as the Horse soldiers),if not ,the PzG would be a French POW.

The success of Sichelschnitt depended on the possibility of von Bock to march from Groningen to Dunkirk ,to destroy the Dutch and belgian armies and to push the BEF and the French to the coast .

 

It looks that you need new glasses:Sheldrake in post 89:

Taking issue with your statement that"there were only a few mobile divisions" in 1940.This is simply untrue.



Well,it is not untrue: it is the truth :

Germans 135 divisions : 18 mobile

Allies : 149 divisions: 12 mobile French divisions

 

I read his post and tried to understand what he was talking about. I may be wrong but I doubt it. Few by the way is a relative term and neither of you has really clarified your base case his however is in a logical framework. I also note that you leave out the bit where you were comparing things to 44 and assigning parity there.

 

This statement is meaningless : See : WW2 Talk :Forum NW Europe:Motorisation of the BEF in 1940 .

 

The entire BEF wasn't motorised - They used Pack Mules to supply ammunition to divisional artillery units as well as vehicles. For sure they were with the 3rd and 51st Divisions.

 

General David Fraser : "The BEF was an infantry force,albeit with a great deal of motor transport."

Source: And we shall shock them (P 29 )

 

David Fraser was making the point this this was an infantry rather than mechanised force, and probably reflecting the mentality of the army..

The mules were there in addition to motor transport, probably in anticipation of serving troops in trenches as they had in WW1. There were sufficiently few and below the radar that the late racist Bernard Manning made the false and inflammatory claim that "there were no Pakis(tanis) at Dunkirk" .

The Official History states

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-NWE-Flanders/UK-NWE-Flanders-I.html
This is a far cry from the horse drawn transport of the majority of the German army or non motorised French formations.

The mentality of the British army was to see its troops as infantrymen with motor vehicles making life easier, rather than acting as part of a fully mobile force. .But none of this invalidates my point. Even if the brigades had to be bussed one at a time, the BEF had a level of mobility much closer to the panzer troops than the plodding German infantry.

 

As much as I hate the fat bastard, he was correct, there were no Pakistani's at Dunkirk. They were Indian Forces, mainly Muslim granted, but definitely Indian. Pakistan wasn't founded until 1948.

Off the top of my head - There was 4 Companies plus a HQ, a veterinary unit and other logistical support units - an educated guess would say around a 1,000 men all told came to France from India. One of the Companies provided support for 3rd Infantry Division whilst another was defiantly with the 51st Highland Division as most of them were captured around St. Valery in June 1940. They were used IIRC for moving artillery ammunition for the divisional artillery units.

 

The Germans considered the PZ 1 out dated even when it first came out, it was not supposed to be a combat tank, but due to the lack of other tanks it was thrown into service

 

I strongly agree here.....may I add discipline??

 

Although the photo is taken in 1941 it seems I suppose these soldiers died in 1940...?