What if? What if France had been able to defend itself?

[Raz3rr21]

What if? What if France in World War 2 was able to defend itself from Germany? instead of being defeated by the Nazi's within six weeks?
Perhaps Germany would have still defeated France, but taken MUCH longer?
or maybe France would have been able to hold off the Germans long enough for other nations to intervene? (such as Britain gaining enough manpower to send FULL divisions)

 

[Snowstalker]

Utterly ASB.

But in all seriousness, have the French sacrifice the Netherlands to fall back. With the 7th army fighting in France/Belgium, the German blitz will get a nice punch to the nose, and the grind of the First World War starts all over again.

 

[mowque]

What if? What if France in World War 2 was able to defend itself from Germany? instead of being defeated by the Nazi's within six weeks?
Perhaps Germany would have still defeated France, but taken MUCH longer?
or maybe France would have been able to hold off the Germans long enough for other nations to intervene? (such as Britain gaining enough manpower to send FULL divisions)

Way too many things counting against France. I can see it going harder for the Nazi's, but utter failure is tough to envision.

 

[Raz3rr21]

So France waits out the invasion until other nations intervene. so Britain could train some damn soldiers. and France would have some major help.
But what if Hitler asked Mussolini to assist? i mean WW2 Italy sucked but, they could still be a distraction.

Note - WW2 Era Italy won a single war. Against Ethiopia. Because they were starving Africans. and wasn't politically stable. and their soldiers didn;t fight well... every other war besides the invasion of Albania failed.

 

[Snowstalker]

Italy was a freeloader; it wouldn't jump in until it was obvious that France was doomed, which is what they did IOTL.

 

[mowque]

So France waits out the invasion until other nations intervene. so Britain could train some damn soldiers. and France would have some major help.

Time is the one thing the French don't have. Not when you are up against the blitzkrieg.

 

[Raz3rr21]

Time is the one thing the French don't have. Not when you are up against the blitzkrieg.

BLITZKRIEEEEEEEEEEEEG!!!
and that pretty much eliminated the need for trenches too.
Nazi Germany would have defeated the french, I'm not disagreeing with that, just that France would have a better chance to win, they still needed better generals and more soldiers of course.

 

[Mauro Motta]

What if? What if France in World War 2 was able to defend itself from Germany? instead of being defeated by the Nazi's within six weeks?

They say that the best defense is the attack.
How ASB would be for France to be less forgiving of Nazi violations of the
peace treaty, say as early as 1934, with actual attack on Germany by 1935? Was France that unprepared? Say that France never invested in the Maginot, but instead invested in an army expansion and re-equipment of her own?

 

[mowque]

They say that the best defense is the attack.
How ASB would be for France to be less forgiving of Nazi violations of the
peace treaty, say as early as 1934, with actual attack on Germany by 1935? Was France that unprepared? Say that France never invested in the Maginot, but instead invested in an army expansion and re-equipment of her own?

As was pointed out to me a few months ago (and I argued against it, but it turned out I was wrong) French funding of the Maginot line was actually fairly small. It is the mindset that needs to change. However, they need British help or France won't do it. Fighting Germany alone was impossible as 1871 showed.

 

[NoOneFamous]

Italy attacked France while France was getting it's butt kicked by the Germans. The French gave the Italians a swift kick in the balls and the Italians ran away.

 

[Markus]

Utterly ASB.

But in all seriousness, have the French sacrifice the Netherlands to fall back. With the 7th army fighting in France/Belgium, the German blitz will get a nice punch to the nose, and the grind of the First World War starts all over again.

Indeed! If the Fall of France had not actually happened AH-fans would ridicule the idea as mercilessly as "Operation S...n has succeeded"

 

[BlairWitch749]

As was pointed out to me a few months ago (and I argued against it, but it turned out I was wrong) French funding of the Maginot line was actually fairly small. It is the mindset that needs to change. However, they need British help or France won't do it. Fighting Germany alone was impossible as 1871 showed.

France had more tanks than Germany

France had better tanks than Germany

France had more artillery than Germany

France had bettery artillery than Germany

France had better anti tank guns than Germany (not counting the 88mm AA gun which wasn't supposed to be an AT gun)



The problem was France was utterly woeful in AA defenses (their two most common weapons being either an 8mm machine gun or a 75mm gun on the back of a truck)... so in a fluid front their ground forces just couldn't protect themselves from Stukas and HE-111's bombing the living hell out of them



However France had a massive and well equipped field army otherwise and could shield the overwhelming majority of the border with the maginot line which was more or less impregnable... the problem was that they took all their best units and lunged them into Belgium and the Netherlands where they met and did a good job fighting army group B... unfortunately they didn't do a great job screening their right flank and the Germans hooked around them, cut their supply lines and pocket them

If France stood on the frontier (as political difficult as they might have been) the Germans wouldn't have gotten anywhere

 

[Markus]

The problem was France was utterly woeful in AA defenses (their two most common weapons being either an 8mm machine gun or a 75mm gun on the back of a truck)... so in a fluid front their ground forces just couldn't protect themselves from Stukas and HE-111's bombing the living hell out of them

The large French Air Force and the well trained fighter pilots could have taken care of that. Emphasis on could.

 

[lukedalton]

Italy attacked France while France was getting it's butt kicked by the Germans. The French gave the Italians a swift kick in the balls and the Italians ran away.

It was more due to Mussolini don't even wait that the armed forces make adeguate preparations (as usual) so they started the war immediatly, and frankly they faced an very hard terrain (a lot of casualities were due to frostbite) and a series of good fortifications, basically what happened to the Italian army was what would happen to the german army if he attacked directely the Maginot Line

 

[mowque]

If France stood on the frontier (as political difficult as they might have been) the Germans wouldn't have gotten anywhere

Without British help, the French would have lost a long war too. By themselves (unlikely) beating Germany was basically impossible for France.

 

[Markus]

Without British help, the French would have lost a long war too. By themselves (unlikely) beating Germany was basically impossible for France.

Err, fighting a long war was basically impossible for Germany too. After Poland it took more than half a year of deliveries from the USSR to refill the depleted German fuel supply. And the German people´s moral was very shaky, unlike the French!

 

[Mauro Motta]

Without British help, the French would have lost a long war too. By themselves (unlikely) beating Germany was basically impossible for France.

Even on 1934? The german army expansion
had just begun, and they didn't have the resources they would capture later on...

 

[pochepiller]

Just change the military leadership, Gamelin was out of touch, Weygand could handle thing way better.

France got the knack of fighting the german late in the campaign, so they could defend themselve, they just started late.

You could also don't push into Belgium to came to their help.

 

[wolf_brother]

If France holds than the Nazi war-machine falls apart. It wasn't designed to fight long wars, and was on shacky ground to begin with. The fact that the Nazis did as well as they did OTL is almost-ASB levels of luck. I won't say the regime in Berlin falls from power, but certainly things come to an end fairly quickly, with the German expansion blunted.

 

[Riain]

France had better tanks than Germany

I hate French tanks, the devil is in the details. The Somua looks great on paper but in reality it's quite powerful 47mm gun was in a 1 man turret, which sucks dogs ball in practice. IIRC a lot of French tanks had good guns in 1 man turrets, and therefore a lot of French tanks sucked dogs ball in practice.

As for France seriously delaying German victory, yes it could happen readily enough. Perhaps France could be a little more vigorous with the Saar offensive, or deploy the large number of warplanes which were in the interior at surrender to the battle zones.