Could you have designed a better air force?

[Clay_Allison]

With all due respect, I attrubte it to your lack of understanding of 1: the French military doctrine which was ingrained since after WW 1, and 2: the political circumstances which led the isolation of French defensive planning insofar as co-operation with Belgium and Holland was concerned. If by 1935-1938 there had been a mutual defensive agreement, maybe there could have been a difference, but by 1939 it was too late. Over 20 years of military doctrine cannot be changed in such short time, at least not in any pratical or effective sense.



I would refer you to an earlier thread in which I explained these discrepencies, with sources, but then I think you're mind is already made up, so whats the point? I'd link the thread relating to this topic but for some reason I can no longer find it. EDIT - I found it, here it is:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/av...ance-could-ve-prevented-their-loss-11164.html

How on Earth this compares to the Russo-Finnish conflicts escapes me.

It's their military doctrine I am disgusted with. Attempting to fight WWI when wars in the 1930s were showing that the thinking of 1918 was dangerously obsolete. I'm not on the "French Cowardice" banwagon here, I'm astounded by the complete lack of creativity and intelligence in the French High Command.

 

[Arsenal VG-33]

It's their military doctrine I am disgusted with. Attempting to fight WWI when wars in the 1930s were showing that the thinking of 1918 was dangerously obsolete. I'm not on the "French Cowardice" banwagon here, I'm astounded by the complete lack of creativity and intelligence in the French High Command.

I agree with you here. The information/intelligence aspect of it all left much to be desired. even where good intelligence was received, it's dessimination was terrible. Outdated communications only added to the general confusion. As for doctrine, that's what happens when you win a war, in this case WW 1. You believe that evrything you did then was right because the outcome ended in your favor. By contrast, if you lost that war, you change everything to not make the same mistakes twice, in very general terms.

 

[Clay_Allison]

I agree with you here. The information/intelligence aspect of it all left much to be desired. even where good intelligence was received, it's dessimination was terrible. Outdated communications only added to the general confusion. As for doctrine, that's what happens when you win a war, in this case WW 1. You believe that evrything you did then was right because the outcome ended in your favor. By contrast, if you lost that war, you change everything to not make the same mistakes twice, in very general terms.

The French hadn't won a war on their own in a long time. Without the British Expeditionary Force I think the Germans succeed in their flanking action through the Low Countries in WWI.

France has been bureaucratic for longer than any other country. The French Republic turned to it after Waterloo, even under Napoleon III and not without some good reasons. Regardless, since the dawn of the 20th century that Republic in its many forms has been unable to make a high level military decision without political bickering playing a much bigger part than military necessity. They also had a tendency before WWII to defer in all cases to seniority over a young officer with a new idea. That resulted over and over in Ultra Conservative thinking at the top, with many very good ideas and a lot of creativity going to waste or being used by other armies instead of theirs.

 

[Arsenal VG-33]

The French hadn't won a war on their own in a long time. Without the British Expeditionary Force I think the Germans succeed in their flanking action through the Low Countries in WWI.

Well, just to keep things in perspective, we haven't exactly won any wars all by ourselves either, not since the Span-Am war I think, unless we count the glorious action of Panama and Grenada as wars, and the Brits in the Falklands. As for WW 1, I remind you it was the French who stopped the Germans at the Marne, not the Brits, and the Belgian's were still in the fight too. A failure at the Marne could have easily meant that WW 1 ended in 1914, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. No one country was out to "save" the other - it was a concerted, Allied effort, but then I think we're straying off course with this.

France has been bureaucratic for longer than any other country. The French Republic turned to it after Waterloo, even under Napoleon III and not without some good reasons. Regardless, since the dawn of the 20th century that Republic in its many forms has been unable to make a high level military decision without political bickering playing a much bigger part than military necessity. They also had a tendency before WWII to defer in all cases to seniority over a young officer with a new idea. That resulted over and over in Ultra Conservative thinking at the top, with many very good ideas and a lot of creativity going to waste or being used by other armies instead of theirs.

Having lived there for parts of my life, and still do once in a while, I can agree that France it very much bureaucratic, much more so than us for example. However, given what you described, I would say that a stifling bureaucracy and structural inflexibility within the miltary is endemic to all countries in various degrees, including our own. Just look at all the signs the we missed leading up to the Pearl Harbour attack because of very symptoms you stated. If I'm not mistaken, there were also plenty of warnings from civilians and lowly GIs about large German movements in the Ardennes just prior to the Battle of the Bulge, so even during wartime there exists the possibility of superior officers overriding intelligence from their subordinates. I agree that such adherance to command rigidity exists, and that without wartime streamlining they will inevitably fail us at some point, but this is something most wealthy nations with professional armies encounter from time to time. In the case of France at the beginning of WW2, it was culmination of all of these bad qualities coming home to roost at the same time, and all at the wrong time at that. Fact of the matter is, it could have happened to any nation.

 

[Clay_Allison]

Well, just to keep things in perspective, we haven't exactly won any wars all by ourselves either, not since the Span-Am war I think, unless we count the glorious action of Panama and Grenada as wars, and the Brits in the Falklands. As for WW 1, I remind you it was the French who stopped the Germans at the Marne, not the Brits, and the Belgian's were still in the fight too. A failure at the Marne could have easily meant that WW 1 ended in 1914, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. No one country was out to "save" the other - it was a concerted, Allied effort, but then I think we're straying off course with this.



Having lived there for parts of my life, and still do once in a while, I can agree that France it very much bureaucratic, much more so than us for example. However, given what you described, I would say that a stifling bureaucracy and structural inflexibility within the miltary is endemic to all countries in various degrees, including our own. Just look at all the signs the we missed leading up to the Pearl Harbour attack because of very symptoms you stated. If I'm not mistaken, there were also plenty of warnings from civilians and lowly GIs about large German movements in the Ardennes just prior to the Battle of the Bulge, so even during wartime there exists the possibility of superior officers overriding intelligence from their subordinates. I agree that such adherance to command rigidity exists, and that without wartime streamlining they will inevitably fail us at some point, but this is something most wealthy nations with professional armies encounter from time to time. In the case of France at the beginning of WW2, it was culmination of all of these bad qualities coming home to roost at the same time, and all at the wrong time at that. Fact of the matter is, it could have happened to any nation.

It will happen to us sooner or later. The highest levels of the US military are starting to be dominated by politicians in uniform who are wrangling for retirement jobs with big time military contractors as lobbyists and consultants.

Just look at the billions and billions we waste on procurements with cost plus contracts paying for things we oftentimes never do anything with.