France fights on - better or worse for the Nazi Germany?

[Thumpalumpacus]

No, but WW2 accomplished what I'm suggesting a war with Italy in 1933 might have: the reformation of the French military. For starters, perhaps they'd skip having six entirely separate single-seat fighter programs enter service between 1938 and 1940.

Could France make due with just two fighters?

France had six entirely distinct single-seat, single-engine, monoplane fighter programs in production between 1936 to 1940. Bloch MB.150. Specified 1934. First flight 1937. Introduced 1939. Morane-Saulnier M.S.406. Specified 1934. (same as the MB.150). First flight 1938. Introduced 1938...

ww2aircraft.net

That is not what cost the French the war. What cost them the war was the poor morale and training of their army, which was due in large part to the politics of the Third Republic. I remember reading somewhere that France had 30 governments between 1919 and 1940.

That problem is not going to be fixed by a war with Italy. It bespeaks deep divisions in the body politic. Because the French Army was conscript, those divisions were introduced into the army itself.

 

[Jagdflieger]

France fights on from September away from the metropolitan France.

Okay, that would mean the Vichy government would have come into existence, or it would have but rebelled against Germany in e.g. September.
In any case Hitler would have insisted on 14 of June onto the surrender/handover of the French fleet. (resulting in the known British action)

If the French would have expedited less then 50,000 soldiers from France to North Africa - Hitler wouldn't have bothered.
If we talk about 100,000 plus this would have drained French resistance in metropolitan France to an extend that might have enabled Hitler to take on Paris a month earlier and would have had probably a disastrous effect for the BEF and the attached French forces. (not being able to reach Dunkirk or Hitler making a different decision onto the BEF and French forces pocketed at Dunkirk)
Italy would have been at war with France till 14th of June. Since those three "axis allies" never consulted or informed each other towards impending own actions I would leave Italy and Japan out of any possible action towards this scenario.
Hitler due to the Vichy "betrayal" would have occupied Southern France within 3-4 weeks (no French army being there).
This in turn might have played Franco Spain far more into Hitlers hands then with Hitler having a Vichy in-between. (an alliance could have been born with a disastrous impact onto the Mediterranean for the British and the remaining French forces in North-Africa)

Independent of a added Franco-Hitler alliance - the total takeover of France would IMO have had no effect onto the historical timeline towards attacking the Soviet-Union, since Hitler was sure about his impending total victory over the Soviet-Union anyway.

 

[Shortround6]

The 6 so called fighter programs actually cover a number of years and were no really simultaneous.

The D 520 and Arsenal 39 were more replacements for the MS 406 than actual rivals. Except that French industry and the government dropped the ball and didn't get the MS 406 into service before it became obsolete.
The Caudron 714 was bad joke. A prime example of the waste of time that light fighters were. Blame it in the politicians looking for cheap solutions.
The Koolhoven 58 was not really a French program but more of a panic buy because they hadn't sorted out French manufacture yet.


A major problem for the French that has not been addressed was that the French were trying wage 20th century warfare with 19th century communications.
Dispatch riders, even using motorcycles instead of horses, were not going to take the place of radios.
Their pace of operations was much too slow to respond to movement warfare.
They also depended on the regular phone system instead of using an army field phone system.
And since the regular phone system has hardly a model of speed or efficiency everything bogged down.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Okay, that would mean the Vichy government would have come into existence....

What we need is a French government in exile that is recognized by the French forces and Wallies as such. Same as the Dutch, that allowed its troops overseas to fight on. We need to make Vichy irrelevant.

 

[tomo pauk]

I haven't looked up the answers.

Where were the French factories for weapons and ammunition production? In Metropolitan France or in rural France?
The majority at any rate.

Do the French abandon motor transport or cut down on it significantly?
The French were not close to being fully motorized anyway but movement of heavy weapons is a lot easier with tractors than with horses.
What is the road network in rural France?
Better than Russian but not so good as metropolitan France?
Rail net works?

A formal front line or some sort of intense guerilla operation?

you could be using up scores of tons of ammo per day per division.

Metropolitan France = France as we know it today, or 'the hexagon' + Corsica, or the Eurpean france. The French don't fight there per the 'France fights on' scenarios, they fight in Africa, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, later Indochina if Jpan comes in knocking.

 

[Shortround6]

Metropolitan France = France as we know it today, or 'the hexagon' + Corsica, or the Eurpean france. The French don't fight there per the 'France fights on' scenarios, they fight in Africa, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, later Indochina if Jpan comes in knocking.

In that case you are rather limited to manpower and supplies.
The French did get some aircraft out of southern France to NA, They were trying to get some more out but the plan to fit aux fuel tanks was discovered.

Basically all you have is the navy and an air force of diminishing French material content as the Allies (as time permits) supply replacements.

Allies (Britain and the Commonwealth) supply fuel, ammo and parts until the US comes on board.
That or you reshuffle things. Any oil holdings of the French that went to the allies in 1940 stay with the French?

Total amount of oil stays the same?

The French had no overseas colonies that can manufacture even small amounts of aircraft or tanks or engines (even truck engines).
The French Navy may very well counter the Italians. However since that was it's main function it ships are not suited for high intensity ASW nor are most of them suited for long convoy runs.

French ships use guns of non standard calibers so the ammo factories have to make special runs of ammo.

The navy is useful but not what is wanted for world wide deployment.

Intense use of air assets is going to see them decrease fairly rapidly.

Even if the French got 2-3 divisions of troops out of France in the last week or two are they in one place or scattered about. Are they actually going to make a real difference or just increase the effect of the FNFL somewhat as rallying cry political force postwar.

 

[tomo pauk]

<snip>

Appreciate the post, however the theme is this: France fights on - better or worse for the Nazi Germany?
In other words: will the Nazi Germany - who are the main character of this story, not the French - have it easier (need to wrap up the, now, Anglo-French opposition gets them focused on Med and Atlantic, instead on fighting the BoB and, in 1941, Soviet Union) or harder (they still do either BoB and Op Barbarossa, or both)?

 

[Shortround6]

Appreciate the post, however the theme is this: France fights on - better or worse for the Nazi Germany?
In other words: will the Nazi Germany - who are the main character of this story, not the French - have it easier (need to wrap up the, now, Anglo-French opposition gets them focused on Med and Atlantic, instead on fighting the BoB and, in 1941, Soviet Union) or harder (they still do either BoB and Op Barbarossa, or both)?

Well, it does sort of depend on what the French can actual do or not do.
French fleet leaves harbors and sails directly to British ports/bases and then helps the British smash the Italian fleet and effort in NA in the Summer/Fall of 1940 and we have two different responses from the Germans. Ignore the Italian Mediterranean problem and carry on to Russia or slow down and divert enough resources to keep Italy in the war while Germany carries on into Russia

France didn't have the resources to make a huge difference to the U-boat campaign.
Yes they had a bit under 70 destroyers total (and darn few escorts) . How many can be used in the Atlantic vs how many need to kept in the Med or Indian Ocean?

Most French destroyers were designed for the Med and not Atlantic conditions. Many French destroyers were not fitted with asdic as built and like some British destroyers, had to land a set of torpedo tubes and/or main gun to increase light AA and hold more depth charges.
If the British are limited to the number of conversions they can do due to dock yard space then the French ships don't change things that much ( 20 or more French ships take the place of 20-30 of the US WW I four stackers?).
Do the French battleships take over for the British BBs on convoy duties and let the RN attack the Italians? Or the British park a few more BBs just out of range of the German airplanes for operation Sea Lion?

Even a few hundred aircraft more departing France for England doesn't do much for the BoB let alone a few hundred planes sitting in Algeria. (that need fuel, ammo, bombs and parts to fight the Italians in NA in the late summer and fall of 1940.)

How the Germans react depends on what the French can actually realistically do.

Can the French help the Greeks kick the Italians out of Albania? 3 divisions of French troops without any tanks, without artillery, without AA and lacking much in the way of radios may not take the place of the British expeditionary force.

It is not enough to say the "French are going to fight on" without knowing what they can do. Once the change in allied capabilities is assessed then possible changes in German plans can be guessed at.

 

[tomo pauk]

It is not enough to say the "French are going to fight on" without knowing what they can do. Once the change in allied capabilities is assessed then possible changes in German plans can be guessed at.

Germans can't asses the Allied capabilities. We can't make a fail-proof assessment of that even today.
What they know for a fact is that French will be fighting, granted on the periphery as far as they are concerned. That is far greater difference vs. what historically happened, than it will be a notion of whether French AA guns can elevate to 85 deg instead of to 75 deg, or even whether they will be fielding another squadron of Hawks or not.

 

[Shortround6]

Germans can't asses the Allied capabilities. We can't make a fail-proof assessment of that even today.
What they know for a fact is that French will be fighting, granted on the periphery as far as they are concerned. That is far greater difference vs. what historically happened, than it will be a notion of whether French AA guns can elevate to 85 deg instead of to 75 deg, or even whether they will be fielding another squadron of Hawks or not.

Some of the French did fight, that was fact. Now the question becomes would enough more fight to change the German plans.

Over 100,000 French soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk. Many were sent back to France.

" However, almost 192,000 Allied personnel, including 144,000 British, were evacuated through various French ports from 15 to 25 June under the codename Operation Aerial"

The Germans may not have known how many of the French (and other troops) that got out of France actually joined the Free French (3,000?) or how many got out of the south of France in June.

What they should have strongly suspected (based on the vehicles and equipment along the road ways and last defensive positions) that these tens of thousands of men posed little danger to the Germans for a number of months to come.

It is not like a French Army of 100-200,000 men were hold up near the Pyrenees mountains with stock piles of food and ammunition for 155mm guns and howitzers. Something that would take months for 10-20 German divisions to deal with.

200,000 Frenchmen in England (or North Africa) with rifles they carried and whatever ammo was in their pouches (and few LMGs) are going to take months to sort out and reequip before they would be an effective force. The Germans were actually pretty good at basic logistics. They would know this stuff. And make plans accordingly.

Somewhat the same with Aircraft. They had been fighting them for months, they had a pretty good idea what the French aircraft could do and what they couldn't do (so what if they guess wrong about the range by 20%) They had also been taking pictures of French airfields and had at least some idea of how many planes the French had, especially after they overran a fair number of them. Most any planes that escaped to NA by flying across the Mediterranean were not going to be coming back. That just leaves the ones that escaped to England.

the Navy is the big unknown. Especially if the Germans are working on operation Sea Lion. However this isn't quite as hard as it appears. The German fleet after Norway is in German repair yards in wholesale quantities. The British don't need a single French ship to wipe out operation Sea Lion.
French Fleet would be useful in other areas though. Not sure the Germans really thought about what stronger French fleet in the French Indo-China would do at the end of 1941 or if they carried in 1940.
French fleet was a concern for the Italians, not the Germans.

An announcement that the French forces around the world would fight the Germans was to be expected from certain quarters. But once again, there is a difference between announcements and actually being able to do something.
The British actually had small arms factories in Canada, Australia, South Africa and India. They had ammunition plants. They had small artillery factories in several countries. And artillery shell factories. Not what they had in Britain but an announcement that the British would keep fighting after Britain was invaded had a bit more weight. The French had little or no back up to equip armies from their colonies.

 

[Jagdflieger]

What we need is a French government in exile that is recognized by the French forces and Wallies as such. Same as the Dutch, that allowed its troops overseas to fight on. We need to make Vichy irrelevant.

As you know, the reason for the French government aka Petain to ask for an armistice was to stop France from being entirely conquered and it's infrastructure successively mostly destroyed by the Wehrmacht. But an armistice would let them keep almost 50% of France to the French themselves - administratively and to their way of life.
Hitler in turn liked the idea of freezing his low losses (great for the home propaganda) and to declare victory over France after just 6 weeks towards the German population.

Then you had a Charles de Gaulle (at the time more or less a political nobody) who disagreed with this idea and formed the Free French. Who more or less did nothing of significance till the Americans entered North-Africa. If the French would have been bend onto keeping up the fight - de Gaulle had more then 2 years to inspire them in North-Africa and elsewhere, but again nothing happened till US boots showed up. (and initially at some places even being shot at by the French).

So to bring up this scenario of the French wanting to keep up the fight via sending large parts of their Army to North-Africa whilst still fighting the Germans would demand a change of the prevailing French mindset of the time - now would that be a realistic assumption? I think rather not.

As such IMO there would only be the "possibility" of de Gaulle "inspiring" Vichy France to take up again resistance towards Germany in e.g. September 1940. (with at the time still a million? or more French POW's being held in Germany). But in case of a Vichy revolution, the situation would have been most likely as I described in my previous post, which might have resulted into a far better prospect for Hitler in regards to the Mediterranean and Franco-Spain.

Maybe I am not suitable for a scenario - that implies the French to fight to the last man in metropolitan France in order to carry on military resistance from North-Africa with 100,000+
men being transported there during their heroic stand against the Wehrmacht.
If so, then wouldn't a heroic defense/resistance having been rather carried out from Southern-France aided by those French troops already stationed in North-Africa and elsewhere?

 

[Peter Gunn]

The wise ones didn't see the demise of Repulse and Prince of Wales. I doubt the French would have fared better, especially in port.

Not sure who the "wise ones" are that you're referring to, but an added squadron of French warships would have to be taken seriously by the Japanese at the time. Sure, WE can poo poo the AA capabilities of a 1940-41 warship, but that's rather 20/20 hindsight I would say. Granted I believe the Phillips knew that without air cover he was taking a BIG risk but I think counted on his AA suite and maneuverability to keep air attacks at bay.

 

[Shortround6]

Not sure who the "wise ones" are that you're referring to, but an added squadron of French warships would have to be taken seriously by the Japanese at the time. Sure, WE can poo poo the AA capabilities of a 1940-41 warship, but that's rather 20/20 hindsight I would say

Yes and no. It may depend on which French warships and how many.

The 20/20 hindsight didn't have to be all that clear, or in fact use any hindsight at all.

HMS Renown. Not sure of the date of the picture but the major AA guns were as the refit completed in Aug of 1939 had them. Refit was 3 years and cost £3,088,008 so somebody was using fore sight. 20 4.5in guns it ten twin turrets/mounts with 400 rpg (8000 rounds of heavy AA ammo) , four high angle gun directors and three octuple 2pdr guns.

Over two years later the Repulse was sent to the far east with a grand total of six (yes six) 4in AA guns in manual mounts and had two octuple mounts. The Renown may have had twice the number of rpg of 2pdr ammo and had 50% more barrels. The British did have some idea of what a decent AA battery was, they didn't have enough money or dock yard space to implement it. The Queen Elizabeth and Valiant both had gotten AA suites in the late 30s very similar to the Renown so it wasn't a one off.

After the Campaign in Norway, Dunkirk, almost a 1 and 1/2 years in the Med and actions off Greece and Crete it should NOT have taken a crystal ball to figure out what a poor AA suite was and what at least acceptable (The Repulse was not). Too many lives had already been lost and ships sunk. We don't need the results of 1942-43 to figure that out.
Putting 3rd rate ships in areas where enemy aircraft were likely and not to be at severe risk goes back to the definition of insanity. "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

The French ships, mostly, had much poorer AA than the British ships. It took four French 37mm barrels to put as many shells into the air as a single 2pdr barrel for example.

Granted I believe the Phillips knew that without air cover he was taking a BIG risk but I think counted on his AA suite and maneuverability to keep air attacks at bay.

The Prince of Wales might be excused. It's AA suite had not been tested (or not much) and we have to use the 20/20 hindsight to figure out the flaws in it's battery, There were some but since nobody had anything any better (yet) we give the PoW a pass.
The Repulse carried the AA of a light cruiser (Southampton) on a battleship sized hull.

At Crete the British had lost to airpower 3 cruisers and 6 destroyers, and suffered Damage to 1 Aircraft carrier, 2 battleships, 4 cruisers, 2 destroyers and a submarine. (the York was hit by Italian explosive motor boats). Claiming that the Japanese attacks were a "surprise" or claiming that because no battleship had been sunk at sea by airpower until that time that it was OK to operate battleships without air cover is not convincing.

Wiki;
Warspite
"During the Battle of Crete, Warspite was used as a floating anti-aircraft battery and[71]​ like many other ships, suffered severe damage from German air attacks on 22 May.[72]​ A 500 lb bomb damaged her starboard 4-inch and 6-inch batteries,[73]​ ripped open the ship's side and killed 38 men.[74]​ The attack was carried out by Jagdgeschwader 77 (JG 77—Fighter Wing 77). Oberleutnant Kurt Ubben, a future flying ace with 110 enemy aircraft shot down, claimed a hit on the warship.[75]​ She was able to make it back to port under her own steam, but the damage could not be repaired in Alexandria and it was decided that she would have to be sent to Bremerton on the west coast of the United States.[76]"​

Barham
" While covering the evacuation of Crete the following day, the ship was attacked by Junkers Ju 88 bombers from II./LG (Demonstration Wing) 1 and Heinkel He 111 bombers of II./KG (Bomber Wing) 26. One 250-kilogram (550 lb) bomb struck 'Y' turret and started a fire inside the turret that took 20 minutes to quench. A near miss ruptured her portside bulge over an area 20 by 16 feet (6.1 by 4.9 m) and caused a 1.5 degree list that was easily corrected by pumping oil. Casualties were five dead and six wounded. She reached Alexandria later that day, but she was too large for the floating dock there and had to be sent elsewhere for repairs. She sailed south through the Suez Canal to Mombasa, Kenya, where her damage was inspected. It proved to be worse than expected and Barham had to be repaired at Durban, South Africa, as she was unfit to make the trans-Atlantic crossing for repair in the United States.[86]​ Repairs were completed six weeks later on 30 July and the ship returned to Alexandria in August where she resumed her role as flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron.[54 "​​

even 500-550lbs bombs could pose considerable risk. ​​

 

[Shortround6]

The RN did it's job and got many, many soldier's back from places like Dunkirk and Crete despite taking losses.
Ship design was almost always a trade off, you can't put every thing you want on the deck (or under it) or the ship will tip over.
If you want more AA you need to take off something, like a surface gun, or set or torpedo tubes or depth charges, sometimes more than one thing.
They also had factories working 24/7 trying to make enough guns to refit the old the ships while equipping the new ships.
There was never enough time or factory space.
The Captains and crews often fought with substitute weapons because there wasn't anything else and they went back and fought again the next day and the next week and the next month and.................

That is one reason to try to get things done right because people are going to die trying to used old obsolete weapons. And often more people died because they had to keep using the old weapons because they didn't dare loose production of a barely adequate gun while they changed over to the new/ better design/s.

Not airplanes or ships but the British had the drawings for the 6pdr AT gun in 1938. Imagine a few hundred of them in NA in 1940-41.