There were officers in the French and British armies who knew how to fight modern wars. The problem was they weren’t in overall command.
The allies had the troops. They had the officers. They had the tanks. They had the planes. They even had the knowledge of what should be done. But also had WWI relics at the top of the command chart.
Little Nemo you are mixing up ease of logistics in the theater with the logistic tail supporting in combat formations. It is the latter that is relevant to our discussions wrt the ease of logistics vis-a-via North Africa and NW Europe.
There had been a lot of fighting in the Middle East in WW1, fast maneuver warfare over great distances. That requires logistics units that are attached to the fighting formations and themselves are mobile. North Africa is basically the ME in this regard. All countries (except probably the Italians) had the infrastructure and the equipment in the place to support such warfare.
Moreover, they had something more important, they had done the staff work on supporting fast mobile formations.
Despite all this, the British logistics in N Africa proved to be hopelessly inadequate to support Eight Army in its operations until late '42.
Now you tell me how you expect to translate the equipment, infrastructure and staff officers needed to support such types of warfare into France in 1939 and oh by the way, do it in a fortnight.
The war in China had plenty of movement, over quite long distances, by the standards of the ‘Western Front’ (Northern France/Benelux in either WW). It’s around 500 km by road from the Belgian/German border in the Ardennes to Sedan then sweeping up to Boulogne on the English Channel, the path of the wing Pz. divisions in May 1940.
It’s five times that far from Beijing to the Dongting Lake area via Shanghai, or the rough main course of the Japanese advance in the initial phase of that war from summer 1937 to fall 1938. It took longer, but plenty of movement.
But as Dupuy pointed out in “Numbers, Predictions and War”, the German advance to near Moscow in 1941 was slower per day than the French one all the way there in 1812. The speed of military advances, especially longer ones, was clearly not a direct function of the road speed of trucks (which of course vastly outnumbered AFV’s in mechanized armies) v animal wagons (besides which a lot of the transport of the infantry bulk of the 1941 German Army was animal drawn wagons, if modern ones than 1812).
The war in China was strategically stalemated by Japan’s inability to get the Nationalist govt to give up in the face of huge losses of men and territory (somewhat similarly to Germany’s failure in the USSR in 1941-42), though the Nationalists had limited ability and political will to take territory back (unlike the USSR in 1943-45). Japanese campaigns in China from 1939-43 also often involved relatively deep penetrations, or outflanking by sea, of Chinese positions, they just tended to eventually find the additional gains too costly to hold onto. The final series of Japanese offensives in China from spring '44 to early '45 advanced another 1000+km from the Dongting Lake area to near the Vietnamese border, when the last gasp German attempt to replay the 1940 campaign advanced <100km into US positions in the Ardennes.
The Western Allies were also stalemated for long periods in Italy, and from late August 1944 to February 1945 generally along Germany’s border (as were the Soviets on the other side for a similar period). The relationship between movement and the particular technology of AFV’s, or even the concept of armored operations, can easily be overstated. It was one factor but there were other important factors.
True. But you cannot just convert logistics designed for large, mostly static or slow moving formations to those for armoured or maneuver formations. The later need to have organic logostic units or at least logistic units attached to them to be able to operate, and you cannot simply up and say you supply guys, you now go with the tankers, without having done significant staff work beforehand.
And I think you’re greatly overestimating the effects logistics would have had in this hypothetical offensive. It would not have been a logistically challenging battle.
Look at Poland if you want a relevant example. Did logistics hold up the German conquest of Poland? Keep in mind the Germans faced a more difficult logistic situation in Poland than the French would have faced in Germany.
The same comparison holds for troop levels. The French had a larger superiority of men and equipment over the Germans in the west than the Germans had over the Poles.
So France could have done to Germany what Germany historically did to Poland.
Just wanted to address this part.
The steam rolling in spring 1940 was mostly due to a failure of french leadership.
They had armor and ATG’s that the nazi forces simply could not contend with outside of having a mule drag up an 88.
They had this castle defense mindset, and hung it all on defending the static Maginot line which did not even cover the Belgium border.
ala WWI with better seating.
Had they planned differently there would be no blitzkrieg.
They had tanks deployed in the rear or in depots or not at all in some cases, and they did not set up to be able to quickly mobilize anything.
Their Char B1 bis, at the time, was an unstoppable behemoth, only a few made it into combat, but the few that did left a lasting impression on the axis forces.
Their small R35 was a little pill box, heavily armored for it’s time and better gunned than the PZII
The S35 was a wonderful and speedy cavalry tank, quick decent armor, good gun.
Even the FT17’s while pretty old, would have been well suited for attacking infantry, transports and soft or lightly armed units, if deployed out properly.
There are other units as well, the panhard, H35/H40 etc.
Axis forces rolled through france in mostly paper tanks simply because someone was busy playing castle defense with their pants down, they had no strategic reserves set up, nothing that was in reserves was anyplace you could use it. realistically they (the axis) should have been beating a hasty retreat back through the Ardennes shot to pieces.
Should have let de Gaulle run the show.
As far as soldiers and equipment, the french were bad asses in may 1940, their leadership, not so much.
In these fun hypotheticals, it think it’s important not to change the fundamental beliefs of strategic footings of the actors. Hitler never wanted a war with Great Britain, and viewed Germany and Great Britain as would be allies. He always felt that the Soviet Union would need to be destroyed. These beliefs were central to Hitler and weren’t subject to change.
True. To the degree Hitler had a coherent vision for the future, he imagined the world divided up into a handful of empires. Japan would rule Eastern Asia, The United States would rule the Americas, and Britain would rule most of Africa and maybe India and Australia (depending on Hitler’s feelings towards Japan). Germany would be the most powerful country on Earth and would rule Europe, either directly in the east or through satellite regimes in the west.
Not sure whether you’re agreeing or disagreeing with my post, but I do agree that Hitler would much have preferred to avoid war with Britain. However, once Germany was at war with Britain, and once it became clear - after the British destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940 - that it would not come to terms with Germany, Hitler decided the only way to force the UK out of the war would be to crush the USSR. From p. 491 of The Deadly Embrace, Anthony Read & David Fisher, 1988:
Of course, the essential idiocy of creating a two-front war in the hopes of avoiding a two-front war(!), might even have been eclipsed if the Allies had followed through on their even stupider idea of bombing Baku. Even the thick veil of Hitler’s racist paranoia would have been pierced by such an action. In such circumstances, I find it inconceivable that Hitler would strike eastward now that the British question had been definitively “answered”. The Soviets would do little if any damage to the British homeland, but would likely make great gains in the Middle East and South and Central Asia at Britain’s expense. In the meantime, the Germans would have been free to focus their energies on developing the naval and air forces that would allow them to finally effectively strangle and starve the British into submission. At the same time, the British would be unable to use their most effective traditional method of warfare - naval blockade - against a Germany that was brought to its knees in the First World War by such means, as their diplomatic/economic ties with the USSR - which would undoubtedly be strengthened in case of an Allied attack - already rendered them essentially blockade-proof in our reality. (Note that the RAF was not capable of mounting large bombing raids on Germany until well into '42.)
From pp. 442-3 of The Deadly Embrace:
I’ll repeat. The Germans had dedicated logistic unit which traveled alongside the Panzergruppes and permitted them to stay in combat for several days and move quickly. The French did not. The German Panzers could be unleashed and move fast without waiting for their logistics tail to catch up. The French, even when in the later days of the Battle of France they made armoured divisions could not, see the operations of 4e Division cuirassee. They required support from the Army and Army Group logistics areas, who could not supply them as fast as needed.
To have organization capable of carrying out German-style operations, the French needed months of preparation, and probably some field exercises. By the time they were finished doing that, the Battle in Poland would be over.
I agree with much of your post, not this portion however.
Hitler didn’t care how Britain viewed his relations with the Soviet Union. The vast lands to the east were his for the taking. He would reduced the population to nothing more than barely educated slave labor and make the old Soviet Union a vast farm land for Germans who would run what was left. That was his first goal and it didn’t come about due to any issues, pro or con, with Great Britain. A minor point perhaps, but that is where you and I slightly disagree.
Ever since positive alliances with Prussia and Great Britain before the unification of Germany, a succession of Germany statesmen have made attempts, been rebuffed, and have then be surprised by the lack of desire of Britain to ally themselves with Germany. From Bismarck, to the Kaiser, to Hitler, they all felt that an alliance with Britain was natural and beneficial, and have been perplexed to varying degrees why Britain hadn’t felt the same way. To that end, I concur (with an admittedly minority opinion) that Hitler let the British off the hook at Dunkirk in an effort to gain that alliance.
I would argue that conquering extensive territories at the expense of the USSR was Hitler’s ultimate goal, but not his first goal. How could it be otherwise? He made an economic and diplomatic pact with the Soviets, and his forces invaded the lands of nine other nations before finally turning to the East.
That it was his ultimate goal, from which he would not be substantially deterred - no matter how illogical its implementation - is demonstrated from Halder’s quote I mentioned in my earlier post. I agree with you (as did Halder) that war with the UK was not a significant factor in the planning for Barbarossa. However, in the case of the hypothetical to which I was responding (the actual implementation of Operation Pike), I cannot realistically envision Germany turning on the USSR before the UK was down for the count.
Aside from the whole land-side of the logistics issue which you and Little Nemo are addressing, there’s also the matter of air power. The transfer of troops from Poland to the Rhine would be measured in days; the transfer of aircraft, in hours. At that time, in '39, the Luftwaffe was the most powerful air force in the world, with combat tactics learnt from the Condor Legion’s experiences in Spain’s civil war. When the actual Battle of France occurred, the Allied air forces performed on the whole quite poorly compared to their German counterparts, losing over 1,000 more aircraft than they did. I can’t see French advances deep into German territory in '39 without effective air cover, leaving aside all the other land logistics previously discussed.
That is, however, 33 days in which the war is moving into Germany.
Perhaps most important relative to what the OP was asking, an Allied offensive means that the Allies are fighting at times and places of their choosing. The Germans oculd have put together a most spirited and effective defense, but it would have been a defense - not the carefully planned Blitzkrieg they unleashed in May 1940. The war would have gone very, very differently. An Allied offensive wouldn’t have captured Germany and would likely have been bloody and pointless, but it significantly disrupts Germany’s plans and totally alters the political side of the war. History is irretrievably changed.
…Saar Offensivenot good enough for you? 
I can see little support politically for any offensive which becomes a long and bloody meat grinder. Which is what happened.
The French had huge trouble getting heavy weapons to where they needed in the actual offensive in September 1939. I don’t know how you and Little Nemo are going to explain away the logistic difficulties.
And I’ll repeat myself again. The French Army was not as helpless as you seem to believe it was. They had a staff organization too. Logistics wasn’t some unique skill that only the Germans knew how to do.
Was the French supply system as good as the German supply system? Probably not. But it would have been far more than was needed for the campaign. Let me point out once again that if the French had attacked across the border in the opening weeks of the war, they would have been fighting an army that was one fifth their size and had no available tanks, artillery, or airplanes. That discrepancy would have more than made up for any minor weakness in the logistic train.
Hitler stripped Germany’s western border to send everything to Poland. After the war, German generals admitted they wouldn’t have been able to defend against any serious French offensive. Hitler’s gamble was that France wouldn’t make a serious attack and he won.
I’ve no disagreement with anything you’ve posted here. As I noted earlier, the Germans were really lucky the way things worked out for them on the Western Front. And I also think it would have saved millions of lives, probably, if the Allies had made a vigorous attack into Germany in '39. But I think that is more the result of a relative stalemate setting in - I can’t envision a realistic scenario for France, essentially, defeating Germany in '39, as some have proposed in this thread.
Yes, the shitbag you’ve alluded to here did indeed claim this at Nuremberg. I’d argue that he had a strong motive of self-preservation here, as he was trying to diminish his responsibility in an (unsuccessful) attempt to avoid the hangman’s noose.
Jodl wasn’t the only one who said this. General Siegfried Westphal also testified that the Germans would have been defeated by a strong offensive in 1939. And he was testifying as a witness not a defendant