I was ignoring other countries. It is true that it wouldn’t be easy, but we can easily field far more state of the art combat craft than exist in the entire French air force. With our superior technology, we can knock them out very quickly. Air-defense missiles and AA guns aren’t a concern anymore: we have the ability to knock them out on the ground, before they get to fly. We can do so at night, from way above their AA range.
It means they can’t attack our fleets at sea. if we park outside their range, and launch night raids inland, we can take them out. With no carriers, they cannot retaliate.
Look, the US can beat them if we cared enough to. We have a huge military, technological, logistical, and industrial advantage. Its a matter of how much are we willing to pay to conquer France, not whether we can or not.
IMO, France surrendering in WWII has nothing to do with anything.
It’s not really fair applying several strategic mistakes by military experts to a whole nation, to wit: not building more of the Maginot Line, or not heavily reinforcing the flanks, and having no modern tank doctrine.* As I’ve said before, knowing all that, surrender probably saved lives. And, since Dunkirk went pretty well, there wasn’t much to be gained by fighting on.
What if Mexico suddenly rolled thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of mechanized infantry accross the border? We’d be damn surprised. Unlike France, we’d be able to geographically swallow --like Russia did–a large unit like that one. France couldn’t.
*At the time the US had proponents of the modern tank doctrine, but few tanks. France had many tanks, but lousy doctrine. This was a time when military philosophy was debating whether tanks were best used as the point of the spear for envelopment with mechanized infantry, and mechanized artillery (the panzer division or modern armored division), or for infantry support. France picked the last and wrong one, while Germany hadn’t.
As for the OP:
The French nuclear deterrent is more than enough for me to call the thing a draw and not fight. But, if it did come to blows, we’d lose some cities and lots of soldiers and sailors and France would be a smouldering wreck.
In order to do such things, you have to first establish air superiority. You’re using a circular reasonning by assuming that you already have the tremendous air superiority needed to establish a tremendous air superiority. It doesn’t make any sense.
My point was that in order to establish air superiority, you necessarily need a lot of aircrafts. And these aircrafts are based on the other side of the Atlantic. Not many of them are able to cross it, even including the possibility of refueling a limited number of planes which otherwise don’t have a sufficient range. IOW, you need to bring a lot of planes close to this side of the ocean. Either by using a nearby base, which would have to be provided by some neighboring country (and it means also that you’re able to protect this base until it’s actually operationnal) or use carriers. Look at the war in Irak and notice where most of the american planes are based.
Carriers aren’t intended to attack fleets at sea (and anyway, the US navy is so overwhelmingly powerful that the french fleet is absolutely not a match for it). But you seem to finally agree that you need carriers to bring planes within range.
Apart from that, your reasonning doesn’t make sense. If the carriers are close enough to the french territory for the planes to launch raids, then necessarily, the french planes based in said territory are also close enough to reach the carriers and, as you wrote it, “retaliate”. You can’t have it both way.
Beside, though I know nothing about air war, “retaliating” doesn’t seem to be sensible at first glance. Why would you want to attack the ennemy’s aircrafts where they’re are protected (around the carrier group) rather than attacking them where you are protected, and where your anti-aircraft assets are positionned, I mean over your territory or on their way to your territory?
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Look, the US can beat **them ** if we cared enough to. We have a huge military, technological, logistical, and industrial advantage. Its a matter of how much are we willing to pay to conquer France, not whether we can or no **
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Indeed, eventually, and if the US cared enough. But IMO, that would mean a massive military effort, backed by a massive popular support. Something more on the WWII scale than on the recent Irak war scale.
And of course, as already pointed out, the US wouldn’t beat anybody, since France would eventually use ICBMs. So, in realistic terms (assuming that a US/France war could be realistic), the victory would be over a vitrified country, at the cost of some dozen millions of american lives.
And concerning the “them”…since you’re adressing me, I’m going to remind you I’m one of “them”.
Read the book “Cauldron” by Larry Bond. It’s about a war between the US,UK and Eastern Europe against France/Germany, set in contemporary times. Good read, too.
I should probably start another thread. For that matter, I should probably take this to the Pit.
I’m trying not to be too much of a self-righteous hypocrite here, as I have a pretty rough sense of humor and often laugh at jokes that are, to put it mildly, insensitive and tasteless. I was a big National Lampoon fan back in the 70s when the magazine was still funny, and nobody ever accused the Lampoon of treading too lightly.
But I am SO damn tired of this.
In the First World War, the French bore the brunt of the fighting on the Western front, and it takes some truly weirded-out Bizarro world perspective to accuse the Frenchmen who suffered and died in the trenches of cowardice. Even when they mutinied, they were rebeling against the senseless and bloody tactics used by the high command. The vast majority of troops remained at their posts defending their country. In the Second World War, France’s defeat was due primarily to political chaos* and bad planning and/or outright incompetence on the part of the generals. The fall of France was * not * due to cowardice or incompetence on the part of the average French soldier.
Americans see the French as snooty and hypocritical, so we take some satisfaction in taking them down a peg or two by making nasty–and only occasionally witty–remarks about their supposed lack of prowess and valor on the battlefield.
But it’s been 'way, 'way overdone over the last several months, and it stopped being funny a long time ago.
And it fuckin’ * ain’t true. *
Now, can we * please * dispense with this business of disparaging the French as cowards?
*Probably too strong a word, but I’m in a rush and don’t have time to phrase it better.
