I was surprised once reading an old article. It was written during the 30s by an obviously anti-fascist author. What surprised me is that despite his loathing for the fascist regimes, he was stating that they had done great in their countries and he was wondering what exactly they were doing right and so well that should be emulated by democracies. His rather moderate tone was quite surprising, since even when making an effort not to, we tend to project our views on people of the past, and expect some level of hate or at least utter defiance, at least from the declared political ennemies of fascism.
I was surprised once reading an old article. It was written during the 30s by an obviously anti-fascist author. What surprised me is that despite his loathing for the fascist regimes, he was stating that they had done great in their countries and he was wondering what exactly they were doing right and so well that should be emulated by democracies. His rather moderate tone was quite surprising, since even when making an effort not to, we tend to project our views on people of the past, and expect some level of hate or at least utter defiance, at least from the declared political ennemies of fascism.
France probably had a better army but they spent a great deal of money on fixed-place defensive infrastructure. These assets (the Maginot Line) were not mobile. Instead of engaging this defensive line Germany simply went around them through Belgium.
One of the finest weapons developed in WW-II was the Junkers JU 87 used in the blitzkrieg. They could advance quickly using precision bombing to destroy assets that had traditionally required heavy engagement.
The Stucca Bomber was a brilliant design concept that didn’t require a lot of resources to construct. It’s literally a couple of panels full of holes (dive brakes) and a system that auto recovered from the dive independent of the pilot.
They’re more eager to increase their spending than America is.
Macron: Let’s create a European Army!
45: NOOOO! That’s insulting! How dare you propose to increase defense spending when we asked you to increase defense spending?
I was referring to the German reoccupation of the Rhineland in '36. Germany’s military grew considerably stronger later on, but in 1936 was vulnerable to a determined effort by France to enforce terms of the Versailles Treaty.
Perhaps after reading Mein Kampf, the world thought is was some kind of elaborate joke.
I mean, really. How could anyone take that drivel seriously?
Most countries besides the US ARE also taking steps. Small countries like Vietnam, Phillipines, Japan and all are improving to counter China. In Europe you have countries like Poland, Norway, and others, even little Denmark, are also beefing up to counter Russia.
Quite frankly I also feel this is why so many countries have troops in Afghanistan, to give their soldiers real fighting experience.
Its advanced Jumo inverted engine is still studied today.
Nitpick, but it’s “Stuka,” a shortening of a long German word for “dive bomber.”
The Stuka was a good plane for what it did, but everyone had dive bombers, and when in a less favorable situation (like the Battle of Britain) the Stuka was alarmingly ineffective. Stukas were very slow, which made it hard to escort them, and without escort they were utterly doomed against capable fighter opposition. By mid august the Luftwaffe had to largely withdraw them from the battle because the losses were unsustainable. What is of course striking about that is they’d performed so well just months before against, in part, the British, but placed in a situation where control of the air was seriously contested, they were being torn to shreds. Luftwaffe losses were extremely high anyway, of course - they lost almost two thousand aircraft, a huge percentage of their total force - but the Ju-87 was notably ineffective compared to its losses.
What gave the German army the advantage in the Battle of France was their doctrine, aggression, and willingness to win; the French army lacked all three. Overall the Germans had no significant technological advantages; the Allies had tanks, planes and artillery that matched the Germans in a technical sense.
Just to add that the Stuka DID have one unique feature - its terrifying siren shrieking as it descended to its (hapless) target. A pretty effective psychological weapon.
Yes the Stukas were slow but they were far superior to other dive bombers and could be used as a precision weapon. And the Germans entered the war with a superior array of weapons. What they lacked was a method of replacing those weapons faster then they were destroyed which is what the Allies had. It’s tough to fight against an alliance that can build 1 heavy bomber an hour without risk of being bombed.
If the Germans had the capacity to build weapons in greater numbers it would have been a much costlier war.
FWIW, the French had some utterly mistaken assumptions about the nature of the war and how it might be executed. They began with the belief that the tactics and outcomes would be mostly similar to WWI, and that the quantity of their troops was more important than their quality (Wrong). They also had great confidence in the Maginot Line as a deterrent (Perhaps right) and believed the Ardennes would be impassable (Very wrong).
However, the French geopolitical situation worked against them. They gained Alsace and Lorraine in WWI, and these became vital industrial centers that were extremely vulnerable to German attack (or counterattack). This made the French unwilling to risk provoking the Germans. The also had problems with Belgium. The Belgians were likewise risk averse and threw out the 1920 defense pact in favor of public neutrality. Combined with their belief that the Ardennes was impassable, we see that (A) the French did not want to attack Germany in the first place and (B) even if they did, there was no good way by which they might do so. And once it became obvious that war was inevitable, the French could not arm and mobilize fast enough.
TLDR, the geographic and political situation did not favor the French. They were not willing to accept the risks nor the costs associated with offensive action. Belgium made stupid decisions that limited her options, Britain could not unilaterally invade Germany even if they wanted to and was therefore constrained by the same problems.
For ground forces, they really weren’t superior technically.
My post upthread is just a hint of their struggles with armor forces compared to western allies. They fielded fewer tanks with less armor protection. Even their best were armed with a 37mm anti-tank gun that was obsolescent and struggled against the frontal armor of big chunks of their UK and French opponents. The PzIII had some capability to be upgunned and was as operations in North Africa proceeded. Its turret ring was too small to enable going larger than the 50mm gun that kept it competitive with other early war tanks before fading into light tank/reconnaisance roles. The Czech made Pz38(t)s, along with the 37mm gun issue, suffered from brittle steel used in it’s armor. That made it less effective at resisting penetration and more prone to spalling fragments into the crew even when shots failed to penetrate. German armor did tend to feature superior sights. Along with dedicated gunners and loaders that let their well trained forces shoot faster and more accurately minimizing the lack of armor and gun power. Their focus on including radios also improved the ability of their well trained troops to react quickly as units. German tanks were well suited to their troops overcoming their relative disadvantage against generally more capable and more numerous armor.
German anti-tank guns to support the infantry were also based on the same obsolescent 37mm gun. The famed 88mm anti-aircraft gun use against armor was still limited due to small numbers of guns fielded. The early variants were also at a disadvantage because they were an anti-aircraft gun. The mount was higher to allow high elevation shots leaving them more exposed to return fire. Early variants didn’t have a gun shield to help protect the crew from small arms and shell fragments coming from the front. It was a great gun if it could be used to maximize it’s long-range lethality. If the terrain didn’t allow that, it’s anti-aircraft focus put it at a disadvantage and pushed the effort back onto the more numerous 37mm.
The Battle of Arras, while a limited German victory, puts the differences for the mechanized fight into pretty clear focus. Superior French Somua S35s and British Matilda IIs counterattacked against numerically superior German forces. The combination of German tanks and anti-tank guns were generally outclassed at the point of attack with predictable initial results. The Germans were able to exploit superior doctrine, superior training, 88mm AAA in improvised anti-tank screens, and poor Allied planning to stop the attack. They did it despite generally inferior equipment.
I’d like to add that Germany’s biggest innovation for armor was not technical but organizational.
Germany’s armored warfare doctrine was cutting edge and their MTOE reflected a strategic change in thinking. The French thought of tanks as being infantry support vehicles, and organized them as such. The idea was that they would follow the infantry around to provide heavy firepower, or lead attacks with the infantry following through breaches (similar to WWI tactics). This meant their tank units had to be task-organized with the infantry companies or platoons they supported.
Germany introduced the Panzer Division. They had entire units of tanks acting independently, with their supporting forces mechanized or motorized to keep up with the pace of the tanks. This allowed them to move faster, strike harder, and exploit gains more rapidly. The French were wholly unprepared for the new German doctrine.
Yes, as I said, the French were better armed. but the German technological advances in aviation and rocketry were substantial as was their Navy. But not only did they lack the capacity to exploit their technological advancements they were hamstrung by Hitler’s intervention on what to produce.
As an example, they had an air to air wire guided missile designed for the ME 262 that would have been difficult to defeat. Had this gone into mass production they would be using less resources than one cylinder from one engine of a bomber. This is the kind of asymmetric warfare they could have exploited. It would have been an aerial Blitzkrieg against bombers.
Imagine a fleet of Bismarcks running up and down the east coast of the United States taking out shipyards. The US would have been delayed entering the war with modern battleships or supplying badly needed equipment to England. England was one major air battle away from losing the war and they were really the only thing allowing the US time to spool up to a functional force.
OP has an answer: Legally they didn’t, but practically they ignored it. People were hostile to war, and a strong, militant Germany was an obstacle to Stalin/communist movements spreading.
Or, Germany hasn’t played by France’s rules since the sons of Louis the German rebelled
Highlighting the AAM as a key example of us talking past each other. That wasn’t an early war innovation. Work started on the Ruhrstahl X-4 started in 1943 with the first test in 1944.
The Bismarck was early war tech. They could have pulled off the US contemporary, the Iowa class, from the Pacific. (The Iowa class was already being built before US entry into the war.) Those ships weren’t wildly different in capabilities at visual range. The Iowa sported radar and radar directed guns allowing it to engage accurately before the Bismarck could engage. The Bismarck was a good battleship but it wasn’t demonstrably better than the most modern enemy battleships it could have been called to face. Trying to raid close to the US coast probably wouldn’t have gone well even without running into an Iowa. In an era where airpower became the dominant naval weapon, the US coast was an unsinkable carrier.
The production issues and Hitler’s meddling are common themes. There is absolutely evidence for those claims later in the war. The early war was different. For the period through the conquest of France, or maybe as late as the premature culmination of Barbarossa, their equipment was generally adequate. The Germans combined the benefits of the Napoleonic era Prussian military reforms (Auftragstaktik and a professional General Staff*) with superb training doctrine for their troops. That let them field units that could better maximize the potential of their equipment. The Allies tended to field at comparably or better equipped units in the early war. The Germans fielded better units. The better units won.
- In terms of the OP it’s hard to overlook the German General Staff in terms of rearmament. The human capital they represented is frequently ignored. The Treaty of Versailles recognized the threat and required it be dissolved. The Germans didn’t. They pretended to. They broke up it’s functions to increase obscurity. They effectively hid it’s core in the Truppenamt. Heinz “Father of the Blitzkrieg” Guderian is one of those former General Staff officers who continued to serve during the interwar period and spent time assigned to the Truppenamt. The Germans never really gave up one of their most effective weapons.
How many ME 262s participated in the invasion of France?
(I’ll save you a Google: Zero.)
The Iowa class ships weren’t commissioned until 1943. The Bismarck and Tirpitz were operational in 1941. They could have pounded the naval shipyards building the Iowa class ships and delayed their entry into the war. Combined with their submarine fleet they could have delayed US military hardware and supplies from reaching England. The battle of Britain was 1940/41. It’s highly likely that England would have been forced into surrender without reinforcement so any delay in Allied support was a big deal.
Put another way, it took a significant effort to defeat Germany despite an overwhelming production advantage held by the Allies.
If Hitler wasn’t such an idiot then Germany could easily have leveraged their technological advantage toward a quick defeat of England.
The U.S. also had the North Carolina class afloat in 1941, as well as sixteen “Standard” battleships left over from WW1. The US Navy was equal in size to the Royal Navy ever since the Washington Naval Treaty. cite
In my opinion, Germany was not going to be able to rampage up and down the US east coast with the impunity as you seem to imply.