October 29th 1939
German plans to prepare an attack to Norway have leaked to London, they immediadly planned to launch an invasion there to protect the sovereignity of Norway. And perhaps the iron in Sweden as a nice side-benefit. Or the other way round. Apparently we should prepare for this as well so we sent our transports from the Mediterranean to Brest just in case. The size of our transport fleet caused uproar in the cabinet and another 5 were ordered, currently there is no way to move troops around in the Mediterranean and Atlantic at the same time.
November 16th 1939
Soviets have finally met a nation that had the guts to refuse their refusals of territory and bases. As it would nevertheless lead to annexation why not at least try to fight it out first? Naturally aid from our side will be limited, we don't even know what to do with Germany let alone Soviet Union to go with it.
Frankly this war is a big let-down for many of the more eager officers, nothing really happens. Germany has started to try to bomb northern France but their feeble efforts have been ended fast with our interceptors. Some have been lobbying toward starting to bomb Germany ourselves, it was chosen to be tried with 4ème Escadre at around Stuttgart. If they manage to have some effect on the installations, such as forts, airport or AAs, with those new tactical bombers without excessive damage then some new ones might be ordered.
November 21st 1939
After first attempts the bombing runs were cut due to little damage done and yet some casualties from the flag fire. We are missing the war on this war.
The new flagship of our navy, the glorious and modern Dunkerque battleship has been finally finished. The most major difference it has compared to the older ones is the increased anti-air capacity making it more resistant. It was deployed to Marseille as apparently we already have naval dominance in the Atlantic. This was proven by a recent battle won on the Norwegian coast where our 1ére Flotte de la France again won their counterpart without loosing a single ship. According to our counts those were the last German capital ships.
December 5th 1939
The Battle over French and German skies continue. German bombing runs to France have been quite early spotted and intercepted, our radars must be doing something right. Brits on the other hand keep on doing bombing runs to Ruhr area, the effect on the industry isn't all that massive but there's not much more that can be done to directly harm them. On the North Sea some naval encounters have occurred resulting in altogether the loss of one German light cruiser. The efficiency of our missions is harmed by the winter arriving, conditions are harsh. The ships have to from time to time be withdrawn to base. One destroyer in 4ème Flotte de la France has to remain in the harbour to be repaired. Due to fear on invasion to Denmark French fleets aren't anymore patrolling the Baltic Sea, they might end up trapped after all.
Prototype testing of the new light armor AMX-R40 are finished, it was time to start building them. Directors from SOMUA, the plant responsible for development, came forward with a proposal. They said that with extra funds allocated for throughly thinking through the production line of the vehicles, based on the knowledge gathered by Renault on production technology, could be made a lot faster. Funding was given, but at the same time two divisions worth of the armors was ordered right away. They will not benefit from the gains of the new production lines, but that's a cost we must bear. Renault representatives complained that they could have done the production line development cheaper but for us time was essential and the contract was given to SOMUA.
January 5th 1940
Against all odds the Finns have managed to repel all attacks the Soviets have thrown at them. They truly know the environment they are fighting at, war correspondants all over the World are filling newspapers with stories of white-cled warriors on skis. The French government has condemned starting the war, but it still it remains politically unwise to actively participate in it. We have sent messages to the Soviet ambassador in Paris that we would be willing to help the two parties approach but in vain. As public support is very strongly on the Finnish side we agreed to provide them with some of obsolete military equipment, after all we have plenty of that lying around with all these modernization programs.
The recently developed night strafing doctrine for our air units will be refined to a first strike doctrine that will allow significantly better performance from our interceptors, especially during night time.
Unfortunately our observations have been confirmed with first hand sources and the Germans are indeed constructing a new model of armor. It seems they are replacing both their light and medium armor with them, plus building new divisions.
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