Well, to be honest last summer I advanced from France to Baden-Wirtenberg and further northward along Rhein with my motorized unit and I didn't see so much obstacles
Were you camouflaged as a civilian motorvehicle?
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Were you camouflaged as a civilian motorvehicle?
Of course I did. I didn't meet any resistance from the
Well, to be honest last summer I advanced from France to Baden-Wirtenberg and further northward along Rhein with my motorized unit and I didn't see so much obstacles
That's a fairy tale, everyone knows the roads are congested with Dutch caravans. That's why the French GHQ rejected the idea.
Indeed, but not on this direction of advance. I had to fight with them in the Battle of Parisian Periferique though.That's a fairy tale, everyone knows the roads are congested with Dutch caravans. That's why the French GHQ rejected the idea.
Well, to be honest last summer I advanced from France to Baden-Wirtenberg and further northward along Rhein with my motorized unit and I didn't see so much obstacles
Good idea! Perhaps the French could have advanced under the cover story of a large picnic on the Rhine? By the time the Germans advanced the French baguettes would be stale enough to use in melee. And old cheese and fois gras could be used as biological agents for area denial.
The problem was that the Germans did not behave as they should have, under the French script.
They did not fight. Instead the main source of French casualties was mines.
S-mines to be specific. If you believe French reports, everything was mined. Open a barn door: the door and the whole barn will explode. Drive along a road and the road will explode, open a window and the window will explode, open a door and the door will explode, sit on a toilet and the toilet will explode.
That kind of mine warfare was very, very new at that point. And the idea of sending conscripts ahead to find the mines did not, for obvious reasons, appeal to the French.
At the same time German units that had stayed back were apparently quite good at picking off combat engineers if they saw them.
Jokes aside, then you did not look.Well, to be honest last summer I advanced from France to Baden-Wirtenberg and further northward along Rhein with my motorized unit and I didn't see so much obstacles
The first you must have seen is the Rhine.
Crossing a river without a bridge (or even with a bridge) against enemy opposition is not an easy thing.
Then this:
https://www.google.de/maps/@48.3657637,8.4435344,243572m/data=!3m1!1e3
On the satellite you can see that there are lot of hill 'massives' wth valleys through which the roads go. Ideal country if you can hold the forests.
And it goes on that way all the way to Bavaria.
While it is not that steep from the East, defending against an attack from the West is a wet dream. Narrow roads, steep valleys, the hill tops covered in forests, scree avalanches just waiting to happen.
As I see it, as long as Poland wasn't mobilized in advance, and hadn't prepared a thorough plan in case of a sudden attack, there was nothing that France or the UK could have done to save them from German occupation. Basically, the Germans managed to get to a lot of the Polish units before their own reservists did, and destroyed those units before they were in any condition to fight. Attacking railroads, road junctions, and bridges also made it next to impossible for Poland to mobilize and organize its military quickly. Unless Poland made some changes in its own affairs, it was effectively doomed before the war even began, because it did not understand the new emphasis on rapid maneuver which the Germans made such effective use of.
Note that Japan also enjoyed considerable early success due to their ability to force-march (or force-ride on bicycles) and grab key points before the defenders were prepared.
Note that Japan also enjoyed considerable early success due to their ability to force-march (or force-ride on bicycles) and grab key points before the defenders were prepared.
@Kovax:
Even assuming Poland were fully mobilised that would still leave them with a 3 to 2 disadvantage in men (worse once the Soviets arrived) and a drastic shortfall in equipment.
Unless they had been willing to evacuate most of Poland and fortfied behind Vistula and Bug/Narew Poland would fall and fall quite quickly simply because the spaces were to vast for the Polish Army to avoid encirclement and defeat en detail.
Their mobility would be curtailed even if they were fully mobilized and in position. And then the centers of resistance would be picked off by superior forces one by one.
Or simply isolated and left for later.
Just as it happened.
Even assuming Poland were fully mobilised that would still leave them with a 3 to 2 disadvantage in men (worse once the Soviets arrived) and a drastic shortfall in equipment.
Unless they had been willing to evacuate most of Poland and fortfied behind Vistula and Bug/Narew Poland would fall and fall quite quickly simply because the spaces were to vast for the Polish Army to avoid encirclement and defeat en detail.
Their mobility would be curtailed even if they were fully mobilized and in position. And then the centers of resistance would be picked off by superior forces one by one.
Or simply isolated and left for later.
Just as it happened.
It could have forced the Germans to divert forces West sooner than they'd like, prolonging Polish resistance. The direct experience of confronting superior German tactics earlier could also have shaken the Allied high command into re-assessing their doctrines and strategies. An Allied bloody nose that doesn't lead to total collapse could have led to better tactics when the German army returned from Poland. Learning to concentrate armour would have been one such lesson. Germany would have lost more equipment, would probably have had to start from further into Germany (instead of right on the Belgian and Dutch borders) and wouldn't have been able to leisurely mop up the Danish and Norwegians. Overall, it would have at least put pressure on the German army and given the allies much needed ground, practical experience and, crucially, time.
How or why would that have been the result of desultory fighting against an invisible enemy, mostly infantry, in heavily woodded areas?
In those circumstances the Allied deployment of tanks, as penny-packets along the infantry, would have been the only sensible course of action. A concentrated tank wedge would have nowhere to go and more importantly no roads sufficient to get it there.
Again, unlikely. In the terrain as it was there would have been little call to use more forces.
The 22 to 40 divisions (depending on where you look and who you talk to) the Germans had in the west had been placed there in preparation of a French assault and could have dealt with that, especially during the winter (don't forget the Allied forces would have been forced to live away from durable shelters for most of the attack) and three winters 39 to 42 were quite harsh winters.
I would again point you to the map I posted. Reaching the Belgian or French border would have meant an extraordinarily successful French campaign.
There were woods where it counted, namely from the Swiss border all the way up to the Dutch border.
In sequence you first have the Black Forest and the Rhine, then the Pfälzerwald, the Bergland, the Hunsrück, all the little eifels all the way to Aachen.
Only at that point do the hills and the forests stop.
https://www.google.de/maps/@50.4145885,6.9958702,243583m/data=!3m1!1e3
Those are hardly contiguous forest areas today, and were even less forested back in the day before we have up on marginal lands. Yeah they are not perfect but just for your orientation, some of NATO's main tank exercise areas used to be in the Eifel where the slopes are forested but quite a few of the hilltops and plateaus are totally open and clear terrain. It's no different from the French / Belgian border areas which the Germans made famous as the region through which they launched the world's most successful armor offensive in 1940. Fighting wie a lot of heavy battles with the French, and coming out on top.There were woods where it counted, namely from the Swiss border all the way up to the Dutch border.
In sequence you first have the Black Forest and the Rhine, then the Pfälzerwald, the Bergland, the Hunsrück, all the little eifels all the way to Aachen.
Only at that point do the hills and the forests stop.
https://www.google.de/maps/@50.4145885,6.9958702,243583m/data=!3m1!1e3
All of Germany is fairly dense terrain. Just for different reasons in different parts of it. Lots of towns and rivers, and where there are less towns there are more hills, valleys, and forests. Back in the cold war they calculated that the average max range for combat was under 2000 m regardless of where you went in (west) Germany. The only place with really wide open terrain and few obstacles are the plains regions of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. The only places that really feel empty when you drive through by train or car.
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There were woods where it counted, namely from the Swiss border all the way up to the Dutch border.
In sequence you first have the Black Forest and the Rhine, then the Pfälzerwald, the Bergland, the Hunsrück, all the little eifels all the way to Aachen.
Only at that point do the hills and the forests stop.
https://www.google.de/maps/@50.4145885,6.9958702,243583m/data=!3m1!1e3
No roads, railways, towns, cities, villages or farms. Only neverending forest like in Roman times
Because towns and villages are no hindrance at all, right?No roads, railways, towns, cities, villages or farms. Only neverending forest like in Roman times
Leave it.
Pithorr's being a smart alec and he knows it.
He understood the point I made perfectly well but didn't like it which lead to this rather ...undignified show.
Pithorr's being a smart alec and he knows it.
He understood the point I made perfectly well but didn't like it which lead to this rather ...undignified show.
What would be the goal of such an offensive? Because using the one of the most underdeveloped part of your country as a jump point to occupy one of the most underdeveloped part of the enemy country leaving your unit at a supply line going through forrest roads does not sound like a plan.
You can blitz through the Ardennes, but the emphasis is on the blitz. The Germans did not mean to fight there. The French methodical battle means you are going to bombard those trees and barns. This is not going to happen without a railhead.
You can blitz through the Ardennes, but the emphasis is on the blitz. The Germans did not mean to fight there. The French methodical battle means you are going to bombard those trees and barns. This is not going to happen without a railhead.
Poland wasn't going to win against Germany single-handedly, whether they mobilized or not, but a reasonably prepared army would most likely have given the Germans a much harder fight, and taken longer to defeat. Being on the wrong end of 3:2 odds isn't all that terrible if you're the defender, at least if you have rough parity in equipment and training. That moderate increase in Polish resistance from the start MIGHT have given the Allies a bit more time to prepare an offensive of their own, or at least present a credible enough threat that Germany would need to divert troops to the west. Germany also might not have started out with the Polish air force destroyed practically to the last plane in a couple of days, even though the Poles would eventually be swept from the sky, so the unrestrained bombing would probably have been a little less effective during the critical first few days. Whether that would save Poland or not is highly unlikely, barring a military coup against Hitler over his insane decision to invade Poland despite UK guarantees, and once Stalin started taking "his share", there really wasn't much more that the Allies could do about it. Still, a slim chance is better than certain defeat. If there was any hope for an Allied offensive at all, the unprecedentedly rapid destruction of Poland made fighting against the Germans seem like a bad idea, reinforcing the decision to sit behind the Maginot Line and wait.