Why are the French so bad at wars?

The reason the US had second rate troops in the Ardennes is the because the first rate troops were to the north or south of the Ardennes actually engaged in offensives.

 

I know your role on this board is to flamebait, derail and troll, but could you just for once leave the grown up to talk among themselves?

 

But the attacker has the advantage of initiative. They don't have to be everywhere. They can concentrate their forces at the point they choose to attack.

 

Doesn't change what I said one bit.

 

I know, why don't you provide us with a link showing this massive lost of armor through the forest and prove us all wrong.

Any flamebaiting here is not coming from me, I am just providing the facts.

 

They didn't lose material in the Ardennes? Are you ****ing serious? Is this going to turn out like your claim that Trump only bombed one airfield? Do I need to embarrass you and your knowledge of the world again?

 

Very few wars have good outcomes. Usually both sides are worse off.

One major disadvantage for France is geography. There are many routes for invasion. If the US had not been such a major supply route nightmare for the British because of distance, the US would probably have remained a British colony for another 50 years.

 

Or if the French would have had a strategic reserve and could have cut the corridor behind the attacking Panzers. Congratulations! You took Paris...but now you are cut off with no fuel or ammo resupply.

 

Because if you'd paid attention instead of playing your silly game, you'd have noticed that I'm not the one who made that claim. Now do you want to trully participate or do you want to get reported for trolling?

 

Gambles usually pay off because of better planning.

 

You are seriously postulating that the invasion of Russia was held off because of their losses going through the forest?

Yes embarrass me, please.

 

However, it still takes a much larger force to attack.

 

I never said you made the claim.

But you are the one defending it.

 

Problem is that france had two tiers of reserves. "B" reserves which were ex regulars and trained conscripts but lightly equiped, light infantry type, and "C" reserved which were trainees. That area was judged safe due to the maginot and the dense forest and as such was a staging/training area for the "C"
Units. There was a few B unit and Rommel was personnaly ambushed by one of them during one of his solo reconnaissance sortie. He was lucky that a Pz2 unit was in the vincinity to save his ass.

If it had been a regular unit manning that point with AT weapons and artillery the outcome would have been uncertain for the german.

 

I can't find a link which has the information as concisely as my print copy of Warner's "The Battle of France". Germany suffered attrition amounting to nearly 15% of their tracked vehicles and more than 30% of their wheeled vehicles moving through the forest. They reacted to logjams by just shoving trucks and tanks off the road. They quite literally did leave thousands of broken down vehicles in the Ardennes that they later recovered.

 

Lets not forget that in the invasion of France Hitler allowed his generals to dictate the fighting at a tactical and strategic level, German commanders had much more autonomy than their French and British counterparts. Rommel actually acted against orders at one point and in doing so managed to stop an effective counter attack. Hitler made a disastrous decision in not completely destroying the British at Dunkirk, arguably this ultimately lost him the war.

 

No I'm not.

 

But the attacker can afford to have a larger force because they can concentrate their forces where they want to.

 

That is a temporary advantage at best. Even during WWII, they had aerial reconnaissance and could reinforce fairly quicly.

 

This is actually an all to common military blunder the British did the exact same thing in Singapore during WWII. By the Quebec is on the St Lawrence not the ocean. Hell for that matter we did the same thing with DC. The evidence that defending a port city only from a sea side attack is futile goes back at least to the third punic war and yet people who are paid to know better keep doing it.

 

Not quickly. The vast majority of the troops walked to the battle. Motorized infantry wasn't a thing at the star of the war.

 

"Fairly quickly" is a relative term. Reinforcing implies you have reserves to spare as well.

 

It was, just not in the numbers needed. The BEF was motorized, as were the infantry regiments attached to Panzer divisions. The French had two divisions the motorized infantry (the DLM's).

 

I said the majority, not all. And in any case, for the french, the lack of radio communications with the one in charge meant the every move was delayed by hours.

 

Then again, English A people that perfect the technic of "Shooting fish in a barrel"! What sort of imbecile thought it was a good idea to put all your soldiers in tight groups and have them take turns receiving and returning musket volley