re: How well did the French Army of 1940 fight against the Germans?

They were in a hard spot. Their fate was sealed either way in that case, since Stalin was amassing personnel on the border for an invasion of his own.

I think they were doomed from the start. Britain was willing to burn its empire to the ground to prevent Germany from becoming too powerful on the continent.

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They were prepared to refight WWI all over again, thus the Maginot Line

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Instead of building up their army, resources, and leadership after World War 1 the French wasted their time and resources building this stupid Maginot line and they did not reinforce the Maginot line in one area, due to rugged terrain, to match the full strength of the rest of the line. They figured the terrain was too rugged there and the Germans would never attack from that area. Well Germany decided to attack the weak part of Maginot line, through the harsh terrain, and they smashed through it with ease.


French were just stupid.

By then we were eyeball deep in the battle of the atlantic and lend-lease was in full swing.
Hitler could see the writing on the wall, and left a large amount of troops and material in western europe that could have been used to win the eastern front.
The russians were all but ready to quit at that point.

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The russians were all but ready to quit at that point.

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No, they were not. Now, I'm not saying that our help, gasoline, tools, food, didn't help, particularly the Siege of Leningrad, but they were most certainly not ready to quit.

Stalin had the right idea. He had land. He needed time. So, he traded one for the other. He made the rock star decision to move as much of his industry as he could off the steppe and into the much more defensible Ural Mountains. That meant much of the European part of the USSR would be overrun by German troops - who would be on increasingly long supply lines and that would give the Red Army a solid year to prepare for a counteroffensive.

The reality of the situation is - with no Western Front, no invasion of Normandy nor any other allied return to the continent, the Red Army would have been in Germany no later than 1948 and probably sooner.

It's mathematics. By mid/late 1944, Germany was producing about 60 of their excellent Panther tanks per month. The Soviets were cranking out 1000 of their "good enough" T-34s during the same time. Germany took ~1 million casualties at Stalingrad, roughly the same as the Soviets.

In 1940, Germany (proper) had about 70 million folks (the lebansraum expansion was about another 20 million). The USSR, all in was about 170 or so million, with 115 million in Russia alone.

Again the problem at that point was one of mathematics - particularly when the knockout blow in 1941 failed. Germany could not win a war of attrition against either the Eastern or Western powers, particularly not the Eastern.

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Stalin had the right idea. He had land. He needed time. So, he traded one for the other. He made the rock star decision to move as much of his industry as he could off the steppe and into the much more defensible Ural Mountains. That meant much of the European part of the USSR would be overrun by German troops - who would be on increasingly long supply lines and that would give the Red Army a solid year to prepare for a counteroffensive.

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Ghosts of the Ostfront?

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No. But I imagine the British and other Allies were glad they didn’t have to deal with the more than 1,200 aircraft the Nazis lost in those 6 weeks.

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Eh. They had 10k pilots in reserve and more than enough bf109s, fw109s, stukas etc to cause havoc.

I don’t think they would have added much more to the Battle of Britain. I think sub warfare and naval support would have been a bigger help than the added planes.

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Ghosts of the Ostfront?

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No. I've been studying the Second World War for ~ 46 years.

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No. I've been studying the Second World War for ~ 46 years.

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I meant have you listened to it. Really interesting. Excellently done

You’re definitely asking the wrong dude. Naval warfare has never really interested me. I’m just of the opinion that had the Wolfpack subs would have been used closer to the mainland and ports rather than the shipping lanes they would have been more impactful during the Battle of Britain. That along with bringing the kraigsmarine out of the icy north.

But, as I said, naval warfare is definitely not my strong suit and I could be completely off base here. I’m far more interested in the armored/air engagements.

Kursk is where I blow my load.

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