Tuesday OT History Discussion: Operation Fall Gelb

or as it's more commonly known as, The Battle of France.

We all know the story, it's May 1940. Great Britain & France had declared war on Germany the previous September. But other than an abortive French offensive meant to help relieve pressure on Poland, the war so far had been a dud. The media even gave it the name "Phony War". It seemed as though one side were scared of the other and the other was glad of it.

All this changed though on May 10, 1940 when the Germans launched it's invasion of France through the Low Countries, Mainsten's Masterstroke named Operation Fall Gelb. Of course we must give some credit to Heinz Guderian for his idea of concentrating the Panzers into a giant armored fist to break the French at Sedan (echo's of the Franco-Prussian Wars anyone?) and race to the sea from there instead of turning south (and the Allies would expect) toward Paris. Due to this move, the Battle of France was over in six weeks and ended with an "easy" Germany victory.

But how "easy" was that victory? Did France really just roll over and surrender without a fight as soon as she could while the British took anything that would float and got he hell out of Dodge and back across the English Channel? Well, the simple answer is no, and here's why I say this.

First, let's look at he relative orders of battle. On the German side they had 141 divisions. But the French and British had 144 divisions. So not only did Germany not hold a numerical advantage in divisions (especially the 1/3 advantage that's always been the recognized needed advantage to even consider an attack)they were actually outnumbered in this regard. And what's worse, only 16 of Germany's divisions were fully mobile. The rest relied on horses to the troops own boots for transport. The French on the other hand had 117 fully mobile divisions. They also out numbered the Germans in total number of tanks and artillery as well. The only real advantage the Germans had was in the air where they had almost 2,500 more aircraft than the Allies.

Now let's take a look at the losses the Germans took in the Battle of France. The popular narrative has always been the Allies were easily crushed by the mighty German Wehrmacht while overhead the Luftwaffe preyed on allied aircraft like eagles going after hapless ducks. But that's not even close to being true. The numbers speak for themselves. Let's look at what winning the Battle of France cost Germany....

Troop Losses:
27,000+ dead
111,000+ wounded
18,000+ missing
(that's 156,000+ casualties in just 6 weeks. For comparative purposes, this is almost twice the casualties the US suffered in the Battle of the Bulge (89,000) And more than Germany suffered there as well (125,000). )

Tank losses: 795 (that's a rate of roughly 40-45% give or take)
Aircraft losses: 1,236 (that's a rate of roughly 25%)

Then there are the Allied casualties as well. These are nothing short of catastrophic. Between France & Britain they suffered over 360,000 casualties plus another 1.3 million becoming POWs after the armistice. And of the 2,900+ aircraft the Allies started the battle with, over 2,200 were lost. That's what? A loss rate of something like 70-80% or something similar? (I'm a history nerd, not a math nerd)

The truth of the Battle of France lays in all these numbers. And the truth of the Battle of France is far different than many think. In truth, the Battle of France was brutal. In fact it was the costliest battle in Europe not fought on the Eastern Front in WWII. And it was not an easy victory for the Germans over a cowardly France and incompetent Great Britain. Both France & Britain fought viciously and made the Germans bleed dearly for their victory. And in the end, the difference that lead to the German victory was not the superiority of their Panzers. In fact most French tanks were better armed and armored than their German counterparts. What made the difference more than anything else was Erich von Manstein and Heinz Guderian. Their innovative, really revolutionary, plan of concentration of the Panzers instead of having them spread out in infantry support role allowed an inferior German army to defeat a larger and better equipped French & English army.

thoughts?


Sources and reference material
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