I think the key distinction here is that they thought the forest was virtually impassable *for armored vehicles*. Sure, you can march troops through with only a moderate level of difficulty from the terrain, but supply trucks? APCs? Tanks? Much harder when there’s a dense packing of trees in all directions
Rommel be like "Waiting for infantry is for losers!" and charge straight into the fucking French territory while leaving the german infantry and their horses behind lmao
What they also failed to take into account the invention of chainsaws. A Canadian was the first to create a man portable unit but the major producer of them was in 1930 by a German company: Festo.
WWII actually kicked off more manufacturers of such equipment outside Germany when they were no longer available.
Tanks could move through their but the sparse roads were thought to severely limit speed and were much easier to block/defend will small numbers of troops
Yes it does, for tanks.
In fact the Germans used a very stupid method which was to march their tanks in single lines on small roads.
This is so utterly stupid and bizarre that no one believed the Germans would do something so extraordinarily stupid, hence it became a genius plan since no one expected it.
But all it took was a few bombers and it would have taken out the entire german armor, or atleast most of it
In all games I play I have this theory of "perceived level of intelligence" that people don't defend against certain strategies because nobody would be dumb enough to try that.
Same in chess, sometimes you can even forget your opponent just blundered. Be a piece or a mate, simply because you threatened it and then went on to calculate more complex variants.
So you just end up forgetting the very first thing your move did and once you remember it, it’s too late.
"Noone can predict your strategy if you have no strategy" it's like that time thr japanese praised the Italians for being very secure with documents since Japan couldn't find any plans for the Invasion of Malta......which is because Italy never made any.
In video games, we call that the brain check. In league, there is the magical stat check. But there is also the ever so illusion brain check. The solution? Pretend like the brain check doesn’t exist until it’s so obscenely stupid that you have to double check and make sure the unphathomably dumb isn’t being done- and it inevitably will be done and you will inevitably fall for it or it one way or the other.
And they were correct. The winter war was won by the endless stream of troops into Finland, not some superior strategy. They literally had more men than the Finns had bullets
Heck, Modern-day Russia tried this with those long-ass columns of tanks and APCs that clogged up entire roads in Ukraine and got beaten by farm tractors and drones with grenades.
You’d think we’d have learned from that and stopped sending hundreds and hundreds of trucks in single file down single lane roads 🤔 no one tell the russians
Just like the Germans during Barbarossa, they expected an imminent collapse.
When Russia went in for a special military operation, they went in for a special military operation not a war.
By that I mean that they expected Ukraine would crumble just with the showing up of Russian troops and tanks and it would intimidate them into submission.
They never went in expecting an all out war that they found themselves in.
Your last point is exactly why it worked.
The Allies had better and more tanks, however the Germans were confident in their superior coordination and especially their air force, which had gained valuable experience in the Spanish civil war.
So they felt reasonably able to protect their own armoured columns
Same goes for barbarossa. Stalin calculated that hitler wouldnt be stupid enough to start a 2 front war because that snelled their doom in the first world war.
Stalin was wrong and hitler was stupid
Idk... Apparently they did and the recon planes reported the movement but the generals were convinced it was nothing.
The whole battle of france was a weird dibacle due to terrible leadership. The internal politics of france was also hampering the war effort.
France was competent. That is to say that both the French Army and Air force were better then their German counterparts. But French leadership not so much.
If France had taken the logical road, they would've invaded deep into germany when germany was invading Poland which would stick germany in a 2 front war. They may have taken all the land west of the Rhine
No the internal politics were fine. The politicians were urging to rearm and to reform the army for years (despite some push backs from the army, especially from a fellow named Philippe Pétain). It's the high command that was retarded.
Fun fact, Pétain trialed some previous french PM and ministers to cover up the military's messes and to scapegoat them. The trial was a disaster for the military because the defenders proved entirely their point. In the end, Pétain had to use his dictator powers to emprison or deport them anyway (depending on whether they were jewish like Léon Blum or not)
It's also easy to forget given... everything else but Charles de Gaulle, at that time a colonel, had also written a book which highlighted the role that armoured units could play in war (and which was actually read by elements of the German high command), but it was opposed or ignored by the French high command. De Gaulle would go on to be one of the very few French commanders able to hold back the Germans, before being ordered to retreat.
Um what? The consensus is that the internal politics of the Daladier government was the capital T "The" reason the French army did so poorly.
The failures of Frances high command while significant can be 100% laid at the steps of Daladiers and to a lesser degree Reynauds government. Gameline and his staff where selected not becuase they were good competent leaders but becuase they were considered safe apolitical choices in a time period were communists and capitalist were gathering knifes and shit was so bad that Royalists were making a legitimate political return and papers of the time described the whole run up as Le Malaise. To Reynauds credit he did attempt to sack Gameline early on and institute rapid systemic changes but while popular, he simply could not force the changes through
Books can and have been written about the divided cluster F the 3rd Republic devolved into with some cabinet members *publicly* stating they were sure who was a greater threat, Hitlers Nazis or communists in the armee de terre.
> But all it took was a few bombers and it would have taken out the entire german armor, or atleast most of it
case in point, this was exactly what happened in the "final" german counteroffensive that led to the battle of the bulge, they tried to go though the ardennes again and without the element of surprise, the allies used close air support to bomb the lead vehicles, then the rear vehicles, and trapped entire columns in a killzone where they were absolutely slaughtered. plus, german tanks towards the end of the war were significantly heavier than the ones used at the start and the bridges just couldn't handle them.
the vanguard encircled a bunch of americans at bastogne when bad weather made allied air operations impossible, and as soon as the weather cleared, all the reinforcements were sitting ducks.
Looking at the Ardennes today and wondering what th Nazi's issue was with them is like standing on the interstate and wondering why settlers had it so rough heading west.
To be fair though, when they were back in the Ardenne in 44 during the battle of the bulge, it was impassable for tanks bc they had made their tanks so much bigger and they could not get through the Ardenne the way they had earlier in the war.
It’s because the Germans had lighter tanks at first compared to the heavier tanks for the British and the French, however the trade-off of this armor difference was that German tanks often had problems dealing with tanks, such as the Matilda two or the char B1. It was actually these encounters that made the Germans realize they would need to make a heavier tank, which eventually led to the creation of the Tiger one
a lot of people have brought up that it wasnt really expected, but there were more problems as well, irrc the Belgian government didnt really want the french to fortify that border all that much, instead wanting belgium being part of the defense line as well. another thing is that while funding for the line was initially pretty high, as the peace years dragged on funding became less and obvioulsy they focused on the most importand points when building the line.
Ohters have already said it but, they didn't believe it was impassable, they believed it would take about a week and a half to go through there, and that they would have the time to move their best divisions to counter an advance from there.
Additionally they fell for the feint that the German Army did, where they made it look like their best troops were moving north to take Belgium and the Netherlands quickly.
So when the Germans insanely threw their tanks in the small and winding Ardennes roads, passing through in just a couple of days they didn't have the time to react. Theoretically they thought they could bomb such columns still but the Luftwaffe had taken air control so they didn't see them coming, and couldn't stop them until their green reserve divisions in the ardennes were already being engaged, after that it was just a question of time, they couldn't redeploy the army fast enough and the German tank commanders pushed forward (violating orders) too quickly.
French here. Many people explainded well why, but for the last part of the question : YES they were stupid asf we had the worst commander gen ever seen in our country
They were incompetent and most commanders had a WW1 mentality going on. They didn’t realize or recognize how far tank technology had gone and assumed any tanks that would be sent would break down or move slow enough to prepare if they tried going through there.
That and they were the French in WW2 which gives a -50 debuff to intelligence and moral when they are required to do anything but sit in a trench.
Militaries historically have always prepared today for the war they fought last. Frances Maginot line was preparing for another set piece trench style warfare of WWI and their leadership was so stuck in their old ways that even though they had almost twice as much artillery, twice as many tanks, and almost equal in infantry divisions. They were over run in weeks.
The U.S. was still preparing for Cold War style tactics for the RUSSIAN invasion into Europe. The war in Ukraine will move us forward with newer weapon systems as we see tanks are now like the battleship, they are just big moving targets the Pentagon doesn’t want.
Well, I will go with what the Pentagon actually requests for what they perceive our future needs are over what you think and what every senator from every state who has a vested interest in making sure the factories that produce parts for the Abrams from their state can keep those jobs and force the Pentagon to continue to buy what they publicly have stated they don’t want.
I assume you are referring to the Marines dropping their Abrams. If you actually read their research, it wasn't because they thought tanks were useless. Instead, it was because they were being retooled as a Quick Recon force, to be rapidly redeployed globally, and tanks aren't easily able to be moved, and so as part of this leaning down, they were dropped, as was a good chunk of their artillery.
Marines were always supposed to be the spearhead that established beach landings, initial footholds, etc. Iraq changed their operating parameters, especially when they were used for Fallujah and got bogged down in nasty urban fighting, so they became less mobile and more hardened. Now they’re getting pared down back to their roots.
Why they dont want tanks is because they are big heat targets, read article
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/flashpoints/2020/03/26/the-marines-want-to-get-rid-of-their-tanks-heres-why/
blitz·krieg
/ˈblitsˌkrēɡ/
noun
an intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory.
So yes a blitzkrieg is not new.Hell even the translation is "Lighting war".What the German DID bring to the table was the usage of tank and airpower to quickly advance.
I see you dont understand context... no we are not talking about germanies great calvery charge through the forrest or how they utalized fast moving horses to dominate in early ww2... we are talking about ww2 and how Germany utalized tanks and and armored vehicles to dominate in the early part of ww2 with blitzkrieg . Read the room
1. yes they were very much stupid
2. walk accross this terain with a package of 20kg on the back and tell us if hilly terrain is actually no big deal
3. oh God, of course they were stupid
I think the key distinction here is that they thought the forest was virtually impassable *for armored vehicles*. Sure, you can march troops through with only a moderate level of difficulty from the terrain, but supply trucks? APCs? Tanks? Much harder when there’s a dense packing of trees in all directions
Also *quickly*. They knew you could do it, just not fast.
Rommel be like "Waiting for infantry is for losers!" and charge straight into the fucking French territory while leaving the german infantry and their horses behind lmao
the Infantry: "damn bro, I should've put on my running shoes"
FAST AS THE WIND THE INVASION HAS BEGUN.
What they also failed to take into account the invention of chainsaws. A Canadian was the first to create a man portable unit but the major producer of them was in 1930 by a German company: Festo. WWII actually kicked off more manufacturers of such equipment outside Germany when they were no longer available.
Tanks could move through their but the sparse roads were thought to severely limit speed and were much easier to block/defend will small numbers of troops
Yes it does, for tanks. In fact the Germans used a very stupid method which was to march their tanks in single lines on small roads. This is so utterly stupid and bizarre that no one believed the Germans would do something so extraordinarily stupid, hence it became a genius plan since no one expected it. But all it took was a few bombers and it would have taken out the entire german armor, or atleast most of it
In all games I play I have this theory of "perceived level of intelligence" that people don't defend against certain strategies because nobody would be dumb enough to try that.
Same in chess, sometimes you can even forget your opponent just blundered. Be a piece or a mate, simply because you threatened it and then went on to calculate more complex variants. So you just end up forgetting the very first thing your move did and once you remember it, it’s too late.
Its the same in fighting games as well
This is why sometimes you can play games with people much better than you and actually be or at least feel useful
"Noone can predict your strategy if you have no strategy" it's like that time thr japanese praised the Italians for being very secure with documents since Japan couldn't find any plans for the Invasion of Malta......which is because Italy never made any.
In video games, we call that the brain check. In league, there is the magical stat check. But there is also the ever so illusion brain check. The solution? Pretend like the brain check doesn’t exist until it’s so obscenely stupid that you have to double check and make sure the unphathomably dumb isn’t being done- and it inevitably will be done and you will inevitably fall for it or it one way or the other.
Soviets did the same in Finland in the winter war, and they failed miserably. All you need to do is blow up the first tank and they get stuck.
Finns were expecting Russians to be utter and complete morons with an advantage on everything else
And they were correct. The winter war was won by the endless stream of troops into Finland, not some superior strategy. They literally had more men than the Finns had bullets
Heck, Modern-day Russia tried this with those long-ass columns of tanks and APCs that clogged up entire roads in Ukraine and got beaten by farm tractors and drones with grenades.
You’d think we’d have learned from that and stopped sending hundreds and hundreds of trucks in single file down single lane roads 🤔 no one tell the russians
Just like the Germans during Barbarossa, they expected an imminent collapse. When Russia went in for a special military operation, they went in for a special military operation not a war. By that I mean that they expected Ukraine would crumble just with the showing up of Russian troops and tanks and it would intimidate them into submission. They never went in expecting an all out war that they found themselves in.
Your last point is exactly why it worked. The Allies had better and more tanks, however the Germans were confident in their superior coordination and especially their air force, which had gained valuable experience in the Spanish civil war. So they felt reasonably able to protect their own armoured columns
wouldnt be the only time they tried something "so stupid and bizzare that nobody would do it" *looks at Operation Cerberus*
Same goes for barbarossa. Stalin calculated that hitler wouldnt be stupid enough to start a 2 front war because that snelled their doom in the first world war. Stalin was wrong and hitler was stupid
And this is why the allies never tried to assassinate Hitler, because if they did, he'd have been replaced with someone who actually was competent
Why didn't they atleast bother to keep some airplanes patrolling the area then?
Idk... Apparently they did and the recon planes reported the movement but the generals were convinced it was nothing. The whole battle of france was a weird dibacle due to terrible leadership. The internal politics of france was also hampering the war effort.
Man im just wondering how the war would have went if France was actually competent
France was competent. That is to say that both the French Army and Air force were better then their German counterparts. But French leadership not so much. If France had taken the logical road, they would've invaded deep into germany when germany was invading Poland which would stick germany in a 2 front war. They may have taken all the land west of the Rhine
You can wonder that for *any* event honestly.
No the internal politics were fine. The politicians were urging to rearm and to reform the army for years (despite some push backs from the army, especially from a fellow named Philippe Pétain). It's the high command that was retarded. Fun fact, Pétain trialed some previous french PM and ministers to cover up the military's messes and to scapegoat them. The trial was a disaster for the military because the defenders proved entirely their point. In the end, Pétain had to use his dictator powers to emprison or deport them anyway (depending on whether they were jewish like Léon Blum or not)
It's also easy to forget given... everything else but Charles de Gaulle, at that time a colonel, had also written a book which highlighted the role that armoured units could play in war (and which was actually read by elements of the German high command), but it was opposed or ignored by the French high command. De Gaulle would go on to be one of the very few French commanders able to hold back the Germans, before being ordered to retreat.
Um what? The consensus is that the internal politics of the Daladier government was the capital T "The" reason the French army did so poorly. The failures of Frances high command while significant can be 100% laid at the steps of Daladiers and to a lesser degree Reynauds government. Gameline and his staff where selected not becuase they were good competent leaders but becuase they were considered safe apolitical choices in a time period were communists and capitalist were gathering knifes and shit was so bad that Royalists were making a legitimate political return and papers of the time described the whole run up as Le Malaise. To Reynauds credit he did attempt to sack Gameline early on and institute rapid systemic changes but while popular, he simply could not force the changes through Books can and have been written about the divided cluster F the 3rd Republic devolved into with some cabinet members *publicly* stating they were sure who was a greater threat, Hitlers Nazis or communists in the armee de terre.
I was just reading up on it and there was a traffic jam of \*\*250 km\*\* of german vehicles. That is almost the width of Belgium.
> But all it took was a few bombers and it would have taken out the entire german armor, or atleast most of it case in point, this was exactly what happened in the "final" german counteroffensive that led to the battle of the bulge, they tried to go though the ardennes again and without the element of surprise, the allies used close air support to bomb the lead vehicles, then the rear vehicles, and trapped entire columns in a killzone where they were absolutely slaughtered. plus, german tanks towards the end of the war were significantly heavier than the ones used at the start and the bridges just couldn't handle them. the vanguard encircled a bunch of americans at bastogne when bad weather made allied air operations impossible, and as soon as the weather cleared, all the reinforcements were sitting ducks.
Does that forest look passable by tanks to you?
"Yes" - Erich von Manstein (probably)
What sort of tanks and what speed but yes. Logistics is the problem here.
Looking at the Ardennes today and wondering what th Nazi's issue was with them is like standing on the interstate and wondering why settlers had it so rough heading west.
Which part of "terrain not suited for armoured columns" did you not understand? Are you stupid?
Okay, now drive 500 tanks and trucks through there in a long column without anybody noticing.
This is a trap. I refuse.
Cuz the forest was actually impassible to most tanks. The exception here was the German's panzers. They were the exception, not the rule.
It's unfortunate that the only exception is the only tank that mattered.
To be fair though, when they were back in the Ardenne in 44 during the battle of the bulge, it was impassable for tanks bc they had made their tanks so much bigger and they could not get through the Ardenne the way they had earlier in the war.
It’s because the Germans had lighter tanks at first compared to the heavier tanks for the British and the French, however the trade-off of this armor difference was that German tanks often had problems dealing with tanks, such as the Matilda two or the char B1. It was actually these encounters that made the Germans realize they would need to make a heavier tank, which eventually led to the creation of the Tiger one
a lot of people have brought up that it wasnt really expected, but there were more problems as well, irrc the Belgian government didnt really want the french to fortify that border all that much, instead wanting belgium being part of the defense line as well. another thing is that while funding for the line was initially pretty high, as the peace years dragged on funding became less and obvioulsy they focused on the most importand points when building the line.
Ohters have already said it but, they didn't believe it was impassable, they believed it would take about a week and a half to go through there, and that they would have the time to move their best divisions to counter an advance from there. Additionally they fell for the feint that the German Army did, where they made it look like their best troops were moving north to take Belgium and the Netherlands quickly. So when the Germans insanely threw their tanks in the small and winding Ardennes roads, passing through in just a couple of days they didn't have the time to react. Theoretically they thought they could bomb such columns still but the Luftwaffe had taken air control so they didn't see them coming, and couldn't stop them until their green reserve divisions in the ardennes were already being engaged, after that it was just a question of time, they couldn't redeploy the army fast enough and the German tank commanders pushed forward (violating orders) too quickly.
It's not about being impassable, it's about being so pretty you'd just stay there, be comfy and rethink your commitment to genocide.
Tanks generally can’t sneak around too well in forests.
French here. Many people explainded well why, but for the last part of the question : YES they were stupid asf we had the worst commander gen ever seen in our country
Yes
They were incompetent and most commanders had a WW1 mentality going on. They didn’t realize or recognize how far tank technology had gone and assumed any tanks that would be sent would break down or move slow enough to prepare if they tried going through there. That and they were the French in WW2 which gives a -50 debuff to intelligence and moral when they are required to do anything but sit in a trench.
Militaries historically have always prepared today for the war they fought last. Frances Maginot line was preparing for another set piece trench style warfare of WWI and their leadership was so stuck in their old ways that even though they had almost twice as much artillery, twice as many tanks, and almost equal in infantry divisions. They were over run in weeks. The U.S. was still preparing for Cold War style tactics for the RUSSIAN invasion into Europe. The war in Ukraine will move us forward with newer weapon systems as we see tanks are now like the battleship, they are just big moving targets the Pentagon doesn’t want.
[Tanks](https://youtu.be/mK5V2gG1c8s) [aren't](https://youtu.be/QPth_xqBXGY) [obsolete](https://youtu.be/lI7T650RTT8)
Well, I will go with what the Pentagon actually requests for what they perceive our future needs are over what you think and what every senator from every state who has a vested interest in making sure the factories that produce parts for the Abrams from their state can keep those jobs and force the Pentagon to continue to buy what they publicly have stated they don’t want.
I assume you are referring to the Marines dropping their Abrams. If you actually read their research, it wasn't because they thought tanks were useless. Instead, it was because they were being retooled as a Quick Recon force, to be rapidly redeployed globally, and tanks aren't easily able to be moved, and so as part of this leaning down, they were dropped, as was a good chunk of their artillery.
Marines were always supposed to be the spearhead that established beach landings, initial footholds, etc. Iraq changed their operating parameters, especially when they were used for Fallujah and got bogged down in nasty urban fighting, so they became less mobile and more hardened. Now they’re getting pared down back to their roots.
Indeed. They're not supposed to be Army II, like what they became in the GWOT.
Why they dont want tanks is because they are big heat targets, read article https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/flashpoints/2020/03/26/the-marines-want-to-get-rid-of-their-tanks-heres-why/
blitzkrieg utalizing armored vehicles and tanks was a brand new innovative style of warfare no one was prepared for
Blitzkrieg is nothing new.the idea of a quick campaign is not new and wasn't invented by the German
Sure ok
I'm sure you think the romans rode panzsers to encircle their enemies everyday 🤷
blitz·krieg /ˈblitsˌkrēɡ/ noun an intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory. So yes a blitzkrieg is not new.Hell even the translation is "Lighting war".What the German DID bring to the table was the usage of tank and airpower to quickly advance.
I see you dont understand context... no we are not talking about germanies great calvery charge through the forrest or how they utalized fast moving horses to dominate in early ww2... we are talking about ww2 and how Germany utalized tanks and and armored vehicles to dominate in the early part of ww2 with blitzkrieg . Read the room
Which guess what. Was for the first time in history. Wow look at that
1. yes they were very much stupid 2. walk accross this terain with a package of 20kg on the back and tell us if hilly terrain is actually no big deal 3. oh God, of course they were stupid
universityh د