I think the French deserve a little respect. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/01/vive_lempereur
Michael
theyre bombing Africans not stopping 3rd Panzer Army.
Im still bitter over the whole Indochina mess they left us with.
But judging by the jokes, Al Qaeda should be marching down the Champs Elysee right now.
And they're mad at America for not backing them at Dien Bien Phu and Suez.
Michael
and Im still mad at their reaction to the Torch landings and how they left Israel hanging after the Suez.
To be fair, while France post-1967 was craven toward the Arabs, those Mirages and Super Mysteres that won the Six-Day War came from somewhere.
Michael
the Czech Me-109s were more important in 1948.
The U.S. didn't sell arms to Israel until 1969.
Is there any country you're not mad at?
I didnt say anything about US arms sales and Im just discussing the French at the moment.
but to answer your question: Iceland seems ok. gotta love me some Bjork!
This Bjork?
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1355.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq717%2Fstophro%2FBjorkSwan_zps2f19fd3d.jpg&hash=2c756deabfe1b2441fd67d569257657a4096750b)
Or this Bjork?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3mJTdGE79I
gotta love her!
Your post count is in equilibrium, Star, 16761. The apocalypse will begin shortly.
Quote from: MetalDog on February 01, 2013, 07:54:31 PM
Your post count is in equilibrium, Star, 16761. The apocalypse will begin shortly.
<psst> Star was in a bit of a tizzy one eve. To soothe his frazzled nerves I boosted that count by somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 posts ;)
Something about his vast contributions to the wargame forum community or some such iirc. :)
Well ain't that a dandy. The French get a bad rap for 1940 I won't repeat myself.
If you think it can't happen to you I have drawn the parallels.
France's misfortune was to be located next to Germany.
Do we have any Frenchmen here? Do the Quebecois count?
Michael
Quote from: DicedT on February 01, 2013, 06:43:29 PMIs there any country you're not mad at?
No. But it's Friday, he's been drunk for 3 days by now ;D
by 2am Ill hate Iceland as well!
1/2 hour to go.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on February 01, 2013, 06:23:05 PM
theyre bombing Africans not stopping 3rd Panzer Army.
Now that would make a mighty fine quote right there. ;D
I have no idea whether France was up against the B team or not, but on TV the report last night was all the big cities have been taken and the bad guys driven out.
If so, that bodes well, regardless of the quality of the bad guys.
Yup ...the French will now go home until the Malians phone up and ask for help again.
They have been onto something for a while. Some minds are stuck on 1940 or 1954.
You do not learn by winning or pretending to win. I think they picked up some lessons
in Viet Nam and more importantly Algeria.
Quote from: DicedT on February 01, 2013, 09:18:37 PM
France's misfortune was to be located next to Germany.
Do we have any Frenchmen here? Do the Quebecois count?
Michael
I was born in Montreal, but I am a maudit Anglais.
hey look - even the incompetent idiots need their asses kicked once in a while
More importantly the smart guys and especially guys who think they are smart are the ones
who really need an asskicking.
I read the title of this thread and my first thought was....."The French gave up eating cheese"? ???
Quote from: DicedT on February 01, 2013, 09:18:37 PM
France's misfortune was to be located next to Germany.
Do we have any Frenchmen here? Do the Quebecois count?
Michael
I think Sailor Saturn is French. Should we invite him?
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on February 01, 2013, 06:23:05 PM
theyre bombing Africans not stopping 3rd Panzer Army.
Im still bitter over the whole Indochina mess they left us with.
they knew a patsy when the US asked, "want some help?"
They did not want to leave but they did. The US did not want to leave and they did.
The Vietnamese just wanted everybody else to leave. Ho Chi Minh initially sought
US help against the French. But he was a commie and they were not. Somebody
backed the wrong horse on that one. Ho was initially pretty flexible and wanted a constitution
partly based on the US one. He got along well with the OSS guys who came there
to help get the Japanese out. But he was rejected and had to go to the other guys
who were much more interested in helping him just to piss off the Westerners. He never
got on well with Beijing and once said putting up with French sh*t was better than eating
Chinese sh*t. Anyway all water under the bridge.
Quote from: Steelgrave on February 04, 2013, 01:03:52 PM
Quote from: DicedT on February 01, 2013, 09:18:37 PM
France's misfortune was to be located next to Germany.
Do we have any Frenchmen here? Do the Quebecois count?
Michael
I think Sailor Saturn is French. Should we invite him?
You invite him, and I swear I'll beat you with a soufflé.
(Don't mind me, I'm feeling a bit puckish this morning...)
Quote from: Martok on February 05, 2013, 09:50:13 AM
Quote from: Steelgrave on February 04, 2013, 01:03:52 PM
Quote from: DicedT on February 01, 2013, 09:18:37 PM
France's misfortune was to be located next to Germany.
Do we have any Frenchmen here? Do the Quebecois count?
Michael
I think Sailor Saturn is French. Should we invite him?
You invite him, and I swear I'll beat with a soufflé.
(Don't mind me, I'm feeling a bit puckish this morning...)
Heh....I banned him (and his alts) so many times at the WG'er that if I invited him here, he would sense a trap 8)
He/She sure had/has a lot of issues. What a case study!
Actually my friend tells me this whole place is a case study.
She is a psychiatrist.
I would love a case study of psychiatrists
Quote from: bayonetbrant on February 05, 2013, 12:42:50 PM
I would love a case study of psychiatrists
Heh. They'd probably make us look normal.
My old neighbor (the only house near mine for a half mile) was a semi retired 75 year old psychiatrist and a good natured weirdo. He especially enjoyed playing his flute in the woods naked in the summertime.
Quote from: Gusington on February 05, 2013, 12:59:43 PM
He especially enjoyed playing his flute in the woods naked in the summertime.
There we go.
Makes pushing pewter across a table, slinging dice, and making battlefield sounds seem positively normal!
Quote from: LongBlade on February 05, 2013, 01:05:06 PM
Quote from: Gusington on February 05, 2013, 12:59:43 PM
He especially enjoyed playing his flute in the woods naked in the summertime.
There we go.
Makes pushing pewter across a table, slinging dice, and making battlefield sounds seem positively normal!
everything is relative....
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthechive.files.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F02%2Fgenius-stupid-19.jpg%3Fw%3D750%26amp%3Bh%3D560&hash=32f3b8b32d1c2afa711c17af9549f1fd6ee460ae)
^^ I am so going to do that next time my wife asks me to stir something for her, just to see the look on her face
Back to the OP (maybe I should post this to FP?)...
Is it not fair to to say that France's politicians and generals have repeatedly shown to be wanting, while the common soldier has acquited himself fairly well (given the circumstances)?
The record of french pilots from WWI certainly stands on its own merits, and the French infantry suffered tremendous losses and hardship due to blind strategic mis-management, not from a lagging esprit de corps in the soldiers. "Charge the machine guns" can only be ordered so many times until an offensive will grind to halt. IIRC, it was John Keegan who said that the French defensive strategy in WWI to be so short-sighted (depending heavily upon the fighting spirit of the soldier as opposed to sound tactics) that it is rivalled only by the Dervishes.
And in the post-war year, I think the French forces in Algeria were more frequently guilty of harshness or brutality than of battlefield cowardice. That's not to say I support or condone gov't sponsored military heavy-handedness, but they certainly didn't run from a fight. And the reputation of the FFL has always been "hardcore" (perhaps not the right word).
Quote from: Jack Nastyface on February 05, 2013, 03:19:12 PM
Back to the OP (maybe I should post this to FP?)...
Is it not fair to to say that France's politicians and generals have repeatedly shown to be wanting, while the common soldier has acquited himself fairly well (given the circumstances)?
The record of french pilots from WWI certainly stands on its own merits, and the French infantry suffered tremendous losses and hardship due to blind strategic mis-management, not from a lagging esprit de corps in the soldiers. "Charge the machine guns" can only be ordered so many times until an offensive will grind to halt. IIRC, it was John Keegan who said that the French defensive strategy in WWI to be so short-sighted (depending heavily upon the fighting spirit of the soldier as opposed to sound tactics) that it is rivalled only by the Dervishes.
And in the post-war year, I think the French forces in Algeria were more frequently guilty of harshness or brutality than of battlefield cowardice. That's not to say I support or condone gov't sponsored military heavy-handedness, but they certainly didn't run from a fight. And the reputation of the FFL has always been "hardcore" (perhaps not the right word).
My understanding is that the French at Dunkirk fought valiently to help get the Brits off the beach.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on February 05, 2013, 02:16:32 PM
^^ I am so going to do that next time my wife asks me to stir something for her, just to see the look on her face
I have othe attachment in mind.
I said it before. In 1940 the French were overconfident and relied on proven but outmoded tactics. They had ignored the revolution
that occurred under their noses as far as military operations went. They had no long term goals other than containment of Germany.
The government was polarised and so was the electorate. The left and right hated each other and obstructed each other politically
at every opportunity. The armed forces had been given a series of conflicting goals by a leadership totally affected by the Great War
which they had won. The financial crises of the Depression had profound effect. They judged German capabilities based on their own
perceived capabilities. And as is usual is France the key decisions were made by a whore.
Its also a fact that the French Army was not organised to fight a mobile war. Although it had a lot of tanks, some of which were very good, such as the Somua, they were mostly used in small units in support of the infantry. No doubt they also put too much faith in the maginot line as an 'impenetrable barrier'.
Unforunately for them, they did not have time to alter doctrin to counter the Blitzkreig, something which the Soviets were eventually able to do by trading space for time.
Quote from: bob48 on February 05, 2013, 04:12:11 PM
Its also a fact that the French Army was not organised to fight a mobile war. Although it had a lot of tanks, some of which were very good, such as the Somua, they were mostly used in small units in support of the infantry. No doubt they also put too much faith in the maginot line as an 'impenetrable barrier'.
Unforunately for them, they did not have time to alter doctrin to counter the Blitzkreig, something which the Soviets were eventually able to do by trading space and LIVES, for time.
^Yes, that's also quite true Windy. I stand corrected.
The problem was the French "knew" how to win a war. Had they not just won one at enormous cost?
They had a plan to stop the German attack. It was a sword and shield plan with the Maginot Line as the shield
and the BEF and the best of the French mobile forces as the sword. The hinge was the Ardennes and the Germans
knew it. The Maginot forts did not surrender until after the country did. The Battle of the Gembloux Gap was a near
run thing and the French nearly pulled it off. The sticker was the French knew they could not move a major mechanised
force through the Ardennes so they thought nobody could. The Germans, at least v. Manstein and Hitler, thought they
could... so they did. The OKW and OKH were crapping their collective breeches. The Germans debouched at Sedan
and the French said "Alors! WTF!!??" Churchill said "Ou est le masse de manouvre?" The French said "Aucune."
And the world said "Goodbye Third Republic."
A great "might have been" for wargamers would be the fighting that would have occurred to the southwest of the Ardennes as the panzers broke out.
The French First Army, with most of their armor and mechanised troops, were originally placed very near this area.
However, the capture of the original german plan of attack (which was almost a carbon copy of the Schlieffen plan) made the French move the armor to the Belgian frontier.
Had it remained in place, there would have occurred a massive tank battle.
Probably the germans would have won because of better doctrine, combined arms, anti-tank guns, and the Stuka.
Still, the French might have stopped the panzers, and it would have given us a lot of scenarios.
That is very much my understanding of what could have been. Hitler gave that stop order
before Dunkirk because he felt he had pushed his luck way too far. What if the Panzers had been stalled
near the Meuse? Would he have given in to the conservatism of the General Staff?
Sure, you can post it to FP. We could always use more grogs there.
"Lions led by donkeys" can be said about the British Army at the Somme or the U.S. Army in Iraq. France's problem is the same as Poland's. It's located next to Germany, a larger, more disciplined and militaristic neighbor over the last 150 years. If Britain or America were separated from Germany by a frontier instead of an ocean, they would have fared no better.
Michael
Quote from: Jack Nastyface on February 05, 2013, 03:19:12 PM
Back to the OP (maybe I should post this to FP?)...
Is it not fair to to say that France's politicians and generals have repeatedly shown to be wanting, while the common soldier has acquited himself fairly well (given the circumstances)?
The record of french pilots from WWI certainly stands on its own merits, and the French infantry suffered tremendous losses and hardship due to blind strategic mis-management, not from a lagging esprit de corps in the soldiers. "Charge the machine guns" can only be ordered so many times until an offensive will grind to halt. IIRC, it was John Keegan who said that the French defensive strategy in WWI to be so short-sighted (depending heavily upon the fighting spirit of the soldier as opposed to sound tactics) that it is rivalled only by the Dervishes.
And in the post-war year, I think the French forces in Algeria were more frequently guilty of harshness or brutality than of battlefield cowardice. That's not to say I support or condone gov't sponsored military heavy-handedness, but they certainly didn't run from a fight. And the reputation of the FFL has always been "hardcore" (perhaps not the right word).