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Originally Posted by Graham Boak
It is worth pointing out here that, as far as the air war specifically was concerned, the one major difference between the French position and the British was that the French had no radar chain
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- Yes, this is true. The French, too, were perfectly aware of radar and the famous ocean liner "Normandie" was equipped with it (as a protection against icebergs I think, and against collisions in general), but the French military did not understand its military significance (not the Americans either, and this as late as December 1941!!!). Alledgedly the French were supplied with several mobile radar units by the British but they didn't really understand how useful they could be, and these radars were not arranged into a network like in Britain...
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and, more importantly, the command, control and communications that produced an overall defence screen.
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- Yes, this is true. Nevertheless it is highly probable that the German invasion of France would have taken place in any case and all the radar stuff would have been overrun and captured, and made useless very quickly.
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Perhaps the lack of unified control of the air units had something to do with this, but I would prefer to be more informed before judging.
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- There WAS a unified control (HQ etc.) which already in the first days shifted hundreds of fighters towards Belgium-NL or back towards Sedan. It worked for ex. on 3 June in spite of heavy radio jamming by the Germans, which made it far less effective. On 5 June hundreds of French fighters were concentrated in the Somme-Aisne area and fought very effectively. I guess internally, within the AF, competent people were improving communications as fast as they could. The command system was not always very effective (but often it was) because French military communications were so poor and relied mostly on the civilian telephone network (!!!).
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However, I would point out that the respective qualities of the aircraft and airmen are less significant than being able to place them in the right place at the right time.
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- Certainly. The best AC in the world flown by the best aircrew in the world are not really useful in an area where nothing happens.
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Difficult enough at any time for the French in 1940, but even more so in the teeth of the Blitzkrieg (whatever the origin of the name!)
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- Hmmm... It was the French's top-ranking generals'own fault. They - and the British - had got enough warning early enough : in Spain, then in Poland, more than 8 months before the fighting started in earnest in the West. But they ignored what happened in Spain, then in Poland. "We are no Spaniards... We are no Poles...", they said with great superiority ("We are the best army in the world"). Their very costly 1918 victory had made them ridiculously pretentious. They just would not listen and not see. Their country, and the whole world, and the Jews and Gipsies, paid a very high price for this stupidity.