French Army, 1939-1940 series news

[edwest2]

From the Stone & Stone site:


Lee Sharp, author of the French Army, 1939-1940 series, is hard at work on new and revised volumes. He sent us this good news about his plans:

I'm currently revising the eight published volumes and the unpublished ninth volume and combining them into four volumes, each of around 800 pages. They will self-published and be available via Amazon as my previous publisher [Military Press] ceased trading. The general contents are:
Volume 1 - peacetime army order of battle with outline tables of organisation; wartime organisation and order of battle of the military districts, high command, army groups, armies, corps, divisions and fortress corps, regions and divisions.
Volume 2 - Fortress sectors, infantry, armoured and cavalry units.
Volume 3 - Artillery and engineer units.
Volume 4 - quartermaster units, medical units, transport units, foreign troops, sections de chemins de fer de campagne, centres de rassemblement de permissionnaires, the regiment de sapeurs pompiers, the garde republicaine. A bibliographic essay.
What are the differences between the first and second editions?
The most obvious change is the replacement of the order of battle tables by lists. This is the main reason for the increase in the page count. It has also allowed me to add a few more details on the mobilisation of each unit, with locations and assignments. I've had to obtain second or third sources to fix a few anomalies found in the original sources, so these corrections and the earlier errata is included as well. The tables of organisation in the first edition volumes 1 and 2 have been expanded to show the same level of detail as the later volumes. I have added the infantry, armoured, cavalry and artillery territorial units that were originally not included due to having to restrict the number of pages per volume. There is a lot more stuff I've collected in the past fifteen years not only for these volumes, but the later volumes I've planned. I was hoping to complete the four volumes by the end of the year, but it looks like it's going to be 2024 now. There are a few details I'm missing, so it will delay things whilst I try to figure out where the data is, or even if it exists at all.
After that it's a volume on the Order of Battle for 9 May 1940 - should be around 250 pages.
Next several volumes covering the mobilisation of the army and military operations.
Once that finished then I plan to write books on to the French Air Force Organisation, Order of Battle and Operations 1939-40. Research for these volumes has nearly been completed.
After that it's the British Army September 1939 to September 1940 in all theatres of operations, including separate volumes on the Homes Forces, Norway campaign, the BEF in France and the Middle East, Africa and Asian areas. These books will not be started until around 2030.