Re: [OT] Frog Bashing

*warning* I feel myself coming close to flaming.
If I do so, it's accidental. Please just hit me a few times with a
baseball
bat to get my attention so I can decently apologise if I do.

>Of course we know how long the defense of 
>France in '39 lasted. What was it a week or two?

Actually, the whole year.

The collapse came in May 1940. Not 1939. At a time when the US was
squeezing
out the last drops of foreign currency France possessed to sell her such
outstanding
war machines as the Cutiss Hawk and Brewster Buffalo (and at an ENORMOUS
markup.)

French resistance stiffened markedly after the initial breakthrough.
Basically,
the ill-lead dross bugged out, just like the US Army did in Korea when
they
faced some well-equipped opposition with better doctrine for the
conditions.
The typical conscript poilu in 1940 was almost as stoned out of his
gourd on
cheap plonk as the standard conscript grunt was with cheap dope in
Vietnam in
1970. The regulars were a different matter - some (like many US regulars
in
Vietnam) were hopelessly lead, but all were a lot more switched-on. And
given
a little time to adapt to modern warfare, got rather good at it. Like
many US
regulars did in Vietnam.

Just ask any of the poor devils who fought against the Vichy French in
Syria
or North Africa. The one outfit that had an easy time of it was a unit
of the
(Free French) Foreign Legion, who marched into an attack against some
(Vichy
French) Foreign Legion with weapons at port arms and band playing,
offering
no resistance to defensive fire. A gutsy move.

Have a read of:
Horne, Alistair. To Lose a Battle. France, 1940. NY: Penquin, 1979

I won't go into WW1 at the moment.

But I will say that had I been French ( shudder! ) I'd be very very
pissed-off
at the lack of justice in some of the criticisms. Especially from people
who
had such inglorious debacles as the Fall of Singapore, the great
skedaddle at
Kasserine, etc in their countries' military history. 

OK, normal services will now be resumed.