gui[QUOTE=Incognito]I don’t know how many he had, but the number of French troops who landed in Normandy was something in the neighborhood of 12. The “Free French” played virtually no role in the liberation of France, except turning their noses at the British vintages and cooking while taking a 4 year break from war in Britain.
[QUOTE]
The free French played a little role in Africa and at sea, we can also mention some free french squadrons and some pilots in the RAF. Afterwards among others they landed in Normany (after D-Day.) But they also landed in a rather large number (250 000 soldiers I believe) in southern France afterwards (do you at least know that there was a second landing in the South soon after Normandy?), they also took part in combats in Germany etc. until the final battles.
anyway I’m sure you don’t know many things about the topic, do you know the americans wanted to do their best to put De gaulle away? they didn’t recognize him until very late. They wanted to install american people to manage France etc. It had been really hard for De Gaulle to be recognized as the new legitimate French leader. and you know what, I remember DG was told about the date of the D-Day just before…. isn’t that interesting? there were many things backstage you know.
thanks to the resistance who supported him, and thanks to De Gaulle himself who tried to do his best to quickly put his leaders in the liberated areas to manage everythings before the americans (who had even created a new money…. which wasn’t recognized by France.) and also thanks to Churchill who, even if he didn’t always agree with him (they had both strong personnalties as we know), knew DG was the new legitimate French leader and supported him.
And to you , Phil Foster, I have to say I totally agree with you in the fact that nobody can say that in a war, some countries didn’t fought etc…
in a war everybody suffers and fight more or less bravely, saying that the French didn’t fought in the early WW2 (or even afterwards…..) or saying that the italians never fought or that they just knew how to run (eventhough they haven’t done great, military speaking for quite a long time) etc etc is totally stupid.
And there are also many countries that fought and that we shouldnt forget.
guiFrankly, I am not the right person to the mentioned I-like-Bush-and-I-hate-france forums, just because 1. I am for Kerry 2. I like France :).
I am not really interested in society or history problems, I am cosmopolitan and support individualism. I don’t really care about the military history of my country as long as I am able to have a good life there.
I see many Yanks bragging at their military victories, but, frankly, what does an individual has of all of it? Patriotism is nothing but a blindness, which makes you a puppet in the hand of those who pull the strings. They wave the flag and play the hymn, you stand up, they send you to Iraq, you go and eventually die for their winnings from reconstruction orders.. Nah, that is what I call pure stupidity, to sheed my life for someone else’s interests.
I haven’t said you were at all ! I have just said the image you posted was.
no offence against you 🙂
I had understood you didn’t agree with those things.
guiYou know what, gui, you might be right about that 100,000. Go figure…
hm… yes but I do admit that I have written in a hurry and I now realize some of those about 100 000 must have been civilians, not only soldiers. Anyway that’s huge, and civilians weren’t victims from carpet bombing at this time etc. So most of them should be soldiers anyway. And about 100 000 dead plus the wounded is a big number for 2 months of fighting, even if some are civilians.
guiok, so find books and check what I say, I can’t say more. If you wonder about my points (100 000 dead, a rather great numbers of downed aircraft etc etc) that proves you have no clue about this part of hisory.
of course this is a shame period for France, but far from that idea which says that all French soldiers raised their white flags at the first shot heard.
about the Charlemagne division, I found 7500 men with a brief searsh on Google.
and guess what? Im a student, I study history….
guiI have found something really annoying regarding this..
Yet still one question comes into my mind? How does it affect any French in person? I don’t think that anybody really gives a damn..
History is a matter of objectivity, when a non historian or a biased person only sees a certain version of things, and hide some things to make his point, that makes this sort of things.
History has to be said, all is in the way we say it, it’s easy to do what we want in hiding some things, exagerate some others etc.
and no need to comment the thing you posted, historically speaking that is full of mistakes. That is just useful in those I-like-Bush-and-I-hate-france forums.
personally It doesn’t annoy me in the way it insults France and te French. But I hate false arguments, and erroenous facts. It would also annoy me if it was agaisnt another country, I just hate people who say false things, especially to prove some political points.
guiIncognito, have you ever typed “blonde + intelligent” on Google? Have you ever typed “Bush” etc. You will find amazing things, and these have to do with the way Google works (and also sometimes because of the way some people know how to put some results ahead of the others.) Anyway do you think no result on Google means it is accurate historically speaking?
you are really a retarded moron
and now a bit of history
The battle of France was full of harsh combats for both sides. About 100 000 French soldiers died in less than 3 months, which can prove how they were harsh combats. And without the french air Force (which, with a lot of poor old planes and only a few competitive planes, and old tactics etc. did rather great) Hitler would have had enough aircraft to allow him to attack England faster and maybe to win the battle of Britain. Not to mention the french army was nearly equal in numbers with the Germans.
So yes they fought, and they fought bravely, and every historian (I am not speaking only about French ones, just borrow a serious book from an English or american one…. you know ? a book?) could tell you that, if only you read them….
But yes, the commanders were old, stupid, uncapable etc. and they applied old tactics, they thought they would fight a position war like in WW1, and also they avoided comments from younger commanders (De gaulle and Guderian shared the same view about the use of tanks and were precursors for example, but only the Germans applied these tactics) and nobody was morally ready to fight in another big war. So France losed the early war, and it was a tragedy and a shock worlwide, the army supposed to be the first of the world defeated this way by a much more smarter and aggressive German army. Yes this isn’t a period of glory for France but anyway things aren’t like you describe them at all.
Also the comments made before are true, France could have won at the beginning, for example if France (and in a certain extent Britain, but they hadn’t as much forces on the continent) would have attacked while Hitler was in Poland, the war may have been stopped, Hitler wasn’t ready for a big scale fight at this moment, and his troops weren’t in the good place to stop a possible French attack. But the real war began later, almost a year later. Also when Germans attacked they made lots , lots of mistakes – for example once they had an awfully big column of vehicles etc, for days, but nobody ever bombed them which could have stopped them dramatically etc. But nobody can rewrite history, and my point here isn’t to say France should have win, but it is to say that the German army also had weaknesses and that the French army wans’t that bad, it lacked many things but nobody can say they losed without fighting etc.
France essentially losed because of its commanders, tactics used, and stupid mistakes.
You said before there was “100% collaborators” even someone who isn’t very good at history knows this comment is a heresia.
There was the resistance and then the free French forces. Thousands of soldiers who stil fought. And even if most of the civilians were just waiting without doing anything, there weren’t so many collaborators.
Of course there were the State in Vichy, the militia, and even a few idiots who formed the SS Charlemagne division (who even fought to defend Berlin at the end of the war) but there’s nothing like these “100% collaborators”, these are insane comments from someone who doesn’t know a lot about history apart from what he likes to retain from the few he has seen (and also from many things he has completely made up.)
I DONT NEED ANY BOOK OR ANYTHING to write all what I’ve just written, because I know history, and especially the one of my country, unlike you, who don’t know european history even if you think so, you just spread bull****s.
(by the ways as I writed that “live” without the help of sources, my text may contain some little mistakes)
and to finish, I’d like to apologize because I’m far from the topic, but sometimes some things have to be said.
guiWell, here, there is some connection. If the French can’t win wars generally, why would they have a good air force?
I don’t even know how you are even able to think this way… that’s against logic…..
I think it illustrates their duplicitousness, which goes hand in hand with the French inability to win wars==>bad air force. I suppose we can also recall that during WWII, France was a country of virtually 100% collaborators with the Nazis (and that more Frenchmen were killed fighting FOR Hitler than against him
OK now the game is over, you have no credibility here anymore, go hide yourself. I also suggest to buy book, learn things etc cause now I don’t think we are able to help you….
people spreading such bull****s are…… disguting….. you should be banned for such comments
guiWell, you sound French to me. Which is nothing to brag about. I refuse to buy french wines now. I suggest you do the same.
Oh yes I’m French, and as you can notice I haven’t even given my point of view of which air force is the best, and Im not the kind of person who says that his airforce, his country, or his wine is the best (I’ve even given bad points about the French air force here in this thread.)
By the way what the wine has to do with the topic? and the Italian wars? and the traitor? etc etc etc etc
I’m French but I try to be as impartial and open as I can, which is obviously not your case.
guiFrance is a second-rate country in electronics (though why producing your weapons “locally” makes your air force better or worse is a mystery to me). The french military budget is smaller than Britain’s (something like $20B vs. about $30B, and trivial compared to US budget). The french haven’t won a war by themselves in centuries. Hell, they are the only country that lost TWO wars to the Italians. In Desert Storm, they barely scraped together a few thousand soldiers to go to the Gulf. Their aircraft refused to fly missions outside Kuwait because they were worried it was too dangerous (in other words, they refused to fly any real missions against any real targets, given that the Republican Guards were positioned just north of Kuwait, and given that strategic targets were obviously outside Kuwait).
What I like with such pointless posts is that we don’t even have to care to answer (no time to waste to give stats or teach history to some narrow minded persons.) But I’d like to say it’s sad to see such people in such a nice board, it reminds me of some other boards which are of really lesser value.
if at least you want to be anti French or just to say the French air force is worse than the Royal air force, try to find valuable arguments, and which fit the topic.
and yes I know you will say that I am the narrow minded person……..
guiDon’t forget the 14 C-135FR’s and the two A319’s…
anyway for those who wonder, here is a more detailed list I got : (feel free to correct my numbers)
30 Mirage 2000-5F (in squadrons, there are some others)
80 Mirage 2000 B/C RDI
60 Mirage 2000 D
60 Mirage 2000 N
40 Mirage F1 CT
40 Mirage F1 CR
15-20 Jaguar
4 Mirage IVP + 2 in storage
100 alpha jet
80 Tucano
100 Epsilon
(i dont know attrition etc. for the trainers above, I guess the numbers must be lower)
13 K(C)135 FR
4 E-3F AWACS
2 C-160 Gabriel
1 DC8 Sarigue
65-66 C-160 – 46 of first generation
5 C-130H and 9 C-130H30
about 20 CN 235 (1 has crashed, some are in order)
3 Airbus A-310
2 DC8
6 Twin Otter
10 Rafale M F1 including one for tests, there are 3 other production Rafales
about 30 SEM (not sure about that)
21 Atlantique 2 + 7 in storage
3 E-2C Hawkeye
12 Nord 262E
5 Falcon F200
6 Falcon 10
4 Falcon 50M
50? Xingu
I didnt know about these two A319
guiPlus the MICA is relatively unproven compared to AMRAAM.
anyway only our 30 Mirage 2000-5F and our 10 Rafale M F1 actually carry the MICA, and only the RM version.
guiWhat (conventional) stand-off weapons got the AdlA compared to RAF ? What about transport capabilities ? Ground survaillance ?
the French transport fleet includes 65 C-160 (I don’t know how many are still able to really fly, though :s) ; 14 C-130 H (including 9 C130H-30) ; 20 CN 235 ; 2 DC8, 3 A310
we begin to be desperate about our transport fleet, the A400M program takes too long…. (50 ordered, first deliveries by 2008-2009)
guiI think I remember that it was said that the French Mirage 2000 used to beat the Tornados in many exercices.
But anyway it is true that many people seem to underestimate the air-to-air capabilities of the Tornado, I dont think an AMRAAM equiped Tornado fleet would be so useless as some seem to think.
guiIsn’t it funny, Mark how colours in these old photos play tricks?
Photo credit: John Kenyon Collection via Mark 12
I dont know, but if you speak about the roundels these peculiar roundels were used in the Pacific by the UK, they haven’t been altered (so , no red in the middle etc)
guiwow usually Im not really fond of this aircraft, but those are really great pics
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