A modern day combat

Thats the problem, you have to go back to before time beganinto the History Channel archives to get to a point where France had a viable military. But trying to pull our topic away from political sluggery... FL would be cool models as would Japanese Defense Forces. If they expanded out into Anti terrorist teams for an expansion to the game you could get th ATgroup out of Hong Kong
 
25-35% are French nationals apparently, which is actually a lot more than when they were originally founded. Plus most of the officers are French.

In the 1980's there were lots of Brits and Serbs. These days they get quite a lot of Africans and Balkan nationals (probably mostly escaped war criminals, which is something they have a history of, a large number of the Legionnaries who fought at Dien Bien Fu in Vietnam were ex Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht).

Although I still find it amusing that the most successful unit in French army history is mostly not actually French...

Nick
 
Ok when did they last win a war without the British and the Americans to hold their hands...

Nick

*Edit
Why did they even bother building a great big nuclear powered aircraft carrier when they can't risk sending it anywhere that it might possibly get damaged (especially if its propeller falls off...)?

I apologise to any French people who may be offended by my comments, my only defense is that I'm English and have a genetic hatred of the French (Don't blame me! Its in my genes!)

Nick
 
captainsmirk said:
25-35% are French nationals apparently, which is actually a lot more than when they were originally founded. Plus most of the officers are French

Although I still find it amusing that the most successful unit in French army history is mostly not actually French...

Nick
Click to expand...

Officially they do not recruit Frenchmen. However many join by pretending to be Swiss/Belgian/Quebecois

Largely because for a long time the army was conscripts and where regular soldiers with families will surrender rather than die, the Legion IS their family so they refuse to surrender and fight to the death.

The Legion's future is secure. France has abolished conscription and moved towards a professional army. As to the French army's effectiveness. They have a rep as "surrenderers" just cos of 1940. They have historically done extremely well and were considered invincible at the time of the Napoleonic wars. WW1 and WW2 the British considered them the best army in the world. In Beevor's "Inside the British Army" he said that after Desert storm the British had a newfound respect for the French, considering them better than the US troops.
 
captainsmirk said:
Ok when did they last win a war without the British and the Americans to hold their hands...

Nick

*Nick
Click to expand...

When did The British last win a war without American help? :wink: (and I'll let you discount Portugese supply bases and US intelligence so you can say Falklands but apart from that?)
Very few wars are fought alone anymore.

The French haven't fought many wars since WW2, but at least they've got involved in Africa where Britain and the US seem uninterested probably because of a lack of oil.

EDIT a good friend of mine was in the Legion and I have a lot of respect for those guys
 
emperorpenguin said:
WW1 and WW2 the British considered them the best army in the world. In Beevor's "Inside the British Army" he said that after Desert storm the British had a newfound respect for the French, considering them better than the US troops.
Click to expand...

Well that proved so totally correct in WW2 (then again the British army wasn't that good either). I'm also not all together sure why they would have made that impression in WW1 either, they performed no more successfully than any other similar force. Comparing their efforts to those of the British on the Somme is not a good comparrison. The French soldiers were veteruns of the early years, conscripts and reservists with pre-war military training, compared to the Brits who were all fresh troops of Kitcheners army, with poor training and no experience. The final defeat of the Germans was due to several factors, the total exhaustion of the german war machine, American man-power, and the much improved abilities of the BEF. France was in many ways just as exhausted as Germany.

As for the Gulf war that is now fifteen years ago now. The French have nearly no combat experience since then, where as the Americans have had quite a lot. In the fact the French's most recent combat experience seems to taking sides during peacekeeping operations.

But really I'm just putting the French down due to my own predudice. WW1 wouldn't have been won without the French army, the French resistance made a major contribution to WW2. And Napoleon (even if he was corsican) was one of the greatest generals in history. Although the Napoleonic wars were rather like the a Hundred Years war, the French/English won for most and then lost at the end...

Nick
 
captainsmirk said:
Well that proved so totally correct in WW2 (then again the British army wasn't that good either).

The French soldiers were veteruns of the early years, conscripts and reservists with pre-war military training, compared to the Brits who were all fresh troops of Kitcheners army, with poor training and no experience.

France was in many ways just as exhausted as Germany.

As for the Gulf war that is now fifteen years ago now. The French have nearly no combat experience since then,

.Nick
Click to expand...

Well I'm just saying that was our perceived wisdom back then, as you say we were crap too!

I disagree the French were mostly conscripts and they lost almost an entire generation in WW1, they hadn't the core of elites like the BEF, which by that point was almost wiped out anyway...

France was indeed exhausted, she had done the lion's share of the fighting.

They've been involved in low intensity conflict in Africa. Britain had no combat experience since then until 2003

the German army has no combat experience but considered to be one of the best in NATO (by the British army....though as in the first point maybe we're not the best judge!)
 
Ah, the French army was recruited by conscription, just like the German army. Doesn't mean they were rubbish just because they were conscripts. But they were conscripts, as in fact were most of the troops in Napoleon's Grande Armee.
By 1916 most of the Regular British army had already been expended in the fighting of 1914/15 there were very few of the regulars left by the time of Somme, they were replaced by Volunteers of Kitchener's army, who were rushed to the front with limted training, and no experience, the French troops they fought alongside on the first day of the Somme, had training (as they were either serving conscripts or reservists recalled having finished their conscription term) and many had experience from the early years of the war.

I wasn't stating that the French were bad, just that they were no better than any other army of the time.

Nick
 
On the conscription thing. It was the standard method of recruiting armies used in europe at the time.
The Germans had a intricate system where you served 2-3 years in the army and then went through a series of reserve formations which could be called up in time of war. You were also required to take annual training to maintain your skills whilst in the reserve. The amount of this training and your likelyhood of call up reduced the fiurther along the scale you went. The French used a similar system, as did many countries other than Britain.

Which is why Britain sent the BEF of about 500'000 (which was most of the regular army), whilst the French and Germans could mobilize well over a million each.

As I said in my previous post, being a conscript doesn't necessarily make you a poor soldier. Most German soldiers of both world wars were conscripts, and no one disputes their militaary capabilities.

Nor should my comments on the French being taken to literally. I just get a little annoyed when they tell other people that they are doing things wrong when they don't even attempt to do anything at all. It's not like any French run "adventures" of the same sort (Algeria, Indochina, etc) turned out any better.

Nick
 
captainsmirk said:
Which is why Britain sent the BEF of about 500'000 (which was most of the regular army), whilst the French and Germans could mobilize well over a million each.
Nick
Click to expand...

you have got to be joking! The BEF was nowhere near a half a million strong! :shock:

Try 125,000
 
emperorpenguin said:
Well I'm just saying that was our perceived wisdom back then, as you say we were crap too!
Click to expand...

I was quite common in WW2 for troops from a particular country to do very poorly the first time they went into battle. The consequences of this were worse from the French than either the British or Americans. The British could retreat back across the formidable natural barrier of the English Channel and the cover of the RAF to regroup. American performance at Kasserine Pass was embarassing but no amount of bad performance in North Africa would create a strategic threat to the US. Floundering around there didn't hurt is strategically. The French did not have these luxuries. They were back to the wall in their own country.

----
We had the fun of doing this twice for two largely different sorts of warfare. Once in the Pacific and again in North Africa.
 
emperorpenguin said:
anyway I'm really looking forward to getting some French and Germans to mix with the British and field a true EU super-army! :D
Click to expand...

I am a bit surprised that the EU Rapid Reaction Force isn't included since it is already there and (iirc) currently deployed for Operation Althea in Bosnia. Maybe doing models for all of the forces involved (Brits, Germans and French at a minimum) just cost too much cash for the initial release.

There are some capability problems with the force still but they should be sorted by the time frame of this game.
 
But there was actually some fight left in the French army when the government surrendered. Not that would probably have changed the eventual out come...

And the Germans didn't seem to suffer from this problem. Admitedly when they first fought they had the Soviet steam-roller distracting the Poles from the other side...

Nick
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

L
Imperial Credits
3 4 5
Replies
80
Views
2K
boggo2300
boggo2300
Terry Mixon
Imperial Navy Refueling Operations
2 3
Replies
57
Views
2K
Terry Mixon
Terry Mixon
P
And another way to relieve players of their credits
Replies
13
Views
381
Condottiere
C
Terry Mixon
Who Builds Imperial Navy Ships and Where Do They Do It?
3 4 5
Replies
88
Views
4K
Condottiere
C
Yenaldlooshi
Rules Clarification: Mandatory Melee Combat?
Replies
13
Views
356
Sigtrygg
Sigtrygg
Back
Top