WOW thats a lot of Mausers!!

[GeeRam]

Before the Beeb's coding took over the page there yesterday, I was trying to say that we should not be too quick to judge the French military of 1940. In fact many, probably most units fought hard and well - the German losses speak to that.

It was the French Prime Minister that lost France, not the French Army.
Reynaud phoned Churchill in the middle of May blabbering that France is lost.....so he'd given up by then, and had he allowed Gamelin's attack from the north to meet up with an attack from the south to cut of the German bulge, things "may" have been different.....instead he sacked Gamelin and replaced him with Weygand who's first priority was to get a good nights sleep and then have a jolly around Paris for a few days.........2 days the French and Allies couldn't afford to loose.
Even the Germans couldn't believe their luck in the Battle of France, many wrote afterwards that it could have been so different given the French and allied superiority in artillery and parity in all but aircraft numbers, and it was the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe/Army Blitzkrieg tactic that gave them that extra edge in a short time.

Mind you, my Uncle went to France with the BEF in 1939, and was one of the lucky ones to be evacuated at Dunkirk in 1940, and he never had much of a good word to say about the French army - he thought they were scruffy, smelly and ill disciplined...... but he was a pre-war regular, and ended up doing 22 years and finishing up as a WO2 by time he retired in 1959.

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[browningautorifle]

Each layer is ten and the stacks appear to be eighteen or twenty. Twenty would make sense to be two hundred rifles per pile for easy counting...times how many stacks. I could hand bomb a stack into my truck if given a few minutes.

[usabaker]

I could hand bomb a stack into my truck if given a few minutes.

I'd help you

[browningautorifle]

I'd help you

Take two then, roll out on the helper springs. I just wonder what the sundry smaller piles of "Stuff" are in the edges of the pics.

[GeeRam]

I just wonder what the sundry smaller piles of "Stuff" are in the edges of the pics.

Can't see clearly, goes too blurry when zooming in.

I can certainly see piles of MG34 or MG42 at the back at the end of the row behind the guy standing in the middle. You can see the distinctive crescent shape butt's.

[Ovidio]

I'd help you

I’m in too!

[Merle]

I'd help you

me too !!!

[GeeRam]

More big piles of Mausers and MG's etc., at the end of this short clip of film of German troops surrendering to British troops in May 1945.



I can remember the stories my Dad told me of him doing exactly this when he was with the Royal Engineer's in Germany at the time of the German surrender.

[Ovidio]

I’m reading “To Lose a Battle”, from Alistair Crowe.
Very interesting, and really explains the genesis of that gigantic defeat.
I imagined a different reality.

[Ovidio]

I guess they just were not ready for modern warfare. Mentally, from the point of view of their military doctrine, morally, and materially. They had some great pieces of equipment, but too little. They had good tanks, but used them piecemeal, they had slow reactions and were at that point a very divided nation. It was the whole picture that was blurred beyond repair.
I’m at the night from May 15 to 16 in the book, and the damage was already irreparable.