Har har...har?

 

French military jokes are old now. =|

While it is true that Germany had some significant advantages in 1940 including better training, doctrine, leadership, communication equipment, AAA, more aircraft, etc., it's complete rubbish to imply it was tank vs .22 and in many areas the allies had the advantage.  The allies on May 10, 1940 had 4,200 tanks, 3,254 French, vs 2,439 German tanks.  French tanks had better armor and heavier guns but suffered from small crew size (1 and 2 man turrets) and lack of communication equipment.  Indeed it was the German's who had more trouble destroying French tanks than the other way around.

 

Frankly Germany took a huge gamble in 1940 and it paid off.  In order to achieve local superiority at the main point of attack they took big risks in the other sectors.  Army Group B's attack on the Low Countries with 29 divisions diverted the attention of 57 allied divisions including the best French and British units.  In the south Germany deployed 19 division against the 36 French in the Maginot Line.  This allowed them to concentrate 45 divisions vs 18 second rate French divisions in the Ardennes.  Moreover, the allies expecting a long campaign kept much of their air forces in reserve while Germany went all out from the start.  Indeed on May 10th alone the Luftwaffe lost 347 planes (including many transports in Holland and Belgium) and by the end May the Luftwaffe lost 30% of their starting strength plus another 13% seriously damaged.

 

In any case I'm not a big fan of France, especially after 2003, and I do not buy anything made in France but facts are facts.

 

 

Maybe Ted should spend a lttle time indoors reading , it might round out his opinions. Too much raw meat and  noise muzak dull the brain. Perhaps he should wipe the squirrel blood off his lips and read SONG OF ROLAND for starters. If thats not enought , he ought to rent out a tank and attempt to stop it with his 22 varmit  gun. That's what the French were up against when the Germans attacked during WW2/ Killing unarmed animals is easy, maybe a week or two in a real Army might uncloud his vision of the world.

Yeaap, they could've kept their Marseille fleet free and evacuated as many Vichy and other French soldiers as possible to the African colonies. Might've speeded up the African and Italian campaigns a lot. 

 

That said while I enjoy most French jokes, and this one is quite funny (because of the great French couisine, their reputation and history of sexual peccadiloes and retreat-surrender), this one is also somewhat discriminatory... but a lot of jokes do that.

 

Anyway, there's plenty of brave Frenchmen, and France today is stronger in terms of doctrine than what it was in 1940 I think... but of course they will continue to suffer this reputation until their next important engagement.

Anyway the part about sex is quite unfair, most people do that and many French have good morals (well ok, they're Atheist-Agnostic most of them by a slight margin, but still) and the food is making their good part look bad.

Let's just say if I was French I'd be justly offended, except partly about the running away and sex thing... they should at least not let their President run around and boast about having had multiple women in legit relationships with others.