How could they have survived, /his/?

develop tank exclusive units
start building maginot line earlier
more tank shit in general
faster tanks

realize that the germans could come through the Ardennes, and act accordingly. maybe get a better tank doctrine. that's really it, they could have survived easily with just a few changes. they just got really unlucky that Hitler listened to Manstein and not most of the German general staff

By bombing the german army as it made its way slowly through the Ardennes.

Or so I read here.

Trying to hold the west bank of the rhine might have been a good idea too.

Can someone give a basic account of why they fell so quickly? It is a gap in my knowledge

Ya they should have gave up Alsace-Lorraine

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>>1805625
Pursue the Saar Offerensive instead of cancelling it because retarded high command wanted to replicate WW1 style defensive war

>>1805668
Give up A-L and then what? They would probably still declare war on Germany anyway for its invasion of Poland

>>1805661
The frogs' plan was to build the Maginot line so they could garrison the border with Germany cheaply and force the germs to come through Belgium, where they would be met with the main body of the French army. It wasn't a bad plan, since most of the German generals actually wanted to do this. But Hitler chose to follow Manstein's advice and take the risk of invading through the Ardennes forest, which the French had assumed was impassible, thus coming through a gap in French lines and then driving towards the sea to leave most of the French army cut off in Belgium

>>1805625
By supporting the Czechs and invading France when the Germans pushed into the Sudatenland.

>>1806232
Meant to say invading germany

>>1805625
Drop the line of defence doctrine and adopt mobilised force doctrine.

Let's explore this point by point shall we:

1) Exert from the Belgians that they not counter the French ambitons for the Maginot line to be lengthened from the Ardennes forest to Dunkirk, thereby sheltering France from all sides, and eliminating the loophole that loomed over France with the unprotected Ardennes pass.

2) In the years leading to the war, expell from France both the communist dissidents who are confirmed to have sabotaged much of the French industry throughout the months channeling up to the 1940 invasion, with them thinking that Hitler and Stalin were genuine buddy-buddies, and that to side with Hitler was to side with Stalin. Much in the same way, the military should be purged from elements suspected of too closely appreciating the fascist system, who later would deliberately lay down their arms in the hopes that a Nazi victory of France would have the repercussions of a fascist state being set up (so essentially, expel Petain, Laval, Darlan and those culprits).

3) Invade either on the aftermath of Anchluss, reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Czech occupation, and the battle of Poland, though these are startingly obvious.

>>1806733
4) Revoke Gamelin from being the chief of the French army, who was disastrous for France in perservering in thinking that the push from the Heer would fall on the French in Belgium, rather than at Sedan, and summon de Gaulle to lead the French army
>In 1934 he wrote Vers l'Armée de Métier (Toward a Professional Army), which advocated a professional army based on mobile armored divisions. Such an army would both compensate for the poor French demography, and be an efficient tool to enforce international law, particularly the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade Germany from rearming. He proposed mechanization of the infantry, with stress on the wholesale use of tanks. Ironically the German panzer units, so effectively employed in the invasion of France in 1940, utilized similar theories, while the French dispersed and wasted their armor. The book sold only 700 copies in France, where Pétain advocated an infantry-based, defensive army, but 7,000 copies in Germany, where it was studied by Adolf Hitler.[11]
who would preoccupy himself with drawing advantage from the technologically-superior French tanks, and would accentuate the remilitaristion of France on stockpiling an aviation force that could shoulder the tank pushes that de Gaulle was reprimanding the French army for not doing. With a decent airforce to protect France, there would be not such a supremacy from the Luftwaffe to plague France with, and that means that Stukas are not let gun down civilians freely (which they actually did to cover the roads in civilian corpses to compromise the French army being able to move about) and that the Germans cannot break through as easily at Sedan.

>>1806736
6) End the bickering between the allied nations : Netherlands and Belgium should have desisted from hoarding their neutrality status so staunchly, and should’ve let French troops into their country earlier on, rather than only grant them access once the Germans had breached into Belgium and the Netherlands. The Seventh French army was most notably screwed in that they were urged to rush to the Netherlands in less than a day to assist them, but by then the country was overrun. Furthermore, the French and British should be on better terms, to ease the British into not retreating as quickly at Dunkirk, and to better coordinate their attacks against Guderian instead to break out of the encirclement, and the British also could lend more planes to the French.

7) Exploit the weakness of the Panzer corridor. The Wehrmacht was often said to be a « well-sharpened spear with a rotten handle », meaning that the Panzer divisions were rather excellent while the infrantry was more often than not tagging behind, and exhausted, and were generally not at the same pace as the Panzers. More than once, infrantry and Panzer divisions were severed from each other, and any deft general should’ve struck there, turning the german strategy on its head with the German tanks now being encircled, while the Dunkirk pocket could be opened.

8) Not let a word of defeatism escape the government halls. Funnily enough, 70% of captures of French soldiers by the Heer occured once Petain issued by radio that he sought to reach peace with Germany, and that it is why we then see France being rolled over this hastily when they were mounted capable defenses on the Aisne and Somme only days prior. For how much more the French could’ve held, I wouldn’t know, but it would’ve certainly slowed the German victory by a lot. But instead a defeatist had to lead my country and sell it over to the Germans.

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>>1806736
Considering how much on circumstance the Manstein plan relied, it can be regarded as almost a miracle that it did trespass into being an absolute victory, and it would've only taken that the French immobilize the Germans in the Ardennes for it to crumble, but alas, Gamelin had to be an idiot.

>>1805682
Plus the frogs were completely unaware of how fast the germans were advancing. They made plans to set up defenses only to find out that the germans had already taken over the area.