I'm surprised I haven't seen this until now, but then I haven't been too active on the forums as of late. In any case, can't wait to see more images! Now to address some stuff.
@THeTA0123 : Thank you for your kind words mate! Well, as you may have seen in the 2.26 changelog, many French stuff has been made:
* Grenade Defensive modele 37 (sethsoldier)
* Grenade Offensive modele 37 (sethsoldier)
* Pistolet Automatique modele 1935 A (sethsoldier)
* Berthier modèle 1916 (sethsoldier)
* Berthier modèle 1916 Bayonet (sethsoldier)
* Berthier modèle 1916 Tromblon (sethsoldier)
* Berthier modèle 1916 Apx21 (sethsoldier)
* Somua S35 (sethsoldier)
* F1 Grenade (sethsoldier)
* French Soldier (sethsoldier)
* SA34 25mm (sethsoldier)
* H39 SA18 model and skin (sethsoldier)
* B1 Bis (sethsoldier)
* Citroen 11 cv Model and Textures by HERC (toddel)
* French Army Kits (sethsoldier)
Tiny note: Berthier 1916 rifles were almost never used with the VB rifle grenade, as they were determined to be structurally too weak. This is why the Lebel 1886 M93 remained the standard rifle of the grenadier. Scoped Berthier rifles did exist, although these were rare compared to scoped Lebels.
When designing maps, remember that French squads using 8 mm rifles always had a mix of Berthier rifles (the riflemen, sergeant and corporal x 6), Berthier carbines (the ammo carriers x 3), and the Lebel rifle (grenadier x 1). It was an extremely complicated situation that was largely resolved with the 7.5 mm MAS 36 (or Berthier 1907-14 M34) squads, which just gave that rifle to everyone (although since grenadiers were usually pooled at platoon level, they often retained the Lebel).
That still leaves my most pressing desire unanswered: what infantry smallarms did they have (rifles, smgs, pistols etc.)
Here you go.
http://forums.filefront.com/fh2-suggestions/372936-french-weapons-second-world-war-comprehensive-articles.html
I have an updated version that I really should post on these forums one of these days. That link seems to be missing a good chunk of the photographs.
Yeah italians tried to invade France through the Alps in the middle of may 1940.
EPIC FAIL.
June 1940. Italy declared war on 10 June, started their primary offensive on 20 June.
Wow the French wasted a lot of money on that damn line :/
You know, with our knowledge of history it may seem a waste, but this line actually did its job: preventing any surprise attack like in 1870 and 1914, so that the French army had enough time to mobilize.
Things didn't happen as expected but at least, we weren't caught with pants completely off.
Yeah, that. The Maginot Line remains one of the most poorly understood things in history. It was not designed to be a magical shield that would stop a German offensive; that was pure propaganda used by both the Third Republic to comfort their citizens and the Vichy government to highlight the supposed decadence of the Third Republic.
The Maginot Line was designed as a deterrent to force the Germans through Belgium. As has been pointed out here, the French fully wanted to make the Germans go around it; the best French forces, the First and Seventh Armies, and the British Expeditionary Force were all allocated to rushing into Belgium to halt the German advance there. The miscalculation was in expecting the primary German offensive to go through northern Belgium (Army Group B; in fact, the original German plan until January 1940 did project just this) rather than through the Ardennes in southern Belgium (Army Group A), which was defended by only light Belgian forces and the worst of the French Army (the 2nd and 9th Armies).
Finally, in terms of the utility of the Maginot Line strategy, it would be wise to remember that the Germans were doing the exact same thing with the construction of the Siegfried Line in the 1930s.
Exactly, the Maginot Line worked perfectly at not letting the enemy through. Too bad the sneaky Germans knew how to drive through an impenetrable forest though...
Had the French continued the Maginot Line to the coast WWII would've looked like WWI, just with less dashing aeroplanes. But for some reason the Belgians and Dutch didn't like the idea of their lands being left behind. Nor did they allow building the line through their lands, so not to provoke the Germans.
But the story of the Ardennes forest is also somewhat overblown. People like quoting Pétain's statement that the forest was "impenetrable" while omitting the last part of it that stated "provided certain measures are taken." In fact, the French didn't believe the forest was "impenetrable" as much as they did that it would take the Germans, assuming that was not the primary axis of their offensive, too long to cross the Meuse River. The calculation was 9 days (the exact amount the German High Command also predicted), by which time it was believed the French Army would be able to mobilize the troops necessary to encircle and pincer off any threat that developed in that sector. This failed because the French underestimated the German force (still thinking Army Group B was the primary, and thus taking too long to react to the threat at Sedan), had squandered their best reserves in the rush through northern Belgium, and, finally, the Germans crossed the Meuse much faster than anyone thought they would, in a mere three days.
As for the Maginot Line reaching the coast, it would have not only made the Belgians feel left out (they ended up declaring neutrality in 1936 though) but also would have cut through the industrial heartland of northeastern France, thus disrupting industry. In theory, the Belgian fortifications (of which Eben Emael was a part) was supposed to be an unofficial linking continuation with the Maginot fortifications.
frecn army's equipements are great (they overclassed most of the german's ones) but poor tactics and coordination lead France to the fail of 1940. Hopefully it didn't hurt our hope. French Hope. (lol)
Problem with france during WW2 was lack of proper radio equipment, not so good tactics, bad AA weaponary, 1 and 2 man tank turrets and the waste of resources spended on the maginot line
The 1 man turret and Maginot Line may seem like badly designed wastes of resources, but it should be remembered that the primary reason behind their construction was the demographic fact that France needed to conserve as much manpower as possible. 40 million French against 70 million Germans was not a bright prospect, and in fact France could mobilize far fewer men of prime age in 1939 than they did in 1914. Given that mentality, the money spent on the Maginot Line fortifications would theoretically allow France to conserve much manpower, since the forts would prevent unnecessary casualties and could be manned by fewer men than an unfortified position. Given this mentality, it can be seen why sparing a man per tank could also make sense.
As for the Maginot Line being a waste of money that could have been used elsewhere:
You have to understand that truely military plants were few and couldn't sustain a very high rate of production. Beside these there were many little plants, each one making a part of the final product. And there were many new processes to implement because most of those factories were initially civil plants (for exemple making cars, bicycles or cans) that were converted for military production. This is not something you do in a few weeks, sometimes production was screwed for many months before there were actually results, slow results.
That's how happened weird situations such as shortages of guns, tanks without turrets or (the worst of all) thousands of brand new aircrafts stuck on the ground because they lacked radios or weren't certified for flight.
That. People forget that France had a very different experience from the industrial revolution. Whereas in the United States and Britain the efficient "mass producing giant factory" became the stereotypical form of industrialization, France's industrial revolution was centered around modernizing the old "small workshop". This was perceived as both socially pleasant and more traditionally French (France has had a very long history of artisans; the "tour de France" used to be a stage in artisan apprenticeship, a tradition that lasted all the way into the 19th century), but in times of impending war would be wildly inefficient. The average Morane 406 took 18,000 man-hours of labor, as opposed to the BF109's 5,000. Given their inefficiency and lack of development, the French factories were producing as much as they could before the war; it's questionable whether much more could have been done had the money from the Maginot Line been spared, especially given the political atmosphere of 1930s France. In fact, the French were eventually reduced in 1939 to buying as many planes as quickly as possible from the United States.
well they may looking for historical accurency...so =>no fight with maginot line...at least, a map with germans encircling french at maginot line. It's hard to deal with..
Fights did happen at the Maginot Line, which faced off German Army Group C throughout May 1940 and finally had to face some full-scale German offensives in June 1940. But yes, it would be very hard to do and probably not worth the effort modeling the complexity of the Maginot Line fortifications.