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Originally Posted by X
The best, recent scholarship on the Battle of France in English is the very interesting STRANGE VICTORY: HITLER'S CONQUEST OF FRANCE by Ernest R. May, an analysis written for the the U.S. CIA which, for the first time in English, raises some fascinating questions about the the British Army and Gort's conduct of operations. In essence, May takes the French position that if the British Army had stood and fought, instead of fleeing and evacuating, the Germans would not have been able to digest the enormous bite they took out of the Allied line.
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Not having read May I dont know what he bases this analysis on however the facts were that the German breakthrough was on the French held section of the front. The British forces were outflanked by the breakthrough and therefore had to counterattack or fall back. In fact they attempted to counterattack first but were tactically beaten by the Germans. Having lost a major part of their armour in this attack they had no choice but to pull back their right flank to prevent the panzer forces breaking into the rear areas.
We shouldnt forget that the British forces were the junior partner to the French who possessed armour superior in quality and quantity to the Germans. It was just badly used. The French and British should have counter attacked at the same time, to stretch the German reserves but the responses were poorly coordinated and the magnitude of the French response was disproportionately small relative to their resourses.
I have to agree with the other comments here that the campaign makes a facinating subject to study or simulate. So many "what ifs" to consider, and the complexity of the air battle combining air superiority tasks with ground support probably provides greater interest and depth than BoB. But I guess this very complexity makes it more difficult to get all of the AI issues correct and the logistics of modelling the much greater number of aircraft and ground models is more challenging. I hope BoB will just be the start and that at some stage BoF will get proper coverage.