Still not as good as our encirclements in HOI4 smh... Also next video is the epic (probably 1 hour long) Transamur Kaiserreich HOI4 game! That one is gonna take a while to make and edit, man...
H*tler couldn't just stopped like "uhh I've to Sudetenland, fine let's stop right here" he was for a war and basically he was Hitler.. What do you expect? He was just a stupid guy that dreamed of his "living room in the east"...
4:54 About your question. First of all, hundred of thousands troop are trapped, so a lot of supply trucks are needed. As trucks and horses with wagons need roads to travel, all the germans need to do was blocking certain road sections with crossings. Here they could defend are block incoming supplies and attacks.
To add to this reply, the amount of trucks needed to supply even one regiment with artillery shells for just one day is in the dozens, even with modern trucks you can't get through some cross country roads, so even today the only reasonable and timely way to supply troops is via roads, on top of that you need to think of military logistic in terms of army level operation, where each division already has pre-located points of ammo collection, usually big railway stations, and from that station they deliver ammo to their divisions' units, you occupy that railway station and you immediately disrupt plans and send all those divisions supply planning into dissaray
@@thewingedone1172 Yes the order was because of rest and maintenence. So, basically the same I said. I know it came from Hitler. Also Goering said he could bomb them all with the Stukas, which didnt work either.
@@davidgomez7882 it was not absurd there was only 1 bridge and the french had mgs. Itay didnt have any armour and armour couldnt even pass because the bridge didnt allow it
@TommyKay Your Question at 5:40 From what i was tolled from my teachers, most of the French army didn't use motorized units (trucks motor bikes etc) or radio, and had limited scouts. So what few scouts they had had to run, or walk on horse back or at best have a bicycle, so when they where attacked through the Arden, they didn't know where the holes where, and when they found the holes they could not break through because the time it took to ride on horse back to command, relay the information, then send orders to troops to gather and break through, the area was no longer open, or a new situation had developed so orders had changed. In addition most of their professional fighting force with what little good equipment they had and tanks where on the Belgium line fighting the main German force, the French put all their eggs in one basket and most of their men where on one border and the men on the Maginot Line where ordered to stay while their fellow soldiers got surrounded. Their arrogance in the Arden being impenetrable and the same with the Maginot line screwed them bad. Yes they had better tanks, and more equipment, more fighters, but they where slow, had low organization. Would take the Germans a few hours to scout and take a place but for the French days! Indecisiveness from commanders, the limited technology and low innovativeness in their army making them slow to attack, defend, supply & scout plus arrogance of their doctrine and battleplans fucked them bad. Im no Historian tho so if anyone can correct my info or add to it, would love to learn :)
Multiple mechanized divisions were at the Sedan breakthrough. Multiple factors made them not be able to counter attack quickly enough. French command was to centralised for the people on the ground to adapt to the new situation. If you really want to know what happened. Go read a book. Everything is explained in detail there.
The claim about tanks is wrong sure against panzer 2s the French tanks were always better against panzer 3s that’s a completely different story. Potential history does a great job of covering this topic in his video about why Germany did so well at the start of ww2 but fell apart as it continued
The book from Heinz Guderian "Achtung Panzer!" etc where just shit from guys like Charles de Gaulle.. De Gaulle was the first French man that said that the maginotline was useless and that the germans would just have to use the "Schliefen-Plan"
20:03 The reason Germany got killed over the UK is that their fighters only had 10mins of fighting fuel over the Uk. But the reason the allies were not there because they wanted to save the planes for the battle of Britain.
And that's the same reason why the RAF couldn't do much in france, by the time they crossed the channel they'd have about 10-20 minutes of fuel before having to head back
also it might not seem like much but preserving the pilots most of the time was crucial. german fighters shot down over british soil would have their pilots captured, british fighters shot down would see their pilot parachute down and redeploy later.
Fun fact regarding the reasoning for radios in german tanks. Gudarian wasn't a cavalry officer in ww1 like most generals of ww2 were. He was a communications officer. He understood the importance of good two way communication and also new to problem of telephone lines being cut so he advocated a lot to make sure all the panzer units were equipped with two way radios...
I love the real-ist kind of point of view that tommy brings to the table, hes just gonna level with you on a real world german proud of his country, which is a quite refreshing view to see a european actually have some patriotism. Not exactly patriotism but he just brings a reality where germans are like "man we wouldve been so big if it wasnt for hitler" idk kind of a cool perspective that i havent heard from other germans
@@LeanMeanRevengeMachine Extreme patriotism is just sad. If your country is great, you don't need to constantly rave about it, because people know it to be true. It's the reason why the "make America great again" rhetoric works. Extreme patriots crave validation they can't get elsewhere.
6:21 the blitzkreig had motorized divisions coming in from the back forming like a wall, consider that with 50 divisions and you're basically able to encircle the enemy
Honestly, if you are *somewhat* good at the game and focus on just one fraction (Germany, USSR, US) first, it's not more grinding than games like League of Legends nowadays. But yeah, it's kinda' shit since they added Bots...
@@hopfinatorischerkuchenkrieger The thing is that in League you don't have a mechanic that says "Hey if you pay ten bucks you can have a second ultimate or one more item slot" The difference between veteran players and f2p players in HNG is pretty strong
@@striker8795 on state sure but one man turrets are extremely ineffective. Commanding is already hard while in combat now imagine having to find targets, use and load the main gun.
@@TankeShashou if i'm correct, the french wanted numbers, having more tanks with less men having to crew them they can fire more shells, just like the "firing lines" where the other tanks can fire while you're attacking which is.... why
26:29 one game that resembles what Tommy talks about is Heroes&Generals. The only problem is that you have to reach a certain level to participate in these big battles and not only skirmishes. You also have a tactical map and it is Comintern vs Allies vs Axis
Eastory, who did the video on the western front in this video, has amazing videos showcasing the eastern front of ww2 year by year, definitely worth checking out.
About Charles de Gaulle, I read a book at Caen at the DDay memorial called “Les Batailles oubliées de la Libération” so the forgotten battles of the liberation, and what happened was that earlier in the day, the people of Paris started an uprising and de Gaulle asked the americans to divert troops to help the Parisians, to which Eisenhower said no. After this Leclerc and his tanks, accompanied by spanish republicans liberated paris and the fighting Parisians without the americans or the british.
Civilian oversight over the military wasn't just a bureaucratic way to gain prestigious positions as it is said in the video. WW1 was actually won the moment the civilian power took control over the french generals, who had the bad habits of spending soldiers life as if they were ammunitions. And on top of that, in 1918, the republic still vividly remembered how the army had staged 2 coup against democracy. To prove my point, the moment a military figure (Pétain) was given the power he instantly stop fighting and surrendered. There has been tons of revisionnism about the role of the french army in the 1940 defeat, and i know most casual historians are military nerds, but the third republic wasn't a bureaucratic burden, it was a regime forged by the war experience that was concerned by protecting democracy against the old french issue of giving political power to military leaders. And about De Gaulle, the funniest part was that he had appointed representatives of the executive branch before DDAY, and when they landed they were kind of racing the american troops so they could be the first in every important cities and appear as the legitimate political power. The ultimate goal was to avoid france being occupied by the US. The real genius of De Gaulle is that he understood that sovereignty would save France from disappearing in the peace deal.
@@trulyannoying9061 It was mostly FDR and the US that had such intentions, the UK had hosted Free France because they were hoping De Gaulle could rally large amounts of French soldiers to the allied side (I think they were kind of dissapointed with that part) and they backed France as a sovereign state after the war because they did not want to be the sole european power opposing the soviets As a French I'm still glad the US got here before the soviets, but it's pretty upsetting to go from idolizing the US liberation as a kid to finding out that FDR ignored De Gaulle and Free France as much as possible, first because the US maintained normal relations with Vichy prior to joining the war, and later because these elements were a nuisance to his plans of partition In the end governments put their own interests first, as they say
Currently working on a demo version of what you're talking about Tommy, Map painting game that lets you jump into the action. We dont have the same production quality as a big studio, but currently you can jump into a fairly empty world in first person from the top map. Real jobs get in the way though lol. But i'll comment another time if we complete any presentable milestones.
Damn can´t tell ya how much i love these videos. It´s totally like a history-lesson and i (as an austrian) find the mix between english and german so funny. You learn so much in these videos! And damn tommy, you are so funny!!
Very Cool Insignia with the Palm Tree. I live in Western Australia and my Grand Fathers fought each other in the North African campaign in WW2. One was in the Greek brigades attached to the British Army, the other was in the Italian Army. Both fought at El Alamein and survived. Both families migrated to Australia after WW2 in the 1950's.
Hey tommy, at 24:40 you said that you wanted to play that scenario, so i recomend you to play steel division 2, in that game you are only foccused into one front like the bielorussian front in 1944, and you got famous operations like Bonruisk, and there you can de encriclements, air superiority etc....
For people wondering like Tommy why the gaps weren’t used : the panzer were rushing and let motorised infantry on their way, but more importantly, the allies communication were often at least 6hours behind not not knowing wtf was happening.
Yes poor comunication, delays, confusion(when they met rommel tank division they thought they are british expeditionary force) lack of coordination Lack of the understanding by comanding generals(those in high positions didnt even know what was happening until germans were basically behind their lines) lack of air superiority(one general that was in charge of holding sedan refused any air support because he believed that attack in ardennes was just distraction and that they could handle it) and many other problems can be named
26:15 There's a game where you fight a WW2 that resets the map every time a faction wins the war, it's called Heroes and Generals... it's free to play, it's not a next gen looking game or anything like that but...
20:47 you mean Gerd von runstedt a field Marshall and also the part where the French got encircled was being attacked by rommel back when he was not popular and manstein ( the guy who made fall gelb ) was also present
As a french, I can only agree to that video. There is so much to say tbh. Our army was really bad at the start of ww2 (by saying that, i mean, our general staff was completly "out of date"). One of the only man to understand in time what was the next world war going to look like was : the "General De Gaulle" (that some of you might know). He wrote different letters and explanations to the general staff and kept telling them that they needed to rely on tanks and planes. He also told them that they needed to create special battalions for tanks (that was not the case, tanks were mostly used as a "support" weapon and stayed close to the infantry). But they never wanted to listen to him and even threaten him. In a way, General De Gaulle was the precursor of "French Blitzkrieg" but it never happend. In my humble opinion, French army started to be organized and effective after French capitulation (how ironic it is). Namely in north Africa and with the "French résistance" on our own soil. We had some great battle in the desert. One of the most famous is : the battle of "Bir-Hakeim". Even Rommel was impressed of the French will to defend a crossroad in the middle of nowhere. I also recently discovered in a documentary that when the war broke out, some tanks were sent from the factories into action without a "trigger" (or whatever you use in a tank to fire your main gun). Of course, it did not happend on every single tank, far from it, but I think it reflects perfectly the mind set of the French army at the time. And to finish, as said in the video, French people didn't want to fight. They had millions casualties (as every other country) during ww1 and didn't want it to take place again. The only difference that we had with the Germans was the fact that we hadn't a debt to pay. And that's what "motivate" the German to start ww2. I just checked, they had 132 billions gold marks to pay... I don't know what was the allied powers thinking at that time... As "Maréchal Foch" said when talking about the Versailles Treaty (signed in 1919) : "It's not a peace, it's a 20 year-old armistice." And he was god damn right. Of course, I'm not a specialist on ww2. I just find the subject very interesting. So if you disagree or you want to add something, feel free to write a comment.
@@taijikase185 Merci ^^ Et encore, y'a pleins de chose dont on pourrait parler, mais bon, on va pas résumer plusieurs années en une vingtaine de lignes.
@@benjaminherbelin5886 Entre Stonne, la bataille des Alpes, Bir Hakeim, Koufra, Paris, Strasbourg, Lille, le Normandie-Niemen.... (quelqu’un qui fait des vidéos pour le monde anglophone sur ses sujets seraient pas une mauvaise idée)
Tommy remember that troops on the ground suffer from fog of war. You don't actually see where the enemy is or to be able to tell about it the situation to the high command guickly and accuratly enough.
At 26:25 sounds like he's describig that big free-to-play fps with the three armies, Planetside 2. Heroes & Generals I think has a similar idea and is set in WW2.
Hey Tommy, about the RAF in France......they were there, but they were Hurricane units and the German advance was so rapid they had to keep falling back to secondary airfields, along with the bombing and fighters shooting them up (if you want to see this, check out the old film, Battle of Britain) Also, Winston Churchill promised the French several Spitfire squadrons but Hugh Dowding as head of Fighter Command saw what was happening and said no, they weren't worried about the loss of planes, but of losing trained pilots for the defence of the UK Hope this helps
You should watch The chieftains video on French armored doctrine leading up to WW2. He goes over the inefficiencies of the French tanks and how the cumbersome French command system held the French back.
Tommy asking about how the allies didnt go throught the gaps left by german armor, its is because there are stories(especially from the eastern front) of a snigle tank holding and entire road or junction. Thus the tank just need to hold it for long enought until the infantry catches up to it and speed off to the next junction.
was du bedenken musst, die Zeichen bedeuten alle im zweiten Video, dass das Divisionen sind ca 10-30k an Mannstärke. die sind nicht alle auf den einen Punkt verteilt den du dort auf der Karte siehst, die sind viel weiter verbreitet, mit Logistikkomoanien im Hinterland, Aufklärern die überall unterwegs sind usw, da kann man nicht einfach zwischengrätchen, man würde heftige Kämpfe führen müssen und dann wprde schon verstärkung kommen, zumal die Axe in der Periode des Krieges einfach die Initiative hatte :)
0:10 oh yes.. I know too much about Hoi3. I played campaigns on it in school instead of doing work on my laptop... I got pretty damn good at it too. Play hoi3 Tommy. Give me nostalgia/nightmares!
Answering the question about holes behind Guderian as he rushes to the coast: French supplies used major railroads, highways and such to reach the frontline so all the Germans had to do was guard the major supply routes the French used.
5:55 There were not enough french troops in the back to counter the german offensive since the french high commander decided to send most of the northern reserves that were supposed to cover the frontier especially the ardennes area, to netherland helping the dutch army in the hope of the dutch joining the allies. Other fact is that most of the best french troops were already in Belgium, the rest of the army was split near the maginot line at the far east, and to the south in the colonies, but also at the italian border. Only a few troops remained near Paris, Reims.
One of the engineers with the supermarine company explained in detail how the RAF was very slow to react and how they wasted precious months ramping up their production and training. I forget his name at the moment but he has many interviews on yt available.
So when you were talking about when Heinz was leading through the encirclement. All the French and British troops were nearby at the Belgium border. So the army went around their troops and encircled them. That's how I understand it, I never knew this until just now.
tommy the flanks of for example heinz guderian whilst he was pushing into france were guarded by i believe motorised infantry or something like that so if french supply trucks wanted to get through they’d have to go through the army as well
The royal air force wasn't able to help because of distance of Dunkirk, but the battle of Britain was above their home turf. There's also the issue with fuel as the planes that did go only had 30minutes to 1.5hours of air time over Dunkirk
20:40 yeah, i heard that German not really think they able to win this, so after they capitulate France, Germany waiting for peace deal from the UK and because no peace deal offer German offering peace deal but then Churchill came and war continue. Imagine if UK and Germany doing peace deal at that point, full swing of German military force and resource at that point will melt the soviet.
I think the problem with cut supply lines is the army that is cut off generally responds with a withdrawal and loses cohesiveness, especially when confronted with a frontal assault and supply cut in the back. Historically a withdrawal meant reorganization but in a world where tanks move 10x faster than infantry an army can suddenly be overrun. This may explain why Stalin and Hitler both had no step back policies in place, because in encirclement supplies might still get through and a break out was possible. In fact, portions of Army Group Center in Russia were consistently encircled in 1941 and 1942 but generally held static until reinforcements could break them out. The germans of course over compensated for this at Stalingrad and other fortress cities where they refused to withdraw when supply was cut, and they were massacred in the last years of the war.
Any war game is a game of near perfect infomation, communication and control against another person with the same thing. Real life is very different, very imperfect.
They probably believed that germans were sighted there but they were really stubborn about the idea that the ardennes terrain was not suitable for significant amounts of infantry and tanks to move through quickly and be supplied efficiently tanks had gotten a lot better at traversing this terrain and I'm not sure why they thought large amounts of soldiers couldn't come through because that's exactly what happened lol
Supply trucks are roadbound, and you need thousands of them to supply forward units. That's why most supply moves by rail. You cannot hide thousands of trucks in *any* terrain, especially if they have to move a hundred kilometers. They can be seen from the air, strafed and bombed. Furthermore, as a roadbound vehicle, they can be blocked by a squad at a roadblock.
Stopping demands after Czechoslovakia in vanilla Hoi4 and just building up is a fun strat. Depends on what paths allies & USSR take but in my game they went to war with eachoter, bled eachother dry and I just took everything in a couple of months when the time was right.
18:55 I get what Tommy is asking "Wasn't the supply routes mostly empty" Yes Tommy they look very empty but would you risk getting Shot bye a frikin tank just to get a truck to the troops? also it looks like they emptiness was for like the first few hours or Days (then the infantry came to support)
04:05 As a Turkish guy even I also thought why Hitler didnt stop after Südetenland. He could use diplomacy and force Poland to make consessions in west Prussia or Danzig
Dude firstly Hitler was fucking insane, but also he had written in his little book that war with the USSR and USA was inevitable and necessary Peace was never an option
There were holes, but it was commonplace to leave a small troop or garrison at key roads in the infrastructure. This would at the very least delay reinforcements/ logistics. A logistical train of trucks running into one of these checkpoints/ garrisons would have rather retreated, as losing even a single truck of supplies was a strategic loss compared to the winning of a small fight. As well, information moved much slower at this time, even for the germans with radios (though that was lightning compared to the french). The ability for the French to recognize a hole in the lines, prepare the troops needed to attack it, and actually launch an attack was enough time for the Germans to put a token force or smaller sized unit in the way or along an important route. Any attack would be reported up the chain of command, and infantry units moving to fill holes where the tanks had passed through could be redirected to support the small forces holding off encirclements
Fun fact about 22:06, the first allied division (after a small vanguard used just to send a message) to enter Paris during its liberation was La Nueve, a tank division made up mostly of Spanish exiles (both republicans and anarchists) that used to be part of the Ejército Popular
26:00 If anyone is interested in a game like this I reccomend mount and blade series. Not ww2 but has the mechanics hes talking about in a medieval esc world.
The supply lines for the Early German armored breakthroughs were mental. There is a whole load of stories of the first panzers/their scouts getting lost in France and running into columns of French infantry or supply lines. The engineers, logistics, and mechanized infantry following them was sometimes dozens of miles behind in the middle of nowhere France. It was honestly as much a success of the logistics guys, scouts and engineers as the actual tank crews. It's crazy to think that if the French had been slightly more decisive with a tank formation (i.e. smash right into the side of the breakthrough on the 1st or second day) the whole western front might have stalled then and there, because the Maginot held in several important locations even until the armistice. As much fun as it is to mock the French for building forts in WW2, it should be remembered that they are the only ones who built forts that actually worked in WW2, at least to any real extent. (look up Eben-Emael for a comparison).
You should react to World War Two channel, the video is called Blitzkrieg in the West - The Invasion of France - WW2 - 038 - May 18 1940. Learnt so much from his incredible World War Two playlist. Something like 130 videos week by week.
Tommy you have to check out The Game "Foxhole" its a WW1/2 MMO where the Players have to produce Weapons/Ammo/Vehicles and do Logistics, to get this stuff to the Frontlines. Or just fight as a Frontline Soldier taking Villages and Trenches from the Enemies, to move the Boarder a bit on the Worldmap.
Still not as good as our encirclements in HOI4 smh...
Also next video is the epic (probably 1 hour long) Transamur Kaiserreich HOI4 game!
That one is gonna take a while to make and edit, man...
Nice
Nice
Good luck dont die markoni
Aye try to react that video series on TH-cam 'War in the East' + WW2 i dont remember exact name
H*tler couldn't just stopped like "uhh I've to Sudetenland, fine let's stop right here" he was for a war and basically he was Hitler.. What do you expect?
He was just a stupid guy that dreamed of his "living room in the east"...
"We almost did it."
Some Drunk German
Laughed really hard at that one, because it's so true.
"Hell yeah we did"
Some pumped up German soldier (WW2) with methamphetamine
not just some pumped german tommys great grandpa
(That's what she said)
Ah damn them all
Man i have to write exams but instead im watching this ginger for 30 minutes reacting to a video i have seen 5 times
TH-cam is a hell of a drug. The amount of junk i consume on this site is mindboggling.
Same😂
Dude go write your exams
@@DarthVantos you Just nailed it haha
Same here man
Tommy needs to talk more about his military days, It honestly interests me, what type of alpha shit did Tommy do as a Supply company boi.
@Danny cap he has some vids about it on his second channel
@@thewanderer93 also on his main channel ( this channel) . These are amazing stories
Mostly dying. Check out Markoni's channel on how Tommy had a lung infection for months and the army did nothing to help him.
I remember I heard him talk about when he was about to do a stealth training and the staff spotted him because of his hair
Look at his playlists. Theres one called something Like Storytime where Tommy talks about the military stuff a lot
"can you imagine how much organization is involved"
meanwhile, hoi4: 60 per division, take it, or leave it.
Really depends what 1 hoi4 organization actually means.
@@cosminnegreanu6044 1 loaf of bread.
40 is enough
@@ukj5850 my man
hoi3 did a better job of complicating that stuff
4:54 About your question. First of all, hundred of thousands troop are trapped, so a lot of supply trucks are needed. As trucks and horses with wagons need roads to travel, all the germans need to do was blocking certain road sections with crossings. Here they could defend are block incoming supplies and attacks.
ah true
To add to this reply, the amount of trucks needed to supply even one regiment with artillery shells for just one day is in the dozens, even with modern trucks you can't get through some cross country roads, so even today the only reasonable and timely way to supply troops is via roads, on top of that you need to think of military logistic in terms of army level operation, where each division already has pre-located points of ammo collection, usually big railway stations, and from that station they deliver ammo to their divisions' units, you occupy that railway station and you immediately disrupt plans and send all those divisions supply planning into dissaray
I'm pretty sure guderians panzer Corp encircled the allies in mere weeks. His troops never needed to rest since they were basically high.
High on stamina
High on fuel
High on morale
High on weapons
High on drugs
they were high on meth
They did let the allies escape from Dunkirk though when they needed rest and maintenence.
@@DaeLh They didn't, they stopped because of direct command from OKB and Hitler himself not to attack Dunkirk
@@thewingedone1172 Yes the order was because of rest and maintenence. So, basically the same I said. I know it came from Hitler. Also Goering said he could bomb them all with the Stukas, which didnt work either.
Respect to the Panzers for getting to Paris before their transmissions broke
These are PII and PIII tanks mainly and those lighter models didnt have the transmission problems of the later PV or PVI
Thx big brother tiger
Early german tanks were quite reliable, they continued to use the chassis of the pz2, pz3, and pz38t through the war
@@owennaedler not panther
Hello younger brother
Tommy is literally me while doing my homework
Swapping between hoi4 and work
!
true@@TommyKay
There was a battle in the Alps called battle of Pont Saint louis or something. 9 french guys in a forts stopped 3000 italians from taking a bridge
The sheer absurdity of that battle buggles my mind from time to time.
"You have only 9 men"
"But we have 3000 bullets hon hon"
Yeah but it’s not that surprising. The alps are cold as fuck
@@davidgomez7882 it was not absurd there was only 1 bridge and the french had mgs. Itay didnt have any armour and armour couldnt even pass because the bridge didnt allow it
The French had some very good warriors in WW2 no doubt its just the leadership was terrible.
@TommyKay
Your Question at 5:40
From what i was tolled from my teachers, most of the French army didn't use motorized units (trucks motor bikes etc) or radio, and had limited scouts. So what few scouts they had had to run, or walk on horse back or at best have a bicycle, so when they where attacked through the Arden, they didn't know where the holes where, and when they found the holes they could not break through because the time it took to ride on horse back to command, relay the information, then send orders to troops to gather and break through, the area was no longer open, or a new situation had developed so orders had changed. In addition most of their professional fighting force with what little good equipment they had and tanks where on the Belgium line fighting the main German force, the French put all their eggs in one basket and most of their men where on one border and the men on the Maginot Line where ordered to stay while their fellow soldiers got surrounded. Their arrogance in the Arden being impenetrable and the same with the Maginot line screwed them bad.
Yes they had better tanks, and more equipment, more fighters, but they where slow, had low organization. Would take the Germans a few hours to scout and take a place but for the French days!
Indecisiveness from commanders, the limited technology and low innovativeness in their army making them slow to attack, defend, supply & scout plus arrogance of their doctrine and battleplans fucked them bad.
Im no Historian tho so if anyone can correct my info or add to it, would love to learn :)
Sounds about right to me.
Multiple mechanized divisions were at the Sedan breakthrough. Multiple factors made them not be able to counter attack quickly enough. French command was to centralised for the people on the ground to adapt to the new situation. If you really want to know what happened. Go read a book. Everything is explained in detail there.
thats a big comment
ty for the info tho sir
The claim about tanks is wrong sure against panzer 2s the French tanks were always better against panzer 3s that’s a completely different story. Potential history does a great job of covering this topic in his video about why Germany did so well at the start of ww2 but fell apart as it continued
The book from Heinz Guderian "Achtung Panzer!" etc where just shit from guys like Charles de Gaulle..
De Gaulle was the first French man that said that the maginotline was useless and that the germans would just have to use the "Schliefen-Plan"
Dude i like to read that book but i can't find it in Turkey
But the Maginot did its job. You can just put reservists in there and force the Germans to go around. The problem was elsewhere.
@@sld1776 Exactly.
@@sld1776 they should've extended the line to the coast.
@@eisteepommes3159 With what money
Still think Eastory is the best channel
for seeing how the frontlines moved during ww2
yeah hes great
20:03 The reason Germany got killed over the UK is that their fighters only had 10mins of fighting fuel over the Uk. But the reason the allies were not there because they wanted to save the planes for the battle of Britain.
And that's the same reason why the RAF couldn't do much in france, by the time they crossed the channel they'd have about 10-20 minutes of fuel before having to head back
Ah i see
also it might not seem like much but preserving the pilots most of the time was crucial. german fighters shot down over british soil would have their pilots captured, british fighters shot down would see their pilot parachute down and redeploy later.
@@BlarghMeow just use French airfields 4Head
Fun fact regarding the reasoning for radios in german tanks. Gudarian wasn't a cavalry officer in ww1 like most generals of ww2 were. He was a communications officer. He understood the importance of good two way communication and also new to problem of telephone lines being cut so he advocated a lot to make sure all the panzer units were equipped with two way radios...
I love the real-ist kind of point of view that tommy brings to the table, hes just gonna level with you on a real world german proud of his country, which is a quite refreshing view to see a european actually have some patriotism. Not exactly patriotism but he just brings a reality where germans are like "man we wouldve been so big if it wasnt for hitler" idk kind of a cool perspective that i havent heard from other germans
Yeah I don't usually watch react videos but I think Tommy has a unique perspective
Want to see some European patriotism? Just go to Eastern Europe, or God forbid, the Balkans. You'll get get fed up with patriotism really fast.
@@kevinboros7427 as an American, no I will not get fed up with patriotism lmao
@@LeanMeanRevengeMachine yeah brother
@@LeanMeanRevengeMachine Extreme patriotism is just sad. If your country is great, you don't need to constantly rave about it, because people know it to be true.
It's the reason why the "make America great again" rhetoric works. Extreme patriots crave validation they can't get elsewhere.
I legit didn’t know about Tommy in the army (I know he had to do his service but for some reason I couldn’t picture our German ginger in uniform)
wir sind das deutsche afrikakorps
he almost died if i remember it correctly
@@karl-heinzgrabowski3022 He also pooped himself
a lot of story times about it
@@TommyKay bad English on my part - I meant that I always forget that Tommy was in the army, not that I didn’t know - a Turk
6:21 the blitzkreig had motorized divisions coming in from the back forming like a wall, consider that with 50 divisions and you're basically able to encircle the enemy
esz
"Heroes and generals" is kinda like that with the war map and fps shooter elements
Game is fun, I loved playing tank role, sad it's a pay 2 grind basically
@@sylvananas7923 yeah "grindy" describes it perfectly but its ok it doesn't take too long to get all the gud stuff
Honestly, if you are *somewhat* good at the game and focus on just one fraction (Germany, USSR, US) first, it's not more grinding than games like League of Legends nowadays.
But yeah, it's kinda' shit since they added Bots...
ye but thats not really triple a
@@hopfinatorischerkuchenkrieger The thing is that in League you don't have a mechanic that says "Hey if you pay ten bucks you can have a second ultimate or one more item slot"
The difference between veteran players and f2p players in HNG is pretty strong
I find it funny how even though France was losing to Germany and Italy still couldn’t push into France
Pushing through a narrow moutain tends to be harder than push into open plains
Its a good day when TommyKay uploads
Fay?
@@anti-loganpaul7827 Fay.
"Did you knoe the frenchs have better tanks that the germans"
Me only looking at the b1 BIS and TER: are you dure about that?
Lmao, and it’s true, they had better tanks but not created for the Blitzkrieg
@@striker8795 on state sure but one man turrets are extremely ineffective. Commanding is already hard while in combat now imagine having to find targets, use and load the main gun.
@@TankeShashou if i'm correct, the french wanted numbers, having more tanks with less men having to crew them they can fire more shells, just like the "firing lines" where the other tanks can fire while you're attacking
which is.... why
26:29 one game that resembles what Tommy talks about is Heroes&Generals. The only problem is that you have to reach a certain level to participate in these big battles and not only skirmishes. You also have a tactical map and it is Comintern vs Allies vs Axis
As a half-Sudetengerman, half-Bavarian; I feel this: 3:50
Just found out my family was part Sudeten-german (most got out before WWII) but now there's none of them left.
French actually knew where the germans were,but the high rankings didnt believe their soldiers/fighters
Edit:grammer fixes
Eastory, who did the video on the western front in this video, has amazing videos showcasing the eastern front of ww2 year by year, definitely worth checking out.
About Charles de Gaulle, I read a book at Caen at the DDay memorial called “Les Batailles oubliées de la Libération” so the forgotten battles of the liberation, and what happened was that earlier in the day, the people of Paris started an uprising and de Gaulle asked the americans to divert troops to help the Parisians, to which Eisenhower said no. After this Leclerc and his tanks, accompanied by spanish republicans liberated paris and the fighting Parisians without the americans or the british.
I own a old Wehrmachtbook about this period were there showing the tactics leaders and sucees.
Its really from the Wehrmacht verlag,
16:08 lol you used the Canadians waking up their buddy with artillery classic vid.
Fun fact, Eastory illustrates the maps in the World War Two information series by TimeGhost History.
26:08 such a game exists Tommy. It's called heroes and generals and it's exactly like you prescribe it to be.
And its damn boring.
Civilian oversight over the military wasn't just a bureaucratic way to gain prestigious positions as it is said in the video.
WW1 was actually won the moment the civilian power took control over the french generals, who had the bad habits of spending soldiers life as if they were ammunitions.
And on top of that, in 1918, the republic still vividly remembered how the army had staged 2 coup against democracy. To prove my point, the moment a military figure (Pétain) was given the power he instantly stop fighting and surrendered.
There has been tons of revisionnism about the role of the french army in the 1940 defeat, and i know most casual historians are military nerds, but the third republic wasn't a bureaucratic burden, it was a regime forged by the war experience that was concerned by protecting democracy against the old french issue of giving political power to military leaders.
And about De Gaulle, the funniest part was that he had appointed representatives of the executive branch before DDAY, and when they landed they were kind of racing the american troops so they could be the first in every important cities and appear as the legitimate political power. The ultimate goal was to avoid france being occupied by the US. The real genius of De Gaulle is that he understood that sovereignty would save France from disappearing in the peace deal.
yeah i know originally the allies had sort of planned to treat france as a defeated nation because of the vichy regime
@@trulyannoying9061 It was mostly FDR and the US that had such intentions, the UK had hosted Free France because they were hoping De Gaulle could rally large amounts of French soldiers to the allied side (I think they were kind of dissapointed with that part) and they backed France as a sovereign state after the war because they did not want to be the sole european power opposing the soviets
As a French I'm still glad the US got here before the soviets, but it's pretty upsetting to go from idolizing the US liberation as a kid to finding out that FDR ignored De Gaulle and Free France as much as possible, first because the US maintained normal relations with Vichy prior to joining the war, and later because these elements were a nuisance to his plans of partition
In the end governments put their own interests first, as they say
26:20 this does exist to some extinct in battlefield one and five, it's quite enjoyable too.
This is why I love Tommy, this is not taboo and he can just talk about this without the bullshit
Currently working on a demo version of what you're talking about Tommy, Map painting game that lets you jump into the action.
We dont have the same production quality as a big studio, but currently you can jump into a fairly empty world in first person from the top map.
Real jobs get in the way though lol. But i'll comment another time if we complete any presentable milestones.
26:05 This game is called Heroes & Generals Tommy i've been playing it for 6 years! its free to play
Me: *Reads title
Also me: Ah shit, here we go again...
From Silesia and i totally agree with you 2:44
Damn can´t tell ya how much i love these videos. It´s totally like a history-lesson and i (as an austrian) find the mix between english and german so funny. You learn so much in these videos! And damn tommy, you are so funny!!
23:28
“Oh this is world of tanks right?”
This was the main competitor of world of tanks
Lol
The game you asked is Decisive Campaigns: The Blitzkrieg from Warsaw to Paris , it covers both Fall Weiss and Fall Gelb operations as well as Sealion
The League of Nations was the precursor to the United Nations, not the European Union.
I appreciate you tommy- thanks for the entertaining reaction and your always being full of joy and energy - very uplifting : )
Very Cool Insignia with the Palm Tree. I live in Western Australia and my Grand Fathers fought each other in the North African campaign in WW2. One was in the Greek brigades attached to the British Army, the other was in the Italian Army. Both fought at El Alamein and survived. Both families migrated to Australia after WW2 in the 1950's.
Hey tommy, at 24:40 you said that you wanted to play that scenario, so i recomend you to play steel division 2, in that game you are only foccused into one front like the bielorussian front in 1944, and you got famous operations like Bonruisk, and there you can de encriclements, air superiority etc....
"A game where you move troops on a map and then it turns into FPS": There is kind of something like that, Heroes & Generals.
For people wondering like Tommy why the gaps weren’t used : the panzer were rushing and let motorised infantry on their way, but more importantly, the allies communication were often at least 6hours behind not not knowing wtf was happening.
Yes poor comunication, delays, confusion(when they met rommel tank division they thought they are british expeditionary force) lack of coordination
Lack of the understanding by comanding generals(those in high positions didnt even know what was happening until germans were basically behind their lines) lack of air superiority(one general that was in charge of holding sedan refused any air support because he believed that attack in ardennes was just distraction and that they could handle it) and many other problems can be named
26:15 There's a game where you fight a WW2 that resets the map every time a faction wins the war, it's called Heroes and Generals... it's free to play, it's not a next gen looking game or anything like that but...
If I recall correctly, in Company of Heroes 2, there's something like the thing Tommy was talking about at the end.
ye but its company of heroes ree
The Reason why failed because of Belgium denying there access of there territory
(05) Why We Fight: "Divide and Conquer" (ca. 1943) 5/6, goto 4:30 which explains tommy question.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch zu den 300.000 Abonnenten auf TH-cam. Mach weiter so und alles Gute . Road to 350.000 !!!
@ 19:14, The Luftwaffe were putting in some work my guy.
20:47 you mean Gerd von runstedt a field Marshall and also the part where the French got encircled was being attacked by rommel back when he was not popular and manstein ( the guy who made fall gelb ) was also present
As a french, I can only agree to that video. There is so much to say tbh.
Our army was really bad at the start of ww2 (by saying that, i mean, our general staff was completly "out of date"). One of the only man to understand in time what was the next world war going to look like was : the "General De Gaulle" (that some of you might know). He wrote different letters and explanations to the general staff and kept telling them that they needed to rely on tanks and planes. He also told them that they needed to create special battalions for tanks (that was not the case, tanks were mostly used as a "support" weapon and stayed close to the infantry). But they never wanted to listen to him and even threaten him. In a way, General De Gaulle was the precursor of "French Blitzkrieg" but it never happend.
In my humble opinion, French army started to be organized and effective after French capitulation (how ironic it is). Namely in north Africa and with the "French résistance" on our own soil. We had some great battle in the desert. One of the most famous is : the battle of "Bir-Hakeim". Even Rommel was impressed of the French will to defend a crossroad in the middle of nowhere.
I also recently discovered in a documentary that when the war broke out, some tanks were sent from the factories into action without a "trigger" (or whatever you use in a tank to fire your main gun). Of course, it did not happend on every single tank, far from it, but I think it reflects perfectly the mind set of the French army at the time.
And to finish, as said in the video, French people didn't want to fight. They had millions casualties (as every other country) during ww1 and didn't want it to take place again. The only difference that we had with the Germans was the fact that we hadn't a debt to pay. And that's what "motivate" the German to start ww2. I just checked, they had 132 billions gold marks to pay... I don't know what was the allied powers thinking at that time... As "Maréchal Foch" said when talking about the Versailles Treaty (signed in 1919) : "It's not a peace, it's a 20 year-old armistice." And he was god damn right.
Of course, I'm not a specialist on ww2. I just find the subject very interesting. So if you disagree or you want to add something, feel free to write a comment.
Tu a bien expliquer le problème.
@@taijikase185 Merci ^^
Et encore, y'a pleins de chose dont on pourrait parler, mais bon, on va pas résumer plusieurs années en une vingtaine de lignes.
@@benjaminherbelin5886 Entre Stonne, la bataille des Alpes, Bir Hakeim, Koufra, Paris, Strasbourg, Lille, le Normandie-Niemen....
(quelqu’un qui fait des vidéos pour le monde anglophone sur ses sujets seraient pas une mauvaise idée)
Tommy remember that troops on the ground suffer from fog of war. You don't actually see where the enemy is or to be able to tell about it the situation to the high command guickly and accuratly enough.
At 26:25 sounds like he's describig that big free-to-play fps with the three armies, Planetside 2.
Heroes & Generals I think has a similar idea and is set in WW2.
Pls go battle for Warsaw 1920!!
Its also on Armchair Historican.
Or at least invasion of Greece.
Hey Tommy, about the RAF in France......they were there, but they were Hurricane units and the German advance was so rapid they had to keep falling back to secondary airfields, along with the bombing and fighters shooting them up (if you want to see this, check out the old film, Battle of Britain) Also, Winston Churchill promised the French several Spitfire squadrons but Hugh Dowding as head of Fighter Command saw what was happening and said no, they weren't worried about the loss of planes, but of losing trained pilots for the defence of the UK
Hope this helps
Big supporter, congratulation to 300k sub:)
I think you gave a boost to Griffin and the Armchair Crew. Thanks to you they finally hit a Million subs on YT. They deserve it.
You should watch The chieftains video on French armored doctrine leading up to WW2. He goes over the inefficiencies of the French tanks and how the cumbersome French command system held the French back.
He also explains that tanks where were sent to counter attack German lines but they where sent in piece meal and were innefficient
Tommy asking about how the allies didnt go throught the gaps left by german armor, its is because there are stories(especially from the eastern front) of a snigle tank holding and entire road or junction.
Thus the tank just need to hold it for long enought until the infantry catches up to it and speed off to the next junction.
Heinz Guderian was the commander of the 2nd panzer division at this time, so the ‘2’
3:50 ngl, facts, I am not even a german and I can confirm that thing
was du bedenken musst, die Zeichen bedeuten alle im zweiten Video, dass das Divisionen sind ca 10-30k an Mannstärke. die sind nicht alle auf den einen Punkt verteilt den du dort auf der Karte siehst, die sind viel weiter verbreitet, mit Logistikkomoanien im Hinterland, Aufklärern die überall unterwegs sind usw, da kann man nicht einfach zwischengrätchen, man würde heftige Kämpfe führen müssen und dann wprde schon verstärkung kommen, zumal die Axe in der Periode des Krieges einfach die Initiative hatte :)
Tommy, I remember reading about Guderian's many fights with Hitler. Once it almost became physically violent between them.
I watched Tommy a lot recent and now I see German ads.
“Are the flags white?” Tommy 2021
Leeds United.
Tommy you should understand that army is not a line... it's a Dot on map
0:10 oh yes.. I know too much about Hoi3. I played campaigns on it in school instead of doing work on my laptop... I got pretty damn good at it too. Play hoi3 Tommy. Give me nostalgia/nightmares!
Answering the question about holes behind Guderian as he rushes to the coast: French supplies used major railroads, highways and such to reach the frontline so all the Germans had to do was guard the major supply routes the French used.
26:10 Thanks for the idea Tommy
I'll give credit don't worry lol
5:55
There were not enough french troops in the back to counter the german offensive since the french high commander decided to send most of the northern reserves that were supposed to cover the frontier especially the ardennes area, to netherland helping the dutch army in the hope of the dutch joining the allies.
Other fact is that most of the best french troops were already in Belgium, the rest of the army was split near the maginot line at the far east, and to the south in the colonies, but also at the italian border.
Only a few troops remained near Paris, Reims.
One of the engineers with the supermarine company explained in detail how the RAF was very slow to react and how they wasted precious months ramping up their production and training. I forget his name at the moment but he has many interviews on yt available.
Congrats on 300k boys
So when you were talking about when Heinz was leading through the encirclement. All the French and British troops were nearby at the Belgium border. So the army went around their troops and encircled them. That's how I understand it, I never knew this until just now.
Tommy! My great-uncle was in the first tank that entered France during the liberation. It was called l’USKUB
tommy the flanks of for example heinz guderian whilst he was pushing into france were guarded by i believe motorised infantry or something like that so if french supply trucks wanted to get through they’d have to go through the army as well
The royal air force wasn't able to help because of distance of Dunkirk, but the battle of Britain was above their home turf. There's also the issue with fuel as the planes that did go only had 30minutes to 1.5hours of air time over Dunkirk
I didn't knew Tommy was in the military. Makes me respect him more.
tommys video game idea is one i had for a long time. Like total war fps.
20:40 yeah, i heard that German not really think they able to win this, so after they capitulate France, Germany waiting for peace deal from the UK and because no peace deal offer German offering peace deal but then Churchill came and war continue.
Imagine if UK and Germany doing peace deal at that point, full swing of German military force and resource at that point will melt the soviet.
It was also cus goering promised he could hold off the evacuation attempt with the air force
I think the problem with cut supply lines is the army that is cut off generally responds with a withdrawal and loses cohesiveness, especially when confronted with a frontal assault and supply cut in the back. Historically a withdrawal meant reorganization but in a world where tanks move 10x faster than infantry an army can suddenly be overrun. This may explain why Stalin and Hitler both had no step back policies in place, because in encirclement supplies might still get through and a break out was possible. In fact, portions of Army Group Center in Russia were consistently encircled in 1941 and 1942 but generally held static until reinforcements could break them out. The germans of course over compensated for this at Stalingrad and other fortress cities where they refused to withdraw when supply was cut, and they were massacred in the last years of the war.
Any war game is a game of near perfect infomation, communication and control against another person with the same thing. Real life is very different, very imperfect.
I heard someone say that a French pilot had seen the Germans go through the Ardennes but the generals didn't listen to him for some reason
They probably believed that germans were sighted there but they were really stubborn about the idea that the ardennes terrain was not suitable for significant amounts of infantry and tanks to move through quickly and be supplied efficiently
tanks had gotten a lot better at traversing this terrain and I'm not sure why they thought large amounts of soldiers couldn't come through because that's exactly what happened lol
Yeah they could've bombed a large part of the German military easily but the generals were too stubborn
@@jacobmccracken1779 more like they didn't react properly and didn't have any battle experience
Respect to all the soldiers on both sides of WW2. They all had brothers who died fighting.
Hey, you have the SCENARIO mods line that are very zoomed in a specific operation, they are pretty interesting to play.
Supply trucks are roadbound, and you need thousands of them to supply forward units. That's why most supply moves by rail. You cannot hide thousands of trucks in *any* terrain, especially if they have to move a hundred kilometers. They can be seen from the air, strafed and bombed. Furthermore, as a roadbound vehicle, they can be blocked by a squad at a roadblock.
Stopping demands after Czechoslovakia in vanilla Hoi4 and just building up is a fun strat. Depends on what paths allies & USSR take but in my game they went to war with eachoter, bled eachother dry and I just took everything in a couple of months when the time was right.
18:55 I get what Tommy is asking "Wasn't the supply routes mostly empty"
Yes Tommy they look very empty but would you risk getting Shot bye a frikin tank just to get a truck to the troops?
also it looks like they emptiness was for like the first few hours or Days (then the infantry came to support)
04:05 As a Turkish guy even I also thought why Hitler didnt stop after Südetenland. He could use diplomacy and force Poland to make consessions in west Prussia or Danzig
Hitler just waste his Opportunity the allies ready to give the fricking world to the germany but hitler makes bad decisions really baaad decisions
Dude firstly Hitler was fucking insane, but also he had written in his little book that war with the USSR and USA was inevitable and necessary
Peace was never an option
@@tictac2therevenge291 yes also Nazi ideology is self destructive and it could not live without endless violence
@@tictac2therevenge291 With USSR yes but with amerika absolutly not
Congrats on 300k
There were holes, but it was commonplace to leave a small troop or garrison at key roads in the infrastructure. This would at the very least delay reinforcements/ logistics. A logistical train of trucks running into one of these checkpoints/ garrisons would have rather retreated, as losing even a single truck of supplies was a strategic loss compared to the winning of a small fight. As well, information moved much slower at this time, even for the germans with radios (though that was lightning compared to the french). The ability for the French to recognize a hole in the lines, prepare the troops needed to attack it, and actually launch an attack was enough time for the Germans to put a token force or smaller sized unit in the way or along an important route. Any attack would be reported up the chain of command, and infantry units moving to fill holes where the tanks had passed through could be redirected to support the small forces holding off encirclements
Fun fact about 22:06, the first allied division (after a small vanguard used just to send a message) to enter Paris during its liberation was La Nueve, a tank division made up mostly of Spanish exiles (both republicans and anarchists) that used to be part of the Ejército Popular
Steel Division II in the wast is Steel Division: Normandy 44 just for those of you who didn't know. Very fun game.
26:00
If anyone is interested in a game like this I reccomend mount and blade series. Not ww2 but has the mechanics hes talking about in a medieval esc world.
The supply lines for the Early German armored breakthroughs were mental. There is a whole load of stories of the first panzers/their scouts getting lost in France and running into columns of French infantry or supply lines. The engineers, logistics, and mechanized infantry following them was sometimes dozens of miles behind in the middle of nowhere France. It was honestly as much a success of the logistics guys, scouts and engineers as the actual tank crews.
It's crazy to think that if the French had been slightly more decisive with a tank formation (i.e. smash right into the side of the breakthrough on the 1st or second day) the whole western front might have stalled then and there, because the Maginot held in several important locations even until the armistice. As much fun as it is to mock the French for building forts in WW2, it should be remembered that they are the only ones who built forts that actually worked in WW2, at least to any real extent. (look up Eben-Emael for a comparison).
You should react to World War Two channel, the video is called Blitzkrieg in the West - The Invasion of France - WW2 - 038 - May 18 1940. Learnt so much from his incredible World War Two playlist. Something like 130 videos week by week.
Tommy you have to check out The Game "Foxhole" its a WW1/2 MMO where the Players have to produce Weapons/Ammo/Vehicles and do Logistics, to get this stuff to the Frontlines. Or just fight as a Frontline Soldier taking Villages and Trenches from the Enemies, to move the Boarder a bit on the Worldmap.