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[mainiac]

and the over-commital of the reserves too early, based on stolen military plans that had since been superseded and bad assumptions in the French High Command.

Even assuming the stolen plans were accurate, it was a bizarre over commitment.  The plan was predicated on the notion that the French could outlast the Germans.  Committing all your reserves to a decisive battle right at the very start undermines 20 years of French planning.

[Culise]

and the over-commital of the reserves too early, based on stolen military plans that had since been superseded and bad assumptions in the French High Command.

Even assuming the stolen plans were accurate, it was a bizarre over commitment.  The plan was predicated on the notion that the French could outlast the Germans.  Committing all your reserves to a decisive battle right at the very start undermines 20 years of French planning.

I wonder if it was so bizarre, actually; the notion that the French could outlast the Germans critically required the German initial blow to be blunted somehow, and the French by preference much rathered this be in Belgium rather than on the Marne.  The plan was thus predicated on ensuring that the war would be fought in Belgium rather than France; that was why the Maginot went up.  Geographically and militarily, the Dyle Line and the Namur fortifications was, as far as I'm aware, the last major defensive position available, especially after the Liege forts fell, and the rapid pace of the German advance essentially called for an equally rapid mobilization of the BEF and French Seventh Army to beat them to that position.  Political exigencies, too, became key; with the Dutch in the war this time around, the Dyle Plan allowed all three armies to link up rather than the Dutch being defeated in detail, the 1936 Belgian neutrality measures had blocked a more measured mobilization and forward deployment of French forces in advance (necessitating a rapid response), and the fortification of the Franco-Belgian border fell foul of the budget cuts in the Great Depression as well as the practical declaration that this would have been perceived as an "abandonment" of the Belgians, which...well, it was suspected, and eventually proven in 1936 and again in 1940 that King Leopold III lacked the backbone his father had shown.  It was a gamble, but it was seen as a relatively sound one, and it's primarily in retrospect that it proved to be the direst of errors in the Battle of France; if the French had abandoned the Belgians to their fate and the Seventh had been available for action in the early days of the Ardennes Offensive, it may have been able to rip the world's largest traffic jam to shreds before the Germans ever got their heads out of their collective bottoms.

[mainiac]

There is a middle ground between abandon the Belgians and committing everything.  The French knew from the first war that the Germans would try and commit a overwhelming force to a point.  They French wanted to be able to counter that with an overwhelming defensive force like at Verdun.  That's what the 7th army was for, it was fast enough and strong enough to reinforce any position.  But instead of keeping the 7th army in reserve, it was the very first force Gamelin committed.

Germany wasn't prepared for WWII like it was for WWI.  If the French had successfully countered the initial attack the Germans lacked the ammunition and oil supplies for another.  And Gamelin had a pretty good idea that Germany wasn't poorly prepared, it was public knowledge how Germany was resorting to metal and oil rationing long before the war even began and how ill equipped they were to pay for imports.  France had made sure their industry was ready for a long war, they made sure they had the fortifications to keep the area to defend small and they made sure that they could keep producing steadily while increasing imports as German military production collapsed.  Hitler was scraping the bottom of the barrel before the war even began.  If Germany had failed in the first attack the second attack would have been like the battle of kursk, going up against a defender who knows you are on your last legs and has had months to prepare huge defense in depth.  After that?  Steel and oil and food run out in Germany.

All Gamelin had to do was keep from losing against that first attack.  Anything less then total annihilation would have been a victory.  He could have lost an entire army and lost Belgium and French victory would still have been virtually guaranteed.  All he needed to do was make sure that the 7th army reinforced whatever turned out to be the main axis of the German attack.  By rushing the 7th army to the front he made that virtually impossible.  Even if the Germans did attack in Belgium they might achieve a breakthrough in Belgium.  The French wouldn't have the 7th army to reinforce that breakthrough.

[Erkki]

Rather, not every soldier has the same chance to end up under a barrage. Artillery is pretty darn effective, when it shoots the right location. In Ukraine it continues to create 80%+ of casualties, as since 1914 at least or so. You just don't want to end be at the receiving end.

There are huge difference in causalities when same artillery strikes properly prepared positions made by professional soldiers and when it strikes a crowd of armed civilians in open field.

This is true. However, an attacking force(the enemy) does not usually spend hours preparing defensive positions. They will be attacking, moving or preparing to attack, or in a traffic jam. They are vulnerable to fire every time they aren't so near to friendly forces that they cannot be fired upon. That means, closer than 150 meters, or basically mixed in, at which point the situation may be so bad that the forward observer may call fire on friendly or even his own position. Its been done before.

Artillery's vulnerability to being located by counter-artillery radars and other positioning means, and being subjected to counter-artillery fire or other weapons depends a bit on the systems themselves and how they're used. We usually have mortars motorized and integrated within the fighting units themselves or very mobile(mechanized) shooting both high and low angles, while the gun and rocket artillery use low angles only and relocate from firing positions immediately after a fire mission while another battery from the same brigade or platoon moves to its own prepared firing position(talking about 500 m to 1 km distances here), so that even if the counter-battery fire is instant, the firing unit will no longer be there when the counter-artillery fire splashes down. The sheer number of artillery available and its drilled tactics makes this possible. Besides ranging shots(when necessary) a forward observer has direct communications to the firing units as often as possible and usually calls a minimum of one shot per gun from a battery or a so called "kerta"(a "once" or single or singular); that is, 16 or 18 shots depending on the unit and caliber.

That is definitely not optimized to hitting small groups let alone individual guerrillas. 

[Parsely]

That is definitely not optimized to hitting small groups let alone individual guerrillas. 

Indeed. Against those targets precision weapons are more efficient.

[Sheb]

What will you do when the Lappland Liberation Front start a guerilla war led by small units on reindeerback then?

[Parsely]

What will you do when the Lappland Liberation Front start a guerrilla war led by small units on reindeerback then?

Surrender?

[Erkki]

What will you do when the Lappland Liberation Front start a guerilla war led by small units on reindeerback then?

My bet is on neo-fascist anti-Russian movements with a strength of about 3 men in the Russian Republic of Karelia that need to be crushed with 15-ish motor rifle brigades some 600 km to the West. That, or a Russian aircraft or two are "shot down". Mind you, the hybrid warfare against us has been on for years already. Just not in anywhere near the same scale as in Ukraine, and besides Armenia, we're still Russia's best neighbors. In a way.

I don't think we have problems similar to Ukraine. Corruption, money, rusting gear, lacking organization and drilling aren't issues, and nobody would consider the conflict a civil war. Manufacturing an internal conflict would be very difficult. Defense budget has been cut several times the past years but we will be seeing an increase in both it and  readiness in general soon. The whole military is geared and drilled for rapid response, fighting in depth and counterattack, and escalation bit by bit just wont work after April this year when it comes possible for the Chief of Staff to mobilize 25,000 to man the armored units(which would rise the peacetime strength to about 40,000) without the need ask the parliament or even the prime minister. The so called "Yellow A2" may grab a village or two with insurgents speaking incomprehensible could-be-Finnish, but then what? They'd face a large conventional army, an air force and a cruise missile threat to deep behind the border should they let the defender have the couple of days to mobilize. And that defender would have the means to stop all naval and air traffic but submarines in the Gulf of Finland.

[mainiac]

What will you do when the Lappland Liberation Front start a guerrilla war led by small units on reindeerback then?

Surrender?

That is not how you spell supper.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

This is true. However, an attacking force(the enemy) does not usually spend hours preparing defensive positions.

Modern war is a war of mobility. Especially on offensive. You move and hide to avoid artillery  (unless you are speaking about that weird Ukrainian-Russian war that looks like unholy mix of WW1,WW2,cold war era conflicts and spec ops playing counter-strike in the real life)

[Erkki]

This is true. However, an attacking force(the enemy) does not usually spend hours preparing defensive positions.

Modern war is a war of mobility. Especially on offensive. You move and hide to avoid artillery  (unless you are speaking about that weird Ukrainian-Russian war that looks like unholy mix of WW1,WW2,cold war era conflicts and spec ops playing counter-strike in the real life)

That movement also stops when it meets defenders or another obstacle.

edit: fortunately the terrain we have is a lot more trickier to an attacker than Central Europe or especially Ukrainian plains. There are many more natural obstacles that will channel and restrict movement.

[Parsely]

This is true. However, an attacking force(the enemy) does not usually spend hours preparing defensive positions.

Modern war is a war of mobility. Especially on offensive. You move and hide to avoid artillery  (unless you are speaking about that weird Ukrainian-Russian war that looks like unholy mix of WW1,WW2,cold war era conflicts and spec ops playing counter-strike in the real life)

That movement also stops when it meets defenders or another obstacle.

No it doesn't. You don't just stop maneuvering when you locate the enemy. You try to outmaneuver him. Flank him or surround him or cut him off.

[Sergarr]

This is true. However, an attacking force(the enemy) does not usually spend hours preparing defensive positions.

Modern war is a war of mobility. Especially on offensive. You move and hide to avoid artillery  (unless you are speaking about that weird Ukrainian-Russian war that looks like unholy mix of WW1,WW2,cold war era conflicts and spec ops playing counter-strike in the real life)

That movement also stops when it meets defenders or another obstacle.

No it doesn't. You don't just stop maneuvering when you locate the enemy. You try to outmaneuver him. Flank him or surround him or cut him off.

Alternatively, you do a full frontal assault through enemy's positions by rapidly concentrating forces in several locations of enemy's front line (or whatever its analogy in the modern warfare) and then full throttle your mechanized formations to overrun their supply lines and wreck chaos and destruction at places where your opponent doesn't expect them to be, while fixing the "front-line" survivors with motorized groups and then encircling and artillerating them to death. That's how the Soviet manuals tell to do it.

Modern Russian doctrine might be somewhat different, but it's still pretty similar, given by recent Russian ground military operations. Surprise and shock are the key to victory.

[Loud Whispers]

No it doesn't. You don't just stop maneuvering when you locate the enemy. You try to outmaneuver him. Flank him or surround him or cut him off.

Notably in the conflicts within Iraq and Syria, due to all the mobile major firepower having been blown up, when two groups met at a town they'd just stop and wait until someone brought in a truck bomb/air strike on the fortified town. Helps to have artillery round about then, unless that artillery just becomes an airstrike magnet

[Strife26]

There's a gulf of a difference between the current fighting in the Middle East and a war between modern militaries.


(pun intended)