Volksgrenadiers

[JasonC]

North Africa experience, I think. De Gaulle wasn't dumb about modern tactics but did not have time to train his people in his ideas, not seriously. He was too busy playing pol. I think they watched DAK in 1941-2 and by 1943 they knew plenty. They didn't have the equipment to do anything with that, until the big US rearming of the French after Tunisia.

Part of it was that the Germans just got caught, which to me is evidence of greeness. It is not like nobody else ever lost an armor brigade lopsidedly in a day. The US did in their first fight at Kasserine. The Brits did as late as Knightsbridge. The same thing could happen to Germans in 1944, if the unit was green enough. The PBs were green enough. Which made them a waste of Panthers.

[jtcm]

Would be worth trawling the memoirs of the French commanders (De Lattre) to see if they're picking this stuff up in North Africa, or if they're reading De Gaulle's interwar programmatic books.

The Invalides museum does have a good section re WWII-- very French-oriented (though not biases), The Desert war exhibit does have a lot of stuff re French experience (e.g. in building gun fronts with 75mms)

[SgtMuhammed]

I was more impressed with the Invalides pre-gunpowder collection. Of course they were the old city armory. Munster Panzer Museum is better IMHO but Invalides isn't bad.

As to the various leaders. The German generals tend to get all the credit but there were a lot of revolutionary thinkers in other countries who were basically told to sit down and shut up. It isn't surprising to me that many were able to shine once given a chance.