One time they get outflanked, and the world never lets them hear the end of it.
You try to be a decent neighbor to the Belgians and what does it get you? Invaded by the Germans, that's what.
Belgium: "Nooooo don't create the Maginot Line along our border too, that's basically abandoning us to ze Germans!"
France: "Alright, alright, fine, let's create a proactive defense strategy which-"
Belgium: "Woah, now! Doesn't France making plans to defend Belgian land sound like it would PROVOKE ze Germans? I don't think I can cooperate with that kind of reckless strategy."
France: 😵
The Maginot plan would have worked way better than irl had the Belgians not reneged and stayed as the Dyle Plan.
To be fair, they also got pummeled by the Prussians and the Romans before.
French armies and the French people fight like hell. But their leaders give up too easily.
But to be fair, not many people who are conquered retain their national identity like the French does. Maybe there is something in that.
It wasn't until fairly recently I learned that the whole "French cowards" trope largely came to us from the US reacting to various postwar French governments not playing ball with American military aspirations, e.g. kicking out all US bases in the 60s, calling for US withdrawal from Vietnam, opposing the second Gulf War etc.
The irony being that France only gets shit for being cowardly because they're pretty much the only Western European country to have the balls to stand up to the US.
France has the most battle victories of any nation ever.
The Francs were named after the throwing axe they used in battle, Charlemagne ruled half of Europe after Rome fell apart, William the Conqueror changed the English language, the Normans were such renowned warriors that they served as mercenaries in Constantinople, France won the 100 years war, France came out ahead after the 30 years war, Vauban was the greatest siege engineer of all time whose tactics were used for centuries, the French won the American Revolution, Napoleon conquered everything, French tanks and tactics were key in breaking the stalemate on the Western Front during WWI, and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.
But they were occupied by Nazi Germany so they're forever cowards
They also put up one hell of a fight against the Nazis and didn’t just roll over.
There’s a infographic film thing out there stylized like an older war film that shows how close the French were to accidentally encircling the entire German thrust.
In hindsight they coulda won, fairly easily, but the blitz itself acted like a punch that stunned the fighter.
And that's without even mentioning Asterix.
A lot of this depends on perspective. Norman knights existed because France surrendered the territory to the Vikings, claiming them as a French success is a bit of a stretch. The effects on the English from William the conqueror, would be as much or more a viking win than a French one.
France winning the 100 years war just means after 100 years they finally repelled an English invasion. Napoleon's empire was destroyed before his own death. WWI featured several massive failures of the French military that extended the war.
The normans were quite french by the time of William, so its a short term loss for a long term win.
They also started the industrial revolution.
We don’t deserve the French.
Right? We’re innocent.
Pope Innocent V
Haiti (and other colonies) raises an eyebrow.
tom hanks is so plane
I wonder what would happen if somebody successfully shot a bullet up into the barrel of a tank
I assume probably nothing for both modern tanks and WWII era, but for different reasons.
I think the WWII era tanks basically shot slugs, so hooting a bullet at a much bigger bullet would probably not do much, at the very worst it triggers the firing mechanism and the tank fires normally (but prematurely).
Modern tanks fire much more complex projectiles that contain explosives, so there is the possibility of triggering the detonation mechanism early.... But for robust battlefield reasons the detonation mechanism is disabled until after firing. So that is also unlikely.
Now take all of this with a grain of salt, this isn't the War Thunder forums.
In ww2 they definitely had differing types of ammunition depending on the application.
You had shells designed to anti armor, anti personnel, even flak rounds.
They def weren’t just shooting slugs.
Where is Mythbusters when we need them the most?
My very armchair general-ish educated guess:
If they have an HE round loaded, a shot might damage or activate the shell's very sensitive front facing fuse, causing it to immediately explode and also cause any other readied shells near the loader to explode, virtually guaranteeing the tank crew's death.
Other shell types, they have thick and inert ballistic cap that is propelled with enough velocity to shred armor. Basically an oversized bullet themselves. A pistol round would not go through the ballistic cap, only crumple and deform it. But there may be a chance it would make the shell misfire and damage the barrel when the tank crew attempts to fire.
The "French are cowards" meme only started circulating when they refused to participate in the Vietnam war. They knew it was a stupid endeavor even way back then.
refused to participate in the Vietnam war.
It was their colonies. They were removed from the region by the people in indochina. The French wanted their colonies back despite the Vichy regime being an axis collaborator, and couldn't hold on after fighting wars of suppression.
Eventually they had to formally cede control to communists in the 1950s which got America involved until the 70s.
My brother in Christ, the French were the cause of that war.
The cheese eating surrender monkeys still killed 45000 Algerians in 1945. They only surrendered to fascism but were harsh and cruel to their colonies.
That pistol was never fired, but dropped twice
Chekhov's dropped gun
Without the super emotional score supporting this, this makes it seem so fucking dumb lol. Bitch you’re going to get ran over and your pewpew ain’t doing shit.
He died 2 minutes later anyway. He knew he was never getting off the bridge. Might as well go down swinging.
Cheese eating colonizers, more like.
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