Review: Brief history of some WW II German invasions
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 4, 2013
Another short book by Mr. Black on WW II.He addresses the German Army and it's method of attack called Blitzkrieg. The German's had tried out their new aircraft designs in Spain in the civil war, and the ME 109 was superb fighter, and the Studka dive bomber was a ground attack aircraft which was dated by the stat of WWII. However, the French air force could not match the MK 109, and there were not enough British fighters. Neither France nor Britain had a dive bomber like the Studka that had trained with the armor and infanctry. Germany in general had air superiority over France, and certainly did in Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and Norway as well as the USSR at the start of the war.The Germans did what would now be called combined arms and used their armor, infantry and supporting aircraft to attack and break down their foes. The countries attacked by Germany did not really have integrated defense plans what had been devised before the war. Compounding the problems were that Poland was to the east of Germany and France and Britain were to the west, and thus there was no way to move troops or aircraft to Poland when threatened. France and Britain had not discussed mutual defense with Belgium before they were invaded as Belgium did not want to annoy the Germans. Nor did France and Britain discuss mutual defense with the Netherlands prior to the war. Thus when the the Netherlands, Belgium and France were invaded, and Britain sent over her army, the movement into Belgium was ad hoc, and all done on the fly, which was not a good way to play defense against Germany.I believe that this would have been a better book if Mr. Black had restricted it to the invasion of Belgium and France only.