Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Operation Torch - Invading France in Africa to beat Germany (with Vince O'Hara)" video.

  1. ​   I played around with a scenario like that a while back. It seems evident that Darlan's loyalties were "flexible". Gensoul was following orders received, over Darlan's signature, to resist the British. The pivot point is Reynaud going across the channel to the UK, forming a government in exile, and ordering all loyal French forces to rally to him, rather than surrendering. Darlan would probably follow Reynaud. That would have Richeleau and Jean Bart making the shorter trip to the UK, and Gensoul bringing his force to the UK. First order of business would be sorting out the loyal crewmen who wanted to fight on, from those that want to call it a war. Manning the best ships with loyal crews, training, and upgrading things like AA armament, replacing the French single shot 37mm guns with Vickers pompoms, for instance, would probably all happen at Scapa. So, everyone is in place for Bismark's breakout. For simplicity of communications, all the French ships sail together, and they make for the Denmark Strait, because they are faster, so can cover the longer distance quicker. Meanwhile KGV, Prince of Wales, Hood, and Repulse make for the channel south of Iceland. So the engagement starts, but, then Richeleau suffers three guns out of action due to premature detonation of the shells, and pulls back, leaving the somewhat thin skinned Strasbourg and even thinner skinned Dunkerque to duke it out.
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