Returning to the events at Dunkirk. Perhaps a radically different outcome was possible?

Consider the battle at Gembloux on the 15-17 May. There a French infantry corps had just a few days to entrench itself. The terrain was open fields with hardly a orchard or line of trees for cover. There were no rivers or unfordable streams. No cliffs, hills, or swamps impassable to tanks. It was on the Belgian plain and by every book perfect armor terrain. The French corps had two battalions of light tanks for armored support. A couple squadrons of light 'cooperation' type aircraft were the only air support.

The German corps containing the 3rd and 4th Pz divsions had over 400 tanks available on the 15th of May, and all their infantry & artillery, and Luftwaffe support. this corps orders were to attack and break through the defenses of the French First Army. For three days the Gemans tried to break the enemy infantry defense, and failed. Unlike Rommel at Dinant, or Guderian at Sedan, or the 8th Pz at Givet this Pzcorps made no break through.

The difference was in the quality of the defending infantry. Unlike at Sedan, Givet, or Dinant these were not the recently mobilized and badly trained B class divsions. The two at Gembloux had been mobilized since August 1939, had commanders that used every spare moment to train them, were commanded by the younger classes of officers who's orignal training was more recent and modern. And, discipline was better. In other words they were not much different than the core divsions of the BEF. Well trained, equipped, and disciplined infantry. Also both the French defenders of Gembloux and the BEF were well supplied with artillery.

Arriving on the coast the Pz corps had lost the bulk of their tanks to breakdowns and battle damage. Rommel arrived with just 25 out of his original 21. It was taking days for repaired tanks to catch up. Similarly the supply columns had been outrun. Both the tanks and artillery had less than two days supply of ammunition available. Fuel was questionable as well. There was ammunition enroute, but it trickeld in over several days as the truck columns came across jammed roads and temporary bridges.

If the several pz corps become tangled in a melee with capable and well armed infantry amoung the cannals and streets of the coastal region it might actually go very badly for them. While a British victory is not certain and the final outcome for the BEF less favorable the effect on the German mobile corps would be even less favorable. Historically the Pz divsions were recovered to 50-60% strength when they again attacked the French army on the Somme-Oise line. But their motorized infantry and artillery were intact. In this alternate situation the pz divsions would be badly attritioned, with their tank strength as low as 25%, infantry battlions depleted or destroyed, and artillery missing. In this condition they would be far less capable of making further breakthroughs against the French defense. It would be up to the Wehrmachts infantry corps to finish off the French, and infantry battle was what the French army was designed to fight.

So perhaps the 'panzer halt' decision was the better choicefor the Germans?

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