What if Richelieu, Jean Bart(wasn't completed until after the war), Clemenceau(third ship of the Richelieu class but scrapped), newly planned aircraft carrier Joffre were completed and and during the fall of france all of the modern ships of the French navy were apart of the Free French rather being scuttled or destroyed during the Vichy problems. This includes the Strasbourg and Dunkerque battlecruisers.

What roles would they play and could they live up to full potential? Were the ships very powerful or would they be destroyed by the axis? Where would they be situated? How would the modern french battleships, battlecruisers and carrier be against the axis?

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Its not just stuck for campaign against the Germans, and also I kinda want to see what you guys would think for performance. Like one of those silly Battleship verse Battleship cases. The ships never did alot except sit in harbor taking torpedos or exchanging fire with British/American ships.

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All this depends on where the French fleet is used, which depends on what other French remain with the Allied side.

If the fleet simplys flees to British ports and is seperated from a Vichy type nuetral or collaborationist government, then it has too little logistics support, replacement crew, and operationl capability. So in the longer run this means one or two more BB & crusiers available to the British and any particular week. Not a big difference. Slightly more important would be the destroyers. Any that are suitable for Atlantic operations would be helpfull but not decisive as convoy escourts. The submarines would be of some use for interdicting Italian cargo ships in the Med.

If the French government flees to Africa, as proposed, the the fleet becones very important. The French did briefly consider relocating the government to the Northern African colonys. I discussed this in a thread here and on some other discussion boards earlier this year.

Should this happen the French fleet has naval bases on the African littoral and a logistics base already establsihed there. And, there are all weather airfields existing as far east as Tunisia & Bizerte. With those bases and British reinforcement the Italians in Lybia are screwed. Over the next six to ten months they will be cut off and any efforts to open the sea route will be overwhelmed by the combined British French fleets. With airfields directly adjacent to the Italian sea route and general battle area the RAF will have a important advantage and Malta is no longer a desperate hope.

The Germans can drag this battle out by imeadiatly reinforcing the Italians with the Luftwaffe. Enough Me 109 & Ju88 can hold the Allied at arms length for a while. But, this means no effective way to attack Britian other than token diversions, and it means if the effort extends into 1941 there is less support for the Barbarossa attack which does nothing but aid the Allies.

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