If the Germans were bogged down at any point in the invasion of France, Germany would be facing horrific logistical problems replacing the vast losses in men and material.

Sorry for necro'ing this one, Giz, but there's another point to this as well.

You can tell when you look at the actual German tech they went to war with that this was not a military structured around prolonged campaigns. A lot of German kit in WWII required lengthy, expensive maintenance to perform to spec - this is not a problem in a military optimised for brief lightning strikes where you are the aggressor and so can dictate the schedule to match your maintenance timetables and just use the brief window of combat to run out your maintenance intervals. It's also apparent in the lack of competence the German military of WWII had in providing necessary spares and equipment to return damaged vehicles to service.

Compare this to, say, US equipment which was built with maintainability very much in mind. Combine this with a US logistical train which would happily provide sufficient spares to built an entire new vehicle from parts and it's obvious which military is set up for lengthy campaigning - and had the industrial might necessary to pull this particular trick off.

You can also infer it from German practice regarding leave - for instance, during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe simply didn't grant leave - they wanted all hands to be able to prosecute their air war. The RAF, having no idea how long the engagement was going to run for and presumably reluctant to run the main line of defence into the ground, still allowed airmen leave.

If the Germans were bogged down at any point in the invasion of France, Germany would be facing horrific logistical problems replacing the vast losses in men and material.

Sorry for necro'ing this one, Giz, but there's another point to this as well.

You can tell when you look at the actual German tech they went to war with that this was not a military structured around prolonged campaigns. A lot of German kit in WWII required lengthy, expensive maintenance to perform to spec - this is not a problem in a military optimised for brief lightning strikes where you are the aggressor and so can dictate the schedule to match your maintenance timetables and just use the brief window of combat to run out your maintenance intervals. It's also apparent in the lack of competence the German military of WWII had in providing necessary spares and equipment to return damaged vehicles to service.

Compare this to, say, US equipment which was built with maintainability very much in mind. Combine this with a US logistical train which would happily provide sufficient spares to built an entire new vehicle from parts and it's obvious which military is set up for lengthy campaigning - and the industrial might necessary to pull this particular trick off.

You can also infer it from German practice regarding leave - for instance, during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe simply didn't grant leave - they wanted all hands to be able to prosecute their air war. The RAF, having no idea how long the engagement was going to run for and presumably reluctant to run the main line of defence into the ground, still allowed airmen leave.