Hi everyone.
This is a bit of an expansion of my previous blog post. My intention here is to explain some of the differences between the World War II era and the modern era.
Firstly, mechanized warfare as we know it now had its origins during World War II. However, it was in it's infancy. One big thing we have today that no one had back then was the helicopter. In the World War II era, it was absolutely new technology. In fact, it was just invented by the time the conflict broke out. Hence, the modern image of spec ops troops or paratroopers dropping from helos, simply didn't happen. The capabilities--both utility and offensively--wouldn't be explored in depth until late in the conflict and wouldn't start to be utilized until the Korean War a few years later.
Also, paratrooper units were just being looked at with the advent of large amounts of transport aircraft that could move men and equipment relatively long distances quickly by the standards of the time. It should be noted that the one really big German operation involving paratroopers being used as intended was initially little short of a disaster. Operation Mercury--the Axis invasion of Crete--involved German paratroopers arriving by air and German and Italian troops arriving more conventionally by sea.
Unfortunately for the paratroopers, the British and other Allied units benefited from knowing in advance about the invasion, as the British had just broken the German's Enigma codes. Which meant that in spite of being relatively poorly armed and the Axis having near complete air superiority, the Allies simply took pot-shots at paratoopers as their either jumped from planes or after they landed--and usually lost their main weapons. This resulted in German troops often armed only with pistols being out-ranged and out-gunned by troops with rifles. The paratroopers also lacked automatic weapons, which didn't help, either.
This convinced Hitler that paratroopers had little future, which ironically lead to them being deployed as specialist forces--similar to a large extent to today. The Allies, though, learned from the German difficulties and successfully used them against the Germans and Japanese in the later years of World War II.
This also lead the Germans to develop the FG-42 automatic rifle, which lead to several innovations still being exploited today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FG_42
Now, as to material today vs now. Research carried out before and during (and after) World War II confirmed that the average soldier with an iron sighted rifle didn't stand much of a chance of hitting much of anything as far as a man-sized target beyond 300-400 yards range. This generally represented wasted potential as far as bolt action or even semiautomatic rifles designed around cartridges that were designed to reach out to 1200 yards or so. This realization among others--such as rifle caliber weapons were pretty useless against vehicles, and overall firepower mattered more in infantry vs infantry matters--lead to selective fire full auto capable automatic rifles that largely took the place of both full powered rifles and submachine guns.
In something of an ironic twist, modern ammunition and items such as optical sights has pushed out range again. Instead of 300 yards or less, the average soldier can now, even with a 5.56mm assault rifle--engage targets out to 600 yards or more with a considerable degree of success. Also, due to increased use of body armor by various enemies, and attempts to out-range soldiers with assault rifles by using marksmen rifles and general purpose machine guns (GPMGs) that fire full power ammunition, has lead to the .30 caliber rifle and machine gun making somewhat of a comeback as far as squad level designated marksmen's rifles (DMR) and lightweight GPMGs.
So, what does this mean if Nazi Germany tried to invade modern-day France? Well, in a ground war, Germany would probably be screwed. I already touched upon armored vehicles, aircraft, and naval vessels in a bit of detail (even if it involves looking up links). But seeing as how the majority of German soldiers though out World War II were armed with bolt action Mauser rifles, confronting French troops armed with Heckler & Koch HK416 rifles and FAMAS rifles (which are being replaced by the 416), that can fire in semi- and full automatic, and firing lethal and accurate 5.56mm NATO ammo and equipped with optical sights and other equipment means that peer to peer, the firepower rests with France.
Even if the Germans went to the StG-44 (the first mass produced assault rifle that entered service late in World War II), the 416 especially but also the FAMAS can reach out to further ranges, and even though 5.56mm seems small compared to 7.92x33mm round of the StG-44, it's more accurate and does better at penetrating cover such as flak jackets and helmets, and has pretty nasty terminal effects on soft targets, especially with newer ammunition developed in recent years.
It also doesn't help that the French have the FN MAG 58 GPMG and FN Minimi squad automatic weapon (SAW), which are excellent weapons of their type, and the FN SCAR HPR (High Precision Rifle), a self-loading (or semiautomatic) sniper and marksman's rifle that is just as accurate as the equivalent WWII German Mauser sniper rifle while offering more firepower with similarly lethal rounds (7.62mm NATO vs 7.92mm Mauser, both rounds offer similar performance).
And of course, what helped drive a lot of these innovations is improved mobility of both spec ops forces and regular infantry. Though the Germans had half tracks and transport planes during World War II, things have moved on. Armored Personnel Carries (APCs), Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs) and armored cars and light vehicles offer much better performance and capabilities vs their World War II ancestors. This increases the abilities of the modern French Army to hit hard and run fast vs World War II Germany. Ironically, the Germans were able to do the same in the early war years for much the same reasons. That being said, the Germans had to rely on horse-drawn artillery for much of the conflict, and they also lacked an assault gun (a form of mobile artillery support) early on, too.
And, as an aside, it's ironic that the French are adopting a French rifle as their main service weapon (HK is a German company), which I believe that I mentioned previously. It's also perhaps somewhat ironic that Germany are reportedly set later this year to adopt a similar rifle. The HK416 A8 is similar to the 416F in broad specs, but has a longer (16.5 inch vs 14.5 inch) barrel that's lighter, a newer design of handguard, and a 90 degree selector switch/safety lever rather than the AR-15 inspired 180 degree lever. The German Army and Navy spec ops use the HK416 A7 as the G95, which is similar to the A8 with a shorter barrel and longer handguard.
So that's more on how things stacked up as far as now vs then.
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