In 1941 the Legion of French Volunteers was founded by French collaborators that supported Germany to aid in the German war effort. It was raised to explicitly fight against the USSR on the Eastern Front and saw service in October 1941. It fought during Operation Typhoon or the push to Moscow. After the failure of Operation Typhoon the legion were regulated to anti-partisan duties on the Eastern Front.
The Waffen-SS updated its recruitment standards and allowed French to volunteer. In 1943 the SS Sturmbrigade Frankreich was formed. It underwent training throughout 1943 and early 1944 and finally saw service on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1944.
Ultimately these two units were disbanded and it was decided that they should be organized. These French Axis personnel were formed into a single unit, the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Charlemagne Division in September 1944. This unit also comprised former members of the Milice, Vichy Franceās paramilitary organization that fought against the French Resistance. The division had over 7,000 Axis Frenchmen. In early 1945 the division was sent to fight on the Eastern Front as the Eastern Front was on Germanyās doorstep. It was nearly destroyed in the fighting in Pomerania. The remnants of the division were some of the last units defending Berlin at the end of the war.
This could be a Machine Gunner squad. Their unique weapon could be a Chauchat. The Chauchat, a WW1 French lmg, was used by various countries like Belgium, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Germany captured Chauchats from these countries
We already have the Charlemange division in the game, but they have German voice lines. LFV could be interesting addition though it is controversial for French people.
I was thinking the other French gold order LMG since they were mostly captured or the MAS sub machine gun cause I definitely donāt want the inaccurate Chauchatš
Yes as just an insert random radio squad lol. I think the same for the Latvian and Italian SS squads. Why have a unique squad if theyāre just going to be throwaway Germans
The unique weapon for this squard should be mas38 smg instead of chauchat, chauchat already exist in a soviet squard and its performance is realy bad, no on likes it
I think the MAS 38 should be in German RT because it was mostly produced and used by Germans. But hey the devs do whatever. I think regardless special squads should be a little thematic so a French Axis squad should have some French weapon
I say this doesnāt matter. The Chauchat is originally a French gun and I thought it was silly to give it to the Soviets in the first place. It has potential to be added to both the Allies and Axis
I donāt know if France will become a subfaction one day. Thereās also a Chauchat in 30-06 used by US in WW1. Itās a neat gun
āWhile the performance of the M1915 Chauchat in 8 mm Lebel was combat-effective, judging by the numbers of decorated U.S. Chauchat gunners found in the U.S. Divisional Histories, the performance of the M1918 Chauchat in .30-06 was soon recognized as abysmal (and in large part the reason for the gunās bad reputation). The most common problem was a failure to extract after the gun had fired only a few rounds and became slightly hot.ā from wikipedia
All of the Chauchat machine guns proved to be terrible
