FRANCE Just as the bloodletting of World War I has left the French military a firm believer in the prevalence of firepower over manoeuvre, so did France’s defeat by Germany in 1940 led it to a similar swing in the direction of mobile warfare. Beginning in the 1950s, the French military began to experiment with organizational structures aimed at facilitating rapid battlefield manoeuvre, including the Javelot brigade and the 7e Division Mécanique Rapide, eventually being standardised as the Division Type 1967. However, shortages of modern equipment, caused in part by the…