French Tank Development
Methodical Battle
Following the end of the Great War
in 1918, the French Army looked back at their successful battles from the final
year of World War I to plan for further conflicts. The French
Army developed the "Methodical
Battle" plan, envisioning the use of overwhelming firepower with a strong offensive
capability to break through any obstacle. The plan called for the infantry to advance
a few miles with massive artillery support. Then they would stop, move the artillery forward, and prepare for another short
advance. While this plan would work well if the enemy force intended to fight a
similar conflict, if the enemy outflanked French positions and forced them to reposition
quickly, the French Army would be at a distinct disadvantage. The events that
occurred in 1940 would make the greatest strength of this strategy its Achilles heel.
The key to the "Methodical Battle" plan was the infantry. The tanks would play a support role to the infantry during these advances. Everything that may happen was planned and prepared in advance, since communication with higher command would be very limited. That is because the French Army relied heavily on the local telephone lines and couriers. Even in 1940 there was a hesitance to use radio signals that could be intercepted by the enemy. This rigid use of slower forms of communication would have devastating consequences during the Battle of France because it prevented important information from reaching commanders until it was too late.
It is important to note that not all French Officers believed in this static approach, many saw the need for mobility and mechanization along with a professional army that would fight as a massed force. This more mobile approach was not a popular idea with both the politicians or with the higher levels of the military and gained little traction in France between wars.
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| The French Infantry was still key to French planning at the time. |
French Tank Design
French tank design would be in line
with the “Methodical Battle” principles. Small tanks with heavy armor, a turret
with a single man, a low velocity main cannon, these were decisions that were
decided upon by the French Army. History proved these tanks to be less than
ideal for the war they found themselves in, but they were created with a sound
logic.
Most tanks would be small, in
either size, crew, or both, for several reasons. First, France had suffered horrendous
loss of life during the First World War and did not have a massive source of
man power. With that in mind the French Army decided on producing more tanks
with fewer crew, than making fewer tanks with more crew. Secondly many French
tanks would be smaller to keep their weight down but still have good armor protection.
For example, the little Hotchkiss H39 tank weighed 12 tons compared to the 19
ton Panzer IV C, which was a much larger vehicle and was considered a heavy
tank at the time. The H39 had better armor all around than the Panzer IV C, but
the larger panzer had a crew of 5 compared to 2 in the French tank.
The issue of the one-man turret has
been endlessly discussed, but it too fit into the French plan. The tanks were
intended to move up to where the infantry was engaged and overwhelm the enemy
with tough armor and powerful guns. In this ideal situation the one man turret,
where the commander was finding targets, loading and firing the main gun, and
commanding the tank, was not seen as a major issue. The reasoning is the
infantry would have already spotted and engaged the target and the tanks would move
forward and destroy the impediment, freeing the infantry to advance once more.
The tanks mission would be clear before they engaged so there would not be a
need for the section commander to be in close communication with each
individual tank. Once again, in practice this feature proved to be
catastrophically flawed for the mobile battles the French tankers found
themselves fighting in.
The majority of French tanks lacked
a good anti-tank gun in 1940, but that was a problem for the German army as
well. The most common French tank gun of war was the 37mm SA18 cannon. A gun
that was excellent against enemy infantry, machine guns, and artillery, but due
to its low muzzle velocity had little use against tanks. This cannon was still
in use after its debut in the First World War, because there were many available
and it was good at supporting the infantry, which was the tanks purpose in the
French plan. Even amongst the higher levels of the French Army it was
recognized that tanks would inevitable engage other tanks while fulfilling the
support role, so plans were in place to upgrade to a better gun for tanks with the
SA18. The easiest solution was upgrading older tanks with the 37mm SA38 cannon
which had marginally better anti-tank capabilities and still could support the
infantry. For the larger tanks, (Somua S35, Char D2, Char B1 bis) they were
later equipped with the 47mm SA35 which was a very effective anti-tank gun for
1940.
When it comes to mobility, most
French tank design were quite mobile. With the infantry tanks (R35, FCM 36, Char
D1, Char D2 and Char B1) having a slow overall top speed but good cross country
performance. The cavalry tanks (Hotchkiss H35/39, Somua S35, AMR and AMC tanks)
had much faster top speeds and good cross country performance as well. Where French
tanks did really struggle was in reliability, many were abandoned due to
breakdowns as opposed to being knocked out, then since the French were often falling
back, and those tanks were not able to be recovered.
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| A Somua S35 tank, a solid all around tank for its time. |
Tanks Roles
The cavalry tanks needed to have good mobility, good armor and a good gun. The Somua S35 was the cavalry's tank of choice for their role, but for many reasons they ended up with a lot of Hotchkiss H35 and H39 tanks. The Hotchkiss tanks were not ideal for the cavalry's needs but they were better than nothing, as the Somua tank production proved to be slow and expensive. The cavalry also had a number of AMR and AMC light tanks equipped with machineguns for the infantry support role within the cavalry units.
The infantry would have attached independent tank companies that would support their defense and any offensive moves they made. This would come mainly in dealing with enemy machineguns and strong points, leaving enemy tanks to the anti-tank guns. These would be the old FT tanks, Renault R35, Char D1, Char D2 and the FCM 36 tanks. Since these tanks were there exclusively to support the infantry, they did not need to be fast but needed relatively good armor.
The new armored divisions would
move forward once the front was stabilized and deal with breaking the
stalemate. The French armored divisions would not make huge thrusts
through, and then far beyond, the enemy’s lines, such as was common later in
the war. They would instead, be inserted into the line when slow, deliberate
firepower was needed to destroy resistance that the infantryman was unable
to overcome. Like the infantry support tanks, the armored division’s tanks
were slow as well, having no need of great speed. These tanks needed to be well
armored and armed as they would be going against the toughest of the enemy
opposition. The tank for this role was the Char B1 bis, but the armored divisions
would also use Hotchkiss H39 and Renault R35 tanks.
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| A Renault R35 tank one of the most produced French tanks. |
Plan for 1940
Both the French and British believed that any aggressive attack from Germany would come through the Low Countries as it had during the First World War. The Dyle Plan was developed to counter this threat from Germany, and the plan would have several additions to it before the invasion occurred in 1940. In case of German attack the cavalry and mechanized forces (the DLM's, DIM's and DLC's) would engage and screen the forward elements of any German attack, thus slowing their advance. This would allow the infantry divisions (DI's) time to move up and prepare their positions to blunt the enemy advance. Once the infantry were in position the Germans would break themselves on the infantry forces. At that time the powerful tank divisions (DCR's) could be used to support the limited infantry advances that would follow, and engage any enemy concentrations, whether infantry, guns or tanks. In this strategy the infantry were the primary component for victory, followed closely by the mass of artillery supporting them.
Conclusion
This post has gotten way out of
control, since I originally meant it to be an intro to the Char D2 tank! If you
would like to know more about the 1940 Campaign in France there are lots of
great books by people who know what they are talking about, which is not me.
I’ll end this post with my take on
things. In the end, France was not lost due to bad tanks, bad tankers, a reliance
on fortifications or a lack of courage. In 1940 France was lost due to a system
that was designed to be slow and methodical from the top down, suddenly being
expected to react at a moment’s notice with little direction from higher up.
Next up will be the history of the
Renault Char D2 tank!
I am not a historian by any stretch, I just wanted to compile some concise information about French tanks during 1940. If you want to know more I'd recommend some of the books below, especially the "Trackstory" series if you want to learn more about specific French tanks.
Zaloga, Steven "French Tanks of WWII (1): Infantry and Battle Tanks" Osprey Publishing
Zaloga, Steven "French Tanks of WWII (2): Cavalry Tanks and AFVs" Osprey Publishing
Didly, Doug "Fall Gelb1940 (1): "Panzer Breakthrough in the West" Osprey Publishing
Didly, Doug "Fall Gelb1940 (2): "Airborne assault on the Low Countries" Osprey Publishing
Danjou. Pascal "Trackstory No.9: Renault D2" Editions du Barbotin
Also the Tank Encyclopedia website is a great resource. http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/
