French Tanks

See Russel's post above. Nothing would change if they didn't switch doctrines as well.

 

True, the French chose to scatter their tanks and back their infantery with a few of them, the Germans used their tanks for massive group attacks and could take the French tanks out one by one this way. Had the French gathered their tanks more often as they did in Gembloux, strategies would have been very different, but they failed to consider tanks as independent weapons and prefered to use them in the old fashioned way as infantery support, which obviously could do little against the Bltizkrieg strategy.
besides we have been talking about the Somua and the B1, but unfortunately these were not that many and quite often the chars that were facing the Panzers were pathetic FT-17s that were nothing but updated relics from WWI.

 

double post - sorry!

 

Reading this thread a bit late. From the few sources I have on hand, I think it's important to note that while French doctrine for armored engagement is recognized as obsolete by the time of the Blitz, the prevailing wisdom often concludes that the French didn't know what they were doing. I would contend that at a wide level, this was true, but it is unfair to overlook periods where in some cases, they dealt the Germans a hard blow when least expected.

Gembloux, Stonne, and Montcornet are examples of what they were capable of when properly lead, despite the whatever faults or drawbacks in the actual machines they were operating. One point I find missing from the threads on this particular post, is that German airpower isn't mentioned, when in fact the Luftwaffe played a very large part in decimating/scattering French armored units. perhaps more than Heer/Panzer counterparts wish to admit.

What I find most interesting in reading conversations about the Battle of Gembloux (or Battle of Hannut), is that initial German objectives actually failed, and that for the brief time they reorganized to continue the assault on May 15, on the 14th they had actually given up the battlefield by sheer force of arms. The fact that the French were ordered to withdraw soon afterwards was definately a shame, rather than pressing on. However, this doesn't overlook the fact that for a very short time, the French not only held off an attack but it even prevented it's own complete annihalation under the most severe circumstances.

In my book, that is a French tactical victory, however short and brief it may have been.

I'm also glad to see Pallud's book mentioned. It contains some impressive photos of German tanks which fell victim to French tanks.

 

The fact remains that after the experience of the Poland campaign the French tank doctrine did not buge, so whatever local victories there were, were totally irrelevant within a wider strategic environment, "victories without a tomorrow" per the title of the book by Gen. René Prioux.

Name me a single dedicated LW anti-tank aircraft. It's still a bit early for the Ju 87G or the Hs 129, but I'll grant you that the logistical trains are very sensitive to air action.

In the meantime I found this http://funsite.unc.edu/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-NWE-Flanders/index.html#contents

 

The fact also remains that for some reason, despite the overall outcome, the engagement is considered a German victory. I disagree. Hence my point that however short it was, the French withdrew not by force of arms of the Germans, but on their own accords after the German left the battlefield. This does not make it "totally irrelevant", unless you're willing to state also that British actions at Arras were also "totally irrelevant". That engagement also did not produce a wider strategic environment which changed the outcome, so I really wonder what your point is here.

...and yes, I am aware of Gen. Prioux's book, though I do not own a copy myself.

Are you actually suggesting that the LW was not dive-bombing French/Allied columns? There exists coutless testimonies of Allied troop movements being harrased and mauled by attacks from the air. As for the link, it is an interesting read, though very heavily slanted towards the British view, thus I'd say it only tells part of the story. Naturally, there are descrepencies and ommissions too, but that remains for another discussion....

 

What does Dunkirk have to do with the topic at hand?

Once again, you missed the entire point. The French objective was to cover the general Allied redeployment by checking the German advance. This they succeeded for the better part of 2 days. That the French did not decide to use this opportunity to launch a major counter-attack is indeed unfortunate, but it is besides the point as this was not their objective. The Germans failed to draw in and destroy the French 1st Army at Gembloux, yet you somehow insist this is a victory for the Germans on the logic that the overall situation didn't change. I would contend your analysis is flawed. This was clearly a French victory. Short-termed and Phyric victory, but one nonetheless. A true German victory would have destroyed the French 1st Army, and prevented any Allied redepolyment in the Lille-Dunkirk pockets.

Yes, interesting how the word "panic" is always used to describe the German reaction to this counter-attack, as if it leads more credence of it's supposed greater success - It doesn't. However, to use your logic - it too, failed because the Germans moved in after the British retreated. So, if it is your premise that, because the overall results did not change, all successful delaying actions/counter attacks should be overlooked as they did not prevent the final outcome? This is certainly a way to over-generalize things, isn't it?

The fact these aircraft weren't "dedicated" in the anti-armored role didn't prevent their use in doing just that. The Blitz was a learning experience for the Germans as well as for the Allies.

 

The germans made quite a bit of use of french tank turrets in the channel islands fortifications, I think they were mainly ww1 renault FT17 in origin. There is at least one example at the museum in in guernsey... see Renault tank turret used on pillbox at Les Nicolles Forest on Flickr - Photo Sharing! for a pic

 

The Germans used a variety of turrets in their fortifications. You might like to check out my thread.

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/22200-wwi-tanks-wwii.html

 

There's a lot of first class posts here. I'm giving this subject a bump

 

Somme comments about the previous posts:

First point - Gembloux: as I read the situation the French armour mission was to allow the following forces to setup as planned. This was acconmplished successfully.
The German mission was to mask the real attack further South not to breakthrough, Army Grroup B was considerably weaker than the total forces it faced, it's role was the cloak, the sword was Army Group A. This mission was accomplished brilliantly. So no French victory there, only had the French been able to draw troops away from AG A's main effort or at least stop AG B cold so exposing it's weakness and making the high command realize the bulk of the German forces were elsewhere could a victory be claimed but they never came even close to that. Instead the Germans could even afford shifting the Panzers to reinforce the panzer corridor once the infantry of AG B had cought up. That this was not due to the troops, that accomplished the assigned mission, but to the fact they were given the wrong mission is irrelevant. The role of the DLMs was recon as well as screening and they miserably failed that.
Same story for the DLCs, nobody expected them to hold against seven full strength Panzer divisions but they failed to detect the main attack and that was part of their mission as well.

Second point - Armour quality: The designs reflected the operational requirements, the French had good vehicles optimized for one role while the Germans had more general purpose ones, the French vehicles could never have been used as the German were.
As a result of over optimization, and for the wrong roles, the French, despite having more tanks than the Germans, never had enough of the right tools to get the job done.
- The B1bis was a breakthrough assault vehicle and too slow, short ranged and unreliable for mobile operations. Like the Matilda II it was nearly unstoppable as long as it didn't run out of fuel or broke but IMO the poor crew layout (that 75 + 47 armament makes us think someting like an M3 until you see one and realize how cramped it really was) and lack of radio make crew fatigue the biggest limitation, it simply could not operate for more than a few of hours by itself.
- The Somua was a cavalry tank, so it's longer legged and less cramped but is still optimized for short firefights, that it's likely to win against anything short of a Pz IV, not sustained combat. Same goes for the FCM with the added disadvantage on not having a Pak 36 proof armour.
- The Renault and Hotckiss lights that made up the bulk of the French force are designed as infantry support vehicles, the ones with the "long" 37 have decent AT capability but that's not their main mission. They also lacked the range for mobile ops (just 85 miles according to a source) and radios so cannot operate independently.
FT-17 are relics from another age of little significance.
Char 2C are too few to matter, a 2C in a choke point may be as hard to neutralize as KVs proved to be a year later, and a one day delay early during the Channel dash could have had enormous consequences, but it didn't happen.
So basically the French found themselves with a lot of tanks but none that could do what was really needed, which is either stopping the Panzer spearheads head on or breaking the flanks of the "panzer corridor",the French vehicles and units were optimized for setpiece battles not mobile warfare and the French failed to force the tempo of the campaign to one that would have allowed their forces to show their best characteristics.

Another significant great French weakness was a general shortage of AT guns, this was the main reason for the dispersal of the tanks in penny packets, without them the PBI was defenceless, keeping them concentrated for counterattacks would probably have been more effective but the French didn't think of doing that until too late.

Third point: Poor tank/infantry coordination and tactics. The DLM and DLC were not assault units so we can't expect them to succesfully spearhead an attack but the DCR where. On the two occasions they where used as such during the critical phase (Stonne and Abbeville) they failed despite local superiority. They did cause losses, as stated before the B1bis was hard to stop with the weapons available to most German units, but the results didn't go beyond the tactical level. And the same could be said of the Matildas at Arras despite British claims. If those vehicles were breaktrough tanks designed to lead infantry attacks where was the infantry ????

 

The French were very careful after WW1 and took extreme measures to prevent a repeat. They really made the Germans pay big time in 1918 and knew perfectly well they were liable to be attacked again. And so they built many very good tanks and aircraft and the Maginot line (which cost a huge amount of French GDP) yet none of it was enough.

The French had many tanks that outclassed the panzers in 1940, the problem was the commanders used them foolishly since their doctrine was wrong. Tanks had been used in WW1 by British and Germans and they were extremely primitive. But wherever they were employed they often succeeded in breaking through the lines. This was the experience most armies had of the tank in WW1, primitive, dubious, and not a war winner since they could be destroyed by artillery or a well armed infantryman.

Going into WW2, few armies except the Wehrmacht had any idea of what they had in the tank. The French thought that tanks were only good to support the infantry, organized them and deployed them as such, and so, ignored their mobility and firepower in the offense. This was their undoing.



Heinz Guderian was one of Hitler's visionaries since he understood what the Panzers could do when combined with air and infantry. Even during the years when Germany was hamstrung by Versailles, Guderian used cars and trucks dressed up like tanks to prove his theories. (Perhaps The French were trying to play checkers during Guderian's ongoing chess game.) Hitler listened to what Guderian had to say since this was a tool for Hitler to achieve what he wanted, and he gave Guderian the green light.
The answer is, French tanks were really just as good as the Germans, but they were squandered in foolish tactics and deployed in the wrong places in 1940.

 

yeah but what also did,nt help the tanks out was the french did,nt have anti aircraft guns which made them vunerable to air attacks

 

I am not a specialist, my knowledge of the topic is limited to reading some 20 books, mostly in French (officers' diaries and memoirs, historical studies), and visiting the Saumur museum. Here are a few facts and qualifications to various posts.
In fact, the description of the French strategy as a purely "defensive" one, & tank doctrine divided between infantry support and cavalry reconnaissance hold true in the mid-1930s, but no longer in 1940. The French doctrine and equipment were evolving, and of course one of reasons for the disaster was that it was caught in the middle of this evolution (the same could be said of all other democracies, for a simple and sound reason: They did not plan to make a war).
I looked at the records of the Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre. Reacting to German rearmament, the French top brass decided, from 1936 on, that a new sort of tank units should be created, to be used "no longer as infantry support or reconnaissance, but as rams" to break through the enemy. They decided to create 2, then 4 DCRs to this end. Consequently, faster and more powerful tanks were developed or put into production. When we see the speed of the French tanks of the late 1930s (at the Saumur museum, in books and on Internet sites), it's obvious that they were not just for infantry support (or the infantrymen should have to run pretty fast !)
As we all know, the French strategy was essentially defensive, based on the Maginot line, as a reaction against the mad "overall offensive" doctrine of 1914 which had cost the French army 1 million casualties in 1914-1915. Yet the main purpose of a fortification is not to stop the enemy, but to channel it into regions where one wants to meet him. Beside the Maginot line, the French organized a "corps de bataille", with most "cavalry", mobile infantry and French tank divisions, to fight in Northern France, Belgium and even the Netherlands, in the case of Hitler attacking.
The technical flaws of the B1 and other French tanks are well described in other posts here. Yet generally they fared better than the German tanks: In tank-to-tank battles, the French won (see for example the memoirs of General Billotte, who as a captain commanded an escadron of B1bis at Stonne, or of General Touzet du Vigier). The fact that many of them were re-used in several armies after the French defeat speaks for itself. What really caused the defeat was:
- the German control of the air,
- and a daring, very risky offensive strategy which won only because the Allies of 1940 had outdated military leadership and political systems & men designed for peace, not for war.
Thanks to the patients who read until my last word...

 

I hope it will not be your last at all, as I agree with your accurate analysis.
One of the keys is that the French could not imagine betting on a strategy that had not even been invented or used by an army before. They set up their armies like Napoleonic soldiers in the oldfashione dway and could not imagine the effects of the Blitzkrieg traditional warfare. Whenever they managed to get enough tanks together, they got some successes, but the permanent pounding by the Luftwaffe did not allow those groupings and the scattered modern tanks were destroyed one by one, not to mention the old FT-17 relics that were eventually used as fragile baricades....

 

Very nice post Leitner. It's true the French studied the Polish defeat but they created some pretty bad units nonetheless. IIRC the B1bis went to rhe DCR (2 batallions each) and to 3 independent companies (347, 384 and 349), the DCR also had Renault or Hotchkiss lights in the other batallions so neither the "heavy" nor the "light" tanks of the DCR had great range or reliability. As a result the DCR was tank heavy and short ranged and even when paired with a motorized infantry formation (as the 3rd DCR was paired with the 3rd DIM at Stonne) did not manage to achieve a breakthrough. BTW what did the R in DCR stand for? I usually found Reserve (Reserve) but also Rupture (Breakthrough) and Rapide (fast) in some documents, "reserve" make one think they were meant to be thrown in the attack at a critical moment while "rupture" makes on think they were meant to lead an attack. "Rapide" makes no sense as the exploitation phase was the task of the cavalry DLM. The DCR were created as a reaction to Poland but the B1 were already in production, what sort of units where they meant for, independent coys/batallions attached to infantry for chosen attacks?

The Somua went to the DLM that were the closest thing the French had to a Panzer division but still too light in infantry, artillery and support elements to be able to stand up in a protracted fight despite having better armed and armoured tanks than the Germans had. And the DLM trained for the traditional cavalry roles of recon and pursuit not mobile warfare where the breakthrough is also the task of the tanks.

Apparently the French learmed the wrong lessons from Poland, the main weapon of a tank is it's engine, the B1bis and assorted Renault/Hotckiss were not well suited to mobile warfare and little could be done about that in the available time so there was no way a DCR built around them could work as a mobile formation. You cannot develop mobile tactics with radioless vehicles that need to stop to refuel and let the crew rest every few hours, so the French tried to use the DCR in setpiece battles and were overtaken by events. A well supported Somua equipped unit could have been a very tough opponent for panzer division but unfortunately the Somua belonged to the cavalry ....

 

Bump:

FCM F1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Char G1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting concepts almost put into play. I doubt its accuracy since its wikipedia but have a look, pretty cool stuff.

 

Some images of French Tanks from my WW2 German Soldiers photo albums.....deployed sparsely and with the Luftwaffe controlling the air, the French tanks were merely target practice.

View attachment 10119

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www.throughtheireyes2.co.uk

 

I understand that some captured French tanks were used in Yugoslavia on anti-partisan sweeps. Rated as second line vehicles, they would have been perfect for flushing out poorly equipped partisan fighters, and with a lack of opposition in the way of AFVs or anti-tank elements, good use would have been made of the few available at the time.

Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

Players of Avalon Hill's "Squad Leader" system used to tear their hair out trying to get good use out of these dinosaurs, playing with significant handicaps compared to other Allied nationalities. The only official scenario you had a chance to use them with any degree of success was, funnily enough, "Counterstroke at Stonne", a running fight with a large chateaux as the objective.