French Armor - 1930 - Weygand Armored Cavalry
The political mood changed when faced with German rearmament and moves in central Europe. When Maxime Weygand became chief of staff in 1930, a programme of military modernization was initiated with the support of de Gaulle and Gamelin. The law was amended to allow the cavalry to acquire real tanks. Despite the restrictions imposed by the Great Depression and by the enormous cost of the Maginot Line, Chief of StaffWeygand took significant steps towards motorization and mechanization during the early 1930s. Five and ultimately seven infantry divisions became motorized, and one brigade in each of four light cavalry divisions was equipped with half-tracks and armored cars. Armor was tied to the rate of advance of foot-mobile infantry. The alternative of finding ways to increase the moblllty and protection of the infantry in order to keep pace with the tanks was rarely considered.
In 1934, Weygand continued the trend towards armored cavalry by forming the first "light mechanized division" (Division Légère Mécanique, or DLM). This division, with its combination of reconnaissance, light tanks, trucked infantry, and towed artillery, was remarkably similar to the German panzer division being developed at the same time. Because Weygand was a cavalryman, and because it was politically easier to justify a defensive covering force than an offensive armored unit, the four DLMs ultimately formed by France all received standard cavalry missions of reconnaissance and security, rather than mechanized main battle tasks.
But Gamelin had no concept of operational mobility. From the 1930s on, Gamelin placed a high priority upon the creation of motorized divisions, but his concept of motorization was essentially flawed. Gamelin was interested in motorization as a purely strategic concept: the creation of a motorized reserve force which could move quickly to Belgium in order to deploy against the Germans.
After 1935, the pace of defense spending increased steadily, if undramatically, until 1939. At the same time, the French tank manufacturing industry also made a qualitative leap during this period. France began to use the integral casting process and all-welding process to produce tanks. France also set standards for mass production based on innovative processes and adjusted tank production. The industrial assembly line greatly improves the production efficiency of tanks. For example, at that time, French tanks were more protective than German, Soviet, and American tanks at the same time due to technological advancement. What's more, the technology of large forgings improves the quality of armor, reduces the weight and reduces the man-hours of equipment, and the advanced technology also eliminates the danger of rivets killing the crew members when the tank was attacked.
At that time, many countries in the world used France as a reference target for tank development and armored force construction. Among them, Germany, the United States and Japan paid the most attention to French tank development and tactical development. The United States was the second country after France to introduce full welding technology into the design and production of tanks. Germany takes French tank tactics as the main reference target, while Japan has long discovered that Japan needs heavy tanks with heavy armor and high survival rate. However, due to the lack of resources and the urgent need to form a large-scale armored force, light tanks had to be used for full-time work.
The German doctrine of the motorized arm was in keeping with the classical conception of the aim of war as definedby Clausewitz a century ago, and reaffirmed by the mastersof German strategical concepts - von Moltke, Bernhardi,and von Schlieffen - namely, the destruction of theenemy's armies. This destruction is achieved only after the dissolution of the "animistic cohesion" of the adversary, to use the expression of Ludendorff. In the pursuit of this objective, the blitzkrieg utilized the new methods placed at its disposal by modern techniques and fully exploited their potentialities. Ultra-rapid communications, photography, moving pictures, explosives, and engines both on the ground and in the air were thus militarized far more thoroughly than were the railways by the first von Moltke.
Weygand, wrote, “Often, indeed, after a successful war the victor has fallen asleep in a fallacious assurance of his superiority, while his opponent, striving to work out the causes of his defeat, struggles to recover from it. Hence, the victor of today, becomes the vanquished of tomorrow.” Possibly he was thinking about the French victory over the Germans in WWI and correlating that with the devastating French defeat to Germany in 1940.
