French Armor - 1936 - General Staff Plan
In 1936 the General Staff decided that three quarters of the army's tanks should be light vehicles and the remainder heavy. In 1936, France belatedly decided to produce armor and other equipment in larger quantities, including B-1 bis tanks. The B-1 bis, developed by Estienne in the early 1920s, was still one or the best tank designs in the world fifteen years later. It had sixty millimeters of frontal armor in a carefully cast hull, hydromatic transmission, and other advanced features. It was limited by the small size of Its turret, where one man had to be both tank commander and gunner for a 47-mm gun, but a lower-velocity 75-mm gun was mounted in the hull. The B-1 bis was an excellent weapon that caused the Germans much difficulty in 1940. Yet, given the fine craftsmanship involved in B-1 bis production and the weakened state of France's industry, it took years to produce sufficient tanks to organize an armored division on the pattern desired by Estienne and de Gaulle.
Because of the possibility of enemy signals intelligence, radios were only to be used when no other means of communication were available. In any event, at least some French tank radios were meant only for short-range communications with dismounted infantry in a deliberate attack and were consequently useless in mobile operations. Thus, most of the French command and control still moved at the pace of communications in the Great War.
An error which the French made was to seek the theoretical, technical perfection. In theory, the perfect armored 75 was a tank armed with a 75. The best defense against tanks was tanks, in great number, faster, with thicker armor and greater firing power. But tanks are complex machines, difficult to build, expensive and requiring special tools.
The 1936 defense plan, which was to be complete by the end of 1940, called for the production of 6600 antitank guns, over 60 battalions of tanks, and 50 groups of 105 mm field guns. By the spring of 1940, the army had 25 battalions of light infantry support tanks -- 1125 vehicles. The army also fielded 582 tanks in three light mechanized divisions and 624 tanks in three armored divisions. French tanks were at least the equal of the German machines which they faced. German tanks were on the whole faster and had better radios while the French armored vehicles contained heavier guns and had thicker armor.
The Army High Command understood that armor would play a vital role in any future conflict. Tanks would be essential participants in any future methodical battles. Tank battalions would accompany and support infantry attacks, and additional battalions would provide a commander with a mass of maneuver. Within corps and divisions no specific commander of tanks was designated since the tanks would operate under the control of the higher unit commander. The 1937 Provisional Instructions for the Employment of Tanks called for the use of armor by surprise and in great numbers along large fronts. Tanks could not, however, occupy terrain, and they were to advance by successive bounds protected by the concentrated fire of artillery and by infantry in close support. Tanks, the army believed, could increase the rhythm of the attack, but their presence on the field of battle did not eliminate the requirement for movement by carefully delineated successive bounds of about 1500 meters.
Even after the war started, France would never produce more than fifty of the B-1bis tanks per month, and the rate prior to 1939 was much lower. As a result, France did not form its first two armored divisions (Division Cuirassée, or DCR, until after the war began and, even then, had to greatly reduce the authorized number of heavy tanks in each division. The resulting unit was primarily a collection of tanks for an armored breakthrough; it lacked sufficient reconnaissance, antitank, infantry, artillery, and engineer support. Similar problems plagued the production of other tanks and military equipment, so that French troops rarely had the time for realistic training and experimentation that the Germans had achieved before 1939. The French regulation for large armored unit tactics was not issued until March 1940, a few weeks before the German invasion of France.
France still had the strongest armored force in Europe in 1939. Its new and old tanks and armored combat vehicles far surpassed Germany in total, and its number was not inferior to the Soviet Union. Hitler's generals held a pessimistic attitude towards attacking France, after all, their opponents were powers known as the world's first army. However, the Germans did not choose the desired offensive route of the French, but chose the Belgian-France border area where the French defense was relatively weak.
At that time, although the Maginot defense line built by France was not completely completed, it was still enough for the Germans to drink a pot. French defense funds were all invested in the construction of the defense line and mechanized troops. There was no sufficient funds to continue the construction of the northern part. The defensive line was established, so the French army along the Belgian line mainly relied on field fortifications and outposts. The purpose was to block the German offensive and gain enough time for the mechanized troops to counterattack.
On the other hand, France also pinned the security of the northern region on the fortresses operated by Belgium, hoping that the Germans would go to the fortresses like the First World War. But the Germans did not follow the expectations of the French army. They quickly defeated the Belgian coalition forces in southern Belgium and rushed into France through the Belgian forest. In fact, this was not the first time the Germans have attacked France through Belgium, and France was not unaware that armored forces can cross this forest, but France did not expect that its forces in Belgium would quickly collapse.
What made the French even more unexpected was that the French army, which was blocking the Germans’ force, began to waver after gathering the disintegrated army that had escaped from the forest. The commander of the defending army chose to stand by for assistance according to the tactical manual instead of implementing In the counterattack, there were two armored divisions and the French army equipped with a large number of new cavalry tanks and infantry tanks fell directly into a passive situation. The tank brigades of Charles de Gaulle and Leon, who came for reinforcements, were also unable to move under the attack of the German army. At this time, rumors were spreading about the French military. Even the commanders of the troops at all levels were in panic, so the French began to blow up the tanks and fled. In this way, the Germans successfully broke through the last line of defense of the French army, and they also captured a large number of French tanks that had not had time to blow up. (If the French army had a decisive counterattack from the beginning, maybe the German army would retreat completely.)
After the German army broke through the French border defenses, the French army was no longer able to organize a decent large-scale counterattack. Wei Gang tried his best to stop the German offensive, mobilized his troops and concentrated the remaining French armor and aviation forces to carry out the counterattack, but at this time the French general situation was gone. , The British allies still began to organize evacuation, Belgium and the Netherlands also surrendered, only France, once known as the world’s first army power and with the strongest armored force, surrendered to Germany in just 38 days. After that, French tanks and armored combat vehicles Most were expropriated by the German army, and a small part was handed over to maintain France for use.
Petain in 1940 was Petain in 1916, the defeatist who refused to believe that the enemy could be beaten, the man who had to be relieved of his command at Verdun on the direct order of Marshal Joffre because he wanted to surrender France then. He stood as the firm disciple of authoritarianism and the foe of democracy.
