Equipping the French and British armies in the 30s

[uk 75]

There is already a thread on what might have been in the 1930s.
I want to focus on the land forces. Britain and France in 1940 had some tanks (Somua and Matilda 2) which could match the Germans. If the French and British General Staffs had understood the importance of armoured units in a future war, both countries had the industrial capacity to produce decent equipment in adequate numbers.
Even with the equipment they had, British and French armies suffered from lacklustre commanders. A DeGaulle or a Wavell might have produced a rock rather than paper to blunt the German scissors. Not advancing into Belgium and using tanks in numbers rather than penny packets come to mind.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Not sure we did have the capability to be honest, One of the reasons so many British tanks have riveted chassis and turrets is because welding was a skill in short supply and mainly in shipyards. Those riveted tanks should be a source of shame like the loss of an ability to create tanks is now.

 

[Archibald]

Where to start ? blow the French HQ in Vincennes, for a start. Ensure not missing Gamelin.

More important than that... discussing on the French Fights On forum / La France continue la guerre since 2007 has been an eye opening to me. http://1940lafrancecontinue.org/forum/

Look at these two links and weep.

French war planning 1920–1940 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Manstein Plan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

To make a long story short...

ON THE GERMAN SIDE

1 - By October 1939 Manstein "sickle cut" through the Ardennes, south Belgium, did not existed yet.

2 - The German war plan was a very bad repeat of Schlieffen, 1914, in central Belgium flatlands.

3 - The Anglo-French were all too aware of that and thus the bulf of BEF + 2/3rd best French armies were to dug and fend there.

4 - By March 1940 the sickle cut has been adopted.

ON THE FRENCH SIDE

Take a map. Look at three places: Escault, Dyle, Breda. And now, fasten your seat belts...

1 - Escault is a river in northern France, near the Belgian frontier, in the flatlands

2 - Dyle is a river right in the middle of Belgium

3 - Breda is at the corner of Belgium, Northern Germany... and the southern tip of The Netherlands.

So what happened ? Very simple.

1 - In the fall of 1939, France was to fight on its territory, that is, on the Escault

2 - In the winter, Belgium asked for help, so the French Armies would enter their territory ASAP when the German attacked, and advance to the Dyle

3 - in March 1940, it become politically impossible to abandon The Netherlands while fighting for Belgium, so Breda become the new defensive line.

Thanks Daladier and Gamelin for that utter siliness.

And there... Generan Giraud 7th Army, FRANCE STRATEGIC RESERVE ARMY was taken out of Reims and told to push to Breda when the German attacked.

So, in a nutshell.. while the Sickle cut moved the Schwerpunkt from north (Gembloux) to south (Sedan), the French armies encounter point shifted West to East by 300 miles - from Escault to Dyle to Breda.

Basically, the French and Germans were to clash head-on in central, flatlands Belgium.

As they rushed toward each others, the Germans dodged, flexed their knees, and hit in the french in the belly or even in the testicles - from below.
The French tried to send an uppercut from a long distance, but their armored fist (Giraud 7th army, now in Breda) went way above the German head and landed in vacuum.

Then the german punch in the french belly literally cut them in two.

When the Germans on May 14, 1940 broke the frontline and advanced like crazies, passing north of Paris, direction Abbeville on the coast to close the future Dunkirk pocket, they went past Reims... where there was no 7th Army to march toward them and stop them, BECAUSE THAT FUCKING ARMY HAD BEEN SEND TO BREDA IN THE NETHERLANDS 200 MILES NORTH.

That's the reason why, when Churchill asked Reynaud on May 15, 1940 "where is your strategic reserve army ?" Reynaud just wept. It had been send to freakkin' Breda.

 

[Dilandu]

Well, one thing to be clear - Char B1 must be made from the very beginning with traversable hull gun, NOT with extremely overcomplicated "precise aiming" gearbox. More efforts should be put into producing Char D1/D2 medium tanks; of all French 1930s machines, they have the best balance of mobility, armor protection and weaponry. Renault R35 must be seriously reconsidered; maybe even cancelled, replaced as main infantry support tank with H35/38.

 

[Archibald]

- As long as Escault become Dyle and then Breda (the later taking Giraud 7th Army, the strategic reserve);
- and as long as "Schlieffen 1940" becomes "Sickle cut";
- then, whatever the improvements brought to French hardware, France is screwed because the nazis have achieved strategic surprise.

As simple as that.

By contrast

- Sickle cut vs Escault - no Dyle-Breda shift eastwards
thus, keep Giraud 7th Army in Reims rather than sending it to Breda, and France still has a powerful, well equiped force able to kick german asses after they exit the Ardennes forrest near Sedan.
The germans are stopped long before Abbeville and the coast, as such they can never close the "trap" and then shrink it to Dunkirk...

- Shlieffen 2.0 vs Escault: that was the plan as it should have happened in the fall of 1939. End result: a titanic struggle in central Belgium flatlands.
Whether France (with BEF) would have been able to stop the onslaught - we will never know for sure.
On one hand, the French Army is fighting exactly as it intended to do, so that might balance the Gamelin idiocies and weaknesses.
On the other, the HQ is the same, and God only know how criminally dumbarses, were they. Anything going out of the plan, and the rotten house can still collapse, OTL style.

 

[uk 75]

Thanks for the interesting info.
It does suggest that more could have been done to give the Ftench and British a better chance of stopping the Germans.

 

[Elan Vital]

I'm reviving this thread with a post focusing on what could have been done for the French, based on what they initially wanted of their various tank variants and the problems they encountered, within their intellectual framework:

Regarding the whole infantry light tank debacle, a big factor was Germany's declaration of full rearmament in 1935 which led the French to buy a batch of R35s and another of H35s before competitive trials had been fully completed and before the competing light tanks from APX, Batignolles-Châtillon and FCM were ready for trials. I don't think we can do much about this given that that reaction made sense at the time, and in hindsight it would have been best if the rear transmission and diesel engine formula from the 3 late competitors had won over the 2 front-transmission and gasoline engine tanks.
The best way to minimize the amount of R35s produced is to favor the FCM 36 as much as possible. A less obtuse bureaucracy might help since it delayed the order for the tanks and rolled steel for several months even though the Infantry really liked the vehicle. A second change would be to consolidate B1 orders at Renault to completely free up FCM's limited tank building capacity, which might allow it to offer better prices for the two 100-tank batches the Infantry wanted.
However, FCM can only do so much, and imo the real missed opportunity was to let AMX work on a similar vehicle based on the R35 line rather than selecting it as an additional contractor for the FCM 36 and to develop improved versions. AMX had really good ideas for the AMX 38 like a simplified construction (reduces costs) and a welded turret that can already withstand the long 37mm, as well as a suspension with reduced mud buildup and potential replacement engines. Applying it to a vehicle already in production was imo a better solution than developping a new tank from scratch that will not see service until 1940 at best. An improved AMX-FCM design could be available as early as 1939, in time for the buildup.

Another topic is the G1 program. While the final version with a 2-3-man 75mm gun turret was very progressive, it completely misses the timeframe where a new tank was really needed and imo it completely fails at meeting the original objectives of the G1, that is: a tank of comparable cost and mass producibility to the D2, but with much higher mobility and reliability both to meet production objectives for battle tanks for the 1935-1939 prorgram that the B1 simply couldn't meet, provide a mobile tank that can follow the pace of modern trucks, and one that is easier to use by conscripts.
IMO, the decision to turn G1 into a better B1 and then a future tank for 1942 delayed the vehicle far too much, even moreso when the French Army had to remake another program with the original requirements in 1939. It would be far better to retain the original requirements from 1936 and start development of the future tank in 1939. The advantage is that without constant changes, the competitors would retain interest instead of being more cautious and slower in 1937-38, and they wouldn't need to switch to a completely different engine and structure to meet the new requirements. This G1 may enter service in 1939. Bonus point, it could meet the Cavalry requirements that led to Somua S40, to say nothing of the fact that the initial Somua entry in G1 WAS basically S40 with a 75mm hull gun. Without the hull gun requirement, we may see an S40 with 60mm of armor for the Cavalry ahead of the historical S40.

I'd make a last comment on Renault, with a sidenote on B1. Renault probably had the greatest missed potential here since it was responsible for so many tank programs of the early 30s and had a theoretically large production capacity. Yet it proved mind-bogglingly incompetent, failing to fix R35 and AMR 35 quickly, being slow to produce anything, and being quite technologically conservative. Louis Renault rejected welding on cost grounds in 1930 when working on D2 and what became AMC 34. Considering that Germany and the USSR adopted welding at the same time and Italy could have continued using it if not for Ansaldo's greed, it is a truly missed occasion to introduce a good technology in time to create a good base of welders. This would also lighten some of Renault's designs of the time. One might even wonder about the gains of welding if applied to the B1 and if R35 started out welded.

We also need to fix Renault's incompetence in other matters, namely how AMRs and R35 were very unreliable. We know they also worked on a R35 with a 100+hp class Hispano-Suiza aircraft engine to provide more adequate mobility. AMR is important because failure to produce it properly is what led the Cavalry to buy H35s and then H39s (yes, the Hotchkiss wasn't bought because France couldn't build enough S35s as people often say). While more poorly armed and armored than Hotchkisses (less true for armament since the 13.2mm was little worse than the SA18 for AT duties and the 25mm for AT versions was much better), they had a level of mobility that matched Cavalry's needs better and were supposed to carry 2 radios. It's trading brute force for better recon and flank protection capabilities for the DLMs. Ditto if Renault's AMCs are also better built for Cavalry's early 30's programs.

For the B1, the biggest problem for the French officers of the time had been the limited number of prototypes funded and the late order for a test battalion. Gen. Dufieux wanted at least 10 prototypes and an order for a 35-tank battalion in 1932-33 but only got 3 protos and a battalion order in 1935. Considering the reliability of tanks of the time, having 10 prototypes is much better if you want to solve problems at the same time. In general, the faster development and initial production timeline would have gone a long way towards seeing B1's technical and doctrinal flaws fixed before 1940. Dunno if the B1 Ter could have gone any faster if it started in 1935 with the RX BL design with horizontal traverse for the hull gun.

 

[uk 75]

Radio equipped Somuas and Matilda IIs in greater quantities and no attempt to move forward into the Low Countries seem to me to give the the Allies a better chance.
Earlier procurement of US aircraft by France and Blenheims rather than Battles for the UK with more Hurricanes sent to France to supoort them would help.
Blunting the German Blitzkrieg into a manageable battle in Northern France would have made German officers think again about the wisdom of a long European war.
Spending less on the French Navy might help. Same could be said of Britain..Not building two KGVs and the Lions and arming and training a larger BEF instead.

 

[Mephito19365]

French light tanks are actually a mess...the Renault R35 was a disaster in every way, which was one of the reasons why the army wanted to buy the FCM 36 at any cost, but the welded construction of the FCM 36 couldn't handle the recoil of the SA38, and they ended up only Able to use the old SA18, the Battle of the Meuse showed how useless these guns were. The Hotchkiss H35 was only a relatively not-so-bad tank of the three, as the French cast armor was of poor quality and didn't actually achieve the 40mm protection on paper. Moreover, even with the addition of a radio, the burden on the commander is still too heavy for a two-man crew. In fact, the combat effectiveness of these new tanks is not as good as the D1.
The D2 is indeed a relatively good choice, cheaper than the B1, the armor quality is actually better than the S35 (good proof that the S40 will be welded), just a little less mobile. But there are only 50 of them, and they are overused. The French pressed the wrong treasure.

 

[BlackBat242]

I must need more sleep... I read the title as "Escaping the French and British armies in the 30s"!

 

[Archibald]

I must need more sleep... I read the title as "Escaping the French and British armies in the 30s"!

You can't escape neither Daladier nor Gamelin... unfortunately.