Tamiya French Infantry Diorama Ideas Request

I think the pressure the Wehrmacht put on them precluded much organisation on a large scale. I'd try for a localised 'rear-guard' action.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

My understanding is the French eventually put up a spirited counter attack against the Germans which included large formations of Char tanks but it was too late to affect the overall outcome of the invasion.

It is also largely forgotten that the French army provided the rear guard which allowed almost the whole of the British army and a small part of the French army to be evacuated from Dunkirk. There must be an opportunity there for a Char versus Panzer confrontation?

(kim)

The largest tank battle of 1940 involving French Tanks was at Charleroi. The French 1st DCR equipped with Char B and H39 and troops from the B Demi Brigade were attacked by the German 5th and 7th Panzer divisions. The german divisions using a mix of 38t, PzKw IVs and 37mm anti tank guns.

The French had had a terrible journey struggling through refugee packs roads and arrived late and low on fuel. They did not have time to set up recoonaisence or outer defences.

The 7th division caught the French totally unprepaired and it was slaughter. The 38t tanks and 37mm anti tank guns took on the French tanks (attacking thin side and rear armour) whilst the PzKw IVs used their high explosive

The losses of the 7th were pretty light. The 5th had much heavier losses as they met a prepared French force. The 1st DCR was effectively destroyed as it was left with less than 50 tanks with little service before maintenance remaining.

Cheers,

Nigel

"Nigel Heather

This is why this group is great. This is all new info to me and if the OP hadn't asked we wouldn't likely have gotten it anywhere outside of a book.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

You're kidding, right? The Germans did actually have to *fight* the French to defeat them. The problems the French troops had were much more to do with their poor leadership (military and civilian) and poor allocation of equipment than cowardice. (In fact cowardice had very little to do with it.) Overall, their problem was that they were outclassed, tactically and strategically. Most French units tried their best, and there were plenty of German casualties.

A single Pz. II against a single Char. B would likely have ended up a smoking wreck. Most French tanks had superior armour and largely equivalent gunnery to their German opponents; what they lacked was speed and co-ordination, which allowed the Germans to gang up on them and defeat them piece-meal.

Bruce Melbourne, Australia

They also tended to have the overworked commander firing the turret gun and trying to navigate the tank at the same time, and a lack of radios in a lot of their tanks, making communications difficult during combat. From what I've read the main problem was lack of any central command over individual tank units coordinating their actions; they were all operating pretty much on their own without any idea where friendly or enemy tank forces were located in relation to them, or ability to make unified attacks or set up a interlocking defensive line.

Pat

I think their tank units were dispersed amongst the infantry units on purpose. I believe the tank units were seen as the rallying points for the infantry. Since I'm not an armour guy I must have read this somewhere.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

I looked up what the four man crew on the Char B did, and it's downright bizarre. Commander: Commands tank; tells driver where to go; loads, aims, and fires turret gun; fires turret machine gun. Driver: Steers tank; aims and fires hull gun by elevating it via a crank and traversing tank till hull gun is laid on target; fires hull machine gun. Loader: Fuses and loads shells for hull gun; passes ammo up to commander in turret. Radioman: Operates radio. This is no way to crew a tank. It's a complete mess. Whoever came up with the idea to put the big engine grill on the side of the tank hull should have been reinstructed in the concept of what armor is put on tanks for. Topping it all off was a range of 87 miles, which may have been sufficient in the defense of England, but certainly not France. Thank God we fixed the problems with this armament layout and crewing when we built the M3 Lee.

Pat

Mad-Modeller wrote:

You generally want the infantry support tank to be heavily armed and armored and fairly slow, so the infantry can keep up with it as it advances. The reason the Char B ended up with such poor range was they kept upping the size of the engine to make it go faster. It finally topped out at 17.5 mph, which would make it a lot faster than infantry could easily advance with. With the S-35 they had a pretty good cavalry tank, but again they under-crewed it with the three man crew consisting of the poor commander trying to navigate it as well as load, aim and fire the turret main gun and machine gun simultaneously. At least in that case the driver didn't have to do any gunnery, and the radioman could actually see out of the tank - although only to the front. He should have had a hull machine gun to fire, and there should have been a loader/gunner in the turret. If you get the commander to be the radio operator, you kill two birds with one stone...you still can get away with a three man crew, and the commander can spend his time checking out the tactical situation, spotting targets, and communicating with the other tanks in the squadron. In both cases it looks like they were trying to reduce tank crew size to a absolute minimum, (in comparison to the Char B, our Lee tank of very similar design had a _six-man_ crew) and one wonders if that was due to a serious manpower shortage in the French army. Why these basic design problems weren't spotted by the French early on, the way the British discovered them during their tank war games in the

Pat

That is correct and it made them easy meat for German a/t gunners. De Gaulle was strongly opposed to these tactics but by the time the French high command took any notice of him it was too late to affect the course of the war. British tank crew I've interviewed in an official capacity had a very high opinion of the Char tank if not the way it was used.

(kim)

The Russians/Soviets had a different view, putting their infantry on their tanks both as ptortectors of the tank and to get to their attack points quickly. Makes for a scary combo. Imagine how pissed those troops get when they realize someone is trying to take out their wheels!

How come they were the first army to figure that out? Was the high cross-country speed of the T-34 the key? Or the big rear deck that let the troops ride in safety from frontal machine gun fire behind the turret?

The Soviet attack technique- first the massive artillery bombardment for several hours. Then the gigantic Katyusha barrage just prior to the tank attack. Then the Il-2s going in at low altitude picking off targets that survived the artillery and Katyushas. Then the hoards of T-34s with the troops riding on them, with the Il-2s providing close air support. How the hell were you supposed to survive that? It's like trying to swim through a school of sharks and then hitting the crocodiles with piranhas riding on their back. Even Guderian never came up with a concept that terrifying for a opposing force to deal with. It took them quite a while to figure out, but the Soviet military tactics towards the end of the war were basically unstoppable. They took a huge military capability in all weapon forms, and used it in a interlocked way that was damn near perfect for conquering the opponent. This was massive brute force used in a skillful way.

Pat