WI: A more effective French rearmament

[user23123]

The R35 seems to be an amazing design. Going by the numbers, it seems better than most contemporaneous medium tanks a all stages of development up to about 1942 or so...

But then, it only had two crew, which strikes me as a rather severe disadvantage on the WW2 battlefield.

I will not call the R-35 an amazing design,is not that upgradable,slow ,and the limited crew could called disastrous,not only that the commander had to act as gunner loader,beside the commanding,but on top that if radio was installed it will had to act as a radio operator.
Now R-35 and other two man crew tanks could have been better used as platforms for other vehicles like SPG's and tank destroyers,recovery vehicles etc,but only if they are already build.

But what France needed was a fire brigade capable of plugging the gaps in the defense.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I will not call the R-35 an amazing design,is not that upgradable,slow ,and the limited crew could called disastrous,not only that the commander had to act as gunner loader,beside the commanding,but on top that if radio was installed it will had to act as a radio operator.
Now R-35 and other two man crew tanks could have been better used as platforms for other vehicles like SPG's and tank destroyers,recovery vehicles etc,but only if they are already build.

But what France needed was a fire brigade capable of plugging the gaps in the defense.

The R-35 was a tank built in 1935/36 during a period of rapid development

I suggest that you match it against other tanks built in or around this year

Pz 35 (T)
PZ II
BT-7
I cannot even think what the British were using in 1935??

Then judge it agaisnt those tanks

 

[user23123]

The R-35 was a tank built in 1935/36 during a period of rapid development

I suggest that you match it against other tanks built in or around this year

Pz 35 (T)
PZ II
BT-7
I cannot even think what the British were using in 1935??

Then judge it agaisnt those tanks

Crews BT-7 3 pz-II 3 LT-35 4 MkVI 3 R-35 2
Speed
BT-7 72 km/h (road) 50 km/h (off-road)
PZ-II 40 km/h
LT-35 34 km/h
MkVI 56 km/h (road) 40 off-road
R-35 20 km/h
Main Gun
BT-7 45 mm L/64
PZ-II 1 × 2 cm KwK 30 Ausf. a–F / 1 × 2 cm KwK 38 Ausf. J–L
LT-35 3.7 cm KwK 34
MkVI .50 in Vickers machine gun / (Mk VIC - 15 mm Besa machine gun)
R-35 37 mm L/21 SA18
Armor
BT-7 Armour Hull: 6-20 mm / Turret: 10-15 mm
PZ-II 13 mm front, side, and rear; 8 mm top; 5 mm bottom
LT-35 8–35 mm
MkVI 4 - 14 mm
R-35 43 mm

Speed 1-BT7 2-MkIV 3-PZII 4-LT35 5-R35
Armor 1 R-35
Gun 1-BT7 2-LT35 3-R35
Crews 1-LT35 2-PZ-II/MkIV/BT-7 3-R35

Source is Wiki

 

[Gannt the chartist]

The http://france1940.free.fr/en_index.html is a good site but sadly seems to be only half completed.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with French Kit in 1940. You can pick at items but generally the kit is OK both in type and in numbers.

Only having 3 DLM and 7 DIM against the 18-19 PZ and Motorised divisions is an issue, The French should have been able to match the numbers even if the massing is probably a step too far.

The biggest failures are command and political.

The strategic decision to put the entire mobile element French Army into Belgium, and then have it cut off means if they equipped with anything of the 35-40 era they are screwed.

There are however some problems. Nice paper on it in the Axis History Forum.

The Maginot Line is a failure. Not because of any financial or technological missed opportunity but because even with it only 4 out of 8 French armies are available for manoeuvre. If this is intended to be a shield to economise on manpower either to avoid casualties or to strike out – damn expensive one.

French political Military relations are appalling. Just to recap there have been suppressed leftist uprisings in 1789,1848,1871, army supported right wing coup in 1799 and 1851. A possible coup in 1889. The attempt by the army to remove itself from civilian control 1894-1906, the degradation of deliberate humiliation of that group of officers during 1905-7. Strikebreaking in 1910. An attempt by the Government to replace the army with a popular militia 1914. The assumption of power by the generals 1914-18 that robbed the left of its 1914 electoral victory. But it comes back in 27/28 and turns a large part of the army into a training cadre for the popular militia. 1931 a 20% reduction in the officer corps. And WW1.

This is not a happy place where the most effective defence of La Patrie is always the first consideration.

And the separation of the air force. This is a fun bit. 1918 French air force very good very clear doctrine able to put 600 aircraft under single command and mass. Problem is the commander is a colonel and the Generals want the fighter squadrons to protect their artillery observers. Post war the promotion list tops off at Captain – squadron commander as that is the largest air unit there is. Only in 28 does the air ministry operate a separate promotion list. Not terribly different to the Situation the Germans founds themselves in but the French should have 20+ years operational experience advantage over the Germans.
1928 lots of senior jobs for air force officers. BUT. Operational control of all but 16 squadrons ( the bombers) reverts to the army or navy in time of war. And what the Army wants is Observation and recce so in 36, 63% of the aircraft are those and 20% fighters dedicated to protecting them. The Air Force is not convinced and that is one of the problems with procurement, in a rapidly changing technological environment.

1936, along comes Cot, who triples the bomber force. The air force generals are by no means convinced. So Cot gets a law passed to reduce the retirement age by 5 years which a) removes all opposition and b) also removes 40% of the entire officer corps.

38 Cot is replaced, and La Chambre starts removing the guys Cot promoted. But bear in mind these are guys specifically appointed because they support the Strategic bombing mission.

Oh and there are nationalisations and denationalisations of the aircraft industry and politically motivated machine choices

As a result the air force does not develop C3I and early warning systems and are very suspicious of what politicians say so when from Jan 39 the factories start producing 400-600 a/c per month the air force can accept around 10% of that . No Aircrew, No groundcrew and expanding the training programme would take the entire establishment. As it was the front line squadrons were using 45 year old reservists.

And even so Curtiss 75a – 27 kill , Bf109 – 3. Ms406 31 kill Bf109 5.

The French Problem is not that they have markedly inferior aircraft it’s that with a roughly equal fighter force in total only 20% of their fighter aircraft are deployed on the NE front with a sortie rate of 0.9 per day vs a german rate of 4 per day and that is incomparably better that the 0.25 per day for the bomber force. And the most modern units bug out to Africa on 17 June.

They also have no system they believe in. The standard Observation plane aircrew wanted a fast ultralight single seater for long range and a light two seater with good rough field capability for short range they got the Potez 63.11 the fastest most complex most heavily armed observation plane in the world. Unable to land except at concrete strips too slow to escape fighters. Its limited to 15 minute sortie behind own line.

They have no working bombsight and while the generals want to do strategic bombing the army and ministers want battlefield attack.


There is no coordination between the army and the air force. The ground forces are demanding support without specifying the target. Or the time, or the Location, and decline attacks on what the air force says it can hit. So Huntziger gets 138 sorties ( 51 lost on 14 May) and 175 on 15 May. Both attacks cancelled.

The army wants ground support and the air force has 2,300 fighters and 380 assault aircraft with 20mm cannon, And no AP ammo.

 

[AdA]

The R-35 was a tank built in 1935/36 during a period of rapid development

I suggest that you match it against other tanks built in or around this year

Pz 35 (T)
PZ II
BT-7
I cannot even think what the British were using in 1935??

Then judge it agaisnt those tanks

The BT-7 would have been rated a cavalry tank in the french army, and should be compared with the S35 Somua, that played the same role. The Soviet R35 analogue is the T26, that was much better armed but not as protected.The R35 intened role was to provide support to infantry attacks.
The Vz35 was a general purpouse tank, that was expected to do both infantry support and AT work.

If we discount the Infantry/light tanks on both sides, and discount the non german tanls on the german side, what we have is a large number of S35 and B1bis on the French side facing a smaller number of PzIII and PzIV on the german side. If france 1940 had been fought along the lines of Ardenes 1944, the french tanks would have been well suited for combat, their firepower and protection advantages off setting their tactical limitations.

when it comes to tanks, the french made one mistake in spending too much on infantry tanks, and had no way of compensating for the sudden infusion of Czech tanks

 

[fasquardon]

when it comes to tanks, the french made one mistake in spending too much on infantry tanks, and had no way of compensating for the sudden infusion of Czech tanks

Possibly. I would contend that really the best way to deal with the infusion of Czech tanks would be competent and competitive close air support. That would both have blunted the armoured spear tip of the German assault, but also blunted the stukas. Then French infantry tanks would have been in their element.

And that brings us back to the dysfunctions of the AdA...

fasquardon

 

[Gannt the chartist]

And with a competent air force the mass of the German army would have been detected early and slowed down by interdiction bombing, which would have led to calls for more air cover from the german units etc. etc.

Similarly a more static or longer duration series of battles would have had german infantry units trying to face off french attacks supported by heavy tanks.

A lot of the French problem is the Panzerwaffe is operating 24 hours inside the French decision cycle, and the OKH one for that matter.

A lot of the French problems are rooted in faulty deployment vs the actual german plan and slow response compared to the breakthrough force. leading to an irrecoverable catastrophe.

While the still and mental parts will be problematic the numbers of French motorised troops should have been higher, much more developed industry in France than in Germany.

One comment on De Gaulle in the light of French Politics 'vers L'armee de metier' is not a call for a mobile army its a call for a professional (i.e. not a popular army composed of a large number of patriotic citizens loyal to the Republic) force of mobile troops.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

A secondary influence here was the fear of both the extreme left and right that a standing army would be used to seize power & suppress them. Politicians at neither extreme would support anything capable of 'marching on Paris'.

Considering its Bonapartist past there were reasons to worry about that.

..and the trauma of the "Paris Commune", the Boulanger Crisis, the list could go on quite a ways.

 

[fasquardon]

So it sounds like one of the ways the French rearmament could have been more effective is if the politicians and the military men had trusted each other. Anyone have any ideas for PoDs that might do that?

fasquardon

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Political trust

Dreyfus affair and the aftermath maybe. NB this is a two way thing with the catholics convinced there is an anti catholic agenda being pursued by the left, mostly because of the anti catholic persecution by the Dreyfusards.

More probably avoiding the Paris Commune so the abiding mythology is of all Frenchmen united under arms not the Left slaughtering the bourgeois and the Army massacring the proletariat.


Without obsessing on the AdA and independent air force may be the best bet. The air force is New, its modern its the product of the industrialized working man, youthful modernity in the officer corps and not so useful at strikebreaking.


An independent air force or maybe Air Corps ( coequal with infantry/artillery/cavalry/engineer corps) would be solving the technical problems ( or at least defining them) and could not be ignored if it is a separate arm of service and exercises will give a clearer picture of battlefield reality for both ground and air forces.


At the very least there will be a proper professional debate on priorities and methods for the politicians to step into rather than what looks to me like enthusiastic amateurs knowing about as much as the professionals.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

The http://france1940.free.fr/en_index.html is a good site but sadly seems to be only half completed.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with French Kit in 1940. You can pick at items but generally the kit is OK both in type and in numbers.

Only having 3 DLM and 7 DIM against the 18-19 PZ and Motorised divisions is an issue, The French should have been able to match the numbers even if the massing is probably a step too far.

The biggest failures are command and political.

The strategic decision to put the entire mobile element French Army into Belgium, and then have it cut off means if they equipped with anything of the 35-40 era they are screwed.

There are however some problems. Nice paper on it in the Axis History Forum.

The Maginot Line is a failure. Not because of any financial or technological missed opportunity but because even with it only 4 out of 8 French armies are available for manoeuvre. If this is intended to be a shield to economise on manpower either to avoid casualties or to strike out – damn expensive one.

French political Military relations are appalling. Just to recap there have been suppressed leftist uprisings in 1789,1848,1871, army supported right wing coup in 1799 and 1851. A possible coup in 1889. The attempt by the army to remove itself from civilian control 1894-1906, the degradation of deliberate humiliation of that group of officers during 1905-7. Strikebreaking in 1910. An attempt by the Government to replace the army with a popular militia 1914. The assumption of power by the generals 1914-18 that robbed the left of its 1914 electoral victory. But it comes back in 27/28 and turns a large part of the army into a training cadre for the popular militia. 1931 a 20% reduction in the officer corps. And WW1.

This is not a happy place where the most effective defence of La Patrie is always the first consideration.

And the separation of the air force. This is a fun bit. 1918 French air force very good very clear doctrine able to put 600 aircraft under single command and mass. Problem is the commander is a colonel and the Generals want the fighter squadrons to protect their artillery observers. Post war the promotion list tops off at Captain – squadron commander as that is the largest air unit there is. Only in 28 does the air ministry operate a separate promotion list. Not terribly different to the Situation the Germans founds themselves in but the French should have 20+ years operational experience advantage over the Germans.
1928 lots of senior jobs for air force officers. BUT. Operational control of all but 16 squadrons ( the bombers) reverts to the army or navy in time of war. And what the Army wants is Observation and recce so in 36, 63% of the aircraft are those and 20% fighters dedicated to protecting them. The Air Force is not convinced and that is one of the problems with procurement, in a rapidly changing technological environment.

1936, along comes Cot, who triples the bomber force. The air force generals are by no means convinced. So Cot gets a law passed to reduce the retirement age by 5 years which a) removes all opposition and b) also removes 40% of the entire officer corps.

38 Cot is replaced, and La Chambre starts removing the guys Cot promoted. But bear in mind these are guys specifically appointed because they support the Strategic bombing mission.

Oh and there are nationalisations and denationalisations of the aircraft industry and politically motivated machine choices

As a result the air force does not develop C3I and early warning systems and are very suspicious of what politicians say so when from Jan 39 the factories start producing 400-600 a/c per month the air force can accept around 10% of that . No Aircrew, No groundcrew and expanding the training programme would take the entire establishment. As it was the front line squadrons were using 45 year old reservists.

And even so Curtiss 75a – 27 kill , Bf109 – 3. Ms406 31 kill Bf109 5.

The French Problem is not that they have markedly inferior aircraft it’s that with a roughly equal fighter force in total only 20% of their fighter aircraft are deployed on the NE front with a sortie rate of 0.9 per day vs a german rate of 4 per day and that is incomparably better that the 0.25 per day for the bomber force. And the most modern units bug out to Africa on 17 June.

They also have no system they believe in. The standard Observation plane aircrew wanted a fast ultralight single seater for long range and a light two seater with good rough field capability for short range they got the Potez 63.11 the fastest most complex most heavily armed observation plane in the world. Unable to land except at concrete strips too slow to escape fighters. Its limited to 15 minute sortie behind own line.

They have no working bombsight and while the generals want to do strategic bombing the army and ministers want battlefield attack.


There is no coordination between the army and the air force. The ground forces are demanding support without specifying the target. Or the time, or the Location, and decline attacks on what the air force says it can hit. So Huntziger gets 138 sorties ( 51 lost on 14 May) and 175 on 15 May. Both attacks cancelled.

The army wants ground support and the air force has 2,300 fighters and 380 assault aircraft with 20mm cannon, And no AP ammo.

First of all

Secondly - great post - I knew La France had some problems in the 30s, but the picture you paint......France was lost before the First Panzer rolled through the Ardennes!

My initial thoughts are that this is a massive Gordian Knot that will require massive changes / multiple PODs to even apprch putting right.

Britain is quite easy to POD for a better start to the War - generally start re-arming a year or 2 earlier - all the components are there

I always thought France would be the same

But France - despite having some good kit etc - does not appear to have the robustness required within its various Military organisations, industry and Political setup to make this head start count.

I'm going to have to have a re-think - but I suspect that we are looking at 1930 at the earliest.

Or......a much larger and better equipped BEF in 1940 - say 1942 levels - 20 - 25+ Front line Divisions!

And tell Belgium to get on board earlier or fight alone (I know Geography dictates that defending France from within Belgium makes more sense - but at least make them think that France and UK will not come to their aid unless they work together earlier.

 

[Saphroneth]

First of all

Secondly - great post - I knew La France had some problems in the 30s, but the picture you paint......France was lost before the First Panzer rolled through the Ardennes!

My initial thoughts are that this is a massive Gordian Knot that will require massive changes / multiple PODs to even apprch putting right.

Britain is quite easy to POD for a better start to the War - generally start re-arming a year or 2 earlier - all the components are there

I always thought France would be the same

But France - despite having some good kit etc - does not appear to have the robustness required within its various Military organisations, industry and Political setup to make this head start count.

I'm going to have to have a re-think - but I suspect that we are looking at 1930 at the earliest.

Or......a much larger and better equipped BEF in 1940 - say 1942 levels - 20 - 25+ Front line Divisions!

And tell Belgium to get on board earlier or fight alone (I know Geography dictates that defending France from within Belgium makes more sense - but at least make them think that France and UK will not come to their aid unless they work together earlier.

Thing is, even with all that, the German strategy nearly led to ruin. The very thing which led to the dramatic victory in 1940 for the Germans - the risky sickle-cut - could have led to a dramatic and humiliating defeat.

 

[AdA]

Possibly. I would contend that really the best way to deal with the infusion of Czech tanks would be competent and competitive close air support. That would both have blunted the armoured spear tip of the German assault, but also blunted the stukas. Then French infantry tanks would have been in their element.

And that brings us back to the dysfunctions of the AdA...

fasquardon

With time, the Br693 was designed for that exact job, but would require fighter cover and numbers.The french air force lost air superiority turning air support into virtualy suicide missions.
Given economic and industrial limits, the only way for parity in fighter numbers would have been earlier larger orders for Curtiss H75.
A faster Br693 production cycle would have helped.(the DB7 was not mass produced in time).

Infantry tanks without AT guns are not in their element fighting other tanks. If the R35 (and H39) had been replaced by the larger D2 with the 47mm SA35 gun, evem in smaller numbers, they would have been able to play a more relevant role.
The French had three main Infantry tanks in production in 1939. The R35, the H39, both modern FT17 clones, and the larger, vastly more capable D2.
A concentration on the D2 would have been better. Using S35 for all tank formations in both cavalry and infantry (with a large % of assault gun versions for the infantry) would have been even better.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Quite.

Even a small improvement in a specific location - Sedan - has very far reaching consequences.

A successful defence against the 1940 invasion and most of the deficiencies will be rectified.

 

[fasquardon]

Secondly - great post - I knew La France had some problems in the 30s, but the picture you paint......France was lost before the First Panzer rolled through the Ardennes!

I agree that the picture Gannt paints is pretty darn grim. I don't agree that France was lost before the Germans crossed the border. Because France did actually have smart officers, smart politicians and the toughness survive to the early lessons of a war, so that they could then apply those smart people. It's just that the Germans got really lucky and the Germans had the flexibility and speed to make more of their opportunities. All the French toughness and smarts were thus bypassed and they were out of the fight.

The British, by comparison, also made an enormous number of mistakes. But they got an extra 9 months/year to iron out the bugs before they were facing similar pressures to the French - and they had the channel between them and the Germans.

So giving the French more time could radically improve their performance and thus their survivability.

With time, the Br693 was designed for that exact job, but would require fighter cover and numbers.The french air force lost air superiority turning air support into virtualy suicide missions.
Given economic and industrial limits, the only way for parity in fighter numbers would have been earlier larger orders for Curtiss H75.
A faster Br693 production cycle would have helped.(the DB7 was not mass produced in time).

Ohh, now the Br693 is an interesting machine. I didn't know the French had embraced the ground attack aircraft...

And reading up on it, it sounds like a larger and more capable aircraft engine industry would really revolutionize the French airforce - more airframes would get engines, and thus be flyable come war day and if the AdA felt they had parity or even superiority over the Luftwafe, they might actually fly a decent amount of sorties, instead of conserving their strength for the day when they had enough to challenge the Germans on an equal footing (which of course, never came).

Infantry tanks without AT guns are not in their element fighting other tanks. If the R35 (and H39) had been replaced by the larger D2 with the 47mm SA35 gun, evem in smaller numbers, they would have been able to play a more relevant role.
The French had three main Infantry tanks in production in 1939. The R35, the H39, both modern FT17 clones, and the larger, vastly more capable D2.
A concentration on the D2 would have been better. Using S35 for all tank formations in both cavalry and infantry (with a large % of assault gun versions for the infantry) would have been even better.

Ahh, good point about the infantry tanks not having AT guns. That is a big deficiency (much bigger, IMO, than the French keeping with a doctrine of spreading their tanks out).

fasquardon

 

[Saphroneth]

Further on what I posted - when I say "humiliating", I mean it. If Sickle-cut hadn't worked, then it would have look outrageously moronic - as bad as Midway, if not worse.



Reverting to TVTropes, here, because they put it so well:


Most of the other German generals thought this was nuts, not because of the constricted supply lines this would entail because the logistics services were never consulted or even mentioned when planning campaigns/operations - they were just excepted to fulfill any and all demands placed upon them. (This would backfire horribly in Unternehmen Barbarossa and particularly Fall Taifun when it became abundantly clear that making and then following plans without knowing if you're actually able to carry them out was really, really stupid. When we put it this way it sounds very obvious, but German military types liked to toss around a lot of technical language to conceal this fundamental oversight, which few if any of them saw for what it was)
Rather, they wanted to fight the French on the open plains and didn't think the hills of the Ardennes were good for this because they would give the French a defensive advantage. Manstein+Guderian insisted that most of the fighting would in fact take place on the plains and not in the hills (though they'd have to go through the hills first and there'd be a fair bit of fighting there first), but their contemporaries thought this was overly optimistic and potentially disastrous.
The Ardennes plan was indeed very risky; if the Allies had clued up earlier about it, the Germans wouldn't have just suffered a terrible defeat and gone on to lose the war, but they would have looked incredibly stupid. People would be asking today how could the Germans have been so stupid to think that they could successfully launch a major mechanized attack through such terrible terrain and bad roads. And in fact, the German attack force's movement through the Ardennes was a logistical nightmare; it caused the largest traffic jam the world had ever seen to that date, and for a few days the Germans would have been sitting ducks to Allied air attacks. General Halder chose it because, in spite of the risk, it offered a chance of victory, whereas they knew that the northern Belgian attack didn't. (It's also worth mentioning that Halder disagreed with the war against France and Britain, had been plotting against Hitler, and would have probably preferred a quick loss against the Allies than a protracted losing war against them.)
But the Allies didn't figure it out in time. The historical record shows that they received many clues of the true German plan, yet either they failed to connect the dots or they dismissed them as misinformation. For example, in the heat of the first couple of days, the French Generalissimo Gamelin was told about a German force moving through in the Ardennes, and he concluded that this was a secondary attack meant to distract him from the main attack up north.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

S35 would have been nice but it needs either a vastly improved tank industry to produce in numbers or a totally different design.

In hindsight the DCR equipment was a waste, understandable but a waste.

The real problem is 3 DLM vs 10 Pz Div. Increasing the number of DLM with just about any model of medium works.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Its not so much that the French lack AT guns its that the Divisions at Sedan lack them ( and had been on construction duties for too long). Fortress divisions had loads.

There is a solution. A french Inf bn had 48 grenade launchers, just too late they got HEAT rifle grenades (june) which became the basis for the US M9 which works until 43. Not perfect but something.

Oh and AdA briefly loved NOE attacks - until they ran into the 20mm FLAK. Part of the issue with 1940 is that CAS only works if you are either dive bombing or unopposed. It needs much better bomb sights for higher level attack, rockets or 20mm AP for a degree of standoff.

Farsquadron is right, if the French survive the initial attack both the production levels pick up and the wrong thinking is revealed and corrected.

 

[fasquardon]

Oh and AdA briefly loved NOE attacks - until they ran into the 20mm FLAK. Part of the issue with 1940 is that CAS only works if you are either dive bombing or unopposed. It needs much better bomb sights for higher level attack, rockets or 20mm AP for a degree of standoff.

Hm, that would seem to argue that even a Br693 that was produced in quantity and supported by fighters would not be that effective. Or maybe I am misreading things, but it doesn't look like it was designed to be a dive bomber...

If the French had imported British (1940s era) bomb sights, would they have been able to achieve higher level attack performance for their CAS planes?

And what is a "NOE attack"?

fasquardon

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Nap of the earth, treetop height.
The british bomb sights are just as rubbish until the MkXIV in 41.
Need too long a straight run in.
There is a reason the Germans insisted on dive bombing for all aircraft their effective sight is not available until 38 at the earliest and then by chance.