french tank destroyers

A tank destroyer having the same 120-mm gun armament as the tank was thought to be unnecessary. Of a total order for 2,300 at least 1,601 had been produced until 1 June 1940 serial numbers known to be actually used indicate a production of at least 1670 vehicles. Army enthusiasm and haste would have its immediate drawbacks however. [11] In 2000, the RCs were upgraded to the Renové standard, and are expected to remain in service until 2020-2025, at which point they should be replaced by the EBRC Jaguar. The prototype of the M10 was conceived in early 1942, being delivered in April of that year. After the June 1940 armistice, S 35s were allowed to be sent to West Africa to bolster the hold of the Vichy regime on that region. tank destroyer translation in English-French dictionary. The R 35 was mostly used to equip the independent tank battalions, an armoured reserve allocated at army level and intended to reinforce infantry divisions in breakthrough operations. Newer French tank designs sacrificed armour protection for increased mobility, due to the idea that the large amount of armour required to protect against modern anti-tank threats would significantly affect maneuverability, and that a higher speed and more compact vehicle dimensions would be more effective in protecting the tank from potential threats. The Cavalry units alone were too few in number. It was designed along the lines of the Italian torpedo boats of that time, but due to its size and speed of 34.5 knots, the class is considered a light destroyer, or destroyer escort. Within France and its colonies, roughly 5,800 tanks were available during the time of the German offensive, and some when they came into contact were effective against the German tanks. Frieser, Karl-Heinz (2005). This was the AMX-40 Main Battle Tank. At the start of the war, France had one of the largest tank forces in the world along with the Soviet, British and German forces. Each of these had an organic strength of eight squadrons with ten S35s; each squadron however had a matériel reserve of two tanks and regimental and brigade commanders in practice had personal tanks too, resulting in a total of 88 vehicles per division. This division - formed of the 132nd Armoured Regiment, equipped with M13/40s, of the 8th Reggimento bersaglieri and of the 132nd Artillery Regiment - attacked the French position from the rear in two successive waves. The 21st and 25. During the Battle of Gazala, the 1st Free French Division of Général de brigade Marie Pierre Kœnig defended the site from 26 May-11 June 1942 against much larger attacking German and Italian forces directed by Generaloberst Erwin Rommel. Tank models such as the AMX-13 and AMX-30 were also exported to various other nations. As the French Army's vast fleet of Renault FT tanks passed into obsolence, some efforts were made to upgrade the vehicles. The Infantry light tanks included the Renault R 35, which followed the FT concept quite closely with its very small size, two-man crew, and short 37 mm gun armament. The French line is an exercise in extremes, starting with slow, heavily armored vehicles, but the later tanks trade the armor for high speed and great firepower. The car industry, already used to vehicle mass production and having much more experience in vehicle layout, in 1916 designed the first practical light tanks, a class largely neglected by the British. The first, the Char Schneider CA equipped with a short 75 mm howitzer, had poor mobility due to a short track length combined with a hull that overhung front and rear. Setbacks the French military suffered were more related to strategy, tactics and organisation than technology and design. Flag images indicative of country of origin and not necessarily primary operator. The Afrika Korps had to take Bir Hakeim. Skip navigation Sign in In fact the FT was in many respects the first truly 'modern' tank having a layout that has been followed by almost all designs ever since: driver at the front; main armament in a fully rotating turret on top; engine at the rear. On 1 September 1939, at the outbreak of war, 975 vehicles had been delivered out of 1070 produced; 765 were fielded by tank battalions in France. Another 493 tanks were refitted and modernized to AMX-30B2 standards; originally 271 new and 820 refitted vehicles had been planned. In Britain a single committee had coordinated design, while the major industries remained passive. A major arms producer, Schneider, took the lead in January 1915 and tried to build a first armoured vehicle based on the Baby Holt tractor but initially the development process was slow until in July they received political, even presidential, support by combining their project with that of a mechanical wire cutter devised by engineer and politician Jean-Louis Bréton. In 1939 a belated effort was made to improve flexibility and increase the number of radios. French naval ship classes of World War II, Light Destroyer/Destroyer Escort/Torpedo Boat, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_World_War_II_destroyers&oldid=939762571, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 8 February 2020, at 15:42. To balance the Italian threat, the 600-ton La Melpoméne [4] class was a group of 13 French torpedo boats built in 1933. In the late 1990s, the French Army began to accept the new Leclerc main battle tank to replace the antiquated AMX-30. After the Fall of France, work on new designs, such as the Char G1, officially halted, although there was some clandestine designing done. De Gaulle used it to delegitimize cooperation with the Vichy regime. The role of small unit leaders was to execute plans, not to take the initiative in combat. When it transpired the attack was really a feint and the forces in the north were in danger of being cut off by the German advance south of Namur, the 1st DLM that had very quickly moved 200 kilometres to the north to help the Dutch, was hurriedly rushed south again. General Leclerc joined the Free French forces after the fall of France and adopted the Resistance pseudonym "Jacques-Philippe Leclerc". The German infantry launched a full attack, supported by the 15th Panzerdivision, with heavy barrages from the artillery. The Hardi class of 1932 was designed to have a 37 knot top end. The resulting disorder and breakdown of most of its S 35s rendered this unit, the most powerful of all Allied divisions, impotent; it was defeated by the German 5th Panzerdivision on 17 May. Armor is poor and mobility is average. Tobruk was taken 10 days later by Rommel's troops. This was to minimize the danger of the destruction of the historic city if the Germans sought to defend it. Its very complexity ensured it being produced too late to participate in World War I and in the very small number of just ten, but it would be the first tank with a three-man turret; the heaviest to enter service until late in World War II and still the largest ever operational. To achieve this they tend to pack the biggest guns in their respective Tiers, and shred their opposition with either brutal alpha damage or high DPM values, as well as exceptional penetration. The French Army also accepted a large number of variants, including 195 self-propelled howitzers, 44 AMX-30 Pluton tactical nuclear missile launchers, 183 AMX-30Rs, 134 AMX-30Ds and 48 engineer vehicles (AMX-30EBG). [3] French tank warfare was often restricted with tanks being assigned for infantry support. However, the light tanks lacked firepower, tended to be slow, and almost all French tanks were weakened by their one-man turrets. The French also experimented with various tank designs, such as the Frot-Laffly landship, Boirault machine and Souain experiment. The British armoured units were taken by surprise and retreated. A breach was made and on 9 June, the evacuation order reached the French camp. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order (1-to-Z). Before producing the AMX-30, for example, it had made 1,900 AMX-13s and variants. Design. [citation needed], Even Adolf Hitler responded to the journalist Lutz Koch, coming back from Bir Hakim: "You hear, Gentlemen? All Char B1s were equipped with radio and the tank was nearly invulnerable to most tanks and towed antitank guns. The S 35s gave a good account of themselves, proving to be indeed superior to the German tanks in direct combat, but they were rather hesitantly deployed as the French High Command mistakenly supposed the gap was the German Schwerpunkt and tried to preserve their best tanks to block subsequent attacks by the rest of the Panzerwaffe. Despite the views of Estienne and later Charles de Gaulle, the French general staff failed in defining an effective military doctrine regarding their use, due to the division of labour between infantry and cavalry tanks. But industrial initiative also led to swift advances. An example of the development of tank destroyer technology throughout the war are the Marder III and Jagdpanzer 38vehicle, that were very different in spite of being based on the same chassis: Marde… The highlight of this tank destroyer is definitely available guns. The Roanne factory was responsible for final assembly, most components were made elsewhere: the powerplant by the Atelier de Construction de Limoges, the full armour set by the Ateliers et Forges de la Loire, the turret by the Atelier de Construction de Tarbes, the cannon by the Atelier de Construction de Bourges, the cupola and machine-gun by the Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Étienne and the optics by the Atelier de Construction de Puteaux; all these again used many subcontractors. The design was also developed by the Italians as the Fiat 3000 and the USSR as the T-18. The Italian tanks and armored vehicles attacked without infantry support and tried to cross the minefield. This is a Tank Destroyer A Stug 3. Later it was decided that from the 451st vehicle onward the tanks would be of the improved S 40 type. The smaller destroyers built in the 1920s were found to be lacking in speed and seakeeping. [citation needed] The lack of radios with the light tanks was not seen as a major drawback, since French doctrine called for slow-paced, deliberate manoeuvers in close conformance to plans: the "Methodical Battle" concept, adopted because wargaming showed it to be superior. There are a total of [ 20 ] WW2 French Tanks (1939-1945) entries in the Military Factory. The S 35 had a long 47 mm gun that could kill any tank then in service, as well as heavy cast armour and good speed. However north of Bir Hakeim, the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade had been annihilated, and two weakened British brigades - the 4th and the motorized 7th Armoured - were forced to retreat to Bir-el-Gubi and to The El-Adem, leaving Bir-Hakeim and the Free French Forces to fight the full brunt of Rommels forces. [15] In a series of corporate mergers under state guidance, most of these firms would eventually be concentrated into GIAT. Général Bernard Saint-Hillier said in an October 1991 interview: "A grain of sand had curbed the Axis advance, which reached Al-Alamein only after the arrival of the rested British divisions: this grain of sand was Bir Hakeim."[9]. Later in the line, they gain tough frontal armor along with increased speed, but retain the good guns. Units Built. Leclerc and de Gaulle had to persuade Eisenhower to send Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division and they entered Paris, and the liberation by Leclerc help cement de Gaulle's claim as leader of the French.[13]. French production at first lagged behind the British. The trade-off is typically in their platform. The vehicle featured a 120-mm gun. The Free French used the battle to show the world that France was not the decadent nation it appeared to be after its catastrophic defeat in 1940. 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