French Armour Doctrine

FCM-36 light infantry tank

In France the problem was not so much equipment as tactical doctrines governing its use. As victors in World War I, French military leaders did not feel the need to change doctrines in the way that the Germans did. Senior French commanders of the 1920s and 1930s had learned their trade in World War I and did not understand the implication of changes in military technology for tactics and strategy. The French high command rejected outright the new theories of armor warfare and continued to view tanks in World War I terms as mere can openers in support of infantry. Besides, the French hoped to offset inferior numbers (in 1939, 40 million Frenchmen to 60 million Germans) by putting their faith in the defensive and artillery, as exemplified by the expression “stingy with blood, extravagant with steel.”

The French high command also rejected the notion of entire divisions of tanks. Some forward-thinking French officers, most notably Lieutenant Colonel Charles de Gaulle, argued for change. De Gaulle, who had been several times wounded and then captured, had spent much of the war in German prisoner-of-war camps, which perhaps helped allow him the reflection and detachment that others lacked. De Gaulle advocated a larger professional force formed on speed and maneuverability centered on armor divisions with organic artillery, motorized infantry, and air support. There is no indication that anyone on the French Army Council showed more than a passing interest in de Gaulle’s important book on armored warfare, Vers l’armée de metier (1934, translated into English as The Army of the Future). In all three of World War I’s victor states—Britain, France, and the United States—military nonconformity was discouraged. The U.S. Army’s two-division Armored Force was created only in July 1940, after the defeat of France.

The French, regarded by many observers as having the most powerful army in Europe, in fact lacked the ability to employ their military strength promptly and to good advantage. It was primarily a failure of doctrine rather than any equipment shortcomings that did in the French. The French Army divided control of its tanks between the infantry and cavalry. Infantry commanders saw the tanks solely as a means of infantry support; the cavalry regarded them chiefly in a reconnaissance role. Another consequence of this division was a multiplicity of designs.

Following the declaration of war, the French were slow to mobilize, and in the two weeks it required them to call up reservists and bring artillery from storage, it became clear that Poland was already collapsing. Even so, a vigorous French thrust would have carried to the Rhine with tremendous consequences for the course of the war, as the German strategic plan committed the vast bulk of German strength, some 60 divisions, to Poland and left only a weak force to hold the Rhineland. The latter numbered only 40 divisions (36 of which were untrained), with no tanks, little artillery, and few aircraft. The French moved belatedly and timidly and, after securing a few villages, withdrew the few divisions committed to the effort. Senior French and British commanders had rejected the new theories of high-speed armor warfare. They persisted in viewing tanks as operating in support of infantry, to be spread over the front in small packets rather than being massed in entire divisions.

Belgium 1940 Armour

M39 Pantserwagen: When the Battle of the Netherlands started on 10 May 1940, of the twelve vehicles manufactured, four were in Eindhoven with DAF, eight at Delft; of the last, two were still lacking their main armament and none were fully completed, though some had been equipped with machine-guns. No crews were fully trained. The base at Delft, in between the Dutch seat of government The Hague and the port of Rotterdam, had been seen as a safe rear-area location at the very heart of the Dutch National Redoubt, the Fortress Holland. On the early morning of 10 May however, these two major cities were assaulted by German parachutists and airborne troops attempting to capture the Dutch government. The attack did not come as a total surprise; as it had been feared that a German invasion was imminent, Supreme Command had ordered several security measures on 8 May, among which the formation of a small cavalry security force from Delft depot units, the Depotdetachement Bewakingstroepen Cavalerie, to guard The Hague, to which a DAF M39 platoon was added. In the night of 9–10 May, these three M39s were parked at a base in The Hague. As another base in the city had already been bombed, the cars were on 10 May initially ordered to seek cover from aerial observation in the Haagse Bos, a park.

The German attempt to seize The Hague failed, partly because Landsverk armoured cars destroyed many Ju-52 transport planes and thereby blocked the runway of the main city airfield, Ypenburg. As a result the next waves of planes landed on meadows and roads, dispersing the airborne troops into many small groups which, unable to be reinforced, in the following days tried to break out towards Rotterdam, the southern part of which city was firmly in German hands. In the confused situation the platoon in the afternoon of 10 May was ordered to convoy a munition truck to Delft. At a Dutch roadblock the commander of one car was killed, both sides mistaking each other for Germans. Finally arriving in Delft, two of the armoured cars were in the late afternoon ordered to support an advance of some depot companies to the south, in the direction of Rotterdam, that soon was blocked by enemy fire. Lacking bulletproof tyres, the cars were held back, only supporting the troops by shelling enemy positions at a distance. Though this was forbidden, one of the cars fired shells in a nine o'clock or three o'clock position of the turret; the lateral recoil forces distorted the front wheel suspension so severely that the car could no longer be steered. Repair proving impossible, the vehicle was, somewhat prematurely, on 11 May destroyed by its own crew to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Later that evening the second car also showed a defect, probably a main armament malfunction, causing it to be withdrawn the next day to the base. In the same evening of 10 May the third car, III-2203, that experimentally had been fitted with bulletproof Michelin tyres, positioned itself on the southern edge of Delft, without making enemy contact, but in vain trying to shoot down a low-flying German aircraft with the main gun.

On 11 May III-2203 was ordered to support an advance over the Delft-Rotterdam highway. At first this met little enemy resistance, the main problem being that the car was fired upon by a fighter aircraft that the vehicle commander recognised as a Dutch Fokker G.1. Then several Junkers Ju 52s were encountered, that had landed on the road and were now used by the German airborne troops as cover in the open polder landscape. Of one undamaged plane the DAF M39 shot off the engine; another, stuck in a ditch, was put on fire by some 37 mm HE-shells, fired at distance. The fire generated an enormous black smoke cloud, forcing the armoured car to break off the attack. The armour of the car during the action easily deflected enemy machine-gun rounds. By noon most of the Dutch infantry was withdrawn to rest and eat; during the afternoon the armoured car again made a probing attack against the cluster of Ju 52s. The commander decided to hold his fire and approached within forty metres of the enemy position, to provoke a reaction. Suddenly the vehicle was hit from all sides by a hail of bullets, some of these penetrated the thinner turret armour. Now responding with its main gun and hull machine-gun the M39 forced the Germans to take cover, but the gunner suddenly reported: "I am wounded" and sagged bleeding to the floor of the fighting compartment. The car drove back to the Dutch positions to seek medical assistance for the gunner, who was hospitalised. At a civil garage in Delft some brake malfunction was repaired. Most ammunition had been expended.

On 12 May the commander of III-2203 discovered that all trained crews had been moved to The Hague. Most of that day and the morning of 13 May were used to find a truck and fetch a replacement gunner and new munition from The Hague. In the afternoon the vehicle protected the headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division at Rijswijk. On 14 May the car supported an attempt to eliminate the largest remaining pocket of German airborne troops, that had gathered around Major-General Hans Graf von Sponeck at Overschie, together with a Landsverk M38 armoured car from 2e Eskadron Pantserwagens. During the advance the clutch of III-2203 malfunctioned and the car returned to Delft for repairs. Rejoining the fight in the afternoon, III-2003 first took a civilian, fled from the village, on-board to point out the exact German positions. Shortly afterwards the attacking Dutch troops witnessed the devastating bombardment of Rotterdam, just south of Overschie. Continuing to advance nevertheless, the two armoured cars were suddenly hit by antitank rifle fire and returned to the Dutch lines. It transpired that the M39 had been penetrated twice low in the side hull armour, without the projectiles doing any damage or even being noticed; a third round had been stopped by the thin strip of reinforcing steel around the turret base that doubled the normal armour thickness. Rotterdam capitulating as a result of the carpet bombing, III-2203 was withdrawn to The Hague.

In The Hague also the five DAF M39s were present, two of them without main armament that had not been used in the Depotdetachement Bewakingstroepen Cavalerie. In the morning of 10 May these vehicles had been readied and then moved to the headquarters of the Commander Fortress Holland. In the subsequent days they had remained in the city, sometimes patrolling the streets or responding to the many false alarms about presumed Fifth Column activities. In one incident, on 11 May, a M39 had set fire to some railway wagons where, probably groundlessly, German paratroopers were suspected to have hidden.

Fearing a further destruction of the Dutch cities, the Dutch supreme commander Henri Winkelman at 16:50 ordered his troops to destroy their equipment and then surrender themselves to the Germans. In the evening of 14 May it was accordingly attempted to disable some DAF M39s by driving them into the sea at Scheveningen. Two vehicles indeed reached the waves, a third got stuck on the boulevard stairway to the beach.

Besides the eight cars at Delft, on 10 May four M39s were present in the DAF factory at Eindhoven. In the morning Wim van Doorne, the brother of Hub, phoned the military authorities in The Hague to remind them of this fact, because the German invaders might soon overrun the area. He was advised to contact the military commander of the forces in North Brabant province. The latter asked DAF to drive the cars to Vught, where they were transferred to the 4e Compagnie Korps Motordienst, a motorisation unit of his main force, the Peeldivisie, that would remain in the province. As a result the vehicles were not evacuated to the Fortress Holland. A persistent story that the M39s had tried to reach the North but were blocked by the German paratroopers having captured the bridges at Moerdijk is thus likely apocryphal. Probably the armoured cars accompanied the Peeldivisie staff to Princenhage near Breda in the night of 10–11 May. Lacking full crews or munition they were apparently later abandoned in the west of the province when the remnants of the division withdrew to Zealand on 13 and 14 May.

Vickers-Armstrong Utility Tractor: These tractors were manufactured under license from Vickers-Armstrong by the Belgian company Familleheureux in two version, infantry and cavalry.

Renault FT: 1920-2 Two-man light tank Seventy-five vehicles acquired. Armed with either a 37mm gun or MG.

Carden-Lloyd M1934: 1935 Two-man light tank Forty-two vehicles acquired — High conical turret — Armed in Belgium with a 13.2mm Hotchkiss air-cooled MG Belgian designation: T15 France

AMC-35 (ACGI): 1937 Three-man medium tank Twelve vehicles acquired — Fitted with a Belgian-made turret housing a 47mm A/Tk gun and a 13.2mm MG. Belgian designation: Auto-mitrailleuse du Corps de Cavalerie

POLISH ARMOUR

Poland reemerged as an independent nation as a consequence of World War I. It was formed largely of territory expropriated at the end of the eighteenth century by Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Save for the Baltic Sea, Poland after World War I lacked natural frontiers. Poland also claimed considerably more territory than was awarded it in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the war, and Polish leaders went to war to achieve it. This included the seizure of Upper Silesia from Germany, Vilna from Lithuania, Eastern Galicia from Ukraine, part of Teschen from Czechoslovakia, and a considerable stretch of territory secured from Russia as a result of war with that country during 1919–1920. This expansionist policy, however, meant that some 90 percent of Poland’s borders had to be considered as menaced by hostile neighbors.

This fact, of course, gave Poland a strong interest in maintaining a powerful army, and its chief ally, France, tried to assist the Poles in that effort. As early as 1919 and Poland’s war with Russia, France supplied Renault FT-17 tanks. After that conflict the Poles reorganized their tanks along French lines, assigning them to the infantry.

At first the Poles set out to improve the Renault FT-17, including a new flexible track, which enhanced the tank’s speed. Some FTs also received a new turret that mounted a 37mm gun and coaxial machine gun. From late 1924 there was considerable pressure for a domestically produced heavy tank capable of infantry support, but the prototypes advanced by several firms proved unsuccessful and the project was dropped.

In the late 1920s the Poles acquired the Vickers tankette and used that to produce their own version, the 3,900-pound, two-man TK.1 and, subsequently, the TK.2 and TK.3. The latter was the first tank produced in quantity in Poland. A total of 300 were produced during 1931–1932. The TK.3 tankette weighed 5,500 pounds, had a crew of two, and had a 40-hp Ford Model A engine that drove the tank at 29 mph. It was armed with one 7.92mm machine gun and had maximum 8mm armor. Surprisingly, Poland continued to produce other tankettes up to the time of its defeat by Germany in September 1939.

The need for a more powerful armored vehicle was increasingly obvious, because the TK.3 was not capable of an actual combat role. Poland then copied the British Vickers 6-Ton. The Polish version, produced by the state-run PZI Institute, was the 7 TP light tank. It weighed 21,000 pounds, had a crew of three, and had heavier (maximum 17mm) armor than the Vickers. Its Swiss-patented Saurer six-cylinder 110 diesel engine (produced under license in Poland) made it the first mass-production diesel-powered tank. It was capable of 20 mph. The first version of the 7 TP followed experiments by other nations in multiturret tanks, the idea being that gunners could thus simultaneously engage multiple targets. The 7 TP had twin turrets with a machine gun in each. A second version, introduced beginning in 1937, had heavier armor and a single turret with a 37mm gun and one machine gun. A third version had an enlarged turret with overhang in the rear and still heavier armor. Produced during 1934– 1939, a total of 169 7 TPs were in service at the time of the September 1939 German invasion.

During the mid-1930s there was considerable debate in Poland over whether the nation, with its limited manufacturing resources, should attempt to produce its own tanks or follow the more economical approach of purchasing what it required abroad. Although it defaulted on purchase of two of J. Walter Christie’s tanks, in 1938 Poland did copy the Christie suspension system in its 10 TP fast tank. Weighing some 28,700 pounds, it had a crew of four, was powered by an American La France V-12 gasoline engine, and was capable of 31 mph on tracks and 47 mph on wheels. It mounted a 37mm main gun and two 2.79mm machine guns and had maximum 20mm armor protection. The Polish army envisioned the 10 TP as the mainstay for four mechanized cavalry brigades planned under the 1936–1937 army modernization plan, but the 10 TP arrived too late; the prototype was still in testing at the time of the German invasion.

On 1 September 1939, Poland had 339 tanks: 169 7 TPs, 50 Vickers 6-Tons, 53 Renault R-35s, and 67 Renault FTs. It also had 693 TK and TS tankettes and 100 armored cars. For Poland it was a case of too little, too late.

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In September 1939 the Allied powers of Britain, France, and Poland appeared to have the advantage militarily, at least on paper. Their naval assets were far greater, and they outnumbered the Germans 3:2 in ground forces. France alone had 3,200 tanks, more than the German total of some 2,900; the French tanks were also generally of better quality. Only in numbers of aircraft and antiaircraft guns were the Allies at a significant disadvantage.

The German Army was not totally prepared for high-speed warfare. As noted, the bulk of its divisions were based on the World War I pattern and were horse-drawn. In 1939 a single German infantry division required 4,077–6,033 horses for movement; even the vaunted panzer divisions utilized them. This reliance on horses continued throughout the war; indeed, as late as 1944 85 percent of German Army divisions were horse-drawn, with few vehicles. Nonetheless, the Germans were a few vital degrees better than their opponents, and as it turned out, that made all the difference.

Germany did enjoy the considerable advantage of having already established tank and motorized/light divisions along with a doctrine governing their use. These new-style divisions were, however, only a small minority of the total. Of Germany’s 98 divisions (40 of which were still forming) in September 1939, 14 were new-style: six panzer divisions (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 10th) and eight motorized/ light divisions (two of the latter being SS). The original plan was to equip the panzer divisions with 570 tanks apiece, but production failed to keep up with the expansion of the German armored force, so tanks were in short supply at the beginning of the war.

The Polish campaign of September 1939 revealed the errors in Allied thought concerning armor. In their invasion the Germans pressed into service all available tanks, hoping that sheer numbers and their employment en masse would make up for any equipment and armament shortcomings. As noted earlier, in all they had some 2,900 tanks, most of them PzKpfw Is and IIs.

The success of the German blitzkrieg lay not in numbers of tanks but in the formation of combined arms teams. The problem in World War I had been the inability of an attacker’s reserve formations to close quickly once a breech had been created in an enemy’s lines; the attacker’s artillery would also have to be repositioned to support a further advance. The new German theory of high-speed warfare called on mechanized reserves and artillery to move at the speed of the tanks, all supported by aircraft, greatly compressing the time line in favor of the attackers.

During the Polish campaign, enemy dispositions played into the Germans’ hands. Polish forces were still in the process of mobilization, thanks to the British insistence that the Poles provide no excuse for the Germans to invade. Also, Polish Army leaders placed the bulk of their forces far forward. They were unwilling to yield territory to the Germans (indeed, they expected to carry the war into Germany themselves), but in such forward positions they were more easily cut off, surrounded, and destroyed. Poland was also at sharp geographical disadvantage. Attacked by German forces on three sides, it in fact had little chance. With France slow to move, and then only with a small force, and with the Soviet Union invading Poland from the east two weeks after the initial German invasion (in accordance with a secret arrangement with Germany), Poland succumbed after one month.

One often overlooked factor in the German success in Poland, as well as in the May–June 1940 campaign against the Low Countries and France, was the short distances involved and thus the assurance of adequate resupply of fuel and ammunition. The blitzkrieg functioned well in the dry, flat terrain and the relatively short distances of Poland and the well-developed road network [and petrol stations] of France in 1940. It broke down completely in the vast distances and poor transportation system of the Soviet Union in 1941.