Best tank at the outbreak of WWII ?

No T-34 or KV-I, no Sherman and no German "cats". Which tank, of those in service by September 1939, would you choose ?

 

Matilda 2 infantry tank

Okay it's slow, it's unreliable, it's gun is too small to have a meaningful HE round.


But on the positive side...



It has heavy armor

A gun that might not be great, but it will pop a hole in any German tank of that period.

It has heavy armour

A two man turret, so it doesn't suffer the task overload problems that cripple the French tanks.

Did I mention the armour is heavy?

 

The Somua, with its more efficient tank gun and higher velocity, I think was the best average in September 1939.

 

Agreed.
-Somua had very good armour, making it nearly impenetrable for german AT guns(with exeption of course of the 88).

-It had probably the best gun mounted on a tank at that time.

- It was as fast as it's german opponents.

It's only default was that it's commander was also gunner and loader.

For a tank that entered service in 1936 this is not bad at all.

 

What about the B1bis? It had a 75mm gun as wellas turretgun and heavy armor.

 

Yes, but the turret gun had the same problem as the Somua's, while the 75mm gun had limited traverse within the hull and between the suspension. It was also much slower than the S35.

 

If you compare tank vs tank than the B1 is superior to the Somua(bether armour, bether armament), but operationally, the Somua had more potential.

 

Perhaps the Somua was better suited to counter a blitzkreig war due to its better mobility.

 

Other then speed everything good about the Somua is good about the B1.Bis.

That is why the B1 is better, at one battle a single B1 took out all the German tanks present, and De Gaulle in his war memoirs actually complained that the 4th armored had more S.35s then B1s.

The leader of the Free French himself said the B1 was the best tank there was at the time.

There must have been a surprising amount of field mobility for it to have been given praise from that high a person, and I believe that it was the B1 that was used by the FF at Bir Hakiem, I could be wrong about that though, but I remember reading in the war memoirs that the Free French at that point were using recaptured french tanks and that "none knew how to use them better" then the people in them, and that Auchinleck was hessitant to accept them because he feared their equiptment wasn't good enough.

 

French B1 in the heavy category and Czechoslovak LT-38, later German PzKpfw 38 (t) in the light category.

 

The Char B1!

Okay (takes a deep breath and a step back)

Char B1 Advantages

Heavy frontal armour pretty much immune to German tanks at anything other than point blank.
Turret gun has gun has good AP performance and a useful HE round.
75mm howitzer in hull offering extra punch in the infantry support role.


Char B1 Disadvantages

One man turret results in a severely over worked tank commander.
Hull gun has NO traverse, even fine aiming has to be done by the turning the whole tank
This means the driver is also responsible for aiming and firing the gun, again this given him a greater work load than in other tank types.
Radiators on the side of hull, extremely vulnerable to weapons fire. (NOT ENTIRELY SURE OF THIS FACT PLEASE CORRECT IF WRONG)
Short radius of action.


Somua is fast nearly as well armoured, has a good AT gun. But like the Char B1 is crippled by the one man turret.

 

I think I'm with Moonchild here.
The LT-38, later German PzKpfw 38 (t) was superb for 1939/40.
And the basic chassis soldiered on in a number of uses throughout the war.

 

Wasn't the KV1 around in late '39?

If not then my vote is Char B.

(2nd Legion: No Char B, or any French tanks at Bir Hacheim, but they did have some M13/40 turretts mounted on trucks!!)

 

This is a question that is often being raised.
However the radiators were protected by 40mm armoured grill, so I hardly see how the germans would have exploited this "disadvantage" with their 1940 possibilities.
Personally I never have seen a picture of a B1 dammaged on that supposed weak point.

 

Late 1939 is not the start of the war, and there were no KV1s in the field in september 1939.

 

Thanks Roel.

 

So it comes down to the Czech model.

By the way, from which country is the Somua? Is that France or Japan. I don't know...

 

The Somua has bether armour, bether gun, and similar mobility as the Lt 38.
It would be virtually impossible for the Lt 38 to destroy the Somua on a "tank vs tank duel", because of it's weak gun.

 

France...

Castelot, is that so? I'm afraid I don't know much about the armour of the Somua...

 

I think the 37mm gun equipping the czech tanks could perfore up to 35 mm armour at distance that was current in tank engagements.
As the Somua's frontal armour thickness is over 50 mm, and still something like 40 at the sides, it would require a bit of luck for thr Lt 35 to destroy it.

In the campaign of 1940, the Somua inflicted horrendous losses on the german armoured forces(for example at Hannut in Belgium).
Of course, as the germans used their tanks in the appropriate manner,they mostly had big numerical superiority, and so managed to compensate their technical inferiority.