Another of the oft repeated statements of the 1940 campaign was that the allies wasted their armor in small groups supporting infantry while the germans concentrated theirs in the ten panzer divisions, and only seven of them were really involved in the sickle cut. The Germans also had five(?) motorized infantry divisons supporting the panzers. But the French had six armored divisions and two more forming (3+1 DLM and 3+1 DRC). Even the five DLCs (light cavalry divisons) had an armored "regiment" (actually battalion sized) with 16 armored cars and 15 tanks. The tanks that were distributed among the infantry divisions were generally old, slow and many were armed with MGs only. The French also had five motorized infantry divisions. The British had the 1st Army Tank Brigade (which was admittidly organized to fight in support of infantry) and the 1st Armored was on the way. All nine of the BEF divisons were motorized. Depending on how you look at it, the allies had 6-9+ armored divisons and 14 motorized infantry divisons against the ten German panzer divisons and five motorized infantry divisons. Was the allied armor just in the wrong place, at the Dyle instead of in reserve or at the Ardennes? Was their organization and doctrine faulty? What went wrong?
The difference is in the size of those divisions. The Germans had, on average, 257,2 tanks per division, of which 95,2 were modern tanks on average (however the percentage of modern tanks varied greatly, from 19,9% to 66,8%). The French had 174 (of which 96 were Somua S35 tanks) in each armoured division (plus a reserve of 16 tanks).
So if you look strictly at modern tanks per divison, can you say one on one the French (96 moderns) division was equal to one German (95 moderns) divison? The German divisions also seem to have had more infantry and artillery, as more effective combined arms tactics and doctrine. Not to mention better German air to ground cooperation. Which gives the Germans a ten to six (plus tow forming) adavantage.
No, because even though the Germans had about as many modern tanks, they had far more light tanks, which were still very effective against soft-skinned targets and infantry, and added to the total force of the division.
Are we about to enter into a case of violent agrreement? :lol: The Germans had far more tanks in their Panzer divisons than the French had in their DCR/DLM divisions because they also grouped in the light tanks. The French actually had far more (old and slow) light tanks altogether, but these were spread out in small packets. The Germans also concentrated the Panzer divisions themselves. The nominal Pnazer Corps having two Panzer divisions adn a motorized infantry division. The closest the French came was the two DLMs in the 1st Army's Cavalry Corps. Even the two DLC's of Coraps 9th Army gave a decent account of themselves for a time. I think the lesson is that the doctrine and tactical employment was more important than the quality of the vehicles themselves and this was the real German advantage.
This whole subject is shot through with the most ridiculous misinformation, largely a result of people trying to justify pet theories of what is doctrinally correct in armor warfare. Those theories are essentially always utter nonsense. They result from attempts to put complex matters of military doctrine on the back of a cereal box and wind up portraying the participants (or one side in them) as imbeciles. The French tank fleet was superior to the German tank fleet in numbers, weight, and gun and armor capabilities. It was not made useless by obsolete models. It was not distributed in useless penny packets in support of infantry divisions. That allegation stems from the typical contemporary British error, which held that massed used of tanks alone was doctrinally correct - a theory whose fallacy can be seen at places like Knightsbridge, where it led to the lose of entire tank brigades in a single afternoon. Nor was it in all cases deprived of combined arms - the French light mech divisions in fact had a better armor to other arms mix than contemporary German PDs, which were still too tank heavy. Basic points that need to be grasped - the *median* German tank in the invasion of France was a Panzer II. Pz 38s counted as far above average. The light end were MG main armament. MG and 20mm main armament armored cars were also prevalent. Most of the IIIs available still have 37mm main armament - the "army door knocker" as the infantry called the PAK version. The French includes Char Bs that were like Tigers compared to the entire German fleet. It also included significant numbers of Somua model mediums that were again superior to nearly the whole German fleet, matched them in mobility and exceeding them in main armament and especially in armor. The French did also have large numbers of more obsolete tanks with relatively poor mobility and short 37mm armament, but these were no worse than the Pz Is and ACs making the light end of the German force. Somewhat worse in mobility perhaps, that is the worst that can be said. The German superiority was not technical. As for doctrine, the Germans were superior there, but not for the cartoon reasons usually alleged. The French used full ADs. They massed armor. They employed reserve armor in reaction forces that made local counterattacks on the flanks of break-ins. They also managed to put large bodies of armor athwart the main path of German PDs on several occasions. The French lost anyway, often catastrophically. I've looked at the blow by blow in daily German unit reports. What one sees is a consistent pattern of German outperformance in tank vs tank engagments, which grows approximately quadratically with engagement scale. By that I mean, platoon vs platoon engagements are coin tosses with not much edge for the Germans, but company vs company they almost always win with several to 1 KO ratios, and battalion vs. battalion they take trivial losses and the French lose entire formations. Only rarely can this be traced to greater concentration of the German force, tactically. The main cause appears to be superior "soft systems" for the German armor force. By that I mean they have more radios, they have better vision from within their tanks and better optics at range, they have much better average mobility, and a superior tactical organization and flexibility, they have better command specifically of the armor forces. And these advantages wind up resulting in *large* French units engaging either in inflexible masses or piecemeal, not because there is no larger unit present, but simply because they have no idea where the Germans are and how the battle is progressing, in real time. The Germans run rings around them. There is a second cause which is also doctrinal. The Germans use other arms to counter French armor, more effectively than the reverse. The Germans are in fact employing combined arms in a superior fashion throughout. What I mean is e.g. the French send a tank brigade to attack a German ID on a shoulder of the Sedan breakthrough, and the result is many dead tanks and no break-in. When the Germans do the reciprocal operation, they break through clean in hours with catastrophic loss to the French ID. What is happening tactically in those cases? The Germans are forming gun fronts, applying the doctrine for dealing with tanks already developed in WW I. This typically means entire battalions of divisional 105s, as well as the occasional 88, and of course the front line 37mm PAK. Nobody runs. The infantry holds village and woods interiors. The French blunder too far forward tanks leading, little following, and as a direct result the Germans get absolute intel dominance (they know where the French are, the French are driving around buttoned without the foggiest idea, etc). Are there reciprocal occasions? Yes, there are. The French occasionally do form gun fronts successfully, though usually after their own armor (tactically) has more or less evaporated. These occasionally give the Germans a bloody nose, as in a full battalion's worth lost in a day, with repulse. But these stands are rare on the French side, and a PD is succeeding a few miles over in all cases, against some other opponent. The Germans then reinforce success rather than failure and off they go. In other words, it is not enough to succeed occasionally to maintain the integrity of army-level defense. Every division must do so reliably, and this the French do not manage. The main German breakthrough is barely a matter of superior armor anyway. Tanks don't get them across the Meuse (how would they? How do you lead with tanks crossing a defended river hundreds of yards wide with a higher enemy bank?). Instead air suppresses the French artillery, artillery and all direct fire arms drive French defenders away from the crests, and infantry crosses in boats, holds out until night, bridges get built, etc. Every arm firing on all cylinders in other words, and *not* a tank-centric triumph. Nor is the French defeat explained solely by operational factors - Manstein's brilliancy or the way it exactly anticipates the French plan, or even the worse fighting conditions created by prior successful breakthrough. The fact is the French lose everywhere, even to the frontal drive through Belgium. The best fight is put up by some of the light mech, but they are attrited of their armor in a matter of days, and defensive afterwards. French morale is quite poor, and modest amounts of fire from the Germans lead to break ins or abandoned positions. The French artillery barely fires as the Germans cross the Meuse e.g., afraid of giving their positions away to German air or counterbattery. The French don't suck because they don't have tanks (they have them), or because they don't know to make combined arms formations (they have those too), or because they fail to mass their tanks (brigade after brigade charge the breakthrough "neck" and get creamed, and whole ADs go under in days to German formations that do not outnumber them or outweigh them). They suck because they don't know what they are doing tactically, because they do not know what is happening (C3I and soft systems), because some units fail to fight at all or get blown through for any of the above reasons, exposing the flanks of those doing better, etc. And make no mistake about it, the French comprehensively suck in 1940, in actual performance delivered by the forces available (again, a few honorable exceptions like the light mech or De Gaulle's counterattack attempt, etc). The British did not know what caused the defeat, but they knew whatever the French had tried, it failed. And they had their own pet theory of armor - concentrate the tanks and use them alone, rather than "tying them down" to "the speed of infantry" (that was for a few infantry "tanks", as opposed to "armour"). When they tried this out at Arras is was a comprehensive failure, despite the edge a Maltida has over a Pz II in gun and armor terms. (It was mostly divisional 105s that stopped them). They don't learn the lesson, and out in the western desert they repeat the mistakes, and lose heavily in pure tank charges at gun fronts etc. The reality is tanks do need to be concentrated tactically, but they need to work with all arms. They also need to see, talk, adapt, maneuver, know when to back off, when to use a different tool altogether, etc. But you can't put all that on a cereal box, so it took the allies oh about 3 years to sort it all out, with each little doctrinal group endlessly harping on the next little group's mistakes while ignoring their own.
Glad to see that you have a corner on truth and alone have been able to cut through the "ridiculous information" and "utter nonsense". Leave out the digging comments and stick to your views. Actually the French did spread out a lot of their armor, mostly the stuff that was too old, slow or underarmed in over 30 independent battalions. The French DCR/DLM were not very good all arms teams, they lacked infantry, artillery and most of all good communications, and most were relatively new. None of them fought as cohesive organizations and certainly not in equivalents to the Panzer Corps.
How many independent StuG battalions were the Germans using to stiffen their infantry in 1944? How many independent Sherman battalions were the Americans using to help their IDs attack in 1944? How many British tank formations, as opposed to armour formations? How many Russian independent brigades and regiments below the tank corps level and outside the tank armies? The line against penny packeting as the supposedly French mistake is and always has been buncomb. Try to lecture me on tone one more time, I'll go elsewhere. I need such feedback like a hole in the head. If you find nothing useful in my views, by all means bend over backwards to get me to leave. I'm easy, just be a jerk.
And the legere did not lack artillery or communications. They were light in infantry but did not lack it for combined arms purposes. The 2nd and 3rd operated together and had between them 2 battalions of motorized infantry, 2 motorized MG battalions attached for infantry defense weight, and 2 battalions of engineers (plus a 7th company). They each had an organic motorized artillery regiment and they had the equivalent of a 3rd attached, so to say they were not supported by artillery is laughable. Plus fully motorised and in some cases even SP AA, both heavy and light, and AT, and signals (including radio and telegraph) and transport and staffs for supply etc. They also had nearly 200 Somua tanks and 80 excellent Panhard armored cars, many of the latter fitted with the new Renault turrets (the same 47mm gun as in the Somua, plus a coaxial MG - replacing older 25mm main armament). Plus tankettes in the recon and older 37mm tanks. Working in tandem as a corps. That was an excellent combined arms formation for the day. As for "had fought", um, it was the start of the war for the French so that is kind of a pointless comment. Half the German mech arm was new as well, and the rest had exactly one drive through Poland under fire. They were still very tank heavy as to numbers, the shutzen still quite limited and the tank mix light as to vehicle composition. Find me a formation with 280 vehicles with 47mm main armament - 200 of them heavily armored - with 6 battalions of infantry and 9 battalions of artillery, among them. The Germans readily outfought even the light mech. But it wasn't because the French organization was stupid on paper or any of the usual lines.
We have various forum rules (available to view in the Announcements Section), but the basic rule of thumb that we (try to)work by is 'Be Polite'. While I have enjoyed reading through the factual elements of the 2 posts of yours that I have seen so far, please be a little less... uh... pointed in your comments on other people here. Debate the argument, not the person.
And now a non-moderator post Much of the issue at hand has been endlessly debated in other topics on this forum, and so spits and spots of data simply don't come up here because it is assumed that they are 'known' - which is a bad assumption because not everybody has read every post on this forum. Some of these other topics address points that you have raised, such as the better German grasp of tactics, the AT screen for example, or their better flexibility resulting from such things as the extended use of radio and having a dedicated commander in each tank (well, any tank that isn't a Pz I or Pz II ). However, this point: As well as being elsewhere ( ) is kinda noted here:
The Germans did not have far more light tanks than the French. The French match or exceed the 38s, IIIs and IVs with their own modern tanks, and match or exceed the Is and IIs with their own cavalry tanks, older stuff, and tankettes. The average mobility of the French lights is less because they are older, that is about all one can say.
I think you make some good points Jason. There is no doubt that the cliched reasons for the French defeat don't tell the whole story however as with most cliches there is also some truth in them. To expand a little on your comments regarding the better situational awareness of the German armor when compared to the French there is also the often overlooked fact that the French tanks, while generally superior in armor thickness and gun power, relied on a one man turret whereas the Germans had 2 or more. The French tank commander had to also serve as the gunner and to an extent as loader as well. To perform all these functions while attempting to command the tank was inefficient and I have little doubt often overwhelming to the TC/Gunner.
Greig - thanks. And yes, that is exactly the sort of soft systems edge I am talking about. The French tanks are ergonomic nightmares. Once in action, situational awareness contracts. They are not really designed to function as an integrated portion of a larger organism. That is what all of Guderian's pre war testing and redesign managed to really get right. Guderian came from signals, not cavalry. It is quite a different view of what makes an arm effective, more like the modern emphasis on "networked C3I" than the naval engineer's focus on gun and armor specs that most discussions of tank match ups typically focus on. What I found amazing in the day by day unit reports was the way this shows up in relative losses. The variance with scale. I mean, tell me the number of digits of tanks engaged and I can tell you the loss ratio. Under 2 when it is 1 digit, between 3 and 9 when it is 2 digits, and over 10 when it is 3 digits, etc. Whatever edge the Germans have, it ramps powerfully with scale. And that fits the soft systems dominance thesis, to a T.
the german tanks were better future proofed as they were designed for a proposed 40's enviroment in the 30's as oposed to the 30's when most of the 40 tanks were put to paper. The germans knew that radio and forward command structures were critical to a modern mobile war, the french and english did not like the way this allowed junior officers to think on their feet. The germans promoted aggresive thinking and tactics from platoon upwards and especially at company level. The english and to some extent the french prefered their suboridates to do as they were told and then wait for further orders. Time and time again the British captured X and just stopped to dig in and brew up rather than wondering what they could do next before orders arrived. If you read the battle reports you see relativly low level german officers seing an opportunity or danger and acting upon it beyond their orders. When ordered to capture a village, when completed they always looked to the next one if the opportunity arose. When ordered to an area when they got there they looked at obvious high grounds and took them to bolster the defence even though techinically beyond their immeadiate orders. I feel that the germans advance simple outpaced the french and english command structures which rendered the orders given as useless or positivly dangerous to implement. Furthermore each defensive order relied upon the copperation and coordination of multiple branches of the army (art, AT, inf, recon and arm) who at the time were just not practised or often interested in working together and lacked reliable real time communication systems between each other in any event. The actual material available to the opposing sides on paper were reasonably equal and not enough to guarentee victory to either side without luck and/or skill. All sides fought bravely, despite the common believe the french were demorolised and rolled over at every opportunity. Again if you read the battle reports you hear time and time again of individual french units fighting dogedly for as long as possable when caught in their pre planned defensive positions and forts. Unfortunatly a lot of french units were just caught unawares and unprepared and just over run cutting them off from their command structure that they relied too much upon. FNG
Not certain, but I'm fairly sure it was quite a few. I was responding to the statement that the French did not spread out thier armor in penny packets. 25 by the end of 1944, 37 total in Northwest Europe (6-6-44 to 8-5-45), including two Mine Exploder, and one that never saw action. I can find 10 Armoured/Tank Brigades, independant of armoured divisions including two Canadian and one Czech. An awful lot of them. I'll pass on counting them all. Actually Jason, I was trying to agree with you not lecture you. Let's call it even and I won't even go into who's lecturing who or name calling. That's why I wrote the first post, please re-read it. I may not have been clear enough in pointing out that the French had about as many modern tanks in division structures as the Germans, especially if you discount the Pz I and Pz II (please refer to this post as well: http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5685) . The only reason the French put out their armor in "penny packets" is because they could. As you point out, everyone else who could did so as well, including the Germans. The French divisional organizations were not complete in May 1940. Some, if not most, were still missing men and equipment, especially radio equipment, although 1st - 3rd DLMs were well equipped. The infantry components were smaller than the Germans. The DLMs had one brigade of three infantry battalions (only two companies of infantry, plus a motorcycle company and HW coy) and an Engineer Bn. The DCRs had only one battalion of infantry as did the DLCs. 2nd DCR had only one organic company of Engineers, 3rd had none. Counting attached units as part of the divisional establishment is laughable. The German Panzer divisions had four infantry battalions, plus an Engineer Bn (who served as infantry assault troops) and a Recon Bn that was infantry heavy. In terms of artillery, the DLMs had 24 x 75mm plus 12 x 105. The DCRs had 24 x 105mm. The DLCs had 12 x 75mm plus 12 x 105mm. The Panzer divisions had 24 x 105mm plus 20 x 150mm (including 12 x 150mm guns in the Inf Regts). French artillery command and radio net was not up to German standards in a mobile battle. No one said the Freench organization was stupid, only that it wasn't as good as the German. Only the DLMs came close interms of organization. I believe Christian's point about "more light tanks" meant in the divisions, not overall. I wasn't including them in my counts of tank strength, because I chose not to label tham as modern or useful, and he felt this was incorrect. While both the French and German armored forces were growing prior to the battle the Germans ahd the lead. None of the 10 Panzer Divs were still forming up as was the case with the French. And all were starting from a better training and doctrine point of view. 1er Groupement Cuirassé (2nd and 3rd DCR) started out as the French Reserve but did not operate together after reaching the Dyle line. Had they been kept together and fought as a team, they may have given a Panzer Korps a rough day. As it was 2nd was caught detraining at Hirson by 6th Pz Div and dispersed May 14-16, while the French commander voluntarily dispersed the 3rd on a 12 mile front near Sedan. By May 17th neither was a factor. Just to be clear Jason, I agree with on most points, that it was the soft elements, radio, vehicle reliability, ergonomics, and doctrine, not numbers, guns and armor, that made the Panzerwaffe superior to the French. That's why I started this topic and the related one. Like you, I think there's more to a good tank than armor thickness and gun penetration stats.
