Groggy question of French radio nets

[Hans]

In a French 1940 Infantry Battalion HQ how many radios were in it and to whom were they suppose to talk to, or was it all wire/telephone?

[Dandelion]

The French were - comparatively - liberally equipped with wireless, and used better equipment than the Germans (who later used all French radios they captured).

Battallion had one wireless for contact with regiment (normally that should be a ER17, a powerful set) and 3 wireless sets which were distributed to companies as needed. The latter would probably be ER40 I guess, a medium set which the Germans later used as company radio in PzGren formations. I know there were shortages among reserve divisions, but have no real concept of just how severe those shortages were.

Seems they had a powerful receiver of 1RII type at Btl Hq, but it doesn't say for what specific purpouse, nor what the Germans subsequently used it for, so I don't know.

All infantry company Hqs had a wireless expert (a NCO), but he had no wireless set of his own.

Wire and runners was the norm tho.

Wireless were used only when wire was not available, i.e. during march and in highly mobile warfare, or when wires had been ripped off. Thus they were normally rigged as backups to existing wire connections. And they didn't talk over a wireless connection. Transmission of voice via wireless was too crappy. They used morse code. They used telephones for talking, either the excellent French fieldphones, or simply hooking up to the civilian net.

I think you might find some on this topic on the internet. At least I imagine you might. Remember French for "signal" is "transmission" (e.g. "Peloton de transmission"), when looking for communication units both types.

Hope that helps some

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

Found a link just after writing that, which is in English and all. Here;

http://enpointe.chez.tiscali.fr/di.html

It says the battallion had 6 wireless sets for distribution to companies here. Strikes me as strange. German assessment of French Army from 1940 says they had 3. A la bonnheur, they might be right about 6.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Hans]

Thanks for the interesting information

At this gap in time I'd say the difference was between what was authorized (French saying 6) and the what they had that worked (Germans saying 3)

Thats the info I needed, .....wireless.....