France 1940 - Allied armor and the real German edge

[JasonC]

What happened to the Allied armor in France in May of 1940? The usual story told by doctrinal theorists is that Allied tank doctrine being so primitive, their tanks were parcelled out all along the front to support infantry. In contrast, the Germans supposedly massed all their armor at the one decisive point. The principle of mass is supposed to account for the German victory. The problem with this neat and simple explanation is that it is simply not true.

First, the Germans did not mass all of their armor at the Sedan breakthrough point. Guderian's group had the 1, 2, and 10 Panzer and was directed at that point. It is the portion of the German armor force that most closely follows the "mass" explanation for the outcome. But 6 Panzer was leading 12th Army farther north, and Rommel's 7 Panzer was leading 4th Army farther north again. 5 Panzer was following Rommel as a second echelon, without frontage, and 8 Panzer was in 12th Army reserve, effectively following 6 Panzer in a similar manner. 3 and 4 Panzer, working side by side, were directed straight through Belgium, right at the advancing Allied main body, not behind them. 9 Panzer led the attack on Holland, a secondary front for the overall attack.

Effectively the armor available was spaced out along the front in four corps sized groups, with Guderian's 3 panzer divisions the southernmost with a third of it, the northern group with 3 and 4 Panzer side by side in the north, and between them 2 corps of 2 attacking in column, each as the cutting edge of a whole infantry army. The total number of armored vehicles, including armored cars, available for the attack on the German side was around 2200.

And the Allied armor was not spaced along the front in dribs and drabs, or out of position to confront the German armor. Contary to common misconceptions, the Allies had large armor formations, not just battalions and brigades meant to support infantry. The French had the 1st and 2nd Armor divisions, and the 1st and 3rd Mechanized divisions, each sporting 200 tanks or more, while the British armor was concentrated in 2 large "brigades" of nearly 200 tanks apiece.

And these formations were not hopelessly out of position. In fact, 1 and 3 Mech were side by side directly in the path of the German 3 and 4 Panzer, and they clashed head on. 1 and 2 Armored were behind the areas attacked by 7 and 6 Panzer respectively, and had to be defeated in battle for the breakthrough to succeed in those areas. Half the British armor also famously counterattacked 7 Panzer around Arras. At Sedan itself, the French brought into play independent armor formations with on the order of 150 tanks, which hit the Germans 24 to 48 hours after the first crossing. They had 2 large fights with 1 Panzer in the middle of the bridgehead and then another large fight with 10 Panzer covering the German left flank the following day.

Certainly the Germans had more armor right at Sedan and that definitely mattered. But their armor force was spread along a considerable frontage, and the degree of concentration of the Allied armor along that frontage more or less matched it. The Germans did not have armor odds in the attack sectors of 3, 4, 6, or 7 Panzer. Yet they rapidly won pitched battles against the Allied armor in each of these places. Only in the sector of 3 and 4 Panzer was there no actual clean breakthrough, and those were stopped not by the French tanks, but after they had already defeated the bulk of the armor of 1 and 3 Mech. 6 and 7 Panzer overran 1 and 2 Armored in a couple of days, and 7 Panzer defeated large scale armored counterattacks a week later as well.

The German tanks were far inferior in gun and armor terms. The French had a mix of light "cavalry" tanks with capabilities similar to the German Czech and Pz IIIs (37mm armed at this time), and heavier Somuas and Chars superior to anything the Germans had. The Brits had Matildas, which outclassed all German tanks as much as the Tiger I later outclassed T-34/76s and Sherman 75s. Half the German tank force were 20mm armed Pz IIs. The Allies had 2 to 1 overall numerical superiority in armor, reflected in equal concentrations to the Germans at most points along the line, in addition to their dribs and drabs elsewhere. Nevertheless, the main Allied armor formations were decisively defeated at every point. They were not outmaneuvered, surrounded or abandoned. The major formations mentioned above all met German armor in battle, while they were still on their side of the lines, and still had supplies and functioning command systems. They still lost.

A better answer to the question is that the Germans had superior combined arms doctrine. This can explain part of the result but not all. The British attack at Arras did initially have infantry support, but the tanks rapidly outran it. Rommel famously met them with a gun front, composed of often balleyhooed 88 Flak, but also divisional artillery firing direct. He also used StuG, infantry pioneers, and flanking counterattacks by tanks. In a single day, his forces destroyed 43 British tanks, losing only a fourth of that. A parallel fight occurred at Sedan in the second day of French armored counterattacks, which were broken by a defensive front held by 10th Panzer and the GD infantry regiment. German infantry losses were very high in this fighting, but they held and accounted for 43 tanks there too, in 10 hours.

However, parallel cases can be found on the other side, where the French employed such gun-front all arms tactics to stop German armor. This can be seen in the sector of 3 and 4 Panzer in particular, after they defeated most of the armor of 1 and 3 Mech. Their attacks were then broken by a gun front built up by the non-armor elements of those formations, and their neighbors. 4 Panzer in particular lost 34 tanks in one day to such a defense. It had 4 Pz IVs and 20 Pz IIIs operational at the end of that day. Even with the better coordination of artillery with other arms the Germans are typically credited with, they did not manage to defeat such defenses. If the French artillery grouping was large enough, German attacks failed.

It is noteworthy that the French typically resorted to this gun-front tactic after they had already lost the armor war, while the Germans were more likely to use it sooner, with their armor intact and diverted to sidestep Allied armor. But it cannot be said that the French never employed gun-front defenses because they did not understand them. It might still be true that the Allies failed to suppress such gun fronts with their own artillery, making the threshold for their success lower on the German side.

There is another possible explanation for the discrepancy. It is noticable in the combat reports that German attacks with armor present against infantry defenses usually succeed easily. The French were not at all ignorant of the usefulness of tank-infantry cooperation in attacks. Nor were they sitting there passively, waiting to be attacked. The combat reports are full of French tank-infantry counterattacks, delivered on a wide range of scales and with high frequency.

What is conspicuous is that the German infantry rarely falls apart in the face of such attacks. There are cases of momentary panic, including some famous ones around Arras that Rommel managed to stop personally. But often the French win at least local and temporarly armor superiority, and nevertheless fail to make any serious impression on the German infantry. Even when German infantry casualties are very high (e.g. the GD regiment lost 562 men in its worst day at Sedan). There is also a lot of German infantry at the points of main effort, attacking in deep echelon. The Panzer division infantry holds, a motorized infantry division relieves them, a whole corps of leg infantry comes up - all on very narrow frontages.

This still leaves the biggest mystery unexplained, however. 3 and 4 Panzer clash head on with 1 and 3 Mech, and the latter lose almost all their tanks in a matter of days. 6 and 7 Panzer hit 2 and 1 Armored, and the latter are chopped to pieces within 48 hours. The air force cannot explain this; its interventions are far too small on short time scales, and not one-sided anyway. Often the Germans are locally attacking, so PAK fronts or braver infantry in deeper formations cannot explain this. Local odds at the operational scale are near even, so operational mass cannot explain this. Gun and armor match ups certainly cannot explain this.

To get a handle on what was going on, I looked at detailed reports broken down by unit and day, often in narratives down to the hour of engagement, and listing tank losses in particular tactical fights. One possible explanation immediately presents itself - were the Germans employing the principle of mass successfully on a smaller, tactical scale? That is, were French tanks platoons usually facing German companies, and their companies facing battalions? Many on few several times over in sequence is one way speed and maneuver can generate a combat power multiplier. So it is a plausible cause, and one merely has to ask whether it was operating and accounts for the performance discrepancy seen.

I think the basic answer to this one is again "no", that is cannot account for the performance seen. But not because the Germans did not manage to pull this off, fairly often. They did, and it undoubtedly helped somewhat. It was most apparent in engagement reports in the sector of 3 and 4 Panzer against 1 and 3 Mech. There are a lot of fights that take place with the odds heavily in favor of the Germans, from 2 to 1 up to 5 to 1 - indeed, 5 to 1 is quite common. These tend to be small fights - every few French tanks against German companies. And the Germans do outscore in these fights. However, they do not outscore particularly heavily. On the contrary, they typically get kill ratios of 3 to 2 to 2 to 1. You see 4-4, 3-1, 3-3, 1-1, 2-0, 4-1 - that kind of thing. But overall the Germans are outscoring the French by 3 or 4 to one, and the "lots o' littles" at high odds are not the place where this happens. Despite the odds the German do have in the little fights.

Instead, the big fights are the ones where the Germans just murder the French tanks. In company scale enagements the odds are much closer to even, with local odds typically varying from 1 to 1 up to 2 to 1 favor the Germans, with 3 to 2 being typical (company scale, mind). The Germans proceed to outscore the French 3 or 4 to 1, typically wiping the French out or nearly so for modest losses themselves. And then there are outliers in fight size, where 1-2 battalions are involved on each side, with the odds favoring either side but generally by less tha 2 to 1. And here, in the biggest fights, you see things like "French lose 75 tanks, Germans lose a handful" - run-away kill ratios.

The single predictor that tracks German armor superiority, in other words, is the grand tactical *scale* of the armor fight. Not operational mass. Not local odds achieved by many on few. Just how big are the local armor formations trying to fight in one *coordinated* battle. The bigger that grouping is, the higher the Allied losses. Otherwise put, in a platoon vs platoon engagement, the Allies do pretty well even if they don't have odds. In a company vs. company engagement, the Allies do very poorly, even with near even odds. And in battalion vs. battalion engagements, the Allies get their clocks cleaned, even if they have odds.

This is just what you would expect from armor war advantages that deal with *coordinating* the *tactical* actions of large numbers of tanks. Radios, larger tank crews, larger turrets, better sighting, crew skill, training, and tactical armor leadership - those were the "magic bullets" of 1940. 40 Allied tanks fought like 4 Allied tanks confusedly interrelated simply by being in about the same place at about the same time, or 4 times perhaps the square root of 10. 40 German tanks fought like 4 Germans tanks times ten squared. Up the numbers, and the individual actions of the Allied tankers made less overall sense. Up the numbers, and the individual actions of the German tankers made more sense.

The only other factor of note is tactical surprise. In 2-3 of the important engagements, the Germans caught relatively unprepared French forces in particularly vunerable situations, and managed to make a lot of it. Rommel caught an entire French heavy tank battalion in laager waiting to be refueled, without gas to manuever. 6 Panzer shot up the motorized infantry of 2nd Armored in two vunerable truck columns it caught on the road, splitting the formation.

This is not to deny that the other "traditional" factors played a role. Guderian's force put 3 Panzer divisions opposite about the equivalent of 1. German PAK fronts defeated the two most critical counterattacks (10 Panzer plus GD at Sedan, 7 Panzer at Arras). Infantry stubborness and echelon depth made local French successes less common and simply swamped the importance of such as remained. Many on few fights in sequence by using local mass (minimum tank unit a company) kept the attack rolling through delaying forces and roadblocks. But the Allied armor was not avoided or beaten piecemeal. It was engaged in large formations and decisively beaten, at roughly even odds and in less heavily armed and armored tanks. Tactical coordination was the Germans' trump card, and the real cause of their enourmous tactical ascendency in the 1940 campaign.

I hope this is interesting.

[zukkov]

yes, very interesting. thanks for the analysis. putting it simply, the germans were just plain better at the 2 most important things in a short war. planning and execution...

by the way, how long did the germans anticipate the war with france would last??

[JasonC]

I'd put the emphasis on one aspect of the execution. Imagine playing a CM fight where one side has borg sighting, a single commander, low command delays, at least regular quality unit performance, and if you really want to push it with fog of war turned off. While the other side has one player per unit on the map, all of which are green, relative sighting, fog of war on, and the players can only discuss among themselves things that happened 2 or more turns ago.

Many want to think for their own doctrinal reasons that it was all the brilliance of Manstein's plan, or Guderian's massing of armor. Those undoubtedly mattered, and they might even have been enough against a relatively equal force. But they would not have looked nearly so decisive if the Allies had held from Belgium to the sector of 6 Panzer, winning or drawing all the mass armor fights the Germans initiated without any real local odds.

The real mystery is why "better" tanks (in gun and armor terms) in roughly matched operational deployments were blown away so handily along so much of the front. And the reason was tactical coordination superiority. Radioless 2 man turret tanks do have very real failings, and armor tactics are not reducible to the stuff only three-stars and above worry over - nor to stuff only engineers understand, on the other end. The middle of the scale exists and matters. The evidence is the way tank loss ratios track the scale of the tactical armor fight. That isn't planning, and just lumping it into "execution" is too general.

[ June 09, 2002, 04:53 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Michael Emrys]

Jason, it's been years since I read the relevant texts, but wasn't the French 2nd. Armored Div. just forming up at the beginning of the battle? AIR, it had never trained as a complete unit.

Michael

[lassner.1]

The answer to JasonC's question is complex to say the least. If you are truly interested in the answer to “why” the Germans had such success in the invasion of France, you should to begin with the following works (some of which you may have read, but some of which may well be new to you – I have confined myself, primarily, to English language works here):

1). Robert A. Doughty, The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France 1940 (Connecticut: 1990).

2). Eugenia C. Kiesling, Arming Against Hitler: France and the limits of Military Planning (Kansas, 1996).

3). Karl Heinz Frieser, Blitzkrieg-Legende: Der Westfeldzug 1940 (Munich, 1995).

4). Williamson Murray, “Armored Warfare,” in Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett eds. (Cambridge, 1996).

5). Williamson Murray, “May 1940: Contingency and Fragility of the German RMA,” in The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300-2050 (Cambridge, 2001).

6). Alexander N. Lassner, “The Invasion of Austria in March 1938: Blitzkrieg or Pfuch?” in Contemporary Austrian Studies, Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka and Dieter Stiefel eds., vol. 8, (New Jersey, 2000).

[Blenheim]

BUMP, as I find this really interesting. Keep talkin'

[lcm1947]

Yeah very interesting reading JasonC. Thanks. Let me be the first to say that I don't know nothing about nothing but after reading your post I wonder if Germany's determination and the Allied lack of it didn't also have a factor in it. I mean they knew what they had to do and had it all planned out while the Allied were I assume only reacting to the situation and quite possibly not that keen about it to begin. Probably like hoping it would just go away. Anyway, good reading. I enjoyed it.

[JasonC]

"they knew what they had to do and had it all planned out"

Em, perhaps compared to the Allies, but no. They did wargame things, which helped immensely. But they also had their own stick in the muds, fought like the dickens over the plan and its implimentation, did not believe it would work, crossed each other's purposes, left goals completely up in the air, and on the whole did a remarkable amount of flying by the seat of their pants.

Manstein came up with the brilliant Ardennes breakthrough plan. It was so radical compared to the copy of the Schiefflen plan that the rest of the general staff were using as their working assumption (and which the Allies anticipated), that Manstein became persona non grata at OKH for beating the drum for it, and especially for going outside the chain of command trying to sell it to Hitler.

They decided to accept his plan but they didn't accept him. They transfered him off operations planning staff work to command of an infantry corps. He thus had no further say in implimentation. The point of main effort and the idea of deeply echeloned army-sized forces sent through the middle of the line stayed, because Hitler bought into it. He like the fact that it promised a more decisive result than a wheel through Belgium, if it worked.

Guderian wanted all the armor in his own thrust, but nobody else thought that was workable, so he only got 3 out of 10 Panzer divisions. They put a commander over him who didn't believe it would work, who continually tugged on the leash trying to get Guderian to slow down and wait for the infantry to catch up. Guderian resigned his command the day after the breakthrough when he was ordered to stop. It was not accepted, and a senior general was sent instead to smooth ruffled feathers. They settled on a face saving compromise - he was not allowed to move his HQ but he could conduct "recon in force" - which he proceeded to do with his entire command.

Nobody told Guderian where to go after breaking through. There was one short conversation on the matter during a wargame of the campaign. Guderian offered Paris or the channel as the obvious targets, and said he thought the channel was the right target (in keeping with general staff doctrinal emphasis on destruction of enemy fielded forces). When he broke into the clear, he went that way because that is what made sense to him. He got no orders in the matter whatever.

That Sedan was the point of main effort was clear only to a few people who believed the armor thrust would succeed. Easily a majority of the army did not think it would. Four armies striking in a kind of crescent, from Guderian in the south to the straight shot through Belgian in the north, was the thing most expected to work. That was the reason the armor was split into four corps level groups, in column in the two middle ones.

Otherwise put, the general staff expected the area of the 6th and 7th Panzer divisions, and 4th and 12th armies, to wind up as the point of main effort. Instead those formed the hinge that protected Guderian's wheel to the coast. Nearly everybody thought it would take a determined assault by mostly infantry forces to cross the Meuse. To many of them, the armor boys out in front was a gamble on a coup de main (to grab a bridge or three, e.g.) that might speed things up a bit.

There was also plenty of the usual ego based mutual competition between avenues of attack. Each thought his sector should be the main effort, that sort of thing. Only the guys going through Holland, or screening the Maginot line in the south, accepted that their own role was strictly subordinate.

There were several panics and near panics during the actual implimentation. Higher ups gave orders to detach whole divisions to guard flanks from threats that did not exist. A local counterattack somewhere could lead to "halt" orders for everyone farther on. Armor axes of advanced were switched, sometimes repeatedly, causing massive traffic jams in some places. Units regularly told their superiors they were out of gas when they were simply tired, as an excuse to get some rest.

Then when they did get to the channel, they had another big debate about whether to smash into the Allied group thus trapped from the south with the leading armor alone, or to wait for the infantry to come up and the air force to work over the pocket. They chose the latter, much to the dismay of the armor guys who had led the advance to that point.

War is friction. It was not a piece of clockwork. But they had wargamed out the campaign, and particular leaders who had played important roles in building up the plan or their piece of it, were often well prepared for the things that actually happened. The forcing of the crossing itself at Sedan went "by the book", despite several barely-avoided snafus. Even the guys who did it, though, looked back over the terrain and thought it miraculous that they had succeeded.

The point of my detailed analysis was that they had a serious "technical" edge in armor combat, that forgave a multitude of sins. And the Allies had some serious "technical" failings for armor combat, that rendered many otherwise reasonable decisions useless. The tactical coordination edge the German armor force had in 1940 was as definite, large, and important as e.g. night vision vs. no night vision in the Gulf war.

If you don't know what I am talking about this may seem like diffuse praise of something about how the Germans fought. No. It means every tank has a radio; the tank commander is in a heightened "basket" well above the seperate gunner, thus able to see over obstacles; the tanks have "command cupolas" giving 360 views when buttoned; optics give every tank reliable telescopic vision, for seperate target acquisition as well as gun-laying. And in addition, the crews have trained in company and battalion level exercises, functioning as an "articulated" structure or organism, not simple a mass of big hunks of metal in more or less the same area. The German tanks were also faster, for the most part.

As I said, in CM terms it is like borg sighting for one commander, against individual unit commanders for every vehicle, gun, or squad. The bigger the grand tactical fight, the more this matters. The Germans got the sighting differential, a local intel differential, sensible coordinated maneuvers - against meandering confusion. Not because Manstein planned out the tank battle at wheresits three months beforehand. Because Major Whomever "planned" out the tank battle in its first three minutes, and the rest of his formation heard him and acted on his instructions.

Notice, this diagnosis of the cause of German tactical ascendency in 1940 has consequences. A similar disparity existed vis a vis Russia in 1941. But hardly after that, at least on anything like the same scale (somewhat in 1942-1943 in Russia, since the main Russian types were still 2 man turrets). It means a weakness of the Allies - a correctable weakness, morever - had a heck of a lot to do with the result.

Which is rather different from saying "the Germans, always working like clocks, always beat their aimlessly floundering enemies". Which incidentally they didn't, later on. When they believed even more fully in the gospel of mass, offensive maneuver, and the primacy of armor - but no longer had *all* the radios.

[ June 09, 2002, 07:45 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Patgod]

also, that french APX turret had VERY poor visibility for the commander/gunner/cook/hairdresser/the thousands of others jobs the poor bastard was expected to do. it would be very very easy to loose site of someone in anything but strickly open ground.

[JasonC]

To Michael - not trained I will believe. But it had full scale equipment. On the German side, half the panzer divisions involved in the campaign were new (upgraded light divisions among them). Nobody had much experience in armored warfare in May 1940.

A few of the German formations had a few weeks of campaign experience, against a largely tankless enemy, in Poland. The leading German armor officers had good training, but the army had been rather small, and the armor branch a smaller portion of it, for a long time.

On the whole the German armor forces probably had better training, especially in things like working in large units, and combined arms coordination. But marginal superiority in individual trained skills cannot explain the kind of results seen, when Pz IIs and some 37mm tanks take on equal numbers of mixed Somuas and light tanks as capable as themselves in gun and armor terms - and outscore them 4 to 1.

As for the particular case of 2nd Armored, what happened to it is that 6 Panzer ran right through it practically before they knew it was there. They destroyed most of its motorized infantry in two giant road columns, which they caught moving up to the front sans tanks of their own. In the process they cut the division in half and drove straight through it, in a matter of hours. The remaining forces faced the German following echelons without benefit of combined arms.

Tactical surprise has to be awarded most of this result, it seems to me. Poor communications on the French side, and good communications on the German, undoubtedly played a role. But the Germans weren't even looking for that particular opportunity, they just ran into it and made the most of it.

[JasonC]

Right patgod. What is striking is that if you listen to 3rd party observors talking about France 1940 and drawing grand doctrinal conclusions, they are all about mass and the offensive and maneuver warfare - with an occasional nod to combined arms and/or proper armor doctrine. But the *practitioners* talk about visibility and radios and cutting through the fog of war.

They even integrate it into their tactics, in ways that are sometimes comically missed by 3rd party observors. E.g. Rommel arrives at the Meuse crossing site. First thing he does is gets the men firing. They object that they can't see the enemy. So what, fire anyway, *to get their heads down*. Then cross the river at low ground where they will have trouble seeing you.

The tactical practitioner is all focused on intel and sighting questions. The third party observor is told all of this, and thinks it is a sign of aggressiveness or drive or initiative, or some other moralistic abstraction. No, it is about who can *see* what.

Yes, there is a role for aggressiveness in this too. The adage was "if the situation is unclear, attack". Again the moralizing airchair types see the spirit of the offensive. But what the practitioner actually means is that is the way to get intel, because intel is first and foremost about enemy positions and you will find those by attacking, when the enemy reveals himself to stop you.

The spotting and intel focus goes with mobile warfare in many ways. The most obvious is that fluid and rapid mobile warfare generates more friction and fog than other kinds of warfare. Which puts info at a premium. Also, combined arms tactics are paper-scissors-rock. If you know the enemy is "paper at point A", you bring scissors to point A instead of rock. The more combined arms matters, the greater the ability of better information - or better use of available information by spreading it widely and getting it acted on - to provide cheap and important successes.

For what it is worth.

[ June 09, 2002, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JasonC:

What happened to the Allied armor in France in May of 1940? The usual story told by doctrinal theorists is that Allied tank doctrine being so primitive, their tanks were parcelled out all along the front to support infantry. In contrast, the Germans supposedly massed all their armor at the one decisive point. The principle of mass is supposed to account for the German victory. The problem with this neat and simple explanation is that it is simply not true.

I was under the impression that most explanations of the Fall of France featured more than a passing mention of the Luftwaffe. While the reasons for the outcome of anything as complicated as a military campaign can never be summed up in a single phrase, I think that in this case the phrase "air superiority" counts for a great deal.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Contary to common misconceptions, the Allies had large armor formations, not just battalions and brigades meant to support infantry. The French had the 1st and 2nd Armor divisions, and the 1st and 3rd Mechanized divisions, each sporting 200 tanks or more, while the British armor was concentrated in 2 large "brigades" of nearly 200 tanks apiece.

Zaloga's "Blitzkrieg: Armour Camouflage and Markings 1939-1940", while essentially a picture-book, gives some strength charts for the tanks formations of the relevant nations.

Strengths of the Panzer divisions are given as follows, the numbers being first for light and command tanks (Panzers I and II and Panzerbefehlswagen types), and second for gun-armed tanks (35(t), 38(t), Panzer III and IVB):

1 Pz Div: 161 + 98

2 Pz Div: 195 + 90

3 Pz Div: 273 + 68

4 Pz Div: 259 + 64

5 Pz Div: 243 + 84

6 Pz Div: 59 + 159

7 Pz Div: 109 + 110

8 Pz Div: 58 + 154

9 Pz Div: 97 + 56

10 Pz Div: 185 + 90

Strengths of the major French armoured units are given as follows:

Infantry:

3 Divisions Cuirasses, each with 90 H-35s and 70 Chars B-1.

1 Division Cuirasse with 135 H-35s, 45 D-2s and 50 Chars B-1.

24 Battaillons Organiques each with 45 R-35s, H-35s or H-39s.

7 Bataillons Organiques and 1 Bataillon Coloniale each with 63 FT-17s.

One Bataillon Organique with 6 Char-2Cs (gigantic, impressive, and in the end, worthless).

4 Compagnies Autonomes each with 15 H-39s or D2s, 3 each with 10 FT-17s, 5 each with 11 Chars B-1.

Cavalry:

2 Divisions Legeres Mecaniques each with 80 H-35s and 80 S-35s, 40 P-178s and 40 AMRs.

1 Division Legere Mecanique with 60 H-35s, 80 H-39s, 80 S-35s and 40 P-178s.

4 Divisions Legeres de Cavalerie each with 12 H-35s or H-39s, 12 P-178s and 20 AMRs.

1 Division Legere de Cavalerie with 12 H-35s, 12 P-178s and 3 S-35s.

5 Groupes de Reconaissance de Division d'Infanterie each with 12 P-178s and 20 AMRs, and 2 with 12 P-178s and 20 H-35s.

Strengths of the BEF armoured formations are given as:

7 cavalry regiments, each with 28 light tanks and 44 carriers.

2 infantry tank battalions, one with 5 light tanks and 50 Matilda Is, the other with 7 light tanks, 27 Matilda Is and 23 Matilda IIs.

One armoured division, with 134 light tanks and 150 cruisers.

Armoured cars are also present, of which 42 are Daimlers.

To make some kind of comparison with the German numbers we might count all tanks armed with anything better than the ludicrous 37mm SA18 popgun as a "gun tank". We'll count Chars B and Matilda IIs as super-tanks, too. I'm no expert on French tanks, and their armament confuses me, but if we count all the H-39s as having long guns, we get the following strengths in light tanks, gun tanks and super tanks:

1 Division Cuirasse 0 + 90 + 70

2 Division Cuirasse 0 + 90 + 70

3 Division Cuirasse 0 + 90 + 70

4 Division Cuirasse 135 + 45 + 50

1 Division Legere Mecanique 80 + 80 + 0

2 Division Legere Mecanique 80 + 80 + 0

3 Division Legere Mecanique 60 + 160 + 0

Total for independent infantry bns and coys (Bataillons organiques and compagines autonomes):

1614 + 60 + 55 (+ 6 super-duper-monster tanks)

Total for Divisions de Cavalerie and GRDIs:

308 + 335 + 0

Total for BEF, ignoring carriers:

419 + 162 + 23

Originally posted by JasonC:

[snips]

The German tanks were far inferior in gun and armor terms. The French had a mix of light "cavalry" tanks with capabilities similar to the German Czech and Pz IIIs (37mm armed at this time), and heavier Somuas and Chars superior to anything the Germans had. The Brits had Matildas, which outclassed all German tanks as much as the Tiger I later outclassed T-34/76s and Sherman 75s.

Half the German tank force were 20mm armed Pz IIs. The Allies had 2 to 1 overall numerical superiority in armor, [snips]

The Matilda II was a very fine tank, but with only 23 of them in the BEF, I hardly think they were likely to prove a decisive factor. The Char Bs and S-35s would be much more of a problem for the Panzers.

The total strengths I get for light, gun and super tanks, using the categories listed above, are as follows:

Germans 1639 + 973 + 0

(all in Panzer divisions)

French 2277 + 940 + 326

(of which 1922 + 395 + 61 in independent units)

British 419 + 162 + 23

(of which 285 + 12 + 23 in independent units)

In overall tank numbers, that gives an Allied superiority of a little over one-and-a-half to one, which is reversed if one counts only tanks in armoured divisions.

In numbers of gun or "super" tanks, the Allies also have a superiority of about one-and-a-half to one overall, which reduces to near parity of numbers if one considers only tanks in armoured divisions.

This shows that there certainly was a "frittering" or "penny-packeting" effect in the pattern of Allied, particularly French, deployment. However, the effect is more pronounced for the relatively useless light tanks than for proper gun tanks; even if one counts only tanks in armoured divisions, the Allies have a comparable number of serious AFVs which look better, at least in crude measures on paper, than their German opposite numbers.

All of which, I suppose, should serve as some kind of dreadful warning against attmepts to estimate combat effectiveness by counting beans. Concentration occurs in time as well as in space; one of the main reasons for the collapse of the French defence was probably (it would be currently fashionable to say) poor situational assessment (it is noticeable that the assignment of recce assets in French armoured organisations is much less satisfactory than in German or British) and the better-trained, better-controlled Germans getting inside their Boyd loop. I rather suspect that loggy or arty enthusiasts could make a case for the contribution of those elements to the German victory as well, though.

All the best,

John.

[JasonC]

Useful detailed info, John - thanks. I still see the same basic story - the French had Mech and Armored divisions with comparable numbers of capable tanks; the Brits added one AD of their own. The combat narrative shows these formations tangling with their German counterparts, with significant operational armor odds, in time as well as space, only in Guderian's Sedan group.

E.g. Using your figures, 3+4 Pz have 175% as much as 1+3 Mech counting lights, only 54% as many with serious guns. 6 Pz has 136% as much as 2 Arm counting lights, 99% as much with serious guns - and a portion of the French are supers. 7 Pz has 137% as many as 1 Arm counting lights, only 69% as many with serious guns, and again a portion of the French are supers. Other French units in the area might have added more, from the local smaller units. In each of those armor clash match ups, the Germans clobbered the French.

I don't think that can be ascribed to the principle of concentration. Appealing to concentration in time doesn't help either. In the particular tactical fights, moreover, the Germans score highest in the larger fights, even with the local odds near even. The smaller fights where they do have local odds typically give small losses on both sides, and are not the place they rack up the kills.

On the Matildas, they matter only because they were involved in one of the more serious attempts to pinch off the breakthrough with armor, and failed to make a difference. I am willing to agree that they might have made much more of a difference if the Brits had fielded flocks of them. Along with the Char Bs, the Allied supers are a comparable portion to e.g. Tigers and above at Kursk, which people seem to think made a rather serious difference. Gun and armor tank specs rarely seem to be decisive on an operational or larger scale, though - a pet issue of mine.

[TSword]

Jason, couldn't agree more.

And i would add exactly the same was the reason (in other conjunction) for the german armour "superiority" tactically vs. the Soviet tanks up to almost the end.

Greets

Daniel

[c3k]

To add my .02,

The edge JasonC gives to larger German formations can again be explained by the doctrine the Germans implemented in having Tank Commanders command their tanks, instead of operating part of it.

I don't know if this tactic was used early on, but by mid-war it was. A tank unit (platoon, company) would be directed by its commander to fire on a particular target. The engagement was CONTROLLED, not a wild melee.

For example, using the radio, "2nd company, enemy tanks at 12 o'clock, 800 meters. Concentrate fire on 3rd tank from the left, with all the command radio antennas." Hmmm, 15 or so tanks concentrating on a single enemy tank will win. Next call, seconds later, "1st platoon, engage from left to right. 3rd platoon, engage from right to left. 2nd platoon, manuever to the right to flank them." The enemy formation, leaderless, with each tank out of communications, alone, is doomed.

The commander and his radio are critical in achieving tactical superiority. That's why lesser German tanks, in formation, could rip up better and more numerous French, and later Russian, tanks.

Another factor was the types of gun optics. I won't get into the quality issue. What I mean is the actual sight picture. Anyone compare actual WWII German sights vs. others? Okay, how about using Panzer Commander or Panzer Elite. That highlights the difference. (The Panzer Elite web-site has a great link to discuss German sights.)

Here's my attempt to verbally describe the difference. Western sights were similar to what you see in a rifle scope. A cross with gradations. You estimate the range, say 500 meters. That corresponds with, say, the first hack beneath the horizontal line. Okay, elevate the gun so that hack is on target. Now, lead the target, since it's moving (say left to right), so put the target into the open space to the left of the vertical line. Hmmm, slight miss, so eyeball the change and try again. Another miss, etc. Very hard to accurately adjust fire at anything beyond short range.

German sights use a central large triangle, the point of which is the targeted impact point, with smaller triangles in a horizontal line. (The size of the triangles are scaled to correspond to tank lengths at given ranges so it's easy to estimate the range.) Here's the BIG difference. Given a 500 meter range, you don't elevate the aim point. Instead, you rotate the sight's "focus" to the 500 meter range point. Internally, that changes the sight's relationship to the gun barrel so that the gunner just keeps the tip of the triangle on the target. Now, to lead the target, you use the triangles to either side. Miss in range, just dial the sight so the tip of the triangle is on the impact point. That is your EXACT range to the impact, and allows rapid fine-tuning of your shot. Too little lead? Just use the next triangle over.

The German style of sights was/is FAR superior to the simple vertical and horizontal lines with gradations.

Finally, the Luftwaffe and its operational employment were decisive. Account after account details Stuka attacks on enemy command centers. They tried not to waste bombs trying to plink tanks or bunkers. They sowed confusion and paralysis behind the front lines. The air units were trained to locate command centers. Then they would be attacked. So, a battalion CP might start a coordinated attack, only to be destroyed soon thereafter, leaving 3-4 companies flailing, waiting for coordination and direction.

Ken (wordy, too long, maybe only JasonC can read posts like this!)

[Michael Emrys]

Very interesting post, Ken. I didn't know that about German sights. Thanks.

Michael

[JasonC]

I think c3k is on the right track. A commanded and thus coordinated fight vs. dissolving into each tanker trying to figure out something sensible to do. Combined with commanders with good vision and not otherwise occupied.

Yes, the Germans had this edge in 1941 in Russia, too. By 1942 some of the problems were being corrected; a lesser gap still existed but not as large as "radios against none". By 1944 the Russians were in 3 man turrets (T-34/85 rather than T-34/76).

The point is, it is very easy to get the impression from armor sites or from wargames that these are just minutae, not critical factors. But that is because they aren't easily modeled in wargames - which typically put the *player* in the coordinating role and thus roughly equalize the level of command given to both sides - and because they aren't hard numbers for an information site to get groggy about.

The cure would be to sit in the tanks, and better yet to drive them around over terrain. Imagine trying to keep track of a battle from in there. It is a lot easier in some designs than in others.

Guderian has some comments on the changes the Germans made in this field in the 1930s. He mentions the stuff a predecessor, Captain Pirner of the Army Ordinance Office, had required of tank designs in the 1920s. All around field of fire, high ground clearance, maneuverability, engine efficiency - those were the things tank designers were looking at.

"On the other hand one great disadvantage was that the tank commander had to sit in the body of the tank, next to the driver, whence he had of course no field of vision whatever towards the rear and that towards the sides was partially blocked by the forward ends of the tracks and further limited by his low position in relation to the ground. Wireless equipment was not yet available."

He regards these drawbacks as decisive. With them, such tanks were "inadequate to fufill the tactical requirements of the tanks to be employed in the new role which we had envisioned for them."

What changes did he make? He wanted 25 mph road speed, light enough to go over most bridges, a crew of five, "the commander to sit above the gunner and to be provided with a special small command turret with all-round field of vision, driver and wireless operator in the body of the tank. The crew would receive their orders by means of larynx microphones. Facilities for wireless communication from tank to tank that would function while the tanks were in motion were to be installed."

These ideas were quite entirely new in the 1930s. Guderian comments on the above requirements "a comparison of these constructional demands with previous requirements as exemplified by the tank models then in existence will show the changes necessitated by the newly envisaged tactical and operational role that tanks were to play." The tanks of WW I had been "deaf as well as blind", is how Guderian put it. He proposed to give them eyes and ears.

The Allied tanks of 1940 were for the most part deaf, and a fair portion of them were also relatively blind. In straight ahead fights between 2-4 beasts, mostly oriented on other arms both friendly and enemy, those things might not seem to matter too much. The fight itself is so simple even a commander who is also gunner or loader can keep track of things. But make the fight 15 on 15, let alone 50 on 50, and being deaf and blind is crippling.

The quotes above are from Panzer Leader, the creation of the German armored force chapter.

[c3k]

Okay, another of my 2 cents, now up to .04.

The command and control element was considered critical enough by the Germans that they had dedicated command tanks. I believe this is unique in that period.

Why a dedicated command tank? Simply, the radios were too big. In order to get the required radios to enable a command net at long range to function, something had to be removed from the tank. The only thing possible was the main armament. Thus, company commanders and higher did not have a gun. Instead, they had, in addition to the platoon radio/company radio, a radio capable of communicating with battalion and higher.

Now, plunging into battle with no weapon is hard enough. But it also marks you as a priority target! Therefore, they started attaching fake barrels, usually wooden poles, to camouflage their command tanks. (Some ballsy anecdotes come to mind of company commanders penetrating enemy columns at night, having to bluff their way through with what little Russian they speak, being almost totally vulnerable if discovered.)

This dedicated command tank with radios is an important tactical/operational advantage.

Later (~'42-43), tanks got bigger and radios got smaller, so that the command tanks were able to be armed with the same weapons as the rest.

A while back I posted about trying to imagine yourself in the place of Russian tank commander. In order to signal your platoon/company, you've got to open up your hatch (presumably under fire, since why else would you need to change plan under way unless in contact with the enemy and something isn't working out the way you'd imagined it would), shells going off nearby, bullets flying, tank rocking and slinging you around, dust obscuring everything (anyone else ever ride a tank when it's dry out?), adrenaline pumping, ball-sack shrivelled, and start waving your little flags around. How many of your tank commanders are looking at you at the right time? Right, none. Hence, the standard Soviet tactical briefing: "Follow me. If I die, follow Yuri. Questions?"

(Erickson's appendices have some interesting information regarding German radio set's ranges, weights, and frequencies.)

Ken (again, I wrote too much.)

[Slangton]

I really enjoyed that. Excellent work, all of you.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by c3k:

To add my .02,

I'll see your two cents and raise you a farthing.

Originally posted by c3k:

[snips]

Another factor was the types of gun optics.

[snips]

Here's my attempt to verbally describe the difference. Western sights were similar to what you see in a rifle scope. A cross with gradations. You estimate the range, say 500 meters. That corresponds with, say, the first hack beneath the horizontal line. Okay, elevate the gun so that hack is on target. Now, lead the target, since it's moving (say left to right), so put the target into the open space to the left of the vertical line. Hmmm, slight miss, so eyeball the change and try again. Another miss, etc. Very hard to accurately adjust fire at anything beyond short range.

What you have described there is not so much a difference in the optics as a difference in the way the sights are attached to the gun tube.

On my last trip to the PRO I came across a document, WO 291/92, called "The accuracy of central laying in tank gunnery with different types of central aiming mark". This distinguishes three kinds of tank gun laying:

Fixed telescope - fixed graticule. The telescope is fixed solidly to the gun tube and moves with it. The graticule (which can only be moved for zeroing) is used by the gunner to aim-off in both line and elevation. This type of laying was standard in British tanks (except the 6-pounder Valentine), using a x 1.9 mag telescope, as of 1943.

Central laying. The telescope or graticule moves in relation to the gun tube, so that the central aiming mark is always directly over the target in the sight picture.

Semi-central laying. This uses a vertically-moving graticule, with aim-off in the horizontal plane. This is the system used in most German telescopes.

I must confess that the obvious point that the sighting telescope could be fixed to the gun tube or move relative to it had never occurred to me before reading this document. It's wonderful how ignorant it is possible to be of a subject after three decades of interest in it.

Originally posted by c3k:

[snips]

The German style of sights was/is FAR superior to the simple vertical and horizontal lines with gradations.

The report mentioned above has some things to say about the aiming marks used in central laying (maybe you'd guessed that from the title). It says that British forces in the Middle East had criticised their tank sights, which used crosswires, saying that the German inverted-V aiming mark was far superior. Trials showed that, as an aiming mark, it was not (although this says nothing about the superiority of central or semi-central laying over having to aim off in both dimensions).

It was found that the order of merit for accuracy of aim for five different aiming marks was a s follows:

1st. 10-minute circle

2nd. 20-minute circle

3rd. Inverted V

4th. 3/4-minute crosswire

5th. Gapped crosswire (20-min gap)

However, it stated that the overall effect of the aiming mark was negligible compared to the 90% zone of the gun. It did, however, criticise the then-current British crosswires for being too thick, and tending to obscure the target at long range.

Another possible handicap to British gunnery in the early war years was the habit (which I seem to recall being mentioned in another PRO report) of aiming for the bottom of the target, instead of the centre of mass. Assuming that the projectile dispersion around the aim point follows the normal distribution, then according to my table of same it would lead to the following reductions in hit probability:

60% P(hit) reduces to 45%

50% P(hit) reduces to 41%

40% P(hit) reduces to 35%

30% P(hit) reduces to 28%

I don't know what the practice was in other nations, but aiming at the centre of mass is AFAIK now universal.

Originally posted by c3k:

Ken (wordy, too long, maybe only JasonC can read posts like this!)

Not long enough. Someone tell me what kinds of sighting American, Russian, Italian, French, Japanese, Czech and Hungarian tank guns used, please?

All the best,

John.

[zukkov]

your point about the german gun sights is well taken. i played WW2 online a bit last year(don't hate me!), and they had that sight in the game. you just estimated your range and rotated the dial, then set the triangle on the target and fired, and adjusted from there. it worked pretty well at long range. anyway, just thought i'd mention it...

[Sir Uber General]

I'd like to second zukkov's comment about ww2o tank sights being a good demonstration of the superiority of the German stuff. A lot of armour/gun grogs put a lot of feedback into that gun model (I was a beta tester so i saw it going on), and it is really quite fun to check out.

But do you know what makes more difference than the gun sight? The gunner of course... some people just stink My best longest range kill was an '88 from 1600 meters out using a 2 pounder The gun sight was so poor I was adjusting fire from the commanders bino's.. anyway, back to our regular programming!

[killmore]

Where is Fionn when you need him?

[Hunter]

Regarding the german gun sights....I think read that Bobby Woll (Wittman's gunner) used to adjust his range to about 800m and manually adjust short/long by eye.

It sounds like the kind of practical thing that a gunner would do to overcome limited technology.

[c3k]

Hunter,

The standard 800m sight range before engagement sounds more like exploiting advanced technology to me rather than overcoming limited technology. (My apologies if I've misinterpreted the meaning of your post.)

Here's why: setting a sight for 800 meters will give a certain projectile trajectory, assuming you place the tip of the sighting triangle on the same location of the target for each engagement. (If you set the sight for 799 meters and use the same sight picture, the projectile will follow a slightly different trajectory.)

Anyone by the name of Rexford should feel free to add in some real numbers at any point.

So, how large a target will you ordinarily engage? At a sight range of 800 meters, how high will the projectile reach at the maximum point on its trajectory? How much further past 800 meters will the projectile continue and still hit a target tank hull if the aimpoint is set for center of mass? (I.e., the target is further than 800 meters, say 1,100 meters. Will the shell only drop 1/2 meter over the next 300 meters? Thus still killing the target?)

In other words, that 800 meter default sight setting may be good, given the gun, for first shot hits on all tank-sized targets from 300 meters out to 1,200 meters. No need to adjust the sight at the beginning of each and every engagement. Odds are quite high that you'll hit the first time. And here's the big part: you'll hit the target the first time, WHILE PLACING THE AIMPOINT ON THE CENTER OF MASS OF THE TARGET.

Western style, fixed graticle sights (reticle?) cannot be adapted for this kind of expediency. You've got to estimate the range, eyeball how high to elevate the sight picture and hope for the best. You cannot place the center of the aimpoint on the target and expect a hit, unless the range is extremely short.

Advantage, Germans.

Ken (semi-graticulated)