French armour in German service ?

[Agentorange]

I was just wondering how much French armour was used by the Germans? Can anybody suggest a couple of sites or books on this. Specifically how much actually saw combat ( and where ) as opposed to internal security etc

thanks in advance

[Panzer Leader]

Well, "all they could lay their hands on" sounds about right. For French weapons in German Service, "German Tanks of WW2" is a good source. Some famous and popular French tanks are:

H-35 Hotchkiss

S-35 Somua

Char B1 Bis (os that right?)

And a very popular vehicle for the Germans was the Lorraine Schlepper, a light tractor that they used for everything from munitions carrier to weapons platform

[Panzer Leader]

Oh and let's not forget the loveable little Panhard Armoured car, which saw use in great numbers. Hope that's in CMBB!

[gredeker]

21st Panzer in France had a bunch of weird stuff, basically consisting of combinations of German artillery (75mm AT gun, 105mm howitzer, 150mm IG) on French tank and HT chassis. I think the Hotchkiss H39 tank and the Somua S-307(?) HT were the major chassis types.

IIRC, most of these tanks were organized into Assault Gun Battalion 200 under Major Becker, the engineer who spearheaded the alteration/construction of these ad hoc AFVs.

[Jarmo]

Here are a few bits from my email conversations with JasonC from when I was collecting tank manufacturing data. I'm not saying this is all correct (beyond me to judge stuff this groggy), and I'm redistributing this without permission because I'm bit of an a$$hole. And Mr C seems to have disappeared anyway..

You'll just have to guess which captions are mine and which are from JC.

> Also, how many Hotchkisses were taken into german service?

There is enourmous confusion about this, not least by BTS. The Germans used

several models of French tanks. Most of them were used on secondary

fronts - Finland, the Balkans - not in the west. The Hotchkiss was among

them. But there was only one model commonly used in Normandy against the

western Allies, but it wasn't the Hotchkiss.

The Hotchkiss is the H-35 in French designation, H for the designer and 35

for the year it was adopted. It was a light cavalry tank with a 37mm main

armament and coaxial MG. The S-35, on the other hand, was the Somua, a

heavier medium tank with better armor and a 47mm main armament, also plus a

coaxial MG. It was probably the most modern French tank at the time of the

1940 campaign.

It was the Somua, the S-35, that was used in Normandy in some numbers. The

21st Panzer division had 35 of them plus 3 command tanks with extra radios.

But here is the confusing kicker - they also used 2, count 'em 2, Hotchkiss.

Making it easy to come across one, identify it as the make of French tank

being used, and then assume they were all H-35s instead of S-35s.

For all the French tanks, the answer is 40 of them in one formation, the

21st Panzer division. Which happened to be immediately behind the UK

invasion area on D-Day, thus all the notice its vehicles received. But 3 of

them were command tanks, only 2 were the Hotchkiss H-35, and the other 35,

the bulk, were Somuas, S-35s not H-35s. Note - this does not exhaust the

number of French tanks, or French tanks of those models, in German service.

But it does exhaust the ones used in Normandy - the rest were off being used

against partisans in the Balkans and what-not.

Some additional sources on the web are -

German AFV production by year and type:

http://members.tripod.com/~Sturmvogel/GermAFVProd.html

All vehicles, all nations, pictures and stats, including model changes and

some production info, but not complete coverage:

http://www.siemers.com/

>as is the H-35 vs Somua thing.

There is one complication to that, which I have found with a little more

digging. Another unit in Normandy was using French tanks, an ad hoc

formation called the 100 Pz battalion, with 29 old French tanks (and 1 Pz

III). They fought in the penisula, were the US Paras landed. 8 of them

were Hotchkiss - there were also 14 R-35s, a different kind again but with

the 37mm gun like the Hotchkiss. It was destroyed by 22 June, having fought

in support of the 91st Infantry division.

Failing to take Caen quickly and the chaotic fighting in the US para sector

were obviously two of the critical passages of the early fighting, and small

numbers of old French tanks were used on those occasions. The CM Hotchkiss

is probably close enough to what any of them could do for most purposes -

though it would be nice to at least have the Somua as well, since it was a

better tank overall.

[Eric Young]

Some numbers.

On March 1st 1944 100th Panzer Regiment of the 21st Panzer Division had 42 Somua, and 10 Hotchkiss tanks. These were replaced by Panzer IV's before it saw action at D Day.

Other numbers include 10 platoons of 4 Hotchkiss each fighting in the Balkans from 1941 to 1943.

Of particular interest is the 211th Panzer Battalion that was equiped with Hotchkiss and Somua tanks that fought across Finland in the summer of 1941. Should be 48 Hotchkiss and 16 Somua.

Numbers on December 30 1944,

38H 735f: 29 tanks

35S 739f: 12 tanks

B-2f(flamethrower Char B2 bis): 9 tanks

35R 731: 24 on Channel Islands

Units engaged by American Forces on D-Day and after.

100th Panzer Battalion

8 Hotchkiss, 17 R35, 1 S35 I Char B

206th Panzer battalion

28 Hotchkiss, 10 Somua, 5 Char B

More....

213th Panzer Battalion (on Channel Islands)

36 Char B

Jentz says that many R35's were spread out in platoon strength to all the infantry divisions in France.

All of the French tanks in German service fought in platoons of four vehicles.

E

[M Hofbauer]

yes, what Eric said, plus keep in mind there was a tendency of german formations, especially towards the end of the war, not to report all their actual vehicles in their strength reports (if they appeared to be still of considerable strength then it would be less likely for them to receive reinforcements or vehicles might even be taken from them to strengthen other formations which had even less vehicles). This especially relevant for captured vehicles (and other assorted specialties) which were often dragged along with an enterprising unit as long as possible, without ever showing up in their strength reports.

need to stress again I amnot saying it happened on a large scale and everywhere, just that such behavior was not uncommon.

[M Hofbauer]

another thing is the mysterios lack of reports on FT-17s altogether, only a few appear in strength reports, while it is obvious that there should be more of these vehicles in german service under the designation Pz 730(f), because it was a most numerous french tank - when including the FT-17s that were used in reserve units, schools and stocked in arsenals it was arguably the most numerous type.

A report of the german department responsible for repairing and germanizing captured foreign vehicles, dated Nov. 5th 1941, gave an estimate of a batch of french tanks which it would be able to deliver by early 1942:

60 R-35 (re-equipped with the czech 4,7cm PaK main gun)(PzKpfw 35-R 731(f))

125 R-35 (with original french gun)(PzKpfw 35-R 731(f))

200 Hotchkiss (PzKpfw 39-H 735(f))

20 Somua (PzKpfw 35-S 739(f))

500 Renault FT17/18 (PzKpfw 730(f))!!!

an additional 400 Hotchkiss and 20 Somua were intended to equip the BeutePzBrig 100 and 101.

Mind you, while this report arguably covers the main batch of integration of french tanks into the german forces, it is by no means complete at all.

The question then remains what happened to the myriad of FT-17/18 tanks, when for example a tank strength report dated June 1943 only shows a total of 12 FT-17/18 tanks, used in the west (France), while the other french tanks (Somua, Hotchkiss, R-35 and Char B-1 and Panhard) number roughly 500, distributed all over europe.

[Schrullenhaft]

I have no sources on this, but...

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these older French tanks, especially the FT-17/18's (and those of other nationalities) had their turrets/armament removed and they were utilized as prime movers/tractors (of smaller guns, ammo, etc.).

[Agentorange]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I had a couple of reasons for asking, firstly I've just DL'd the Village des Moulins scenario which has a french tank in, and that got me to thinking about the whole thing. secondly I've recently bought a copy of Chamberlain and Doyle's 'Encyclopedia of german tanks of WW2' which has a section on French armour - it's good for technical stuff but a bit short on combat history.

Looking at the book I was surprised how much stuff was taken into service, either as was or converted to SPG. Shame they couldn't get some more of these into the game, especially when you consider that they served almost exclusively on the western front, and CMBO is by definition a western front game, would have added more flavour if you see what I mean. A couple of likely candidates are:

7.5cm Pak40/1 auf GW Lorraine Schlepper (sdkfz 135 ) about 130 still in service in 1944.

4.7cm Pak(t) auf 35R(f) about 110 in service in 1944

When you consider that the Puma ran to about 100 vehicles on both fronts and that's in the game....

Still i suspect that this is very old ground so I'll stop now

ps just noticed that Schiffer have one of their 48p series on this.... probably buy it come pay day.

[ May 19, 2002, 04:28 PM: Message edited by: Agentorange ]