French tanks in British service, Battle of France, 1941

[Jakko]

Recently, I did the layout for this book that's now available for purchase:

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As a result, I've read the whole text several times before a printed copy even dropped through the letterbox It has some interesting things to tell us about reasonably serious plans to cast armoured components for the H39 and/or Char B1 in the UK, in return for which the British would get completed tanks equal to half the number of castings they supplied. This never actually happened for several reasons, primarily of course the fall of France in June 1940, but also because the British were looking at making quite a few changes to make the H39 (the main candidate for this plan) better suited to their ways of armoured warfare. They wanted a two-man turret, for example, because they felt it needed more than one man (many French shared this opinion, but they were stuck with the turret, at least in the short run). There was also mention of doubling the number of bogies, but I can't figure out what exactly they meant by that — two side-by-side? I can't make much else of it, but it seems unlikely. There were also ideas about boring out the 37 mm gun to 39 mm so that it could fire British 2-pounder ammunition (a gun that today is considered a 40 mm, but in the late 1930s apparently a 39 mm).

Now, I have these kits etc.:

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In other words: What if the Battle of France had gone according to Franco-British plans so that the Germans would have been halted in northern France? and What if (because of this) French tanks had been supplied to the British in order to continue the war in France?.

Let's start by showing the contents of the boxes. The H39 is, of course, brand-new and looks very good, as you would expect of modern Tamiya kits:

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And the B1 bis:

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Um ... Oh, yeah, I've had this for a bit longer, that's right ... Almost twenty years ago, when it was new, I bought and built this kit, but never finished painting it:

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As those knowledgeable about the B1 will already have spotted, the intention was to make it into tank No. 251, named Fantasque, but my artistic skills weren't up to doing justice to the painted-on trees and shrubs, which meant it ended up back in its box only to come out of it again now


The H39 will be built more or less straight from the box, with a few modifications. At the very least a British antenna, and probably reinforcing plates on all six bogies instead of only on the front ones or none at all, as Tamiya supplies them. And perhaps a hint that the gun uses 2-pounder ammunition.

The B1 bis will also get a British antenna and also a 2-pounder gun, because that was a better antitank gun than the French 47 mm and as far as I can tell, would fit in the turret. I also need to remove several parts that are already on the model, because Fantasque was a mid-production vehicle while the British would of course have gotten tanks with later features than that. Luckily, the details are on chars-francais.net.

And, of course, British camouflage, markings and crews for both. That's what the Gecko figures and Peddinghaus decals are for

[Jakko]

I began work on the model by taking off the unnecessary bits tonight:

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The turret, its hatch and the commander's cupola were loose anyway, the rest took a bit more effort. Not that much, because almost everything came off reasonably easily, except the antenna. I had to saw through that for about two-thirds of its diameter and then did the rest with a chisel-shaped knife, because there were details on the roof in the way of the saw. In doing this, I _just_ managed to avoid stabbing myself in the fingers when the antenna gave way at the end of the— even though I was consciously trying to keep them out of the path of the blade! In other words: always beware.

[scooter]

I _just_ managed to avoid stabbing myself in the fingers when the antenna gave way at the end of the— even though I was consciously trying to keep them out of the path of the blade! In other words: always beware.

The modeling gods demanded a blood sacrifice.

[Mossie]

Two potentials I've thought about in the past, I'll be watching this closely.

[NARSES2]

I've often pondered the possibility of the German's being halted in 1940, so will be watching with interest 

I wasn't even aware Tamiya did an H.39, interesting 

[Jakko]

I've often pondered the possibility of the German's being halted in 1940, so will be watching with interest 

The basic premise here is that the Germans did attack like the French and British expected — basically: not through the Ardennes — and so were halted more or less according to the Allied plans, which resulted in the war becoming more static and "breakthrough" tanks like the B1 and Churchill being not just useful but necessary.

I wasn't even aware Tamiya did an H.39, interesting 

It's brand-new, released literally a couple of weeks ago

[scooter]

I've often pondered the possibility of the German's being halted in 1940, so will be watching with interest 

The basic premise here is that the Germans did attack like the French and British expected — basically: not through the Ardennes — and so were halted more or less according to the Allied plans, which resulted in the war becoming more static and "breakthrough" tanks like the B1 and Churchill being not just useful but necessary.

Also the mighty


Given its resurgence in popularity, thanks to WT and WoT, its a shame there isn't a decent 1/35 injection kit.

[Steel Penguin]

the mighty TOG,   i am mildly surprised that some one hasn't done a kit,    but as it was made flesh so to speak, and not a paper project  its not entirely a shock    

[Jakko]

There's a photo of an earlier configuration of TOG in P.M. Knight's book, too In that, it still has a Matilda turret (without guns) and big holes in the sides where sponsons were meant to go.


After taking the B1 apart, I had to clean up some more stuff before I could start rebuilding the model. In some of the holes for the mudguard locating pins, broken-off pieces of those pins remained, but I managed to get them out by giving them a tap using a punch and hammer from one of my punch-and-die sets. Unfortunately, I didn't notice in time that there are pins only at about half the locations of the mudguard supports on the real tank, leading me to think that there were also pins at the others that refused to come out, so I drilled those out. When I noticed my mistake, I had to fill them all with some putty again

I then filed off the remains of the antenna base, losing a couple of rivets in the process, in addition to the ones that had to be cut away to fit the antenna back when I originally built this kit. Using the drawing in the instructions that tells you which rivets to remove for that, I could put all of them back after scribing the seam between the plates that was also lost by glueing the antenna over it:

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The white dot is putty in an unnecessarily drilled hole The horrible patterns in the paint appeared as soon as I first sprayed the model way back when. I don't know what I did wrong, but I clearly did. That was another reason I put the model back into the box

That done, I could fit the other mudguards:

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I had also completely taken off the fence on the hull top (which serves to prevent the turret guns from shooting up the back of the tank), but it fit neatly back in place. I also took off the driver's hatch, as I intend to replace that with another.

[Jakko]

By now I've also started on the H39:

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The upper hull is still loose, it's only on to make sure the lower hull is correct. But it's very obvious that this is a brand-new Tamiya kit: everything simply fits as it should, not too loose but also not too tight like you get with many Chinese brands.

[buzzbomb]

Interesting project. The concept of the backstory is good as well 

[Wardukw]

Being a Jakko build I know it's going to be quite good 
So yep .I'm interested for sure 😀

[NARSES2]

I've often pondered the possibility of the German's being halted in 1940, so will be watching with interest 

The basic premise here is that the Germans did attack like the French and British expected — basically: not through the Ardennes — and so were halted more or less according to the Allied plans, which resulted in the war becoming more static and "breakthrough" tanks like the B1 and Churchill being not just useful but necessary.

One of the interesting possibilities that arises from this scenario is what does Italy do ? Side with Germany, side with the Allies (as was a possibility) or stay neutral ?

That H-39 looks nice 

[Jakko]

I've considered the idea of painting one of these tanks in a North Africa scheme, but I'm as yet undecided about that. Doing so would imply Italy did enter the war on the German side, possibly due to German pressure to open a second front in Libya.

As for the model, the real H39 had a number of variations in the bogies: without reinforcing plates welded to the wheel arms, or with a few different sizes of those. I'm under the impression (based on asking about this on Missing-Lynx) that this plate was enlarged over time to make the wheel arms sufficiently strong. When the Germans rebuilt H39s, they put them on the front wheel stations, while in French service they could be on one, two or all three stations per side. But Tamiya only gives two reinforced bogies with a large plate on both arms and six with only a small plate on one arm per bogie. Because I figure the speculative British H39s would have had the latest improvements that were in production in 1940, I wanted a large plate on all of the wheel arms. That required a little cutting so I could glue bits of 0.25 mm plastic card, 4 mm high and 3.5 mm wide, to the wheel arms:

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At left an unmodified part, in the middle one from which I've cut away the small plate, at upper right one with both plates glued on, and below that a kit part with those plates. I didn't use that last one because I don't want there to be an obvious difference between the kit parts and the converted ones. Another way, of course, is to ask two people for their leftover parts

Here's all six modified bogies:

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I only glued the plates to the outside, because those on the inside would be all but invisible. I think I might smear a little putty along the edges to replicate the welds around the plates.

The hull is now largely done and the basic turret shape is also together:

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I'm undecided whether to fit the trench skid on the rear of the hull. It's exactly the kind of thing that the British Army's higher-ups might have decided is unnecessary, and which tank crews then later wished they had it

[buzzbomb]

I'm undecided whether to fit the trench skid on the rear of the hull. It's exactly the kind of thing that the British Army's higher-ups might have decided is unnecessary, and which tank crews then later wished they had it

Some BEF Matilda II were fitted with rear skids, so in concept in could stay, depends on how it works on your build in this backstory