French tanks in British service, Battle of France, 1941

[NARSES2]

They do look good 

[Jakko]

If only they'd had two or three crew turrets

It's one of those very strange decisions, I agree. For the FT, a single-man turret is understandable: nobody really knew much about tank design or tank warfare, so it probably seemed sufficient. But that they still stuck to that idea twenty years later, with plenty of experience and overworked commanders, seems very odd.

The British kind of wanted a two-man turret for their H39s, had they seriously decided to produce them, but also twelve bogies ... I'm very puzzled how they would fit either of those to the tank, though. Two bogies side-by-side is the only reasonable way I can imagine this happening, but then you've got a relatively wide, short tank that would he hard to keep going in a straight line. Never mind where to find the room for a turret ring big enough for two men. It sounds to me like they were after a total redesign, and at that point the Matilda II would be a far better tank anyway.

Whereas the B1 was easily wide enough to take a larger turret, perhaps set a bit further back on the hull to allow enough room for the 75 mm gunner and loader.

[Weaver]

The Matilda II was the proof of the argument: cast hull, cast turret, heavy armour, three-man turret. There was a version with a 3" (76mm) howitzer, so it's hard to see how the French 47mm gun couldn't have been fitted to it.

The problem with fitting a larger turret to the B1 was the old-fashioned system of running the tracks around the top of the hull. That prevented the hull having a T-shaped cross section that would have allowed the turret ring to overlap the tracks. You could certainly re-arrange B1 components in a new, modern hull to make it possible though.

[Old Wombat]

The problem for the French was that their tank doctrine was firmly stuck in the mud of WW1 trench warfare & the mindset of tanks being purely infantry support. Their role was to roll over the barbed wire of no-man's-land & their guns were to take out strong-points & bunkers, the anti-tank gun on top was there "just in case" they ran into enemy tanks.

The British had paved the way for mobile tank warfare, then gotten waylaid by the artilleryman-heavy senior command, who saw any other branch as mere support for their guns & mobile armoured warfare as a threat to their dominance. The main weapon of the Matilda II, according to these senior officers, was the machine gun, the 2-pdr was there (also) "just in case". It is worth noting that the 2-pdr had a fairly decent HE round (given its small calibre) but the hierarchy refused to issue it to tanks because it was an "anti-personnel & materiel" projectile, which was the role of the artillery. Still, there were enough officers who had learned the lessons of the trial armoured units of the late-20s/early-30s to be able to at least slightly influence tank design & doctrine going into WW2. So British tanks were more ergonomic & better used that all but those of the Germans at the start of the war.

The US Army still thought of tanks as mobile machine-gun pillboxes in 1939/1940.

[Weaver]

And as the battle at Arras showed, the British tanks and their formations could be decently effective if given half a chance.

[scooter]

The US Army still thought of tanks as mobile machine-gun pillboxes in 1939/1940.

That's because we thought the horse would still be the king of the battlefield.  The Chieftain did a video series on US Army armor development and exercises during the interwar years a few years ago, and noted that the logistics trains still included horse trailers for the cav.

[Wardukw]

When your stuck in the past you cant prepare for the future .

[NARSES2]

The US Army still thought of tanks as mobile machine-gun pillboxes in 1939/1940.

That's because we thought the horse would still be the king of the battlefield.  The Chieftain did a video series on US Army armor development and exercises during the interwar years a few years ago, and noted that the logistics trains still included horse trailers for the cav.

I know it wasn't for the same reason, but the German's were still very much reliant on the horse all the way through WW II.

From memory the British got rid of their last horses, other than for ceremonial purposes, some time in the mid 30's ?

[Jakko]

The problem with fitting a larger turret to the B1 was the old-fashioned system of running the tracks around the top of the hull. That prevented the hull having a T-shaped cross section

There is definitely room within the normal B1 hull to fit a larger turret: the existing turret ring is less than full width and it's offset to the left because of the 75 mm gun. That's why I said they could have fit a larger turret by moving it back a bit.

The problem for the French was that their tank doctrine was firmly stuck in the mud of WW1 trench warfare & the mindset of tanks being purely infantry support.

The French had two tank doctrines, just like the British, the Germans and the Soviets. All their infantry tanks were heavily armoured and armed, but they also had cavalry tanks meant to be faster and used for reconnaissance and exploitation. Much like in the US Army, and for similar reasons, there's the odd duality of having "chars" for the infantry and "automitrailleuses de combat" for the cavalry, the latter usually being faster than the former.

[Jakko]

You cannot view this attachment.

For the B1, I'm aiming for the look of a tank that's out in the rain. On all of the vertical and sloping surfaces, I attempted to make rain streaks by brushing raw umber oil paint, thinned with white spirit, downward with a wide brush. Now, a few days later, it appears to be starting to dry Maybe it needs a bit more to increase the effect, but in the mean time, I've added an effect of thin mud running down the tank with Tamiya Flat Earth — except I just realised that I forgot to add it in and below the mud chutes towards the front of each side of the tank. I'll do that in a moment, I guess

After that, I installed the tracks, which I had sprayed Flat Earth back when I had just built the model 15+ years ago, and now (before fitting them, of course) I added a wash to shade them and then drybrushed them with Humbrol Polished Steel. I also painted the teeth of the drive sprockets and the visible running surfaces of the idlers and roadwheels with that, then polished all of it with a soft toothbrush.

I think that I want to put a coat of semi-gloss varnish on the upper surfaces to give a wet effect, and also brush that in streaks down the sides etc. so it looks even more like rainwater running off the tank.

[Rick Lowe]

I think that I want to put a coat of semi-gloss varnish on the upper surfaces to give a wet effect, and also brush that in streaks down the sides etc. so it looks even more like rainwater running off the tank.

That sounds like a cool effect - I'll be interested to see how it comes out. 

Looking good there. 

[Jakko]

I'm also interesting in seeing if it will come out anything like what I have in mind

[Weaver]

I think that I want to put a coat of semi-gloss varnish on the upper surfaces to give a wet effect, and also brush that in streaks down the sides etc. so it looks even more like rainwater running off the tank.

That sounds like a cool effect - I'll be interested to see how it comes out. 

Looking good there. 

Yeah, me too: I've thought of that a few times.

I was going to do a new Scottish Air Force F-16 ADF arriving at its home base to a welcoming party in the pouring rain, but unfortunately I screwed up the paint on the model before getting that far.

[buzzbomb]

Catching up again.

I like these a lot. Really sits the era nicely   

[Raptor341]

Trying to envision a two-man turret H-39...