Need help with a question

[Clone155]

Hey guys. I have a friend that is trying to tell me that the French had the best tanks in WW2, he even says it was better than the German's tiger. He says it had the first ever sloped armour. Now when I tried to tell him he was dumb, I couldn't think of any french vehicles at all! Is there really a french super tank? Or is does my friend know nothing?

[MachFly]

Russians had 1st sloped armor with the T-34, Germans had the biggest & heaviest tanks, French were occupied by Germany without any military of their own.

Have you tried asking him to name a single French tank that was the "best"?

[straffo]

What timeframe ?

If it was at the beginning the S35 was probably the best of it's category ,I won't bet a cent on a PzKpfw III facing a S35.

Aswell I won't bet a cent on a S35 facing a Tiger or a PzKpfw IV.

[MachFly]

What timeframe ?

I thought he meant overall during the war

[Rino]

     Nothing the French used during WW2 mounted anything bigger than a short
75mm <Char B>.  Most of the French armor mounted a 37 or 47mm turret gun
usually operated by the tank commander resulting in a tremendous workload
for those poor guys.

     The tiger could have mopped up companies of those vehicles without breaking
a sweat.



Char B "heavy" tank



Somua S-35 Cavalry tank



Renault FT-17 Light tank

[AWwrgwy]

     Nothing the French used during WW2 mounted anything bigger than a short
75mm <Char B>.  Most of the French armor mounted a 37 or 47mm turret gun
usually operated by the tank commander resulting in a tremendous workload
for those poor guys.

     The tiger could have mopped up companies of those vehicles without breaking
a sweat.

(Image removed from quote.)

Char B "heavy" tank

(Image removed from quote.)

Somua S-35 Cavalry tank

(Image removed from quote.)

Renault FT-17 Light tank

But are we taking into account Early War, when the French did have a military?  A .50 as armament was considered adequate in 1939 and could kill a tank then too.

Things changed quickly.


wrongway

[Tac]

At the start of the war, the french had the most powerful tanks in europe. the above mentioned Char and Somua.

on paper that is.

The somua was for its time a true work of art. it had excellent suspension and transmission, a rather good gun (for the time) and heavy armor for a so called 'medium' tank. Its biggest drawback (which all french tanks had) was the poor visibility the tank cmdr. This was the leading cause of the somua's dying to much lighter tanks that managed to flank and blast them.

The char... well the char was a nightmare. it had extremely thick armor, a huge gun (for its time) and, like the somua, had very poor visibility for the tank cmdr. In fact, the tank cmdr was a miserable person in that tank. Not only was he supposed to lead the tank but also load, aim and fire the top turret cannon all by himself. The germans noticed that they could catch the char by surprise very easily after its infantry support had left (or killed) .. the poor cmdr inside was too busy loading, firing the gun and telling the driver where to go to have time to scan around to see if anyone was flanking them. and thats how they were killed off by AT infantry and lighter tanks.

Both of the above tanks were designed as INFANTRY support tanks hence both were very slow so the infantry could keep up. fighting another tank they assumed would happen on a head-on scenario or the tank was to fight off artillery pieces on the enemy's defense line, that is why these tanks had heavy armor up front and yes, it was sloped armor (more of a curved down slope really).


but.. the french tanks were completely outclassed by the panzer 3H and p4 versions that appeared shortly after france fell. The germans used their tincan little tanks like the pz2's, Pz1's and the pt38 (all had peashooter guns and armor that was merely infantry bulletproof for all purposes.. a .50 cal would slice through them) that were insanely faster to bypass , encircle and let the artillery and air kill off the heavy french tanks.


Your friend is dead wrong unless he claiming France had the best tanks in the first week of the war.   

[Clone155]

I forgot to mention he said that the tank had a 90mm cannon on it, and that it could beat the tiger easy but because of bad leadership they lost.

Here is another question another friend told me. He said that the luftwaffe sucks and they got beat bad in the battle of britian. I am not a man of words, but I am pretty sure this is NOT true aswell.

[Rino]

     Unless the French were driving M-36s or Pershings, I very much doubt
they had anything in WW2 that fits that description.

     As far as the BoB went, it was a near run thing.  Yes the Luftwaffe was
defeated, but the end of the Battle had alot more to do with Hitler's planned
Russian adventure and the timeframe involved.  Not to take anything away
from the RAF, they did a magnificent job of holding off a vastly larger enemy.

[Tac]

"

I forgot to mention he said that the tank had a 90mm cannon on it, and that it could beat the tiger easy but because of bad leadership they lost."

Im not aware of the char having that gun. the top turret could not handle it and the body of the char itself (where the big gun was in.. think about it, that tank had the gun IN the body not in a turret..they had to steer the tank to aim it left/right!) ... so i really doubt they couldve placed a 90mm in the body of the tank, it was cramped as hell inside already.

"Here is another question another friend told me. He said that the luftwaffe sucks and they got beat bad in the battle of britian. I am not a man of words, but I am pretty sure this is NOT true aswell."

In all fairness both the LW and the RAF did a wonderful job in the BoB in terms of performance. The brits won because all battles were fought over their territory so the pilots that bailed out safely were back in action the next day so to speak. the Germans on the other hand, lost every pilot shot down over england (sans those that escaped but thats an extreme few).

BoB is one of history's 'doh' military moments that cost germany a battle that was already won all because hitler and goering were incompetent (or outright idiots) when handling air power. Germany HAD beat the Brits in the first phase of the BoB. They had bombed their airfields and knocked their radar out (a plan laid out by other LW senior staff) and the brits were on the brink of collapse. The RAF had ceased for the most part. Then, because of a brit bomber raid to berlin, hitler ordered the LW to bomb the brit cities and factories. That gave the RAF all the time it needed to get new pilots and machines and fix their airfields and radar.

With that achieved and with their surviving pilots being veterans already, they went up against a LW that was not there to destroy the RAF but to fly bombers in and out. With little fuel to fight in escort duty the 109s could not stay long to fight and had to turn back after (if memory serves me right) just about 30 minutes of dogfighting or they wouldnt have fuel to go back home. The RAF set up wings to intercept 109s inbound over the channel not to fight the germans but to make them drop their drop tanks so the home defense RAF would not have to deal with many 109s.

So in the end, yes the LW got beat badly.. but only after it had crushed the RAF. It was Hitler who turned a military objective (destroy RAF) into a political one (bomb london in retaliation) and thats why they eventually lost.

[E25280]

I forgot to mention he said that the tank had a 90mm cannon on it, and that it could beat the tiger easy but because of bad leadership they lost.

Your friend sounds like a clueless dolt.

It's OK if you want to tell him I said that.