Posted on 11/21/2017 6:46:17 AM PST by C19fan
At five o’clock in the morning on May 16, 1940 a company of the 8th Panzer Regiment lay in an ambush position along a rubble-strewn street of the French town of Stonne. The day before, the unfortunate village had changed hands several times as French troops attempted to stem the tide of German armor headed toward the English channel, threatening to trap Allied forces in Belgium.
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The French managed to get one counter-attack going with their tanks. They would have hit the Germans hard because both the German tanks and anti-tank guns were too light to stop the French tanks. But the combined-weapons tactics of the Germans were far superior and the German Stuka’s stopped the counter-attacks without them reaching the German armor.
Not sure if it was the same operation but I have read that DeGaulle saw a weakness in the German supply lines and attacked.
It was very near successful but the German soldiers basically won the day by their determination and bravery.
I always loved the 1940 French campaign....and the Polish campaign. Char 1B were captured by the Germans and put to good use because all 37mm/47mm, most 50mm, could NOT penetrate the front or sides.
Germans took the Char’s and turned them into heavy flamethrower tanks...50 or so IIRC. None remain of Flammwagen auf Panzerkampfwagen B-2(f), the Russians melted them. There MIGHT be one in Moscow, though. Bovington has one I know. I think there are only a dozen French B1/bis left.
The “fairy tale” was that, early on, the Germans had great and indestructible tanks. They didn’t. It was their tactics that made them great. They were “crap” compared one-on-one to British and French tanks. It wasn’t until the Germans came up with the Panther and Tiger could they be considered “great” (assuming they wouldn’t break down).
I remember an interview on “The History Channel”. It was of a German survivor of North Africa. He said that after the British got American Lee and Grant tanks, they were superior to anything the Germans had.
I think he said something about their “sponsons” being superior. I actually don’t know what a sponson is.
The radiator vent was the only real weakness. You take that out- down goes the engine.
It also made jagdpanther.
I think a sponson is a type of gun turret on ships. I would guess he was trying to say their armaments were superior?
The US could not make a turret large enough for a 75 MM gun so that gun was installed on the side of the take, the sponson.
Interesting. I didn’t know this.
Sponson:
Lloyd Clark’s Blitzkrieg makes a very strong case that French tactical and strategic performance aside, it was the effort of German infantry, the Landsers, that was decisive in the Spring of 1940. The breakthroughs that allowed for the Panzer penetrations, particularly at Sedan were the result of infantry actions.
German advantage in armored warfare 1940:
Radio communications and tank commanders in protective hatches. French tanks operated independently and were virtually blind using only periscopes and few radios.
The Brit’s Matilda was a good tank for its day but the Krauts defeated them at Arras when Guderian’s men discovered the 88mm Flak Gun made a superior anti-tank weapon. One shot one kill = some 90 dead Matildas.
It was also slow, myopic, and very thirsty fuel-wise. German Stukas took out their supply lines - more tanks ran out of gas, broke down and were abandoned than were lost in actual battle.
They fought valiantly but without support they were soon useless. German Armies went around them and marched on to Paris, kind of like a (slightly) mobile version of the Maginot Line.
In the early days of Barbarossa, a German general encountered a T-34 tank, and upon inspecting it, said, that if the Russians produced them on an assembly line, Germany would lose the war.
Try them all on “World Of Tanks” ,LOL
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