That wasn’t by choice - the French intended to send their tanks into action by formations. One problem was that most French tanks didn’t have radios and once they’d encountered German blitzkrieg tactics, their main formations were broken because they were unable to change tactics or posture without radio communication between tanks. French doctrine emphasized that all operations would proceed according to a pre-arranged plan and that as no deviation was to be made from it, there was no need for radio. Just follow the plan - which, if the Germans had been so obliging as to cooperate, would have resulted in Panzer IIIs getting slaughtered by mass Somua and Char tank formations.
After reality bashed in the skulls of the plans the French had and the radio-heavy Wehrmacht scrapped their plan-bound initial opponents, the French then rushed what tanks they could up but they ended up getting to the front lines in penny packets instead of powerful formations not because they wanted to but because they needed something, anything to plug the gap and stem the oncoming tide. They simply didn’t have the time or space to marshal a tank formation and to be fair it wouldn’t have mattered if they did due to the lack of radios.
The French had an excellent grasp of the proper use of armor at the beginning of the war. What they didn’t have was a grasp of the proper unit control and strategy in an age of mobile warfare - it wasn’t just tanks that suffered from this problem. See this video, starting at about 4:38 (though the whole video is worth watching) for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGpdXRaILe0
The presenter is an armor officer who served in the Irish Army and in combat in the Sandbox in the US Army in the Abrams.
I knew the French didn’t have radio equipped armor while the Germans did. That made a world of difference.
The Germans were easily able to adapt their tactics from minute to minute as the battles raged while the French were stuck trying to implement a plan devised by officers far behind the lines.
I did know about the rigid command system the French used that didn’t allow for improvisation at the front.
The French knew the Germans well enough to know that the Germans didn’t follow the French Rules of Ettiquete for War. The original Storm Troops of WWI should have taught them that.
What I don’t know is if the English armor was radio equipped or not. The English problem was that once the Germans broke through the French they were left dangling like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked and had no choice but to withdraw.
While the French did do a good job of holding the line at Dunkirk it was mostly because the Germans had halted their armored columns for repair.
I often wonder if any English soldiers would have been evacuated if the German armor had continued on. Probably not.
Ironic that the Germans would later suffer from the same rigid command system that had bedeviled the French. Hitler’s stand and fight and fortress orders led to the needless deaths of tens of thousands of good soldiers.
One of my old neighbors served under Patton in Europe. He told me that German officers at the regimental level seemed unable to act without orders from above. Once their lines of communications were broken they simply stood and fought because that was the last order they had received, even if facts on the ground should have told them to withdraw.
Thanks for the reply.
While I have read much history it has been very general and some of it tainted with what I have seen on the History channel which often doesn’t tell the whole tale.