Category: WW2 French Prototypes

France (1931)
Light Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle – Design Only

During the interwar years, the French Army’s cavalry service was a force actively seeking new types of vehicle to introduce to its forces, generally more so than the better-funded infantry. There were active doctrinal developments within the Cavalry which led to new roles being created, for which various manufacturers would offer designs. In the early 1930s, the concept of a very light vehicle tasked with reconnaissance duties and armed with a machine gun was gaining popularity within the Cavalry. The Citroën P28 was the first vehicle adopted, in 1931. Renault, the largest vehicle manufacturer in France, did not want to allow its competitor Citroën to gain the lead and be able to sell vehicles to the French Army uncontested. As Citroën had done, it began the design process based on a logistical armored vehicle it had recently designed. A turreted light tank/tankette model designed in this manner was already in existence by late 1931.

Reconnaissance Vehicles and Citroën’s Successes

The French Cavalry ended the First World War with a varied fleet of armored cars of various weights, sizes and armaments. In the interwar years, the need for new, more modern vehicles was apparent, including vehicles which could fulfil a reconnaissance role.

In July 1930, the French Army approved an ambitious program which was to lead to the creation of vehicles to fulfill a large variety of roles. This was the general motorisation program. It called for two types of vehicles which would fulfil a reconnaissance role: a voiture de reconnaissance tout terrain blindée (Eng: all-terrain reconnaissance armored car) and a Automitrailleuse légère tout terrain (Eng: all-terrain light armored car). “Automitrailleuse” is a term that, although often translated as armored car, when used in the context of interwar French Cavalry, is used to designate all armored combat vehicles, regardless of means of motion. In other words, a program that, in English, would be translated as an armored car program, could in fact refer to a half-track or fully tracked

The first requirement would eventually evolve into the Type L armored car specification, for which Renault would produce the ill-fated Renault URL armored car.

In comparison, the second set of requirements would quickly fall under the influence of a specification for a vehicle which would be ordered in much higher numbers – the Type N. The Type N was envisioned as a lightweight all-terrain, lightly armored infantry tractor and cargo vehicle. Three companies produced vehicles for this program: Latil offered a licence-built Carden-Loyd Mk.VI; Citroën offered the Citroën P28 chenillette, a half-tracked vehicle; and Renault offered a tankette, inspired by the general design features of the influential Carden-Loyd but by all means its own design. This was the Renault UE, a light (2.64 tonnes) and tiny (2.8 m long, 1.74 m wide, and 1.25 m high) tankette with a crew of two and protected by thin, bulletproof armor. It had a leaf spring suspension with three bogies containing two road wheels each, using a front sprocket and rear idler and supported by two return rollers.

Creating a Reconnaissance Vehicle Using the Renault UE as the Basis

The specifications of the Type N, which called for a lightweight, fairly mobile, bulletproof vehicle, co-incidentally proved to create designs which would provide a good basis for the kind of light reconnaissance vehicles the French Cavalry was seeking. Both Citroën and Renault would offer vehicles to fulfill such a role based on their logistical tankettes. Citroën offered a modified version of its P28, which was ordered in October 1931.

The Renault design was created around the same timeframe as the Citroën, in autumn 1931. The design would retain the same very short length of 2.8 m as the UE, and perhaps the same or at least a similar width of 1.74 m. However, there were major structural changes to the vehicle. Renault gave this modified design the internal code “Renault VM”.

Instead of retaining the front crew compartment, centrally-placed engine, and rear-mounted stowage area of the original UE, the VM’s crew compartment would instead be placed towards the left and rear of the vehicle, with an engine to the front and right.

The largest difference in the vehicle design was the presence of a turreted armament. The early VM design featured a turret which was mounted on the left of the vehicle, behind the driver’s position, which was positioned in the same way as on an UE. The turret featured on the schematics of the vehicle was a fairly simplistic design. It would be armed with the new machine gun available for fortifications and armored vehicle designs, the 7.5 mm MAC 31. The MAC 31 Type E had a weight of 11.18 kg empty and 18.48 kg with a fully loaded 150-round drum magazine. The machine gun was gas-fed, and had a maximum cyclic rate of fire of 750 rounds per minute. It had a muzzle velocity of 775 m/s. The ammunition stowage present on the early Renault VM design is unknown. The turret would have housed a single crewmember, the gunner/commander. It appears that a small cupola would have been placed towards the rear of the turret, and would likely have had some sort of vision device, such as a panoramic periscope. From the design, the turret appears to have been very small overall, to the point it would have been quite cramped. It also appears that no reloads for the machine gun would be present in the turret, with all the magazines (the MAC 31 using 150-rounds drum magazines) having to be stowed inside the hull instead.

The other major structural change of the early VM design in comparison to the UE was the engine, with the early VM being designed to have a more powerful engine. Its potential horsepower output is unknown, as Renault used an alternative means of power measurement for it, CV. It would have been a 15 CV engine. In comparison, the original UE’s Renault 75 was a 10 CV engine producing 30 hp, while the AMR 33’s 24 CV engine would produce 84 hp. Unlike the centrally-mounted position on the UE, the engine was shifted to the right on the early VM design. This would have been a fairly uncommon feature at the time. As lateral space was quite limited, the radiator and ventilator would have had to be shifted at 90° and be installed to the rear of the engine, in a fairly distinct manner which would have also been quite rare at the time. The radiator, in particular, would have been installed as far to the back as the turret would have been, and the gunner would have effectively been sandwiched between the radiator on his right and the hull’s wall to the left.

The suspension of the vehicle would have used the same components as the Renault UE, with three leaf springs bogies on which two small road wheels were mounted, a front sprocket and a rear idler. However, unlike on the UE, the sprocket and idler would have been placed higher. Though the return rollers are not seen on the schematics, they would very likely have been present.

Armor protection at this point in time would also very likely have been the same as the UE, with 9 mm on vertical surfaces and 6 mm on all other plates.

Rejection

Renault’s early VM design was submitted to the technical services of the French Cavalry at some point in autumn 1931. The vehicle was formally rejected by the French Cavalry on November 12th 1931.

A first review of the design by the French Cavalry was fairly negative. Several design choices of the vehicle were deemed subpar and proved unpopular, as some of the design features were quite unconventional for the time. Among which was the rear-turreted configuration, which the French Army would continue to object to on future evolutions of Renault’s light armored vehicle proposals. Another source of discontent was the engine’s offset mounting to the right. Furthemore, the engine was not thought to be powerful enough to allow for the vehicle to reach a high enough speed. This was further worsened by the use of a suspension almost identical to the UE, with six small road wheels mounted on leaf springs, which would generally favor cross-country mobility but make reaching higher maximum speeds harder. There were also issues with the proposed placement of the radiator all the way to the right, with the position of the commander, cramped between the radiator and the left wall of the vehicle.

During the same period, the French Cavalry had been somewhat pleased with the design of Citroën’s offer, the P28, and had ordered 50 vehicles of a modified version of the half-track tractor, now fulfilling a light reconnaissance vehicle role. As such, there was no immediate need for a swift replacement at this point in time, though the P28 was not viewed as a viable long-term solution but only as a stopgap.

Conclusion – A Failure which would Lead to Many Successes

The rejection of the early Renault VM in November 1931 would not be the end of Renault’s light reconnaissance vehicle designs, far from it. The P28 was considered to only be viable as a stopgap solution, and there was still a need for a more capable vehicle to offer a more durable reconnaissance platform. Formal specifications for such a vehicle would be formulated by the French Army on January 16th 1932.

Renault would provide a modified version of its existing VM design, which would undergo many changes, most notably, a lengthened hull allowing for less tight and cramped spacing, a more powerful engine, and a new suspension and turret designs. Five prototypes of this design would be ordered in April 1932 and, in a true industrial feat at the time, completed in time to participate in large French Army maneuvers in the summer of 1932. These would eventually lead to the AMR 33, of which 118 new production vehicles would be manufactured in addition to the five prototypes. After this the even more produced AMR 35, a further evolution of the VM design, came. These were two success stories for Renault’s 1930s armored fighting vehicles design, despite the failure of the original VM design.

Sources

Les automitrailleuses de Reconnaissance, Tome 1: l’AMR 33 Renault, François Vauvillier, Histoire & Collection editions
Tous les blindés de l’Armée Française 1914-1940, François Vauvillier, Histoire & Collection editions
Char-français: http://www.chars-francais.net/2015/index.php/engins-blindes/automitrailleuses?task=view&id=70

France (1931-1932)
Tankette / Reconnaissance Vehicle – 1 Converted

During the interwar years, the French Army’s Cavalry service was a force actively seeking new types of vehicle to introduce to its forces, generally more than the better-funded infantry. There were active doctrinal developments within the Cavalry which led to new roles being created, for which various manufacturers would offer different designs.

In the early 1930s, the concept of a very light vehicle tasked with reconnaissance duties and armed with a machine gun was gaining popularity within the Cavalry. A first vehicle would be adopted in 1931 in the form of the Citroën P28.

Renault, the largest vehicle manufacturer in France, did not want to allow its competitor Citroën to gain the lead and be able to sell vehicles unchallenged to the French Army. Before more complex and specific vehicles would be developed and offered, Renault’s first light reconnaissance vehicle was a Renault UE modified to feature a small machine gun casemate. This basic vehicle served as a step in the developmental process which would lead to the Renault VM, a vehicle which would be adopted by the French Army as the AMR 33.

Reconnaissance Vehicles and Citroën’s Successes

The French Cavalry ended the First World War with a varied fleet of armored cars of various weights, sizes, and armaments. In the interwar years, the need for new, more modern vehicles was apparent, including vehicles which could fulfil a reconnaissance role.

In July 1930, the French Army approved an ambitious program which was to lead to the creation of vehicles to fulfil a large variety of roles. This was the general motorisation program. It called for two types of vehicles which would fulfil a reconnaissance role: a voiture de reconnaissance tout terrain blindée (Eng: all-terrain reconnaissance armored car) and a automitrailleuse légère tout terrain (Eng: all-terrain light armored car). “Automitrailleuse” is a term that, although often translated as armored car, when used in the context of interwar French Cavalry, is used to designate all armored combat vehicles, regardless of means of motion. In other words, a program that, in English, would be translated as an armored car program, could in fact refer to a half-track or fully tracked vehicle.

The first requirement would eventually evolve into the Type L armored car specification, for which Renault would produce the ill-fated Renault URL armored car.

In comparison, the second set of requirements would quickly fall under the influence of a specification for a vehicle which would be ordered in much higher numbers – the Type N. The Type N was envisioned as a lightweight all-terrain, lightly armored infantry tractor and cargo vehicle. Three companies produced vehicles for this program: Latil offered a licence-built Carden-Loyd Mk.VI; Citroën offered the Citroën P28 chenillette, a half-tracked vehicle; and Renault offered a tankette, inspired by the general design features of the influential Carden-Loyd but by all means its own design, named Renault UE.

Of the three options, the Renault UE was the French Army’s favourite option and would be adopted into service. The vehicle was a light (2.64 tonnes) and tiny (2.8 m long, 1.74 m wide, 1.25 m high) tankette, with a crew of two and protected by thin, bulletproof armor. It could carry large quantities of rifle, machine gun, mortar, or anti-tank gun ammunition in a storage box mounted to the rear of the vehicle. Furthermore, the vehicle was also used to tow either a tracked trailer (designated Renault UK) containing more supplies, or in the future, the 25 mm SA 34 anti-tank gun. It was even possible to tow both, with the gun following the trailer.

While the Renault vehicle was preferred in the infantry cargo and prime mover role, the Citroën P28 gathered significant interest from the Cavalry. It was considered as a good candidate for conversion into a light armored car, and, in October 1931, likely even before Citroën could provide a prototype of a vehicle modified for such a role, an order for 50 was notified. These would be the vastly modified Citroën P28 armored cars.

A Renault UE with a Machine Gun

Though the Citroën P28 gathered the most interest from the Cavalry early on, it did not completely forget about Renault, which was itself eager to provide a vehicle and offer a competitor to Citroën’s sudden success.

On November 21st 1931, the STC (Service Technique de la Cavalerie – Cavalry Technical Service) required Renault to provide two Renault UEs for a presentation to a Dragons Portés (Eng: mechanized dragoons) unit. Crucially, the STC requested one of the two vehicles to be armed. This request was made for a presentation which was to take place only nine days later, and this timeframe was considered too short to reasonably modify a UE to feature an armament.

However, while Renault could not produce a conversion for this specific presentation, the request from the STC made it very clear to Renault that there would be official interest in an armed version of the UE from the French Cavalry. Work quickly began on realizing such a conversion. By late 1931, Renault UE prototypes (six had been manufactured) were still undergoing trials for the French military, and the first production vehicles would only be delivered in 1932. As such, creating such a vehicle on such a short notice would be accomplished by modifying an existing prototype.

It ought to be noted that Renault was already working on a more complex and dedicated design by that time. A first proposal for a turreted, Renault UE-based vehicle had already been passed onto the French Cavalry and rejected on November 12th 1931. However, while work on more advanced vehicles was still at the design phase, a simple conversion on an existing Renault UE would allow to have a vehicle “in steel”, easier to experiment on, much quicker.

The modified vehicle would be the prototype registered as “n°77 982”. The modifications made to the vehicle were very simple. The roof of the co-driver’s compartment was raised by a small extent, using the same riveted construction as the rest of the vehicle. The dome-shaped cupola was retained. This raised compartment allowed for enough internal space for a machine gun to be added. This was the new machine gun available for fortifications and armored vehicle designs, the 7.5 mm MAC 31. The MAC 31 Type E had a weight of 11.18 kg empty and 18.48 kg with a fully loaded 150-round drum magazine. The machine gun was gas-fed, and had a maximum cyclic rate of fire of 750 rounds per minute. It had a muzzle velocity of 775 m/s. The ammunition stowage present on this vehicle would have been unknown, but likely quite limited.

This vehicle would be one of the first to use the new machine gun. It would, in the following decade, be present on almost every single French armored fighting vehicle. The exact weight added by the conversion is unknown. It would likely have been quite limited, and the weight of the modified Renault UE likely stayed under the 3 tonnes mark. Following the modification, the co-driver had to operate as the commander of the vehicle and gunner, with an optical sight present on the top-right of the gun in order to aim.

A Tiny Step Forward

The modified prototype was presented to the French Cavalry at an unspecified date in early 1932.

The 1st BDP (Bataillon de Dragons Portés) carried out operational testing. These trials generally underlined shortcomings of the vehicle when it came to fulfilling the light armored car role which was desired from the conversion.

Besides the machine gun, the modified Renault UE had been kept almost completely untouched. The vehicle retained the Renault 75 four-cylinders gasoline engine, mounted in the center of the vehicle, and producing a mere 30 hp. The leaf spring suspension with three bogies containing two road wheels each, using a front sprocket and rear idler and supported by two return rollers, remained the same. This suspension type was optimized for cross-country mobility rather than top speed. A standard UE would only reach a maximum speed of 30 km/h on road, and it is likely the machine gun armed version would achieve the same. The operational range of 100 km, though not awful, was also not perfect for a reconnaissance vehicle which could be placed into situations where it had to operate on its own for fairly extended periods of time.

The vehicle also retained all the elements which would have been found on the regular UE dedicated to an infantry logistical role. As such, it featured the rear stowage area, and even the towing hook. The armed prototype was seen towing a UK trailer in trials. This does mean it would retain the non-negligible carrying capacities of the UE. The storage area at the rear of the vehicle had a standard load of 8,100 7.5 mm ammunition in the form of FM 24/29 machine rifle magazines, 2,688 8 mm Lebel rifle cartridges, 150 hand grenades and 114 rifle grenades. The ammunition load transported by the vehicle could obviously be adjusted regarding which need it was to fulfil, with a full load of 7.5 mm cartridge being of a maximum of 18,000 in the UE’s own storage area alone. The standard load on the UK trailer was of 162 81 mm mortar rounds and 8,500 8 mm Lebel rifle cartridges, or alternatively 15,000 8 mm Lebel rifle cartridges. Generally, an UE and its trailer were considered to be enough to supply a mortar group or machine gun section.

While these logistical capacities could perhaps provide somewhat of an appreciated versatility, they did nothing to compensate for the fact the vehicle was woefully unadapted for combat. The casemate-mounted machine gun configuration was far inferior to the turreted Citroën P28, and unlike the French Infantry, the Cavalry tended not to entertain the concept of non-turreted vehicles and instead preferred only turreted ones. While the armor of a light reconnaissance vehicle would by definition be light, the Renault UE’s protection, with the vertical plates being 9 mm thick and all others being 6 mm thick, was likewise still quite light for a vehicle of the type.

Conclusion – The Unknown Fate of an Experiment

It should serve as no surprise that the armed Renault UE was not adopted by the French Army (though other forms of armed UEs would appear in the following years due to the eventual large-scale production of the vehicle, with some even armed with 25 mm anti-tank guns in the campaign of France, or surprisingly, similar machine gun-armed conversions being produced and sold to China, or created in the field in French Indochina). The vehicle was not adapted to provide a reasonable, mobile reconnaissance vehicle with a turreted armament. Renault was keenly aware of this, and their offer of an armed UE should likely only be taken as a way to prepare work on a more advanced vehicle dedicated for the role, as well a way not to leave the field of a light armored car entirely in the hands of Citroën while Renault was working on its own future vehicle.

Taking the UE as a base, Renault would eventually produce a much more mature, turreted design, with a different, frontally-mounted engine. This would be the Renault VM, which would be adopted by the French Army as the AMR 33. Including prototypes, 123 were produced, marking the start of an era of the 1930s where Renault would see several of its designs adopted by the French Cavalry, including later down the line the AMR 35 in a reconnaissance role, but also the AMC 34 and AMC 35 as cavalry combat vehicles.

As for the modified Renault UE, its fate is unknown. The vehicle could have been scrapped, or even have its modifications reversed to continue serving in an experimental role. Considering it was always a prototype though, being scrapped at some point in the following years appears to be the most probable hypothesis.

Sources

Les automitrailleuses de Reconnaissance, Tome 1: l’AMR 33 Renault, François Vauvillier, Histoire & Collection editions
Tous les blindés de l’Armée Française 1914-1940, François Vauvillier, Histoire & Collection editions
Char-français

France (1931)
Infantry Tractor – 3 Prototypes Built

The early 1930s were marked by the worldwide popularity of the tankette concept, which produced a variety of vehicles used in sometimes quite radically different manners across most major industrial powers of the world. The Citroën P28 original prototype was one of the more original derivatives of this design. Designed to serve as an infantry tractor, it used a half-track configuration with Kégresse suspension, which makes it a quite interesting and original design. While not adopted as an infantry tractor, with the more traditional fully-tracked Renault UE being picked, it became an interesting half-track cavalry armored car.

In the wake of the Carden-Loyd

In 1928, production of the British Carden-Loyd Mark VI tankette began. The result of several years of experimentation on one and two-man turretless armored vehicles, this British tankette was a 1.5 ton heavy vehicle with a two-men crew. A novelty on the international market, which was relatively stagnant and dominated by the WW1-era French Renault FT, the Carden-Loyd seemed to offer new possibilities as a lighter and cheaper armored vehicle.

The potential was not lost on France and, in June and July 1930, two Carden-Loyds were tested at the Centre des Essais de Véhicules (Vehicles Trials Center) of Vincennes. Those trials had been conducted at the initiative of engineer Edgar Brandt. Brandt was a prolific artillery designer, responsible notably for the Brandt 27/31 81 mm mortar, an evolution of the British Stokes that would, in turn, be adopted, modified, and/or copied by virtually every major and many minor military powers of the 1930s. It is reported two different Carden-Loyds were tested, one of a “light” and one of a “heavy” model. The light one could be outfitted with a machine-gun and used as a small combat vehicle, while the heavier one was tried as an armored tractor with a tracked trailer, with the purpose of carrying the Stokes-Brandt mortar and ammunition.

The Type N program

The trials of the two Carden-Loyd vehicles proved influential in the French Army’s infantry services. On October 7th, 1930, a set of specifications was issued for a new type of vehicle. These would be véhicules blindés de ravitaillement de l’infanterie, or armored infantry supply vehicles. This set of specifications was given the denomination of “Type N” a few weeks later. The Type N specifications requested vehicles with a maximum height of 1.10 m, able to carry a load of 950 kg, typically a mortar or heavy machine gun with ammunition, crewed by two men, able to reach 35 km/h, and with an autonomy of five hours.

Projects from three different companies were ordered to be built as prototypes. The orders covered six prototype vehicles, trailers to be used by these vehicles, as well as larger trailers on which the vehicles could be carried on, towed by a truck. The first company to receive orders was Latil, which produced a design created by Brandt and Vickers-Armstrong, the makers of the Carden-Loyd. The Latil design was very similar to the original British vehicle, and one of the six prototypes was actually imported from Great Britain. The second company was Renault, generally speaking, the giant of the French armored vehicles industry in the era, which produced the UE, a small entirely tracked tankette, obviously inspired by the British Carden-Loyd but still a new design. Finally, Citroën produced the P28, a vehicle far more different from the British tankette that inspired the Type N program

Citroën’s infantry tractor

Citroën’s military vehicles of the 1920s were almost systematically fitted with the Kégresse track system. This system consisted of tracks that, instead of separate metallic interlocked parts, were instead a unitary, flexible belt. It had been created by French engineer Adolphe Kégresse whilst he was based in Imperial Russia, from 1905 onward. In 1919, Kégresse returned to France and was hired by Citroën. From then on, his track systems were featured on a large number of military vehicles, often in a half-track configuration, including artillery tractors and armored cars such as the AMC P16 (designed by Citroën but produced by Schneider) and even some Renault FT light tanks.

The vehicle presented by Citroën to match the Type N specifications was no exception to the rule. It was a small half-track with two wheels at the front used for steering and powered Kégresse tracks at the rear. These had a large front sprocket and a single bogie holding two road wheels as well as a large rear trailing wheel. A notable feature of the Citroën vehicle was that it was crewed by only one man, who sat at the front-left of the vehicle, under an openable 6 mm-thick armored hood with vision hatches on the sides. The engine was to his right; the rear of the vehicle was unarmored and featured a storage bin where weapons or ammunition would typically have been carried. The front of the P28 featured two distinctive round headlights. No armament was fitted, as the vehicle was merely intended to transport arms and ammunition under minimal protection, not to actively fight.

The engine used was a Citroën C4 4-cylinder, 72×100 1,628 cm3 engine with an output of 30 hp. This gave it a maximum speed of 39.5 km/h on-road, without a trailer. It should be noted that, when the order for prototypes was placed by the French military, the production of three half-tracked vehicles and three fully tracked ones was requested. The tracked version never left the drawing board and even its design remains unknown as of today.

Unsatisfactory trials

Three prototypes were manufactured by Citroën, registered as 35248, 35249, and 4016-W1. The first prototype began its trials at Vincennes on 24th July 1931 and continued trials there until the 29th. The two other prototypes were delivered to the training grounds along with their trailers on July 31st of the same year. The trailer that had been designed by Citroën was wheeled, unlike the Renault UK trailer of the UE, which was tracked.

The vehicles generally performed quite poorly during those trials, with complaints being addressed to Citroën. Notably, the vehicle’s cooling left a lot to be desired, with risks of overheating the engine. There was no system for the driver to detach the trailer without leaving the vehicle, which was both impractical and potentially dangerous under fire. The French Conseil Consultatif de l’Armement (Consultative Council of Armament) was pushed to make a choice between the different vehicles in October 1931. While its trials had not been without flaw either, the more conventional Renault UE was adopted by the French military, cutting short the P28’s life as an infantry tractor, though not as a military vehicle in general.

Conclusion – a future in the cavalry

Despite the rejection of the Citroën P28 infantry tractor, it did see further evolution thanks to interest from the cavalry, which considered the vehicle’s potential evolution into a light reconnaissance armored car, leading to at least one of three prototypes being converted to mount a turret instead of the storage bin, and the order of 50 armored car variants of the P28 featuring a centrally-mounted turret in October of 1931.

As for the infantry tractors prototypes, their fate beyond 1931 is unknown. It is quite likely they ended scrapped, if not by the French in the 1930s, then by the German occupiers during the Second World War.

Whilst Citröen’s proposals were not adopted, they remain the most original vehicles offered to the French Army as part of the Type N program. In comparison, the Latil-Brandt vehicle was little more than a copy of the original Carden-Loyd, and the Renault UE took a lot of inspiration from the British vehicle, particularly suspension-wise.

Sources

Tout les blindés de l’armée Française 1914-1940, François Vauvillier, Histoire & Collections éditions,
char-français.net
Les matériels de l’armée Française: Les automitrailleuses de reconnaissance, Tome 1, l’AMR 33 Renault, François Vauvillier, Histoire & Collections, 2005

France (1940)
Armored Car – 1 Prototype Built

In 1931, the French Cavalry formulated a request for an AMD (Automitrailleuse de Découverte / ‘Discovery’ armored car), an armored vehicle meant to perform reconnaissance while having enough combat capacities to be able to engage enemy units. This was in opposition to the AMR (Automitrailleuse de Reconnaissance / Reconnaissance Armored Car), smaller vehicles with more limited combat capacities. Panhard, the leading French armored car producer at the time, designed the Voiture Spéciale 178, more often simply known as Panhard 178, to answer this request. The vehicle was adopted by the French cavalry as the AMD 35 in 1934. Formal orders were placed in January of 1935, production beginning in 1936, and the first operational vehicles delivered in February of 1937.

The Panhard 178 was an 8-tonne armored car powered by a 4-cylinder 105 hp engine and able to reach a maximum speed of 72 km/h. One of its most interesting features, which separated it from the vast majority of other French armored vehicles, was its two-crew APX 3 turret, which allowed the commander to concentrate on his tactical and spotting missions, leaving the operation of the gun to the gunner/loader. This was a major improvement in comparison to the one-crew turrets which featured on the vast majority of French tanks, where the commander also had to reload and operate the vehicle’s armament.

This APX 3 turret featured a 25 mm SA 35 anti-tank gun as well as a coaxial MAC 31 7.5 mm machine gun, with 150 25 mm and 3,750 7.5 mm rounds. This armament was fairly capable for an armored car, being, for example, generally sufficient to deal with early Panzer III and IV models fielded in the campaign for France, as well as the earlier Panzer I and II, with a penetration of 40 mm of vertical armor at 500 m, and 30 mm at 30° at the same distance. This gun was significantly better than the 37 mm SA 18 found on many tanks and armored cars, but the 47 mm SA 35 gun found on Somua S35 and B1 Bis tanks offered better armor-piercing capacities, as well as explosive shells which the 25 mm lacked.

The Panhard and the SA 35

Outfitting the Panhard 178 with the 47 mm SA 35 gun was considered before the campaign for France actually began. In a letter from January 1939, the French Army General Staff and the Direction of the Cavalry stated that mounting the 47 mm SA 35 gun on the Panhard armored car was a possibility, at the very least for the vehicles destined for service in North Africa. However, the same letter reported that Panhard 178 armored cars would only be outfitted with the 47 mm SA 35 gun if the production of the latter was sufficient to equip tanks being produced with the gun (the S35 and B1 Bis) and to refit the older B1 and D2 that were temporarily armed with the short-barrel 47 mm SA 34. The letter ends with the General Staff requesting the acceleration of the production of 47 mm SA 35 guns “as much as possible” from the Direction of Armament Manufacturing.

Despite the General Staff urging for more 47 mm guns to be produced in order to outfit the Panhard 178 with them as early as January of 1939, there had been little to no advance in this field by May of 1940. It is known that arming the already used APX 3 turret with the 47 mm gun was considered instead of designing a new turret. However, it was still uncertain whether the APX 3 turret could practically be modified to mount a 47 mm SA 35.

The invasion of the Low Countries and France, beginning on the 10th of May 1940, led to the Panhard 178 being fielded in large numbers against German armored vehicles, where some issues with the 25 mm SA 35 arose. While sufficient against most German-made tanks, the gun notably struggled at range, particularly against what accounts from French tankers refer to as “Škoda tanks”, most likely describing both the Škoda Panzer 35(t) and CKD Panzer 38(t). Furthermore, the gun lacked any high-explosive shell and was not automatic, making it of very little use against infantry.

At the same time, a significant problem arose in the production of the Panhard 178, hulls were being manufactured at a significantly faster rate than APX 3 turrets. While not particularly a problem during the Phoney War, as hulls could be stored while waiting for a turret, in a context where the survival of the French state was now in question, finding military use for these unarmed hulls became a priority. It is in this context that a French officer, Squadron Chief d’Astorg, who commanded the 1st RAM (Régiment d’automitrailleuses / Armored Car Regiment) of the 1st DLC (Division Légère de Cavalerie – Light Cavalry Division), unable to receive APX 3 turrets for the Panhard 178 hulls he received, requested the Renault tank design office to come up with a way to arm Panhard 178 hulls with a 47 mm SA 35 gun behind a mere gun shield instead of a fully rotating turret. This request was most likely made on 31st May 1940.

Design of the Renault Turret

Renault’s design bureau, led by engineer Joseph Restany, managed to design an entire turret within three days. The production of a prototype of this turret began immediately, with a turret being mounted on a hull on the 5th of June 1940, and went on firing trials that proved successful the next day.

Unsurprisingly enough for a turret that had been designed and then manufactured in less than a week, the design Restany and his team came up with was fairly rudimentary, particularly in comparison with the original APX 3 turret. The Renault turret was entirely welded, with a simple shape. The frontal plate, one of the distinctive elements of the design, was sloped quite considerably. It was made from two different plates, the first was 13 mm thick followed by a 25 mm one, giving a thickness of 38 mm not accounting for the slope, something which was quite respectable even for medium tanks by 1940 standards. The sides and rear of the turret were 25 mm thick. The main armament was an SA 35 47 mm gun. This gun fired 47×193 mm rimmed shells. Its standard anti-tank shell was an armor-piercing capped (APC) shell, the Obus de rupture modèle 1935, fired at a velocity of 660 m/s. According to German tests, it could penetrate 40 mm of armor at an angle of 30° and a range of 400 m. Additionally, the gun could also fire a high-explosive (HE) shell with a muzzle velocity of 590 m/s and 142 grams of explosives.

Like the APX 3 turret, the Renault one could accommodate two crew members. However, as expected because of its short design circle, it was fairly primitive. The top hatch through which the crew accessed the vehicle was reported to be “more of a lid”, and despite the rear of the turret being quite spacious, there was no rear door. Vision on the sides was provided by simple, fairly large round holes which could be closed by a rotating cover. The turret did not feature electrical traverse and therefore had to be rotated by hand.

The first prototype was not kept for experimental purposes, as is usually the case, but instead delivered to the d’Astorg’s 1st RAM as early as 6th June 1940. Accomodations for production of more examples with a slightly revised turret to offer better conditions for the crew as well as mounting a FM 24/29 machine gun in the hull began. Renault stated it could produce four turrets a day on 11th June 1940. However, the next day, the French industrial giant’s main factories of Billancourt, west of Paris, were evacuated to secondary facilities further south. This put any potential production into disarray. By the time an official order for forty turrets came on 13th June 1940, Renault was not able to fulfill it, and the single produced turret remained unique.

Service in the 1st RAM

The hull outfitted with the Renault turret was delivered to the 1st RAM. This regiment was part of the 1st DLC, which had been engaged in the battle of the Meuse. Its men were evacuated from the vast encirclement performed by the Wehrmacht in Northern France and the Low Countries, while their heavy equipment had to be abandoned. The unit was reformed into a DLM (Division Légère Mécanique – Light Mechanized Division, in practice quite similar to a German Light Division). It was as a part of this new 4th DLM that the 1st RAM continued to fight in the campaign of France. Thanks to d’Astorg, we know about one particular skirmish in which the 47 mm-armed Panhard played a pivotal role, on 15th June 1940. Near a bridge on the river Yonne at Etigny, about 100 km south-east of Paris, a patrol led by this vehicle engaged a German motorized column including 15 vehicles escorted by two “heavy tanks” (a term which, in French testimonies from the campaign of France, generally designates a Panzer IV and occasionally a Panzer 38(t)). The Panhard 178 was able to knock out the two tanks with three 47 mm shells, allowing the patrol led by Sous-Lieutenant (sub-lieutenant) Bouhier to then knock out the rest of the German column. D’Astorg also reported that the armored car’s turret resisted multiple hits, though he does not specify whether those were hits from anti-tank weapons or merely firearms.

The 47 mm-armed Panhard met an unfortunate end shortly after this skirmish. On the morning of 17th June, the 1st RAM was attempting to cross the largest French river, the Loire, in order to defend its southern banks, where the French High Command hoped a defensive line could be formed. By the point the regiment arrived in the town of Châtillon-sur-Loire, where it was supposed to cross, the bridge had already been blown up to prevent German crossings, with all bridges south from there being unusable. Left with no other option, the unit scuttled the vast majority of its equipment in order to prevent its capture, including the 47 mm-armed Panhard. All photos we have of the vehicle show it scuttled near the railway bridge of Châtillon-sur-Loire, including some in which German soldiers pose in front of the vehicle. The fate of the vehicle beyond this point is unknown, though it is very likely it ended up scrapped.

The Future of 47 mm Gun-Armed Panhard Armored Cars

While only a single example of this particular 47 mm-armed Panhard turret was produced, the Panhard and the 47 mm SA 35 would be mated two different times in the future. During the German occupation of France, Joseph Restany, the engineer who had designed this first 47 mm turret, was recruited by a secret organisation within the army of the Vichy regime, the CDM (Camouflage du Matériel – Material Camouflage). His job was to lead the design and production of turrets accepting both 47 mm and 25 mm guns in order to outfit them on turretless hulls which had been evacuated to Southern France and remained stored away from the eyes of the Armistice Commission. The design of those turrets would be directly based on the first model designed by Restany in 1940, though being both more advanced thanks to a longer development time, and in some others more rudimentary due to the lack of materials and the high secrecy of the project. 45 of those CDM turrets were manufactured in 1942 and installed on a variety of Panhard 178 hulls, some which would be captured by German troops during the occupation of Southern France in November of 1942 and then issued to security units operating within France.

After the end of the occupation of France, production of yet another 47 mm SA 35 Panhard began in 1945. This new model was designated Panhard 178B, and featured the gun in a quite large, cylindrical turret, the FL1. Unlike the Renault and CDM models, which were just mounted on pre-existing hulls, new, upgraded hulls were produced alongside those new turrets. 414 of these armored cars would be produced and would be in service during the late 1940s and the 1950s. They were used for securing the French colonial empire in its last decade. In this way, despite being a single prototype rushed in June of 1940, the 47 mm-armed Panhard would have a quite significant legacy.

Conclusion

The 47 mm-armed Panhard 178 designed by Renault’s design office and operated by the 1st RAM is a quite peculiar vehicle when it comes to France’s armored production. One of the various improvised vehicles which appeared during the collapse of France in the spring of 1940, it is notable because, despite being a prototype, it was used operationally, and in the only instance where it is known to have fought, performed brilliantly.

The combination of the 47 mm SA 35 gun and the Panhard 178 hull is indeed one which appears full of potential. The 47 mm weapon was quite effective against tanks by 1940 and the two-crew turret featured on the Panhard 178 meant it could be operated more effectively than in one-crew turret tanks such as the S35 and B1 Bis. While the armor of the vehicle, outside perhaps of the turret’s front, left much to be desired, as on most armored cars, it retained a great mobility. While the turret manufactured by Renault in 1940 was very much experimental, the concept of a 47 mm SA 35-armed Panhard was indeed full of potential, and had even been theorized earlier. But the fall of France would prevent it from reaching its full potential and being mass-produced in a mature form, though the CDM turrets manufactured in secrecy and based on the Renault turret were one of the most extensive armament projects undertaken in Vichy France.

Illustration for the Panhard 178 outfitted with the 47 mm gun-armed Renault turret produced by Tank Encyclopedia’s own David Bocquelet.

Sources

Une entreprise clandestine sous l’occupation Allemande, Joseph Restany, Charles-Lavauzelle & Cie editions, 1948
GBM (Histoire de Guerre, Blindés et Matériel) N°86, January-February-March 2009, pp 22-31
char-français.net (1) (2)