Char 2C

Char 2C
Char 2C Alsace
Type	Super-heavy tank
Place of origin	France
Service history
In service	1921–1940
Used by	France
Wars	World War II
Production history
Designed	1917
Produced	1921
Number built	10
Variants	Char 2C bis
Specifications
Weight	69 tonnes (68 long tons; 76 short tons)
Length	10.27 m (33 ft 8 in)
Width	3 m (9 ft 10 in)
Height	4.09 m (13 ft 5 in)
Crew	12
Armour	45 mm (1.8 in) max.
Main armament	75 mm gun
Secondary armament	Four 8 mm machine guns (front, sides, and rear turrets)
Engine	Two engines 2 x 250 hp
Operational range	150 km (93 mi)
Speed	15 km/h (9.3 mph)

The Char 2C (also known as FCM 2C) was a French super-heavy tank developed, although never deployed, during World War I. It was the largest (in physical dimensions) operational tank ever.

Development

In the summer of 1916 General Mouret, the subsecretary of artillery, granted FCM (Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranée), a shipyard in the south of France near Toulon, the contract for the development of a heavy tank. At the time, French industry was very active in lobbying for defence orders, using their connections with high-placed officials and officers to obtain commissions; development contracts could be very profitable even when not resulting in actual production, as they were fully paid for by the state. Mouret's order is puzzling, as the French Army had no stated requirement for a heavy tank, and there was no official policy to procure one. The decision seems to have been taken solely on his personal authority. Exact specifications have been lost, if they ever existed. FCM then largely neglected the project, apart from reaping the financial benefits. At that time all tank projects were highly secret, and thereby shielded from public scrutiny. This was soon to change, however.

On 15 September 1916 the British deployed tanks for the first time in the form of the Mark I, and a veritable tank euphoria followed. When the public mood in Britain had been growing ever darker as the truth of the failure of the Somme Offensive could no longer be suppressed, tanks offered a new hope of final victory. The French people now became curious of the state of their own national tank projects. French politicians, not having been over-involved in them, leaving the matter to the military, were no less inquisitive. This sudden attention greatly alarmed Mouret, who quickly investigated the progress made at FCM and was shocked to find there was none. On 30 September he personally took control of the project. Knowing that the Renault company had some months earlier made several refused proposals to build a heavy tracked mortar, on 12 October he begged Louis Renault to assist FCM in the development of some suitable heavy vehicle. Renault obliged.

Renault consulted his own team that since May 1916 had been in the process of designing the revolutionary light Renault FT-17. This work hadn't kept them from considering other tank types, though. Renault, always expecting his employees to provide new ideas instantly, had by this attitude encouraged the team to take a proactive stance, setting a pattern that would last till 1940, and have all kinds of contingency studies ready for the occasion. He discovered that his main designer Rodolphe Ernst-Metzmaier had, by his own initiative, finished a feasibility study for a heavy tank. This fortunate circumstance allowed a wooden full-size mock-up to be quickly constructed and presented to the Consultative Committee of the Assault Artillery on 17 January 1917, after the basic concept had been approved on 30 December. This proposed tank was the most advanced design of its time; it was received very favourably, and a consensus began to form that the project was most promising and a potential "war-winner". It featured a 105 mm gun in a turret, had a proposed weight of 38 tons and 35 mm armour. Even before knowing what the exact nature of the project would be, Mouret had on 20 October ordered one prototype to be built by FCM.

However, the FCM tank had already made a powerful and influential enemy. Brigadier Jean-Baptiste Eugène Estienne, commander of the new tank force, the Assault Artillery, closely cooperated with Renault in the development of the FT-17, and by this connection was kept well informed of the other tank project. Estienne began to fear the production of the heavy vehicle would use up all production facilities, making the procurement of the much more practical light FT-17 impossible. Normally he would have been able to mobilise resistance against it by playing on company rivalries.^{[citation needed]} In this case, though, political pressure could not be exerted this way, as the same industrialist was behind both projects. That his fears were not unfounded became apparent when in November Mouret tried to obstruct the further development of the FT-17, arguing that all available resources should be concentrated into heavy tank production. Alarmed, Estienne now wrote a letter to the Commander-in-Chief, General Joffre on 27 November, defending the light tank concept. In it he admitted that "colossal landships" might in certain circumstances have their uses, but pointed out that, when it was as yet unproven that any workable heavy type could actually be developed, let alone produced in sufficient numbers by French industry, it would be folly not to give priority to light tanks that could be constructed without delay. He insisted that Joffre use all his influence to bring about the cancellation of the heavy tank project.

Joffre answered that Estienne was no doubt correct in his tactical and organisational analysis, but that he couldn't oblige him because political backing of the heavy tank was simply too strong. The Minister of Armament, Albert Thomas, had committed himself too openly to Mouret's cause and now didn't dare to retract from it. Joffre advised Estienne not to worry too much; he would make sure at least the FT-17 wouldn't be cancelled, and precisely because heavy tank development would take such a long time, for the immediate future it wouldn't get in the way of light tank production. There would surely be no harm in allowing some prototypes to be built.

In December Joffre was replaced as supreme commander by Robert Nivelle. In late January Nivelle learned of the heavy tank project from Estienne. He was much more alarmed than Joffre had been. On 29 January he wrote a letter to minister Thomas, making clear that under no circumstances could the project be allowed to impede production of the Schneider CA. Thomas answered on 5 February that there was no danger of this; anyway he had just happened to affirm on 1 February the policy of General Mouret, who — having a great need to show his unrelenting efforts in advancing the cause of the French tank — had ordered the simultaneous development of three prototypes: the lightened "A" version, weighing thirty tons and to be equipped with a 75 mm gun, the "B" version of forty tons with a lengthened hull and two machine gun turrets, and the "C" version of 62 tons with a 105 mm gun and a petro-electrical transmission.

In the spring the Nivelle Offensive failed completely, and the first use of French tanks was likewise a failure; in reaction Thomas ordered all tank production and projects to be ended. This led to an emergency alliance between Estienne and Mouret to bring about a reversal of this decision. When Thomas happened to visit Russia, Mouret surreptitiously ordered a restart of the tank projects. On his return an enraged Thomas caused Mouret to be fired, thus removing Estienne's greatest rival.

In December 1917 the first prototype, the FCM 1A, was ready to be shown to an investigating commission. Mouret had been replaced as head of the commission by Estienne, whose good friend General Philippe Pétain, the new High Commander of the French Army, asked him to use his position to end the project. Estienne told Pétain that this was ill-advised while the public was questioning why these heavy tanks had not been produced. Besides, the allies would only consent to give France 700 Mark VIIIs if France had at least made a token effort to produce its own heavy tanks. They had to delay the project while outwardly endorsing it. Estienne had already set this course by choosing the heaviest version, the "C", for production, requiring a completely new prototype, causing a considerable delay. Then Pétain demanded unreasonably high production numbers, thus delaying planning and initiating a political row.

Pétain asked for 300 heavy tanks to be ready by March 1919, causing a quarrel to erupt between Clemenceau, who was both Prime-Minister and Minister of War, and Louis Loucheur, the Minister of Armament, who felt it was impossible to provide the labour and steel required. Meanwhile, Estienne and Pétain complicated the issue with further demands. Pétain asked for special pontoons, and Estienne demanded battering rams and electronic mine detectors to be fixed. When the war ended, not a single tank had been built.

At first, the production order for the Char 2C was cancelled. Despite the end of hostilities, however, strong political pressure to adopt new heavy tank projects remained, as there was now a considerable surplus capacity in the heavy industry. To stop this, the Direction de l’Artillerie d’Assaut on instigation of Estienne decided in April 1919 to procure ten Char 2Cs after all, and use this as an argument to reject any other projects. This wasn't completely successful; even in 1920 it was proposed to the Section Technique des Appareils de Combat to build a 600-ton tank with 250 mm armour. At FCM Jammy and Savatier finished the Char 2C prototype, the other nine tanks being built almost simultaneously; all ten were delivered in 1921 and modified by the factory until 1923. They would be the last French tanks to be produced for the home market till the Char D1 pre-series of 1931.

Description

The Berry

The Char 2C had a loaded weight of 69 tonnes, partly because of its armour - 45 mm at the front, 22 mm at the sides, but much of it just because of its huge size. The armour was among the thickest of World War I-era tanks, though by modern standards this would be considered thin. It is still easily the largest tank ever taken into production. With the tail fitted, the hull was over twelve metres long. Within its ample frame there was room for two fighting compartments. The first at the front, crowned by a three-man turret (the first in history) with a long 75 mm gun, and the second at the back, topped by a machine gun turret. Both turrets had stroboscopic cupolas. The three independent 8 mm machine gun positions at the front gave protection against infantry assault.

The Char 2C is the only super-heavy tank ever to attain operational status — a super-heavy tank is not simply a tank that is very heavy but one that is much heavier than regular tanks of its period. The next operational tank to weigh about the same would be the Tiger II heavy tank of World War II.

The fighting compartments were connected by the engine room. Each track was powered by its own 200 or 250 hp engine, via an electrical transmission. Top speed was 15 km/h. Seven fuel tanks, containing 1,260 litres, gave it a range of 150 kilometres.

To man the tank required a crew of twelve: driver, commander, gunner, loader, four machine gunners, mechanic, electrician, assistant-electrician/mechanic and a radio operator. Some sources report thirteen, probably due to pictures of the crews that included the company commander.

Its suspension contains 39 interleaving road wheels on each side, making for a total of 90 wheels on the tank.

Operational history

The ten tanks were part of several consecutive units, their organic strength at one time reduced to three. Their military value slowly decreased as more advanced tanks were developed throughout the 1920s and 1930s. By the end of the 1930s they were largely obsolete, because their slow speed and high profile made them vulnerable to advances in anti-tank guns.

Nevertheless, during the French mobilisation of 1939, all ten were activated and put into their own unit, the 51st Bataillon de Chars de Combat. For propaganda, each tank had been named after one of the ancient regions of France, numbers 90-99 named Poitou; Provence; Picardie; Alsace; Bretagne; Touraine; Anjou; Normandie; Berry; Champagne respectively. In 1939, the Normandie was renamed Lorraine. As their main value was in propaganda, the giants were carefully kept from harm and did not participate in the September 1939 attack on the Siegfried Line. They were used for numerous morale-boosting movies, climbing and crushing old French forts instead. To the public, they obtained the reputation of invincible super tanks, the imagined dimensions of which far surpassing the real ones.

Of course, the French commanders knew perfectly well this reputation was undeserved. When the German Panzerdivisionen in the execution of Operation Fall Rot ripped apart the French lines after 10 June 1940, the decision was made to prevent the capture of the famous equipment. It was to be sent to the south by rail transport. On 15 June the rail was blocked by a burning fuel train, so it became inevitable to destroy the tanks by detonating charges. Later Goebbels and Goering claimed the tanks were hit by German dive bombers. This propaganda lie was to be repeated by many sources. One tank, the Champagne, was nevertheless captured more or less intact and brought to Berlin to be exhibited as a war trophy. In 1948 this tank disappeared, causing many^[who?] to speculate it still survives at the Russian Tank museum in Kubinka.

Versions

In 1926, the later Champagne was modified into the Char 2C bis, an experimental type with a 155 mm howitzer in a cast turret. New engines were fitted and the machine gun positions deleted. In this configuration the tank weighed perhaps 74 tons. The change was only temporary though, as the vehicle was brought back into its previous condition the very same year; the new turret was used in the Tunisian Mareth Line.

Between 15 November and 15 December 1939 the Lorraine, as the company command tank, was experimentally up-armoured at the Société des Aciéries d'Homecourt to make it immune to standard German antitank guns. The front armour was enhanced to 90 mm, the side to 65 mm. In this configuration, weighing about 75 tons, the Lorraine had at that time the thickest armour of any operational tank, and is probably still the heaviest operational tank ever.

Replacement

In 1940 12 FCM F1 tanks were ordered, another very large twin-turret tank. France surrendered before they entered service.

Notes and references

External links

Tank portal

• WWII Vehicles
• (French) Chars-francais.net