But when the Battle of France started, the Char B-1 exhibited a number of major handicaps, such as a gas-guzzling engine and mechanical unreliability.Īntony Beevor: Putin doesn’t realize how much warfare has changed With its 75-mm gun, the Char B-1 was better armed than any German tank, and it outclassed the Germans in terms of armor protection as well. In 1940, the French had the “best” tank, the Char B-1. A range of problems, including poor logistics, terrible communications, and low morale, beset an army in which soldiers and junior officers complained of inflexible, top-down leadership. All of the French military’s supposed excellence in equipment and doctrine was useless. Germany conquered France in less than two months in 1940. Of course, when this French army was actually tested in battle, it was found wanting. As he said famously in 1933, and repeated a number of times afterward, “Thank God for the French army.” Winston Churchill believed that it represented the world’s best hope for keeping Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany at bay.
That French force was considered one of the finest on the planet. But I’m talking about the French army of the 1930s. Moreover, it had planned and trained specifically for a war it was about to fight, a war it seemed extremely well prepared for and that many, perhaps most, people believed it would win.Īll of these descriptions could apply to the Russian army that invaded Ukraine last month. It had invested in modernization, and made what were considered some of Europe’s most sophisticated plans for conflict. This military had some of the best equipment: the heaviest and most modern tanks, next-generation aircraft, and advanced naval vessels. Let me tell you a story about a military that was supposedly one of the best in the world.
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