The French are usually at the forefront of military innovation. Like the Lebel, with it's 8 round, smokeless powder charge & the FT with it's small size & rotating turret. However they tend to stand by these early developments while others observe and refine them, that's the disadvantage of innovating & adopting the earliest generations of weaponry, that everybody learns from your mistakes.
French tank development was greatly hampered by inter-branch rivalries. The Infantry wanted Infantry support tanks and didn't think the Cavalry should even exist any more while the Cavalry said only they deserved tanks and that only artillery should be available to support the infantry. This was the state of things right up to the surrender of France. And even though both the Cavalry and Infantry got tanks, they did not have a national armor doctrine. Cavalry had their doctrine and training and the Infantry had their doctrine and training and they were mutually exclusive.
"disadvantage of innovating & adopting the earliest generations of weaponry, that everybody learns from your mistakes." Except the french themselves. They never learned from their own mistakes. Or if they did, their bureaucracy completely stifled innovation. For example the lebel you mentioned, that gun wasn't innovative in the slightest, the gun itself was "created" in six months and all they did was convert a kropatchek, and the cartridge was literally 11mm gras, they necked down to 8mm because they just wanted a round NOW. These penny pinching choices absolutely hurt the french. It took about 2 years for everyone to have their own smokeless powder rifles and everyone had a better gun than the french. The lebel was practically a single shot because it was a tube loader, meanwhile everyone adopted clips. The french even until ww2 seem to have the philosophy of "it's cheap and good enough." While everyone else tried to improve themselves sometimes to a fault like Germany. It also seems like the french sorta upper echelon didn't care for the actual fighting men, like the 2 man turrets because "wow, less manpower per tank so we can have more tanks" while most other countries considered things like crew comfort and usability. Or things like they chose not to use welded armor not because they didn't know it was better, but because welders are paid more so each tank would cost more. Look at chieftains review of the panzer 3. The pz isn't that well armored, nor is it packing a huge gun. But Chieftain comments on it's relative comfort and amazing visibility comparing it to modern tanks.
In the words of jermey clarcson (paraphrasing a bit i think) "the french like to be first. Its like that face transplant thing we dont know what we are doing we'll take the baxkside of a baboon and call it a face, there we are first!"
God bless you for even getting in it. When I visited Saumur they offered to let my climb in it and my middle aged 6'4" self said thanks but dear God no thanks! The ARL44 was much better suited to my frame!
People get a sick pleasure out of watching you get in and out of tiny tiny spaces. That should be a compilation unto itself. 'Chieftain, the in and out of it.' ...
American usage of the R-35. In the "The United States Army in World War II" series (the official history of the American army), volume "Operation Torch", an American rifle squad was tasked with investigating the French Foreign Legion barracks in Safi, Morocco. They come across an R-35 driving down the road. They had no bazooka, but they did have some rifle grenades. They fired one, which hit the front right quarter, penetrated and spauling killed the driver. The tank lurched to the left and hit a tree, which threw the commander forward and he broke his neck hitting the edge of the turret. The squad discussed what to do for a minute and decided to take the tank. They removed the bodies of the two dead Frenchmen. Then while one rifleman figured out how to drive it, another figured out how to load and fire the cannon and machine gun. The rest of the squad followed behind. When they arrived at the French Foreign Legion barracks, they saw two unmanned 25mm anti-tank guns outside and a stucco building with all the legionaries inside. One of the American troops spoke French and threatened to shell the building, if the French did not surrender. The garrison surrendered. The captured R-35 and rifle squad then marched all 125 French prisoners down to the beach.
@@druisteen Okay. You tell me, what French units were stationed at Safi, Morocco, December 1942? And, what unit surrendered to an American squad sent to investigate the French Foreign Legion barracks?
Slow, poorly armed, and cramped for its crew it may be, but by tank standards it's cute. Granted, 'cute' is not an adjective that one would consider desirable on most military equipment. An enjoyable tour all the same.
Judging by the existence of the ELC and all those adorable armored cars produced by France I'd presume that cute AFV:s are an official part of the French military doctrine.
Keep in mind, at the time, the majority of the axis tanks would be of PZI and PZII design While the R35 could not catch those cause it does not have the speed, It was capable of playing Gandalf vs Balrog in You can not pass, and casting flaws aside it would be fairly impervious, but of course it was not really designed as a tank vs tank vehicle but instead to be a heavy robo soldier to support the infantry up close and personal, but to various reason's that situation kinda never presented itself cause the guys in charge were planning on a re-eun of WWI for some reason and that's how they put all their pieces on the playfield. But that is pretty much how the entire blitzkrieg goes. It's a lovely story of We have everything we need to stop an invasion, now lets put it all everyplace we can so that it cant be used to stop anything :( In hindsight, it is hard to imagine when the hell those in charge were thinking exactly
The Churchill series is the dark soles series lol 3 progressing tanks each heavier than the last all enjoyed the same engine with the same old horsepower making you slower as you climb up the tier tree
TotalRookie_LV the physical contact by booting the driver with "nice" kicks was more common than you think because the intercom system, if available, failed quite often during the war so as the driver can't see what the commander wants he just received a series of well aimed kicks that leaves no doubt what the commander wants! That he will have a very sore back at the end of the day is another story..
Well, once again I was _mostly_ just joking, but only found out, there is something to it. Someone needs to spraypaint this on the back of the drivers seat or at least attach a paper with the message: "In case driver hangs up, reBOOT it!
The plugs for the vision slits remind me of the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: When peril is detected, blind yourself so that you don't get scared.
Strange. They remind me of an attempt to keep out bullet splash when the tank comes under sustained rifle and machine gun fire. When a bullet hits a hard target it can break up. The fragments go all over, and some can come through a vision slit. Eye damage and other crew injuries are possible results. So your statement is the opposite of correct. The point of stopping bullet splash is to prevent yourself from being blinded. Being able to block the vision ports was a wise precaution.
@@elpresidente5767 yeah no the different French resistance groups fought amongst each other then when France was liberated French generals were proped up in Paris as heros to prevent the then widely accepted as inevitable post-war French Civil War. That's why the allies rapidly shut down the indiscriminate armament of resistance groups and limited resources to specified missions like in D-day
The H35 is even worse with that. Angle just right and you wreck anything. The only problem is the 25 is low damage high pen. And the 37 is high damage low pen.
All of those complaints about the driver's position and not a single mention of the lovely, tucked and rolled, hand crafted upholstery in the most delightful of designer colors. >:-(
Thanks Mr. Moran and all camera helpers, elves, nymphs and their families etc, for covering this poor vehicle; that had poorer feeling crews no doubt. I wonder if it is likely that apart from the armour and possible radio, they still preferred the FT's, being posted to a Char 1 B, or being demoted to 'The Line'?
Amazing to see the company that Renault has become. They've come a long way. Easily my favorite Highway-Tractor manufacturer. The Renault Magnum and T-series are both pretty great.
That drivers hatch doesn't seem too bad. Plus the sudden burst of speed and strength granted by the fear of an imminent death would make all the difference.
He already did one on the TKS :D th-cam.com/video/LNLxDP0omKs/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=The_Chieftain Edit: I just now noticed your comment is 4 years old, same with the vid...oops...
Woo More chieftain! Im sure you guys have tanks lined up to visit still and other footage we dont know about ;) but I would LOVE to see the inside of Germany's more common vehicles like the stug and a panzer 4 :D
Thanks for showing the details that made this tank poor for taking on other tanks. Advanced Squad Leader showed the effect to me, you showed the cause to me.
Great video, as always, I was laughing at your comments about the tank all the way through the video. I saw a video by Lindybeige talking about one man turrets and using this tank as an example and actually seeing what it's really like inside made me realize that the R35 is actually much worse than he made it out to be.
I've decided that my FT tank running full scale model is going to have a one man crew. No point in being totally cramped and miserable in peacetime. Mine is made of wood and utterly claustrophobic, imagine being in these things and having to fight all buttoned down among all that metal.
Idk why but that loud ass noise when he closed the coolant cap around the 4:45 mark is hilarious because you know that scared the piss out of the regular museum guests
My dad has one of those R35 tank engines. He made it as the power plant for an arc welder. Direct belt drive off the crankshaft to a B-17 generator with a B-17 heated flight suit controller to adjust the amperage. All on a hand built wheeled frame. Will you be doing the Ducky?
Saumur? I sense a Königstiger video in the near future! I hope you have spent a lot of time filming there... lots of cool and unique tanks those frenchies have there!
Excellent episode! Reminds me of another episode by another excellent host, regarding French predreadnoughts, "When Hotels go to War." Like U said, "I got nothing..."" LOL :)
budmeister maybe idk how big they made the HE round for this gun but they could still have fit more explosive filler on the tank mounted one think of it as .357 magnum vs 30-06 yeah it's a bigger bullet diameter but the rifle bullet still has a similar weight range for it's rounds just depends on how they wanted to make them (the tank gun rounds)
M71 90mm HE had about 2 pounds of explosive in it. If you think 2 pounds of HE is weak then idk what you've been smoking. And, heads up, no one uses minengeschoss except in a select few aircraft guns from the Cold War, which are rarely used anymore. Mine shells are weaker structurally, and have to be fired at lower velocities, making them ineffective for hitting fast moving and maneuverable targets.
Not only is the 40mm grenade from the M-19 more powerful, but has better range and is more accurate. Go, go DEPD out to 900m... What many people don't understand is that the explosive fillers used by WWII tanks was more powerful that the equivalent mass of TNT, but today's fillers are significantly more powerful that the fillers used during WWII.
As always, thanks for the great episode and insight. Looking forward to you checkig out that Char B1 in the background next ;) Also, on a scale from Panther to T-34, where would you rate the crew-ergonomics of this tank? *snickers* But seriously now, it's easy to see why the french tanks were so inferior to the german tanks on a technological level. 3-man turrets and radios on every tank was clearly the way forward and it will forever baffle me, how the other nations didn't see that one coming from a mile away.
But also the German tanks had way more thought and time put into them. Making sure every single cubic centimeter of space is being used, that the crew fits correctly into it with enough room to not feel claustrophobic or get in each other's way and that they have enough visibility.
Given some of the strange buttoning up -- to what extent did inter-war tanks, or indeed WW2 tanks, consider gas protection? Given its impact in WW1 - I do wonder if there was some limiting in place in terms of openness? Or at least consideration given?
Most didn't bother with it. Gas protection means you would need to make perfectly fitted plates and welt them together super cleanly in addition to an overpressure system that requires a lot of power as well as a large and bulky filtration system.
At this point it's become expected, that's the chieftian's theme. Perhaps overused, but not as loud as in the earlier videos. It was totally justified at the start of course, the amount of background noise in the early videos would have probably required overdubbing, but the backing track also did the job of obscuring it.
"Oh, its not fun to hear the same song over and over again..." Buckle up sunshine, life sucks. By the way, after a comment like that, I expect you to replace the word iron in your screen name with the word soft.
I almost killed an entire enemy team in this by my self in WoT Blitz.... My entire team was dead... I killed 6 out of the 7, the 7th enemy was an R35, wasn't even close to destroying him until I ran out of AP and was left with HE then ended up shooting him with HE for no reason at the cap, that time I loaded 50 AP 50 HE. This battle happened in copperfield
Love how a tank that was driven by cost saving has jaeger dails. If you haven't heard of jaeger (lecoultre), they make watches with prices that start at Rolex level, and only goes up from there... got to love the french
The Slits on the turret were not that simple. There were installed episcopes PPL160 with 68º horizontal FOV and 24º vertical FOV .French tanks used "episcopes" to provide the crew with views outside the tank with a large FOV through a very tiny viewslit and provide protection by having what is in effect a small armored, vertically rotating "periscope" view (vision area is offset from the opening in the armor plate) . The cupola inludes a PPL180 with 30º vertical fov (and guess 68º horizontal fov) that would be used by default and a estienne 114mm slit.....
Given the fact I'm 6 foot 2 and I know the Chieftain is also a tall person, my first thought was "oh boy I can't wait to see how he squeezes into that one man turret..." Drivers station was surprisingly roomy though
I haven't seen one, but a look at the AMC 35 would be interesting. I have conflicting data about its size. Some say that it's the same length as an R35, others that it's longer. And wider.
When he said 80 km I almost said wow, thought it was the speed limit. I thought that the range of the Centurion was bad but this takes the cake. General Charles deGaule was 6'6 or 1mtr 96 and he was in charge of the armoured corp in 1940 and he was in charge of these vehicles. Explains why the campaign of 1940 ended with a German victory.
Obscure question: does the AMX ELC Bis prototype have enough of a interior to do a Inside the Chieftain's Hatch on? Or is the tank sitting in the museum have an empty interior?
I'm surprised. Usually you find more than a few positive things about a tank...but this? I've never seen you so derogatory about a tank before. I'm not saying it's not justified, I'm just surprised.
Basically, the R-35 (1x37 mm & 1x MG) could theoretically replace two FTs with half the manpower needed. But as the points out one weapon was a turret gunner-commander-loader in an FT was overworked. “ I have no words …” about sums the R-35 up.
No matter how bad this tank is you must admire the French did a whole lot to make it look good. Even the German tanks was as refined as this in the little details.
French military doctine dictates that if you camoflage your vehicle, you must include exterior lighting so the vehicle can be spotted. Also you must paint a large bullseye on the weakest part of the turret, so that the gunner can be easily killed, rendering the tank useless.
Engine efficiency has increased substantially over the years. The late WWI era Liberty was a nearly 20 liter V12 that put out 400 horsepower. It was considered world class at the time. Even at the end of WWII, a similar size American V12 tank engine was still only good for about 770 horsepower.
Engine size s engine size. The only reason that they make larger engines into V8s is that when you get too big with the pistons, and the stroke is to long, you can only run it at low RPMs and you get more torque but less power. That's why anything over 2.8L tends to be a 6 and anything over 4.0L range to be a V8. That splits the same displacement up into more, smaller, pistons with a shorter stroke, and most horsepower.
Извиняюсь за Гуглпереводчик :) Wonderful that you continue to shoot such a video. WG freezes now many of their activity, it is good that you are not affected. PS the video is Planned for Tortoise?
I understand the concept of keeping that tanks slow so they can't easily desert the troops, but how do you quickly relocate them to where you need them when you finally engage the enemy?
+20 kph will not make a difference whatsoever when you need to relocate quickly in a country as big as France. The hellcats could do 60+ kph easy and they hardly ever actually used that speed. If your intelligence fails and the enemy breaks through somewhere else you are f*cked anyway. But most importantly these tanks were built for a very specific doctrine like the Chieftain said.
Yes, also, the infantry tanks have little value if there is no infantry with them. If we are talking about their mobility on the _operational_ level, they remain as mobile as your leg-infantry. As long as you provide your forces with logistical support you might expect with a reasonable amount of certainty that your armour won't be separated from the infantry they were supporting and that the tanks will be operational when necessary. The problems start whenever your logistics fail or when the armour mechanical reliability starts dwindling or is lacking from the get-go.
The thing is, back in the day, tank doctrine wasan't a sure thing, it was a verry blurry kind of warfare. Many type of tanks and doctrines were created and basicly everything failed. You worry about the tank speed is a concerned in the battlefield, this type of tank is not malleable, it was good to one thing and one thing only, which end up making it a useless and expensive machine. Today tank warfare is completly diferent, tanks need to be extremelly malleable, they need to be extremelly fast, so they can move to any location in the battlefield at a small amount of time, giving the oportunity for flanking tatics and much more, the cannon also needs to be able to deal with both tanks and infantry and the armor need to be able to take hits from all kinds of stuff. Soo yeah, this excuse that infantry tank shouldn't be fast is complete bull, and that ideia soon lost popularity, as far this tank... Chieftain is right, somebody most've smoked some heavy weed when they made the vision ports on that tank, visibility is important, especially for a infantry tank, comunication is also verry important, and the gun... that gun is horrible to kill or supress anything lol
Very informative video of poorly designed armored vehicle. It looks good to me, but that's about it. Can't imagine being one of the two crew in this vehicle.
Everyone makes mistakes somewhere, you do your bit in the moment & hope life doesn't bite. Unfortunately for WW2 France, this tank was not enough, amongst a myriad of leadership failures, most of those an accumulation of less than militarily optimal & habitual - TheCheiftain has discussed the battle failures leading to Dunkirk (unsure if that is classified as a campaign or not) in other videos.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 87 วันนี้!! คู่เอก "ก้องชัย vs โชคปรีชา"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YN6e7HVnekw/mqdefault.jpg)
The French are usually at the forefront of military innovation. Like the Lebel, with it's 8 round, smokeless powder charge & the FT with it's small size & rotating turret. However they tend to stand by these early developments while others observe and refine them, that's the disadvantage of innovating & adopting the earliest generations of weaponry, that everybody learns from your mistakes.
French tank development was greatly hampered by inter-branch rivalries. The Infantry wanted Infantry support tanks and didn't think the Cavalry should even exist any more while the Cavalry said only they deserved tanks and that only artillery should be available to support the infantry. This was the state of things right up to the surrender of France.
And even though both the Cavalry and Infantry got tanks, they did not have a national armor doctrine. Cavalry had their doctrine and training and the Infantry had their doctrine and training and they were mutually exclusive.
While they may have great innovators, they sucked balls with anything related to keeping abreast of tactics and doctrines...
"disadvantage of innovating & adopting the earliest generations of weaponry, that everybody learns from your mistakes."
Except the french themselves. They never learned from their own mistakes. Or if they did, their bureaucracy completely stifled innovation. For example the lebel you mentioned, that gun wasn't innovative in the slightest, the gun itself was "created" in six months and all they did was convert a kropatchek, and the cartridge was literally 11mm gras, they necked down to 8mm because they just wanted a round NOW. These penny pinching choices absolutely hurt the french. It took about 2 years for everyone to have their own smokeless powder rifles and everyone had a better gun than the french. The lebel was practically a single shot because it was a tube loader, meanwhile everyone adopted clips.
The french even until ww2 seem to have the philosophy of "it's cheap and good enough." While everyone else tried to improve themselves sometimes to a fault like Germany. It also seems like the french sorta upper echelon didn't care for the actual fighting men, like the 2 man turrets because "wow, less manpower per tank so we can have more tanks" while most other countries considered things like crew comfort and usability. Or things like they chose not to use welded armor not because they didn't know it was better, but because welders are paid more so each tank would cost more. Look at chieftains review of the panzer 3. The pz isn't that well armored, nor is it packing a huge gun. But Chieftain comments on it's relative comfort and amazing visibility comparing it to modern tanks.
In the words of jermey clarcson (paraphrasing a bit i think) "the french like to be first. Its like that face transplant thing we dont know what we are doing we'll take the baxkside of a baboon and call it a face, there we are first!"
I see that you, too, watch Forgotten Weapons
I am getting the idea that the Chieftain hates this tank.
Hate is a strong word... disapprove may be better.
TheChieftainWoT i dont think you hate any tank. Because tanks are awesome.
true, but very dissaproving.
God bless you for even getting in it. When I visited Saumur they offered to let my climb in it and my middle aged 6'4" self said thanks but dear God no thanks! The ARL44 was much better suited to my frame!
This video could be used in presenting my Renault Megane.
People get a sick pleasure out of watching you get in and out of tiny tiny spaces.
That should be a compilation unto itself.
'Chieftain, the in and out of it.'
...
American usage of the R-35.
In the "The United States Army in World War II" series (the official history of the American army), volume "Operation Torch", an American rifle squad was tasked with investigating the French Foreign Legion barracks in Safi, Morocco. They come across an R-35 driving down the road. They had no bazooka, but they did have some rifle grenades. They fired one, which hit the front right quarter, penetrated and spauling killed the driver. The tank lurched to the left and hit a tree, which threw the commander forward and he broke his neck hitting the edge of the turret.
The squad discussed what to do for a minute and decided to take the tank. They removed the bodies of the two dead Frenchmen. Then while one rifleman figured out how to drive it, another figured out how to load and fire the cannon and machine gun. The rest of the squad followed behind.
When they arrived at the French Foreign Legion barracks, they saw two unmanned 25mm anti-tank guns outside and a stucco building with all the legionaries inside. One of the American troops spoke French and threatened to shell the building, if the French did not surrender. The garrison surrendered. The captured R-35 and rifle squad then marched all 125 French prisoners down to the beach.
Not all french colonial are French foreign légion
@@druisteen True. Just telling ya what the book said.
@@AmatureAstronomer
American book are sometine not accurate , especially toward France
@@druisteen Okay. You tell me, what French units were stationed at Safi, Morocco, December 1942? And, what unit surrendered to an American squad sent to investigate the French Foreign Legion barracks?
@@AmatureAstronomer
For sure .... the Marine corp was in safi
les Troupes de marine
Slow, poorly armed, and cramped for its crew it may be, but by tank standards it's cute. Granted, 'cute' is not an adjective that one would consider desirable on most military equipment. An enjoyable tour all the same.
Judging by the existence of the ELC and all those adorable armored cars produced by France I'd presume that cute AFV:s are an official part of the French military doctrine.
French tanks, the Miimes of the Tank world.
Keep in mind, at the time, the majority of the axis tanks would be of PZI and PZII design
While the R35 could not catch those cause it does not have the speed, It was capable of playing Gandalf vs Balrog in You can not pass, and casting flaws aside it would be fairly impervious, but of course it was not really
designed as a tank vs tank vehicle but instead to be a heavy robo soldier to support the infantry up close and personal, but to various reason's that situation kinda never presented itself cause the guys in charge were planning on a re-eun of WWI for some reason and that's how they put all their pieces on the playfield.
But that is pretty much how the entire blitzkrieg goes.
It's a lovely story of We have everything we need to stop an invasion, now lets put it all everyplace we can so that it cant be used to stop anything :(
In hindsight, it is hard to imagine when the hell those in charge were thinking exactly
Shame the rubber duck AMX40 never came to be
not really for a modern US crew.
German Tank : Normal Difficulty.
Russian Tank : Hard Difficulty.
French Tank : Dark Souls.
VladiSSius Italian Tank:2 times Dark souls
American- Easy
You will not survive.
@Joseph Satri Cleofe Villanueva "German tank: Heroic Victory" that's funny I can't remember in which timeline we ever saw german tanks win a war ?
The Churchill series is the dark soles series lol 3 progressing tanks each heavier than the last all enjoyed the same engine with the same old horsepower making you slower as you climb up the tier tree
"A physical contact" to communicate with the driver? Let me guess, in a noisy tank that would be a kick with a boot.
Exactly.
TotalRookie_LV the physical contact by booting the driver with "nice" kicks was more common than you think because the intercom system, if available, failed quite often during the war so as the driver can't see what the commander wants he just received a series of well aimed kicks that leaves no doubt what the commander wants! That he will have a very sore back at the end of the day is another story..
Well, once again I was _mostly_ just joking, but only found out, there is something to it.
Someone needs to spraypaint this on the back of the drivers seat or at least attach a paper with the message: "In case driver hangs up, reBOOT it!
TotalRookie_LV exactly what I was thinking as well! Rebooting is the correct answer when the driver has done a fuck up! Lol
yes, and the t-34 was no different.
This is madness. "I have no words," is articulate.
Just what we need a overpowered tier 2 getting love
The plugs for the vision slits remind me of the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: When peril is detected, blind yourself so that you don't get scared.
Strange. They remind me of an attempt to keep out bullet splash when the tank comes under sustained rifle and machine gun fire. When a bullet hits a hard target it can break up. The fragments go all over, and some can come through a vision slit. Eye damage and other crew injuries are possible results. So your statement is the opposite of correct. The point of stopping bullet splash is to prevent yourself from being blinded. Being able to block the vision ports was a wise precaution.
alcibiadesW and they say i am not fun at parties.
Well, to be fair to the manufacturer of peril-sensitive sunglasses, they work _perfectly_ against the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
Very, very ravenous.
Many people were of smaller physical proportions back then. Those that were shorter and thinner were often selected to drive the tanks.
With the cannon muzzle right over the drivers hatch the muzzle blast must have been terrific!
rear view mirror, seriously, well, at least I can add a high-quality reference to my jokes nöw.
salty that you lost two world wars to the French ? heh
@@elpresidente5767 I don't really think the French had anything to do with the second one
@@_Itchy_Bones_ de tassigny think otherwise ;)
@@elpresidente5767 yeah no the different French resistance groups fought amongst each other then when France was liberated French generals were proped up in Paris as heros to prevent the then widely accepted as inevitable post-war French Civil War. That's why the allies rapidly shut down the indiscriminate armament of resistance groups and limited resources to specified missions like in D-day
@@_Itchy_Bones_ how many french resistant were killed while fighting each other?
I love this thing at tier 2 in wot! I feast on the tears of all tanks that have autocannons and gift you cool-headed medals.
The H35 is even worse with that. Angle just right and you wreck anything. The only problem is the 25 is low damage high pen. And the 37 is high damage low pen.
Meanwhile in War Thunder... a penetrating hit just about anywhere and you're dead instantly
All of those complaints about the driver's position and not a single mention of the lovely, tucked and rolled, hand crafted upholstery in the most delightful of designer colors. >:-(
Thanks Mr. Moran and all camera helpers, elves, nymphs and their families etc, for covering this poor vehicle; that had poorer feeling crews no doubt.
I wonder if it is likely that apart from the armour and possible radio, they still preferred the FT's, being posted to a Char 1 B, or being demoted to 'The Line'?
Feels like traveling the world with Chieftain, it's just great!
When an Irishman "has no words" you know it's bad .
He used the word "DEATHTRAP"!
Nice to see you back. I like seeing the early war tanks.
Me too
Amazing to see the company that Renault has become. They've come a long way. Easily my favorite Highway-Tractor manufacturer. The Renault Magnum and T-series are both pretty great.
That drivers hatch doesn't seem too bad. Plus the sudden burst of speed and strength granted by the fear of an imminent death would make all the difference.
"I've got nothing"
Seems to be a good description of the entire tank. 😂
Glad to see you're wearing the proper footwear!
i have learnt more about the individual tanks from you then searching for the individual tanks themselves
Chieftain, maybe you would consider making an episode about Tankiette TKS or/and 7 TP. Those are qiute interesting Polish light tanks.
Cheers! ;)
7 TP ? 7 tiny benis ? :DDDDD
7 tonnes
He already did one on the TKS :D th-cam.com/video/LNLxDP0omKs/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=The_Chieftain
Edit: I just now noticed your comment is 4 years old, same with the vid...oops...
Woo More chieftain!
Im sure you guys have tanks lined up to visit still and other footage we dont know about ;) but I would LOVE to see the inside of Germany's more common vehicles like the stug and a panzer 4 :D
Love your series on tanks, sir. Thanks for giving us the info.
Now I'm wondering if there is a tank that The Chieftan find so bad he wouldn't get inside it to avoid BB fire.
Easy, he probably won't get in a A38 Valiant since getting shot by BBs is better than losing a limb
Valiant Assault Tank
Neurofied Yamato the crews had to be valiant to get in
Thanks for showing the details that made this tank poor for taking on other tanks. Advanced Squad Leader showed the effect to me, you showed the cause to me.
Any day the Chief uploads a video is a good day
yessssss im so happy you actually brought up the balkan campaign, its the reason this thing is one of my favourite tanks of the war
"lé mousé dé blundé" :')) love your vidéos ! that is so cool to see all thoses tanks
"I got nothing. I'm gonna get out." Probably the same thing most Renault's drivers said at one point.
I'd much rather see the Char B1bis, but I'm happy with this too.
The R35 is just so damn cute, it's like a little puppy dog.
Great video, as always, I was laughing at your comments about the tank all the way through the video. I saw a video by Lindybeige talking about one man turrets and using this tank as an example and actually seeing what it's really like inside made me realize that the R35 is actually much worse than he made it out to be.
I've decided that my FT tank running full scale model is going to have a one man crew. No point in being totally cramped and miserable in peacetime. Mine is made of wood and utterly claustrophobic, imagine being in these things and having to fight all buttoned down among all that metal.
Idk why but that loud ass noise when he closed the coolant cap around the 4:45 mark is hilarious because you know that scared the piss out of the regular museum guests
I find it interesting how the light tank itself evolved from 1918 to 1960s and today.
My dad has one of those R35 tank engines. He made it as the power plant for an arc welder. Direct belt drive off the crankshaft to a B-17 generator with a B-17 heated flight suit controller to adjust the amperage. All on a hand built wheeled frame.
Will you be doing the Ducky?
You need to post a video of that outfit. I just sub'ed to you in case you make one. Peace.
love the R2-D2 dome....
Saumur? I sense a Königstiger video in the near future! I hope you have spent a lot of time filming there... lots of cool and unique tanks those frenchies have there!
Please do a B1 and B2! It looks tall and wide enough for you and its quite well known
One of my favorite tanks alongside the M/13/40 and Panzer IV
That cupola on the turret was the inspiration for the Dalek head, no doubt!
Thank you for the video! Cant wait to see the next one!!
Love the AMX 13 Harpon and its ss11 missiles on the wall such a useful little tank on wargame if supported correctly
Geez as a french, hearing you speak french at the start was such a treat !
I used to live in Belgium. I'm understandable, but I murder the language with my accent.
these are great videos - but the repeating music in the background is like a mosquito in my ear.
Excellent episode! Reminds me of another episode by another excellent host, regarding French predreadnoughts, "When Hotels go to War." Like U said, "I got nothing..."" LOL :)
Yes! More early tanks!!! The bit at the end was funny....
Just waiting for the "Inside the B1" vid here.
So a Mk19 has more firepower than the 37mm gun of this tank?
budmeister yep
budmeister maybe idk how big they made the HE round for this gun but they could still have fit more explosive filler on the tank mounted one
think of it as .357 magnum vs 30-06 yeah it's a bigger bullet diameter but the rifle bullet still has a similar weight range for it's rounds just depends on how they wanted to make them (the tank gun rounds)
M71 90mm HE had about 2 pounds of explosive in it. If you think 2 pounds of HE is weak then idk what you've been smoking. And, heads up, no one uses minengeschoss except in a select few aircraft guns from the Cold War, which are rarely used anymore. Mine shells are weaker structurally, and have to be fired at lower velocities, making them ineffective for hitting fast moving and maneuverable targets.
So a hummer with a Mk19 out perfoms this tank.
Not only is the 40mm grenade from the M-19 more powerful, but has better range and is more accurate. Go, go DEPD out to 900m... What many people don't understand is that the explosive fillers used by WWII tanks was more powerful that the equivalent mass of TNT, but today's fillers are significantly more powerful that the fillers used during WWII.
19:12
Nicholas Moran: "Omelette Du Fromage"
Me: "It's all you can saay it's all you can saaaay"
As always, thanks for the great episode and insight. Looking forward to you checkig out that Char B1 in the background next ;)
Also, on a scale from Panther to T-34, where would you rate the crew-ergonomics of this tank? *snickers* But seriously now, it's easy to see why the french tanks were so inferior to the german tanks on a technological level. 3-man turrets and radios on every tank was clearly the way forward and it will forever baffle me, how the other nations didn't see that one coming from a mile away.
But also the German tanks had way more thought and time put into them. Making sure every single cubic centimeter of space is being used, that the crew fits correctly into it with enough room to not feel claustrophobic or get in each other's way and that they have enough visibility.
don't know if there are any left, but earlyl Pz III and IV'S would be cool to see.
Given some of the strange buttoning up -- to what extent did inter-war tanks, or indeed WW2 tanks, consider gas protection? Given its impact in WW1 - I do wonder if there was some limiting in place in terms of openness? Or at least consideration given?
Most didn't bother with it. Gas protection means you would need to make perfectly fitted plates and welt them together super cleanly in addition to an overpressure system that requires a lot of power as well as a large and bulky filtration system.
If one thing these videos have taught me is how hellish things can be for tank crews. This is right up there with Jagpanzer38t aka Hetzer.
This makes the M11/39 look like a reasonably good machine.
Please stop looping the song after the first few minutes. It's not fun to hear the same song looped for almost 20 minutes
The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs no it is the song we know and love. Also hi haigs
Fuck off. I'm headbanging to this and I wont let anyone change that.
At this point it's become expected, that's the chieftian's theme. Perhaps overused, but not as loud as in the earlier videos. It was totally justified at the start of course, the amount of background noise in the early videos would have probably required overdubbing, but the backing track also did the job of obscuring it.
I thought that was a french radio station !!!!!! :$
"Oh, its not fun to hear the same song over and over again..."
Buckle up sunshine, life sucks. By the way, after a comment like that, I expect you to replace the word iron in your screen name with the word soft.
Saw a photo of an R tank in Belgium after WW2.
FARMER used it as a tractor.
I almost killed an entire enemy team in this by my self in WoT Blitz.... My entire team was dead... I killed 6 out of the 7, the 7th enemy was an R35, wasn't even close to destroying him until I ran out of AP and was left with HE then ended up shooting him with HE for no reason at the cap,
that time I loaded 50 AP 50 HE. This battle happened in copperfield
Love how a tank that was driven by cost saving has jaeger dails. If you haven't heard of jaeger (lecoultre), they make watches with prices that start at Rolex level, and only goes up from there... got to love the french
It actually surprised me that Chieftain can fit into the tank.
"...atrocious, god awful or horrendus..." superb description!
Finally watched this episode and I think I know where the Doctor Who writers got the inspiration for the Daleks. Especially at 0918.
The Slits on the turret were not that simple. There were installed episcopes PPL160 with 68º horizontal FOV and 24º vertical FOV .French tanks used "episcopes" to provide the crew with views outside the tank with a large FOV through a very tiny viewslit and provide protection by having what is in effect a small armored, vertically rotating "periscope" view (vision area is offset from the opening in the armor plate) . The cupola inludes a PPL180 with 30º vertical fov (and guess 68º horizontal fov) that would be used by default and a estienne 114mm slit.....
I could tell by your face you loved it ! So all in all a good tank then ? 🤣🤣
Given the fact I'm 6 foot 2 and I know the Chieftain is also a tall person, my first thought was
"oh boy I can't wait to see how he squeezes into that one man turret..."
Drivers station was surprisingly roomy though
I haven't seen one, but a look at the AMC 35 would be interesting. I have conflicting data about its size. Some say that it's the same length as an R35, others that it's longer. And wider.
I like the Driver's 'make up mirror' ! Seriously, imagine getting hit inside of that, it's so cramped !
When he said 80 km I almost said wow, thought it was the speed limit. I thought that the range of the Centurion was bad but this takes the cake. General Charles deGaule was 6'6 or 1mtr 96 and he was in charge of the armoured corp in 1940 and he was in charge of these vehicles. Explains why the campaign of 1940 ended with a German victory.
I believe CdG was in charge of the D-2 battalion.
Obscure question: does the AMX ELC Bis prototype have enough of a interior to do a Inside the Chieftain's Hatch on? Or is the tank sitting in the museum have an empty interior?
This is clearly his favorite tank
Here in The Netherlands, the German's put the turret of the R35 on to some little bunkers they had built. However, they never saw action.
I'm surprised. Usually you find more than a few positive things about a tank...but this? I've never seen you so derogatory about a tank before. I'm not saying it's not justified, I'm just surprised.
Yeah hehe
Basically, the R-35 (1x37 mm & 1x MG) could theoretically replace two FTs with half the manpower needed. But as the points out one weapon was a turret gunner-commander-loader in an FT was overworked. “ I have no words …” about sums the R-35 up.
My favorite tank in WoT! The armor and 25mm gun are so good!
Well, the H35 that is...
It seems that the most that can be said for the bulk of the French and Italian tanks is that they made passable constabulary vehicles for the Germans.
No matter how bad this tank is you must admire the French did a whole lot to make it look good. Even the German tanks was as refined as this in the little details.
I would like to see you do a inside review of a Japanese TE-KE tank !.
Love your vids.
French military doctine dictates that if you camoflage your vehicle, you must include exterior lighting so the vehicle can be spotted. Also you must paint a large bullseye on the weakest part of the turret, so that the gunner can be easily killed, rendering the tank useless.
What tank did De Gaul command as he was over six foot plus the crap hat he wore ! As always entertaining thanks for sharing! 😉
I seem to recall it was Char D2s.
Let’s take a moment to acknowledge, this thing has a 5.9 liter inline 4. That’s bigger than some v8s today
Engine efficiency has increased substantially over the years. The late WWI era Liberty was a nearly 20 liter V12 that put out 400 horsepower. It was considered world class at the time. Even at the end of WWII, a similar size American V12 tank engine was still only good for about 770 horsepower.
Engine size s engine size. The only reason that they make larger engines into V8s is that when you get too big with the pistons, and the stroke is to long, you can only run it at low RPMs and you get more torque but less power. That's why anything over 2.8L tends to be a 6 and anything over 4.0L range to be a V8. That splits the same displacement up into more, smaller, pistons with a shorter stroke, and most horsepower.
Извиняюсь за Гуглпереводчик :)
Wonderful that you continue to shoot such a video. WG freezes now many of their activity, it is good that you are not affected.
PS the video is Planned for Tortoise?
I hope he gets an inside look at the Char B1
I understand the concept of keeping that tanks slow so they can't easily desert the troops, but how do you quickly relocate them to where you need them when you finally engage the enemy?
Did you ever heard of... railroads?
----
Like, really, that's the secret of all armour units in all countries even today.
+20 kph will not make a difference whatsoever when you need to relocate quickly in a country as big as France. The hellcats could do 60+ kph easy and they hardly ever actually used that speed. If your intelligence fails and the enemy breaks through somewhere else you are f*cked anyway. But most importantly these tanks were built for a very specific doctrine like the Chieftain said.
Yes, also, the infantry tanks have little value if there is no infantry with them. If we are talking about their mobility on the _operational_ level, they remain as mobile as your leg-infantry. As long as you provide your forces with logistical support you might expect with a reasonable amount of certainty that your armour won't be separated from the infantry they were supporting and that the tanks will be operational when necessary.
The problems start whenever your logistics fail or when the armour mechanical reliability starts dwindling or is lacking from the get-go.
You are correct Robbie Rotten.
The thing is, back in the day, tank doctrine wasan't a sure thing, it was a verry blurry kind of warfare. Many type of tanks and doctrines were created and basicly everything failed. You worry about the tank speed is a concerned in the battlefield, this type of tank is not malleable, it was good to one thing and one thing only, which end up making it a useless and expensive machine. Today tank warfare is completly diferent, tanks need to be extremelly malleable, they need to be extremelly fast, so they can move to any location in the battlefield at a small amount of time, giving the oportunity for flanking tatics and much more, the cannon also needs to be able to deal with both tanks and infantry and the armor need to be able to take hits from all kinds of stuff. Soo yeah, this excuse that infantry tank shouldn't be fast is complete bull, and that ideia soon lost popularity, as far this tank... Chieftain is right, somebody most've smoked some heavy weed when they made the vision ports on that tank, visibility is important, especially for a infantry tank, comunication is also verry important, and the gun... that gun is horrible to kill or supress anything lol
Very informative video of poorly designed armored vehicle. It looks good to me, but that's about it. Can't imagine being one of the two crew in this vehicle.
The dome on top with the vision slit..... this is not the droid you are looking for.
Hey Chief, there are any surviving Chars B1/B2 or Chars Bis? if so, are you planning on doing an *"Inside the Chieftain's Hatch"* with it too?
So that's what happened to the Munchkins.
The French used them in their tanks.
R35 Renault is one awesome little light tank III I love it .... i have 110+
14 X
35+ X ready to buy but NO MONEY lol
the little cople miss in the big cople is it use to evac the gas/smoke of the canon
Renault engineers: "Ooh! Cool tank design! Let's build it!"
Actual tanker looks inside finished R35: "Merde."
These videos are so much fun. But you need to remind viewers to Thumbs up and subscribe. I've forgot on many of your videos to like.
Thank you for the video
“communication isn’t a problem cuz there isn’t any” lol
Please make an episode on the Sd.kfz.251 Puma!
Everyone makes mistakes somewhere, you do your bit in the moment & hope life doesn't bite.
Unfortunately for WW2 France, this tank was not enough, amongst a myriad of leadership failures, most of those an accumulation of less than militarily optimal & habitual - TheCheiftain has discussed the battle failures leading to Dunkirk (unsure if that is classified as a campaign or not) in other videos.