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The French also experimented with various tank designs, such as the Frot-Laffly landship, Boirault machine and Souain experiment. Another 400 Saint-Chamond tanks were manufactured from April 1917 to July 1918 but they were underpowered and were of limited utility because the caterpillar tracks were too short for the tank's length and weight. [ 1 ]
By 1935 the French Infantry had not yet developed a satisfactory medium tank. Whereas a reasonably effective heavy breakthrough tank was available, the Char B1, and several light infantry support tanks were on the brink of being taken into production – the Renault R35, Hotchkiss H35 and the FCM 36 – a good medium tank had still to be designed, as the Char D1 was a manifest failure and the ...
By 2007, 355 tanks were to have been operational, 320 of them incorporated in four regiments, each with 80 Leclercs. As of 2010, after a French defence review, each of the four regiments operated 60 Leclerc tanks for a total of 240 in operational units; with a further 100 in combat ready reserve. Due to financial cuts, only 254 tanks were fully ...
The design deliberately had no overhanging front or rear sections, which had greatly hampered the mobility of the earlier French Schneider CA1 and Saint Chamond tanks. The tank could overcome a 1-metre-high (3.3 ft) vertical obstacle and cross a trench 3.5 m (11 ft) wide. [3]
The "ARL Tracteur C", or ARL Char C, was a French super-heavy tank design. It was developed during the late Interbellum, by the Atelier de Construction de Rueil (ARL) company. A full-scale wooden mock-up was part produced, but the project was terminated in favor of FCM F1 (a directly competing design, which proved to be superior). The vehicle ...
Frontal view. The ARL 44 clearly shows that it is based on earlier French heavy tank design. The hull is long, 722 centimetres, but relatively narrow, just as a vehicle meant to cross wide trenches would be.
By this stage of the war, automitrailleuse was the standard word for an armoured car, but by the time the FT was designed there were two other types of French tank in existence, and the term char d'assaut (from the French char – a cart or wagon, and assaut; attack or assault), soon shortened to char, had at the insistence of Colonel Estienne ...
Schneider company had expected to be able to employ the other major French arms producer, the Forges et Aciéries de la Marine et d'Homécourt, as a subcontractor but they had developed a heavier tank design, the Saint-Chamond tank. As a result, the first prototype could only be presented to the Ministry of Armament on 4 August. [33]