A Little French Food For Thought

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Author: Vollketten

Regular readers will have seen a bunch of new French vehicles and modules being announced by WG recently. Is there more to come? Most likely, so maybe a quick gallery of some of the less well-known future French content to consider not that some, all or any of these may be on the horizon, just an indication of quite how much there is still out there to be found. France has a very long history of armoured vehicles, so this is in no way attempts to be a list, just some titbits. It also gives me a chance to clear out my stuff a little in preparation for some more patent silliness for France for FTR later.

Renault M.1923

4 crew, 75mm gun in the hull, 25mm armour, 6 cylinder Renault 180hp engine, 6.04m long, 2.57m wide, 2.03m high, Delaunay Belleville suspension

AMX-13 Tank Destroyer Prototype

3 crew, 75mm gun, 8 cylinder 220 hp petrol engine

Rimailho Gun Carriage

Wheel-cum-track system carriage for 75mm Schneider gun

ETAT design – no official name but it’s very similar to the ELC so ‘ELC ETAT’ sounds good

1955, fast, light, small, 90mm high power gun with a crew of 2. Driver in turret, so limited traverse. Good depression by virtue of the turret roof raising during gun depression.

DePoix Heavy Tank

1915, approximately 6.8m long, 2,75m wide and 2.6m high with a 1.5m wide turret

Renault Heavy Assault Tank 1939

Okay, so I wrote about this already here, but I really adore this little monster so excuse me mentioning it again.

VBCP 39 Tank Destroyer

Restany Tank

1950, well armoured tank hull depicted using a most unusual high speed flywheel design to store energy which means a very fast turret rotation speed.

Renault B2 45t

This is based on German intelligence circa 1939/1940 and you can see a 75mm central turret, side mounted 37 mm guns and two 47mm gun turrets. Yes it is wrong, hilariously wrong in fact. Don’t expect this in game anytime, for ‘amusement value only’

Char BB (FCM)

8 crew, 60mm armour, 600 hp engine, twin 75mm guns (570m/s), 50 ton

STCC Heavy Tank

1929-1930, 75mm gun, over 7.36m long, 40mm armour, 70 tonnes

Renault DAC 1 1940 (aka Billancourt Somua)

3 man (was to be produced in the USA as a two man vehicle) fast tank, 16 tonnes

Renault TY Tank Destroyer

1930, 20mm armour, 12 tonnes, 25hp engine (not a typo), 5 crew, 82mm high power gun, suspension from the D1 tank

Renault FT Tank Destroyer

1918 plan to be fitted with 47mm M.1885 gun (450m/s) and in 1919 a planned HV 47mm gun (800 m/s)

FCM B1 Prototype 101 to 103

Basically a B1 heavy tank with just a machine gun turret using its hull mounted 75mm howitzer instead

79 thoughts on “A Little French Food For Thought”

        • You mean this post?

          http://ftr.wot-news.com/2015/03/03/warpack-is-legal-part-drei/

          Shocking as it may seem there’s been a massive surge in the use of a cheat mod called Warpack.

          Something to do with a popular World of Tanks information site heavily promoting its features, its undetectability and lack of consequences even if Wargaming knows you’re using it. Then there’s all the sites which parrot every post made. It has a big reach in the English language audience.

          It’s really brought this cheat mod to a whole new audience who don’t normally go looking for cheat programs. Easily brought it to the attention of hundreds of thousands of players. Some can see the game advantage being presented to them and got stuck in.

          Its possible, very possible that the World of Tanks information site realised….

          …..that they were doing this hugely lucrative advertising for free and decided to stop it until Warpack cut them in on some cash for doing it.

          • So… did SS take it down voluntarily and personally or was it just taken down by others because if the content? D:

  3. As someone who loves the French tanks more is never a bad thing also some of the designs look really cool.

  4. I want to find out more about the ELC ETAT and the AMX 13 TD. o.0
    they both seem interesting

      • It looks very similar to the AMX 12t. It might even be what WG calls the AMX 12t.

    • AMX13 TD is the same as AMX13 it was called LT and TD at different times, this is just the prototype.
      in the Netherlands it was both a LT and TD at the same time, with cavalry it was a LT and in a arty battalion it was used as a TD

  5. The first one, the Renault M1923 looks pretty decent actually.

    It looks like a fun, time-violating hybrid between pre-WWII tank school-of-thought with round and sleek 60′s-70′s design.

    PS: as a flame bait, I’m not seeing the uproar that the AMX 13 should be a TD ingame because it’s named a tank destroyer. Which is the exact thing that happenned with the CDC.
    Could it be I was right, and the name “tank destroyer” is so fucking generic it becomes meaningless after a while?
    Why yes, yes it does.

    • AMX 13 was conceived as a Light tank, and that is what the AMX 13 75, and 13 90, and 13 105 all were. However, the chasis was used for lots of other purposes, with about one hundred recorded variants, including APC series, AA series, various Howitzers (including a 155mm!), so it’s hardly surprising that a TD version was experimented with.

      So your flame bait fails because the specification and design were for a Light tank, and thats what it started out as.

      CDC is based off the hull of the AMX M4, which was itself a French version of the Tiger II. Thus the M4 was a tank, and the CDC was the TD variant thereof.

      So your statement ” I’m not seeing the uproar that the AMX 13 should be a TD ingame because it’s named a tank destroyer. Which is the exact thing that happenned with the CDC” is invalid given the specifications and design philosophy behind the two projects.

      Although admittedly WG calling the CDC a medium and not a TD muddys the water, and impinges on historicity(TM).

      • There was no “TD variant” of the AMX 13, because it was conceived as a light tank with a big gun, for use of tank destruction in a shoot and scoot scenario.

        Which proves my point even more.
        People don’t give a shit about how the tank is used, they see something, decide it should be one way, and light torches while grabbing pitchforks.

        See: ELC. That thing is a tank destroyer. But it’s light so it’s an LT ? np
        AMX is made to shoot and scoot tank, but it’s light so it’s an LT? np
        CDC is a lighter variant of a heavy, easily conceivable as either a medium or a TD, but it’s name is “tank hunter” so OBVIOUSLY is MUST be a TD. So there the community has a problem.

        Seriously, people are dumb as fuck.

        • To be (un)fair… I bet there are plenty of history buffs who apply present day serial production ideas to historic vehicles, and assume there was great uniformity throughout and only deliberate design changes caused new variants. I’m sure a hell of a lot of mix & match was going on even on the factory floor, simply because of war shortages.

          At the end of the day the thing that matters most is that you keep sending as many tanks as you can to your guys at the front, that keep them alive as well as kill the other guys. So if they’re not utterly built to spec all the time, oh well.

          And with the great family of vehicles we’ve already seen featured in WoT, both built and as designs, the limitations of pigeonholing everything in just five categories become obvious. Helps people get a quick lay of the land at game start, but as a catalog of sorts it is of course quite far from perfect.

      • They wouldn’t need that much ‘work’ to get into the game yet I wonder really how different they would be compared to the ELC and the 13/75… Still, we might be getting the 13/57 so who knows… I like the idea of both and would buy the tanks, even if premium to be honest.

    • Because the Tramp is awesome and Chaplin being the coolest guy in the history of ever?

      But seriously, the toothbrush beard was very common during that time. Hitler wasn’t the trend-setter, just a trend-follower.

  10. If WG could make the T28 concept off a piece of wood, making the B2 45T would be hilarious :D

    • Some of these are entirely reasonable and effective combat vehicles.

      • Oh, I know. I’m french, and I think France was quite ahead when it came to tank developpement from 1917 to 1940. And also caught up pretty fast after WWII.

        Yet, some of those designs are hilarious looking, almost steampunkish, or way too much in advance for their time. I wish most of them had gotten at least to the prototype stage, that way WG would pretty much had no choice but to add them at some point. And we need the Saint-Chamond, the Schneider C1 and the FCMA1 as tier I and II heavies. Like, now!

  12. “STCC Heavy Tank

    1929-1930, 75mm gun, over 7.36m long, 40mm armour, 70 tonnes”

    Shows how far ahead France was in development. They actually concieved the TOGII 10 years before the Tommies!

  18. Waiting in anticipation to find out the reason for the vanishing post. Now where’s my popcorn?

    • post disappeared because Serb’s black helicopter squad started to circle above SS’s house…

  19. “Renault Heavy Assault Tank 1939″

    Tracks cover about 90% of the whole tank, it would be nearly impossible to destroy in WoT

    “Renault TY Tank Destroyer, 12 tonnes, 25hp engine (not a typo)”

    It would be slower than the TOG II

    • 2 hp/t is the slowest in the game for any engine to my knowledge

      but wargaming will give it the best soft stats ever so it would be a quick and maneuverable TD if it was implemented in game ofc

  20. Hackers are everywhere don’t lie top yourself. This game is fucked unless you like getting beat 90% of the time by people using cheat mods.

  21. Where is the TD made out of Lorraine 40t chassis? It could be nice tier 8 premium.

  23. ‘STCC Heavy Tank

    1929-1930, 75mm gun, over 7.36m long, 40mm armour, 70 tonnes’

    French TOG II* anyone?
    though i have to say that for 70 tonnes 40mm of armour is really bad but if that is similar to 13/75 gun it might be not bad DPM wise

    • French tank not communist, I would prefer a Soviet or Chinese TOG. Not some capitalist heap of scrap metal

      • Just checked the TOG II* (variant of TOG in the game right now) is 10.1092 metres long so it is roughly 3 metres shorter, also SS do you think there is a possibility of the TOG 1 coming into the game and how do you think it would play out?

        • Is good, TOG 1 was utter fail in real life though. Because was not blessed by Stalin or Mao

          • It won’t Matter in WoT, the Tiger(p) had the same transmission problems and in game that is not modeled, if the TOG 1 was in the game it would work as intended by its creators but also have the armour factor that the TOG II* lacks at the moment because the TOG 1 would be of lower tier, just hope they make it tier 5 so it won’t be OP XD

          • But we don’t need some capitalist or Nazi piles of useless scrap in the tech trees, add more Soviet or Chinese premiums, maybe some East German

            • Firstly, it doesn’t matter who built the tanks, its who drives them.
              Secondly, soviet tree is finished and probably won’t expanded much more.
              Thirdly Chinese tanks are pretty problematic though chinese arty (and possibly TDs) are coming there way, not much more being added there really after that.
              Fourthly, East German tanks are straight up copy/paste of russian tanks and T55A is the only one that can be implemented, want East German tanks? played AW.
              Fifthly, i didn’t mention the Nazis.

              • Well, we need East Germans and any from Warsaw Pact nations or from TRUER communist countries like Albania (as they were in the day) stop adding to insignificant nations that were near useless in the war like UK or USA and focus on those who truly contributed.

                • well who’s been learning history from Putin now? eh?
                  the only important nations really in the victory of WW2 were USSR,UK and USA, though UK had TOG II* a triumph of British derpiness, a tank that you probably have, Mr.Burnetko.

                • I have one and it has SOVIET flags on it, TOG is migratory species and this one does not rest in your filthy imperialist hellhole because that is what it is. And besides what did you and your American capitalist friends do, wallow around in North Africa for a bit and save the day when us communists were nearing the gates of Berlin, really heroic, letting Soviets and other communists do all the work before landing on Normandy and “saving the day”, really, give credit where it’s due

                • well sir the North African campaign is one of the turning points in the luck of the allies, while you soviets were freezing to death we were fighting Erwin Rommel and we defeated both the Italians and Germans (with minor help from america), we then surprised Hitler by invading via Normandy rather than Calais, the reason why there were no Tank vs Tank Combat on D-Day, by making the German army have to fight on two fronts we releaved stress from eastern front and that made the red army have a much easier time in the later war, fighting tiger 2s rather than JagdTigers.

              • The Soviet tree will of course continue to be added to because of large Russian player base. They do love their Stalinist tanks.

                • until they run out of tanks, in 4000 years due to SerB inventing tanks a bit like E 50M but with russian bias and 500mm of armour, i don’t know, Russia.

                • By the time you had actually bothered to act properly, us Soviets had already broken the backbone of the German army, what great skill, clearing up whatever wasn’t destroyed by the mighty Red Army, we were the true heroes, we could have easily taken the rest of Germany and the low countries ourselves including Scandinavia at that point, it would have been extremely costly maybe, but we would have done it.

                • I did basically say stress relief Mr.Burnetko, i didn’t say the red army couldn’t have done it.
                  Though you should make a post on FTR about soviet tank designs, it would be hillariously (in)accurate in terms of armour and gun penetration.

                • ‘STCC Heavy Tank, 1929-1930, 75mm gun, over 7.36m long, 40mm armour, 70 tonnes’

                  we are seriously off topic from what i started with saying.

                • Fair enough, but it did steal territory and enslave its people under a new tyranny, if we would have taken it, it would have been prosperous and great, we could have liberated Spain as well from Franco’s reactionaries easily and you Westerners couldn’t be bothered to do that.

              • ‘It did steal territory and enslave its people under a new tyranny, if we would have taken it, it would have been prosperous and great, we could have liberated Spain as well from Franco’s reactionaries easily and you Westerners couldn’t be bothered to do that’

                Firstly complain to america for those evils,
                Secondly, Fuck Franco, he’s dead and that good enough for me
                Thirdly, i’m not western European, i’m from central Europe, in Italy.
                Italy is east of Greenwich Meridian line.

                • Fair enough, but we should have been the ones to liberate the whole of Europe

                • also would like to occupy france, its not what i would call the nicest of places after 1945.

  25. Love WG logic in choosing tanks. They find or draw a pic of a tank, or a prototype tank, and say it’s going to be added into the game.

    Isn’t this how we ended up getting the waffle? They found some obscure blueprint? The t28htc? Half the stuff they use as a basis for these tanks look like a 5 year old drew it. Real historical.

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  27. well the french definitely did not plan to make beautiful tanks like the tiger2..

    of course even ss cant talk about warpack, if you have to pay real gold to use it, wonder who also profits from hackers? not only the modder team… wg made a deal with them, so they can run legally, staff are ignoring warpack reports -> both of them come out with full pockets, nothing new here.

    • Tiger II is just a fascist box tank, without the graceful curves of French vehicles

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