France 1940 with more mortars in French infantry divisions

[Hoplophile]

Recently, while presenting a series of decision-forcing cases on the fight for the village of Dury, south of Amiens, on 5 and 6 June 1940, I was struck by three observations concerning the French forces involved.

1. The two 81mm mortars in the French two-company task forcing defending the village did a lot more damage to the attacking German infantry than anyone expected.
2. The 18 75mm field guns of the two direct support field artillery battalions did a lot less damage than anyone expected. What was worse, they dropped a lot of ordnance on friendly troops.
3. The shortage of anti-tank guns was a huge handicap for the French task-force, which had to make do with 3 such weapons, all of the 25mm persuasion.

These observations led to the following "what if."

What if, at some point in the 1930s, the French Army converted the direct support regiments into 9 anti-tank batteries. Organized and equipped like the anti-tank batteries that preceded the introduction of the 47mm anti-tank gun, these would have had 190 men and 170 horses apiece.

This reorganization would result in a savings of 390 men and 300 horses, which could be used to create 9 mortar platoons, each of 4 mortars (81mm). When parceled out to battalions, and combined with the existing mortar squads, the result is a 6-tube mortar battery, with a substantial ability to carry ammunition, in each infantry battalion.

As a result of this reform, the French infantry battalions that formed the hedgehogs of the Weygand Line would have been much more self-reliant when it came to indirect fire and much more capable of preventing German tanks to bypass with impunity. (The 75mm anti-tank guns would also have been able to serve as direct-fire "infantry guns," cooperating with the mortars and machine guns to combat the German infantry.)

In terms of manufacturing, the making of the necessary plateformes Arbel for the 75mm anti-tank batteries would have been easy enough. Likewise, the building of additional 81mm mortars would have put little strain on the French arsenal system. As far as ammunition goes, factories that lacked the means to turn fancy steel into shells for 75mm guns would have been able to turn cheaper metal into bombs for 81mm mortars.

As far as I can see, the chief objection to this sort of reform would stem from the realm of organizational culture and service politics. The field artillery mafia of the French Army would strongly object to the disbanding of field artillery regiments and the elimination of so many jobs for field-grade field artillery officers, as well as the conversion of gunners of more modest rank into crapouilloteurs.

The figures for the strength of artillery units come from the following text book, which was printed for the use of students at the École Supérieure de l'Intendence in 1938.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96104925

[T. A. Gardner]

It makes zero difference so long as the doctrine of Methodical Battle continues to be used. It wasn't French equipment or organization that did them in anywhere as close as it was a wretched doctrine on how the war would be fought.

Imagine this as an example of what I mean. You are in a chess game. You are given your choice of eight new pieces to replace the pawns, no more than two of any piece and not a king. Your opponent gets three moves for every one you get to make. Who wins?

Reorganizing the chess pieces does you little good when your opponent is running circles around you and can counter every move you make. That's France in 1940.

[nuyt]

It would have been a good AT gun.
You could wargame this with the 36 pieces of 75mm instead of the 18 in OTL, either the ones with Arbele platforms or the 1933 model Briot with split trail and moving armoured wheels. Not sure if there was a third type and in sufficient numbers.
All equipped with HEAT munitions. The Germans used them later on in their 97/38, so they must have worked well. There were three HEAT types, with a range of 1500 meters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.5_cm_Pak_97/38
They could have dealt with any tank.

[Hoplophile]

The mention of methodical battle reminds me of a conversation I once had with a French gentlemen at the Archives de Guerre in Vincennes.

"You are American, n'est-ce pas?"

"Mais, oui!"

"You know Colonel Doughty?" *

"Mais, oui!"

"He is a very nice man, but all he talks about is ... doctrine!"

Archival sea stories aside, I began my study of the 5-6 June 1940 battle south of Amiens as part of an attempt to separate the effect of doctrine from other factors.

*Robert Doughty wrote a series of books and articles, the first of which was Seeds of Disaster, that argued that methodical battle doctrine was the critical defect of the French Army of 1940.

[historygeek2021]

Methodical battle was a doctrine for conducting offense. It wasn't French offense that did them in. It was their poor defense along the Meuse, which wasn't the result of doctrine but the fact their worst troops were assigned to this sector while it was attacked by Germany's best troops. You can blame the British for that. If they had actually built an army in the 1930s when it was obvious to everyone that Hitler was a homicidal lunatic, there would have been no need for the French to man the front with old reservists.

[T. A. Gardner]

Methodical battle was a doctrine for conducting offense. It wasn't French offense that did them in. It was their poor defense along the Meuse, which wasn't the result of doctrine but the fact their worst troops were assigned to this sector while it was attacked by Germany's best troops. You can blame the British for that. If they had actually built an army in the 1930s when it was obvious to everyone that Hitler was a homicidal lunatic, there would have been no need for the French to man the front with old reservists.

French doctrine determined how units were organized and trained. That is how they would fight. You can't expect the French to suddenly adopt different equipment with different tactics, and then fight in a completely different way unless something changes in the way units are trained, organized, and led.

If personal initiative is discouraged, then you get less of it. There may be officers who would like to show this, but they generally choose not to because of 'the system.' Instead, they follow orders and do things the way that system expects them to.

I have an article by Williamson Murray somewhere that describes this in the 1930's when the French and British were still able to observe German field maneuvers and training, just as the Germans did in reverse. It didn't sink in then, so it wasn't likely to sink in at all. Instead, the French moved forward on bureaucratic inertia, just as everybody else did.

[T. A. Gardner]

It would have been a good AT gun.
You could wargame this with the 36 pieces of 75mm instead of the 18 in OTL, either the ones with Arbele platforms or the 1933 model Briot with split trail and moving armoured wheels. Not sure if there was a third type and in sufficient numbers.
All equipped with HEAT munitions. The Germans used them later on in their 97/38, so they must have worked well. There were three HEAT types, with a range of 1500 meters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.5_cm_Pak_97/38
They could have dealt with any tank.

In the 1930's HEAT was a poorly understood principle. Adoption had that and the fact that France had a mass of left over ammunition from WW 1 for the 75mm in stock. This later issue meant that politicians were loathe to spend money on ammunition when there was plenty of ammunition available. It didn't matter to them what kind of ammunition it was, it was ammunition.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Recently, while presenting a series of decision-forcing cases on the fight for the village of Dury, south of Amiens, on 5 and 6 June 1940, I was struck by three observations concerning the French forces involved.

1. The two 81mm mortars in the French two-company task forcing defending the village did a lot more damage to the attacking German infantry than anyone expected.
2. The 18 75mm field guns of the two direct support field artillery battalions did a lot less damage than anyone expected. What was worse, they dropped a lot of ordnance on friendly troops.

You may want to find more than one example. At the battles around Wassin & Thisines on 12 May the French artillery fires repeatedly stripped away the German infantry from the assault groups. Forcing them to ground or driving them back leaving the tanks unsupported and the French AT guns unsuppressed. This occurred repeatedly through the day, and the last attack of the 4th Pz division saw the tank of the Panzer regiment commander knocked out by artillery fires. A German veteran of WWI described the artillery fires that day as more intense that what he experienced previous.

3. The shortage of anti-tank guns was a huge handicap for the French task-force, which had to make do with 3 such weapons, all of the 25mm persuasion.

These observations led to the following "what if."

What if, at some point in the 1930s, the French Army converted the direct support regiments into 9 anti-tank batteries. Organized and equipped like the anti-tank batteries that preceded the introduction of the 47mm anti-tank gun, these would have had 190 men and 170 horses apiece.

This reorganization would result in a savings of 390 men and 300 horses, which could be used to create 9 mortar platoons, each of 4 mortars (81mm). When parceled out to battalions, and combined with the existing mortar squads, the result is a 6-tube mortar battery, with a substantial ability to carry ammunition, in each infantry battalion.

This leaves the division without any long range artillery. Not a good idea to expose forward deployed AT weapons in double duty in long range fire mission.

DS to AT and Mortars.png


As a result of this reform, the French infantry battalions that formed the hedgehogs of the Weygand Line would have been much more self-reliant when it came to indirect fire and much more capable of preventing German tanks to bypass with impunity. (The 75mm anti-tank guns would also have been able to serve as direct-fire "infantry guns," cooperating with the mortars and machine guns to combat the German infantry.)

In terms of manufacturing, the making of the necessary plateformes Arbel for the 75mm anti-tank batteries would have been easy enough. Likewise, the building of additional 81mm mortars would have put little strain on the French arsenal system. As far as ammunition goes, factories that lacked the means to turn fancy steel into shells for 75mm guns would have been able to turn cheaper metal into bombs for 81mm mortars.

As far as I can see, the chief objection to this sort of reform would stem from the realm of organizational culture and service politics. The field artillery mafia of the French Army would strongly object to the disbanding of field artillery regiments and the elimination of so many jobs for field-grade field artillery officers, as well as the conversion of gunners of more modest rank into crapouilloteurs.

The figures for the strength of artillery units come from the following text book, which was printed for the use of students at the École Supérieure de l'Intendence in 1938.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96104925

I think you missed the part showing the Division AT gun company and the AT weapon platoons or companies in the infantry regiments. The four shown in the artillery regiment were for protection of the field artillery and second as a division reserve.

You may have missed something of the prewar doctrine for French infantry division/corps defense. That was a not a thin "line" with artillery far to the rear. The doctrine and deployment was in a a multilayered zone. A close look at the defense deployment on the Gembloux battle of 14-17 May shows this. Basically three zones: A forward outpost zone, contains infantry and AT guns in strong points, a main defense zone with the bulk of the infantry and AT guns, plus a portion of the field artillery, and a rear or final stop zone. The last contained the division reserves and the bulk of the artillery.

Within the forward and main zones a portion of the 75mm guns were positioned to provide direct support to the AT guns and infantry strong points. Positioned 500 to 1000 meters behind the AT guns or lead edge of the other strong points these cannon were to engage the strongest or most threatening groups of enemy. Their fires were to be reinforced by the direct fires from the balance of the divisions FA.

This defense doctrine is not dissimilar from anyone else in the 1930s. Experience in the Great War showed the preferable aspects of a network of strong points vs strictly linear defenses. One difference between the German infantry division and the French of 1940 is the Germans had 6-8 light infantry cannon in each regiment. those carried the role of forward direct supporting fires to the AT guns and strong points. The US Army deployed the same from 1949 with its regimental cannon companies. The Red Army developed from 1942 the practice of placing up to half its 76.2mm division cannon forward for direct fire support of the AT and light infantry guns.

Re: Mortars. it is possible to substitute those for field artillery to some extentent. The important down side is you lose range & the enemy has more freedom to manuver. In other words the Division commander 'sone of influence' is drastically reduced. The second drawback is in order to have the same effect on target as the cannon the mortars need a lot more ammunition than usual. When you X tons of explosive on target to get a desired effect it has to be X tons. That means the ammo train for the mortars would rival or exceed that of the cannon. You cant get to that quality back packing a couple rounds with each mortar crewman.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Reflecting on this further a better WI might be the question the French AT companies being fully equipped. Only the highest mobilization echelon formations were close to the complete TO/TE. The divisions of the later mobilization waves had progressively fewer AT guns, as much as 50% below allotment. That does not make up for other deficiencies, but the German tank losses were much larger than popularly imagined. Making up the missing 30 to 40 % of the AT guns can attrit the Panzerwaffe proportionately, particularly since the missing weapons were of the larger calibers.

[OldBill]

Were this to happen I think you'd also find a definite stiffening of the infantry to fight it out. The awareness of an anti tank capability (demonstrated by burning tanks in this case) would mean there is more of a willingness to stand and fight.

[Carl Schwamberger]

That was the case in the Gembloux Gap battle 14-17 May. The 3rd & 4th Pz Div failed to break the main defense zone. Reasonably trained soldiers with a decent weapons mix defeated the panzers on open ground without the benefit of swamps, forrests, rugged hills, deep rivers...

[T. A. Gardner]

That was the case in the Gembloux Gap battle 14-17 May. The 3rd & 4th Pz Div failed to break the main defense zone. Reasonably trained soldiers with a decent weapons mix defeated the panzers on open ground without the benefit of swamps, forrests, rugged hills, deep rivers...

The problem for the French was they couldn't win by simply defending. They had to be able to go over to the attack and take ground, and they simply weren't capable of doing so effectively. On defense, they were competent. On offense, they were useless.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Thats correct for May 1940. There was a plan underway to train the army for offensive operations. It would have matured in latter 1941. The French army was screwed training wise by repeated budget cuts in the 1920s & thirties. The legislature held down military expenditure and the ministry of defense put the funds it had in other directions. Gamelin & his peers recognized the problem, but the only viable solution was to focus training on the bare basics and have a program ready to make up the shortfall after mobilization. The alternatives, like the smaller elite force proposed by DeGualle & others was politically unacceptable to the conservatives and leftist both among the Deputies. Neither was diverting funds from new weapons development. That had stagnated in the 1920s & the choice at the top was to put funds into replacing the aging air fleet, elderly tanks, forty year old artillery park, ect...

By the mid 1930s the initial training time for the French conscript was only 18 months. Conversely the new Wehrmacht started at a minimum or 24 months for the lowest conscript and had extended 30, 36 month or longer initial training for technicians, NCOs, officers. It was not uncommon to find in 1939 German Lts & Captains who were technically reservists but had been continuously on active duty since 1935 or 1936. Refresher training for reservist had the same difference with the French soldier & his Lieutentant short changed, averaging only a few days a year. & the German landser recalled for reserve training for much longer periods. When the French declared war in 1939 they had only recently upped their conscript training back up to 24 months, and still had insufficient funds for remedial reservist training. Conversely the Germans had been since the Czech Crisis been extending reserve training and retaining more reservists on extended active service.

French army doctrines were not the fundamental problem. Laid out along side the US Army there were a lot of matches between the French of 1940 & the US Army of 1944. The requirement to write out long detailed orders? That was a function of under training which the US Army had wrestled with 1941-1944 as it went from 300,000 men to over six million. Piecemealing tanks to the infantry? In 1944 the US army had some forty independent tank battalions farmed out to the infantry divisions. The ratio of tank divisions to inf div for the US in 1944 was similar to the goal of the French for 1941. A focus on artillery fire power smothering the enemy under a mass of ammunition? That applies to both armies. What actual severe problems in French doctrines there were are never mentioned on the History Channel or the other pop. history venues.

The German successes 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 were against armies that were less well trained, some untrained by comparison. Where they ran up against peer forces in training or experience the Germans had a lot more trouble getting to victory, and started failing more often.