Char B1 bis

France designed this heavy tank (“char”) as a specialised break-through vehicle. It featured a 75 mm SA 35 howitzer (L/17) in a hull sponson and a 47 mm SA 35 gun (L/50) in a fully-rotating turret (along with two 7.5 mm machine guns). Renault and four other manufacturers built 369 units from 1937 into 1940. Among the most powerfully armed and armoured tanks of its day, the type was very effective in direct confrontations with German armour in 1940, but slow speed (up to 17 mph), high fuel consumption, and the hull-mounted gun made it ill-adapted to fast-moving battlefield conditions. Designed beginning in the the early 1920s, it also featured other elements that were obsolete by the outbreak of World War II, such as a small turret requiring the tank commander also to serve as loader. It carried a crew of four. After the fall of France in June 1940, the Germans pressed 161 captured units into service as second-line and training vehicles, calling them Panzerkampfwagen B-2 740 (f). The Germans also converted some units into flamethrowers and utility vehicles.