+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Char B1 was a French heavy tank manufactured before World War II. It was conceived as a specialized offensive vehicle, armed with a 75 mm howitzer in the hull. Later a 47 mm gun in a turret was added, to allow it to function also as a Char de Bataille, a ‘battle tank’ fighting enemy armour, equipping the armoured divisions of the Infantry Arm. Starting in the early twenties, its development and production were repeatedly delayed, resulting in a vehicle that was both technologically complex and expensive, and already obsolescent when real mass-production of a derived version, the Char B1 "bis", started in the late thirties.
The outer appearance of the Char B1 reflected the fact that development started in the twenties: like the very first tank, the British Mark I tank of World War I, it still had large tracks going around the entire hull and large armour plates protecting the suspension—and like all tanks of that decade it had no welded or cast hull armour. The similarity resulted partly from the fact that the Char B1 was a specialized offensive weapon, a break-through tank optimized for punching a hole into strong defensive entrenchments, so it was designed with good trench-crossing capabilities and therefore the hull and the tracks had considerable length. The French Army thought that dislodging the enemy from a key front sector would decide a campaign, and it prided itself on being the only army in the world having a sufficient number of adequately protected heavy tanks. The exploitation phase of a battle was seen as secondary and best carried out by controlled and methodical movement to ensure superiority in numbers, so that the heavy tank’s mobility was of secondary concern. Although the Char B1 had a reasonably good speed for the time of its conception, no serious efforts were made to improve it when much faster tanks appeared.
More important than the tank's limitations in tactical mobility, however, were its limitations in strategic mobility. The low practical range implied the need to refuel very often, limiting its operational capabilities. This again implied that the armoured divisions of the Infantry, the Divisions Cuirassées, were not very effective as a mobile reserve and thus lacked strategic flexibility. They were not created to fulfill such a role in the first place, which was reflected in the small size of the artillery and infantry components of the divisions.
Another explanation of the similarity to the British Mark I lies in the Char B1's original specification to create a self-propelled gun able to destroy enemy infantry and artillery. The main weapon of the tank was its 75 mm howitzer, and the entire design of the vehicle was directed to making this gun as effective as possible. When in the early 1930s it became obvious that the Char B1 also had to defeat counterattacking enemy armour, it was too late for a complete redesign. The solution was to add the standard cast APX-1 turret which also equipped the Char D2 and the Somua S35. Like most French tanks of the period the Char B thus had a small one-man turret. The commander not only had to command the tank, but also to aim and load the anti-tank gun, and if he was a unit leader, he had to command his other tanks as well. This was in contrast with the contemporary German, British and to a lesser extent Soviet policy to use two or three-man turret crews, in which these duties were divided amongst several men, or to use dedicated command vehicles.
Among the most powerfully armed and armoured tanks of its day, the Char B1 was very effective in direct confrontations with early German armour during the Battle of France. The 60 mm (2.36 in) frontal armor was sloped, giving it an effective strength of near 80 mm (3.15 in), and it proved to be almost invulnerable to the 1940 Panzer II and III as well as the early Panzer IV with its short 75mm close-support gun. There were no real weak spots, and this invulnerability helped the B1 to close on targets, then destroy them with the turret 47 mm (1.85 in) or the brute force of the howitzer HE shells. However, its slow speed and high fuel consumption made it ill-adapted to the war of movement then being fought.
In the meantime, plans had taken shape to improve the Char B1, and this led to two developments that eventually entered the hardware stage: A further up-armoured version, the Char B1 "ter", was designed with sloped and welded 70 mm armour, weighing 36.6 tonnes and powered by a 350 hp (260 kW) engine. It was meant to replace the B1 bis to accelerate mass production, a change first intended for the summer of 1940 but later postponed to March 1941 and finally abandoned.
In the course of the redesign, space was provided for a fifth crew member, a "mechanic". Cost was reduced by omitting the complex Neader transmission for aiming the howitzer and giving the hull gun a traverse of five degrees to each side instead. The first prototype was shown in 1937, but only three prototypes could be partly finished before the defeat of France. Serial production was rejected due to the need to build totally new production lines for the much-modified Char B1 ter, so that this development was a dead end, even more so because it did not really cure the vehicle’s weakness of the overburdened commander and the split armament.
The latter issues were addressed with another development, a modernized variant of the existing Char B1 bis with a new weapon layout, the Char B1 “tetre”. Work on this variant started in 1936, as an alternative concept to the one-man turret and as an experimental carrier for a new high velocity semi-automatic 75 mm multi-purpose gun with a long barrel. Such a weapon was direly needed, because the biggest caliber of an anti-tank gun was a mere 47 mm, the SA 35 gun. The only recent alternative was the infantry’s 47 mm APX anti-tank gun from 1937, which could pierce 60 mm (2.4 in) at 550 meters (600 yd) or 80 mm (3.1 in) at 180 meters (200 yd), but it had not been adapted to vehicle use yet and was not regarded to be powerful enough to cope with tanks like the Char B1 itself.
This new 75 mm tank gun was already under development at the Atelier de Construction de Rueil (ARL) for a new medium 20-ton-tank, the Char G1 from Renault, that was to replace the Char B1. The gun, called “ARL 37”, would be mounted in a new three-man turret, and ARL was developing prototypes of both a turret that could be taken by the Char B1’s and S35’s limited turret ring, as well as the gun itself, which was based on the 75 mm high velocity gun with hydro-pneumatic recoil compensation from the vintage heavy FCM 2C tank
The ARL 37 had a mass of 750 kg (1,653.5 lb) and a barrel length of 3,281 mm (129.2 in) with a bore of 43 calibers. Maximum muzzle velocity was 740 m/s (2,400 ft/s). The gun was fitted with an electric firing mechanism and the breech operated semi-automatically. Only one-piece ammunition was used, and both HE and AP rounds could be fired – even though the latter had to developed, too, because no such round was available in 1937/38 yet. However, with early experimental Armour Piercing Capped Ballistic Cap (APCBC) rounds, the ARL 37 was able to penetrate 133 mm (5.2 in) of vertical steel plate at 100 m range, 107 mm (4.2 in) at 1.000 m and still 85 mm (3.3 in) at 2.000 m, making it a powerful anti-tank weapon of its era.
Since the new weapon was expected to fire both HE and AP rounds, the Char B1’s howitzer in the hull was omitted, its opening faired over and instead a movable 7.5 mm Reibel machine gun was added in a ball mount, operated by a radio operator who sat next to the driver. Another 7.5mm machine gun was mounted co-axially to the main gun in the turret, which had a cupola and offered space for the rest of the crew: a dedicated commander as well as a gunner and loader team.
The hexagonal turret was cast and had a welded roof as well as a gun mantlet. With its 70 mm frontal armor as well as the tank’s new hull front section, the conversions added a total of four net tons of weight, so that the Char B1 tetre weighed 36 tons. To prevent its performance from deteriorating further, it received the Char B1 ter’s uprated 350 hp (260 kW) engine. The running gear remained unchanged, even though the fully rotating turret made the complex and expensive Neader transmission superfluous, so that it was replaced by a standard heavy-duty piece.
Although promising, the Char B1 tetre’s development was slow, delayed by the lack of resources and many teething troubles with the new 75 mm cannon and the turret. When the war broke out in September 1939, production was cleared and began slowly, but focus remained on existing vehicles and weapons. By the time there were perhaps 180 operational B1 and B1 bis in all. They were used for the Sarre offensive, a short-lived burst without serious opposition, with a massive force of 41 divisions and 2.400 tanks. The Char B1 served with the armoured divisions of the infantry, the Divisions Cuirassées (DCr). The First and Second DCR had 69 Char B1s each, the Third 68. These were highly specialized offensive units, to break through fortified positions. The mobile phase of a battle was to be carried out by the Divisions Légères Mécaniques (mechanised light divisions) of the cavalry, equipped with the SOMUA S35.
After the German invasion several ad hoc units were formed: the 4e DCr with 52 Char B1s and five autonomous companies (347e, 348e, 349e, 352e and 353e Compagnie Autonome de Chars) with in total 56 tanks: 12 B1s and 44 B1 bis; 28e BCC was reconstituted with 34 tanks. By that time, a very limited number of Char B1 tetre had been produced and delivered to operational units, but their tactical value was low since sufficient 75 mm AP rounds were not available – the tanks had to use primarily the same HE rounds that were fired with the Char B1’s howitzer, and these posed only a limited threat to German tanks, esp. the upgraded Panzer III and IVs. The Char B1 tertre’s potential was never fully exploited, even though most of the tanks were used as command vehicles.
The regular French divisions destroyed quite a few German tanks but lacked enough organic infantry and artillery to function as an effective mobile reserve. After the defeat of France, captured Char B1 of all variants would be used by Germany, with some rebuilt as flamethrowers, Munitionspanzer, or mechanized artillery.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (driver, radio operator/machine gunner, commander, gunner, loader)
Weight: 36 tonnes (40 short tons, 35 long tons)
Length: 6.98 m (22 ft 10½ in) overall with gun forward
6.37 m (20 ft 11 in) hull only
Width: 2.46 m (8 ft 1 in)
Height: 2.84 m (9 ft 3¾ in)
Ground clearance: 40 cm (1 ft 3¾ in)
Climbing: 93 cm (3 ft ½ in)
Trench crossing: 2,4 m (7 ft 10½ in)
Suspension: Bogies with a mixture of vertical coil and leaf springs
Steering: Double differential
Fuel capacity: 400 liters
Armour:
14 to 70 mm (0.55 to 2.75 in)
Performance:
28 km/h (17 mph) on road
21 km/h (13 mph) off-road
Operational range: 200 km (124 mi) on road
Power/weight: 9.7 hp/ton
Engine:
1× Renault inline 6 cylinder 16.5 litre petrol engine with 350 hp (260 kW)
Transmission:
5 forward and 1 rear gear
Armament:
1x 75 ARL 37 high-velocity cannon with 94 rounds
2x 7.5 mm (0.295 in) Reibel machine guns with a total of 5,250 rounds
The kit and its assembly:.
This fictional Char B1 variant was based on the question what the tank could have looked like if there had been a suitable 75 mm gun available that could replace both its howitzer in the hull and the rather light anti-tank gun in the turret? No such weapon existed in France, but I tried to extrapolate the concept based on the standard Char B1 hull.
Two big changes were made: the first concerned the hull howitzer, which was deleted, and its recessed opening faired over with 1 mm styrene sheet and putty. This sound easier as it turned out to be because the suspension for the front right idler wheel had to be retained, and the complex shape of the glacis plate and the opening called for patchwork. A fairing for the co-driver was added as well as a ball mount for the new hull machine gun. New shackles were added to the lower front and, finally, new rows of bolt heads (created with white glue).
The turret was completely replaced with a cast turret from a 1943 T-34/76 (Zvezda kit). While its shape and gun mantlet are quite characteristic, I still used it mostly OOB because its size and shape turned out to be a very good match to contemporary French tank turrets. However, the gun barrel was moved and a fairing for a hydro-pneumatic recoil damper was added, as well as a French commander cupola. And an adapter had to be scratched to attach the new turret to the hull, together with small fairings for the wider turret ring.
Painting and markings:
I wanted a rather unusual paint scheme for this Char B1 derivative, and found inspiration in an operational museum tank that depicts vehicle “311/Rhin”: it carries a three-tone livery in two greens and brown, instead of the more common sand, dark green and earth brown tones or just two-tone schemes.
The colors were adapted to an irregular pattern, and the paints I used were Humbrol 120 (FS 34227, a rather pale interpretation of the tone), 10 (Gloss Dark Brown) and ModelMaster 1764 (FS 34092). As a personal twist, the colors were edged in black, enhancing the contrast.
The markings were puzzled together from various sources in an attempt to create suitable tactical codes of the early 1940 era. The “Ace of Spades” emblem on the turret is, for example, are a marking of the 1st section. The dot in front of the “K” probably indicated a command vehicle, but I am not certain.
Some post-shading was done as well as dry-brushing with light earth brown to emphasize edges and details. Then the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and received some dusting with grey-brown artist pigments, simulating dust around the running gear.
Well, not too much was changed, but the new, bigger turret changes the Char B1’s look considerably – it looks somewhat smaller now? Its new silhouette also reminds me of a duck? Weird, but the conversion worked out well – esp. the modified glacis plate without the howitzer’s recessed opening looks very natural.
