Char 2C - Development

Development

In the summer of 1916 General Mouret, the Subsecretary of Artillery, granted Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée (FCM), a shipyard in the south of France near Toulon, the contract for the development of a heavy tank. At the time, French industry was very active in lobbying for defence orders, using their connections with high-placed officials and officers to obtain commissions; development contracts could be very profitable even when not resulting in actual production, as they were fully paid for by the state. The French Army had no stated requirement for a heavy tank, and there was no official policy to procure one so the decision seems to have been taken solely on his personal authority. Exact specifications, if they ever existed, have been lost. FCM then largely neglected the project, apart from reaping the financial benefits. At that time all tank projects were highly secret, and thereby shielded from public scrutiny. This was soon to change, however.

On 15 September 1916 the British deployed tanks in battle for the first time in the form of the Mark I, and a veritable tank euphoria followed. When the public mood in Britain had been growing ever darker as the truth of the failure of the Somme Offensive could no longer be suppressed, tanks offered a new hope of final victory. The French people now became curious as to the state of their own national tank projects. French politicians, not having been over-involved in them and leaving the matter to the military, were no less inquisitive. This sudden attention greatly alarmed Mouret, who promptly investigated the progress that had been made at FCM and was shocked to find there was none. On 30 September he personally took control of the project. On 12 October, knowing that the Renault company had some months earlier made several proposals to build a heavy tracked mortar which had been rejected, he begged Louis Renault to assist FCM in the development of a suitable heavy vehicle; this request Renault obliged.

Renault consulted his own team which, since May 1916, had been in the process of designing the revolutionary Renault FT light tank. This work had not, however, stopped them from considering other tank types. Renault, always expecting his employees to provide new ideas instantly, had by this attitude encouraged the team to take a proactive stance---setting a pattern that would last until 1940---and to have various kinds of contingency studies ready for the occasion. He discovered that his main designer, Rodolphe Ernst-Metzmaier, had by his own initiative finished a feasibility study for a heavy tank. This fortunate circumstance allowed a full-size wooden mock-up to be quickly constructed and presented to the Consultative Committee of the Assault Artillery on 17 January 1917, after the basic concept had been approved on 30 December. This proposed tank was the most advanced design of its time; it was received very favourably, and a consensus began to form that the project was most promising and a potential "war-winner". It featured a 105 mm gun in a turret, had a proposed weight of 38 tons and 35 mm armour. Even before knowing what the exact nature of the project would be, on 20 October Mouret ordered one prototype to be built by FCM.

However, the FCM tank had already made a powerful and influential enemy. Brigadier Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne, commander of the new tank force, the Assault Artillery, closely cooperated with Renault in the development of the FT-17, and through this connection was kept well informed of the other tank project. Estienne began to fear that the production of the heavy vehicle would use up all available production facilities, making the procurement of the much more practical FT-17 light tank impossible. Normally he would have been able to mobilise resistance against it by playing on company rivalries. In this case, however, political pressure could not be exerted as the same industrialist was behind both projects. That his fears were not unfounded became apparent when in November Mouret tried to obstruct further development of the FT-17, arguing that all available resources should be concentrated into heavy tank production. Alarmed, Estienne now wrote a letter to the Commander-in-Chief, General Joffre, dated 27 November 1916 and defending the light tank concept. In it he admitted that "colossal landships" might in certain circumstances have their uses, but pointed out that while it was as yet unproven that any workable heavy type could actually be developed, let alone produced, in sufficient numbers by French industry, it would be folly not to give priority to light tanks that could be constructed without delay. He insisted that Joffre use all his influence to bring about the cancellation of the heavy tank project.

Joffre answered that Estienne was no doubt correct in his tactical and organisational analysis, but that he could not oblige him because political backing of the heavy tank was simply too strong. The Minister of Armament, Albert Thomas, had committed himself too openly to Mouret's cause and did not dare to retract support now. Joffre advised Estienne not to worry too much; he would make sure at least that the FT-17 would not be cancelled, and precisely because heavy tank development would take such a long time, for the immediate future it wouldn't get in the way of light tank production. There would surely be no harm in allowing some prototypes to be built.

In December Joffre was replaced as supreme commander by Robert Nivelle. In late January Nivelle learned of the heavy tank project from Estienne. He was much more alarmed than Joffre had been. On 29 January he wrote a letter to Minister Thomas, making clear that under no circumstances could the project be allowed to impede production of the Schneider CA. Thomas answered on 5 February that there was no danger of this; anyway he had just happened to affirm on 1 February the policy of General Mouret, who — having a great need to show his unrelenting efforts in advancing the cause of the French tank — had ordered the simultaneous development of three prototypes: the lightened "A" version, weighing thirty tons and to be equipped with a 75 mm gun, the "B" version of forty tons with a lengthened hull and two machine gun turrets, and the "C" version of 62 tons with a 105 mm gun and a petro-electrical transmission.

In the spring the Nivelle Offensive failed completely, and the first use of French tanks was likewise a failure; in reaction Thomas ordered all tank production and projects to be ended. This led to an emergency alliance between Estienne and Mouret to bring about a reversal of this decision. When Thomas happened to visit Russia, Mouret surreptitiously ordered a restart of the tank projects. On his return an enraged Thomas caused Mouret to be fired, thus removing Estienne's greatest rival.

In December 1917 the first prototype, the FCM 1A, was ready to be shown to an investigating commission. Mouret had been replaced as head of the commission by Estienne, whose good friend General Philippe Pétain, the new High Commander of the French Army, asked him to use his position to end the project. Estienne told Pétain that this was ill-advised while the public was questioning why these heavy tanks had not been produced. Besides, the allies (specifically the British and the US) would only consent to give France 700 of the new Mark VIII Liberty design if France had made at least a token effort to produce its own heavy tanks. Thus the French authorities had to delay the project while outwardly endorsing it. Estienne had already set this course by choosing the heaviest version, the "C", for production, requiring a completely new prototype, causing a considerable delay. Then Pétain demanded unreasonably high production numbers, thus delaying planning and initiating a political row.

Pétain asked for 300 heavy tanks to be ready by March 1919, causing a quarrel to erupt between Clemenceau, who was both Prime-Minister and Minister of War, and Louis Loucheur, the Minister of Armament, who felt it was impossible to provide the labour and steel required. Meanwhile, Estienne and Pétain complicated the issue with further demands. Pétain asked for special pontoons, and Estienne demanded battering rams and electronic mine detectors to be fixed. When the war ended, not a single tank had been built.

At first, the production order for the Char 2C was cancelled. Despite the end of hostilities, however, strong political pressure to adopt new heavy tank projects remained, as there was now a considerable surplus capacity in the heavy industry. To stop this, the Direction de l’Artillerie d’Assaut on instigation of Estienne decided in April 1919 to procure ten Char 2Cs after all, and use this as an argument to reject any other projects. This wasn't completely successful; as late as 1920 it was proposed to the Section Technique des Appareils de Combat to build a 600-ton tank with 250 mm armour. At FCM Jammy and Savatier finished the Char 2C prototype, the other nine tanks being built almost simultaneously; all ten were delivered in 1921 and modified by the factory until 1923. They would be the last French tanks to be produced for the home market till the Char D1 pre-series of 1931.