Char Futur
When in September 1939 war broke out, all tank design policies were affected. On 15 December the Inspectorate of Tanks decided that war production should be limited to existing types with the exception of three precisely circumscribed classes: the Char d'Accompagnement, a new medium infantry tank; the Char de Bataille, a new heavy tank and the Char de Fortification, a superheavy tank. A new Commission of Tank Study was created to study these three types; it first met on 28 February 1940. The commission decided that the Char d'Accompagnement would need a 47 mm gun in a turret and the Char de Bataille at least a 90 mm gun in the hull. The Char G1, being in between the two classes, would thus not be produced.
Of course Louis Renault did his best to overturn this decision. On 1 April 1940 a subcommission received Renault's head engineer Serre, who argued it would be folly to discontinue the Char G1 project as it was so near fruition. The first armour set would be manufactured by Schneider in July 1940, the suspension and gearbox were almost finished, a new 350 hp engine was being tested (he didn't mention this had met much resistance from Louis Renault, who thought the existing engine used in the Char B1 was sufficient, if uprated). The weight would be lower than 35 tons, perhaps as low as 32 ton. All theoretical studies could be completed in May and the first vehicle in September. The Commission, not as easily swayed as the previous one after the manipulation by Renault had become known, answered that the prototype could of course be finished as ordered, but that production of the type, despite its interesting advanced technological features, was excluded. The armistice of June 1940 ended all development.
However, in 2008 French armour historian Stéphane Ferrard proposed an alternative interpretation, arguing that the fact that the Renault project was singled out for continued development shows that, had the course of events not prevented it, very likely the Char G1R would have been taken into production anyway, probably with the ARL 3 turret and a 400 hp engine. Further logical improvement steps would then have been the fitting of the three-man ARL 42 turret, followed by the change to a Long 40 75 mm gun, resulting for 1942 in a tank type that would have been the equal in armament and mobility to actually built medium tanks of that date, such as the Soviet T-34 and American M4 Sherman, but with more technologically advanced features, like a range finder and gun stabilisation, foreboding the postwar AMX 30.
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