Description
In essence the Char D2 is an improved Char D1. The different turret type used, increases its height somewhat to 2666 millimetres; the hull is 175.5 centimetres high. The length of the hull, without tail, is 546 centimetres; its width is reduced to 2223 millimetres through the use of a narrower track, 35 centimetres wide. The suspension is largely identical but the top rollers, to which a tension wheel is added, are placed somewhat higher to prevent track resonance, a persistent problem with the Char D1. The armour plate covering the three vertical coil springs consists of six instead of eight panels; mud-chutes are added below each top roller. There are three bogies per side, each with four road wheels, a coil spring and two shock absorbers. In front, and at the back below the sprocket, there is a tension wheel with its own damper; identical to the road wheels proper they bring the total number of such wheels to fourteen. Another change are the fenders with large stowage bins that give the false impression to be part of the main armour.
The production vehicles use far less welded sections than at first intended. To reduce the price, Renault has opted to implement a novel construction technique, using large flat screws, serving both as bolts and, applied heated, as rivets, attaching the main armour plates to each other by means of thin connecting steel strips. This way no internal girders, forming a real chassis, are needed. The armour plates are 40 mm thick.
Like with the Char D1 there is a crew of three, but the radio-telegraphy operator is sitting to the right of the driver instead of the commander, and the antenna, of the ER52 set, has been moved to a position next to him. To make room a hull machine-gun is absent. This new configuration had been demanded to create a roomier fighting compartment. Two command vehicles, series numbers 2016 and 2049, have a second antenna on the left to serve their ER51 long range set. The engine power has increased considerably to 150 hp by installing a Renault V-6 9.5 litres motor, but as the weight has increased to 19.75 (just below the twenty tonne limit) instead of the intended 15.5 metric tonnes, the gain in maximum speed is limited to 23 km/h. The gear box has four speeds. Four fuel tanks together holding 352 litres allow for a range of a hundred kilometres. The wading capacity is 120 centimetres, a trench of 210 centimetres can be crossed, an obstacle eighty centimetres high or a slope of 50% climbed. The hull has a fixed 7.5 mm machine-gun low in the glacis on the right side.
The commander is the sole occupant of the APX1 turret, acting also as gunner and loader for the 47 mm SA34 gun, which has a limited anti-tank capacity, and the optionally coaxial 7.5 mm Châtellerault machine-gun. The gun could fire two types of ammunition: a HE (High Explosive) called the Obus D with a shell weight of 1250 gramme and a muzzle velocity of 490 m/s; and an APHE (Armoured Piercing High Explosive), the Obus B Modèle 1932, with a shell weight of 1410 gramme, an explosive charge of 142 gramme and a muzzle velocity of 480 m/s. It rendered an armour penetration of just about 25 millimetres at a distance of a hundred metres, barely enough to be effective against light armoured vehicles.
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