Okinoshima, on Aug 16 2013 - 17:27, said:
Sorry, a bunch of short questions:
So an order from 1944 for 500 'transitional tanks'. Just to clarify that would be the B40 in particular or was that more along the lines 'built 500 anything, we need tanks ASAP!'?
Whatever they would manage to build, to reduce delay no prototype were planned and the commission specified that 50~70 tanks should be produced per month.
They lived in some sort of utopia...
Okinoshima, on Aug 16 2013 - 17:27, said:
Would the 3 man turret on the B40 have been the ARL 42 turret planned for the SARL 42 or a different design?
Probably another turret, no details available.
Okinoshima, on Aug 16 2013 - 17:27, said:
What do we know about the ARL 44 prototype that was lost on the sunken ship?
B40 prototype you mean, well no more than what the drawing show, so it lacked the armaments (including the turret) and the engine (but apparently the whole suspension/tracks were complete and working, the prototype was described by Stéphane Ferrard as rolling (so you could move it around as long there was something to tow it))
Okinoshima, on Aug 16 2013 - 17:27, said:
Why didn't the EMGG just request a tank armed the American 76 mm M1? Wouldn't that have been easier to obtain quickly rather than having to design and set up production of an entirely new gun? Was it political reasons? Americans not interested in stretching their own supply of guns?
Honestly, I can't really tell, if I can take a wild guess it would be a mix of lack of available 76mm (we're still in 1944~45, French armored units (2e DB for example) received relatively few 76mm Sherman compared to others units, some kind of national pride ("let's use a French gun") and maybe political reasons.
The last point appeared more clearly few years after with the beginning of the Indochina war where, in 1945/46, France was lacking of an efficient armored forces (anything was used due to the lack of anything better).
A logical thing would have been to send already formed armored units from France to Indochina but the equipment was weary from the fights in France and Germany and the USA were more than reticent to send spares which they knew would be used in what was a colonial war
Okinoshima, on Aug 16 2013 - 17:27, said:
I've read multiple French sources lauding the 47 mm SA35 and SA37's (the SA39 from what I understand was just a standard, towed SA37 on a newly designed carriage) anti-armour capabilities (albeit by 1940 standards) but in-game their penetration is seen as rather lacklustre. Do you think WG extrapolated these guns in-game performance well with it's real life characteristics?
The main differences between the 47mm SA37 and the 47mm SA39 are, as you said, a different carriage, and the addition of a flash hidder/muzzle brake.
To the contrary of the 25mm SA34/37 (the 25mm SA35 was the shortened variant of the SA34 mounted on armored cars/tanks, it used a more powerful ammo to compensate the shorter barrel) which were incredibly discreet when firing (courtesy of their flash hidder), the 47mm Mle.1937, when firing, let off a long flame which revealed the gun (plus the ammunition which had a magnesium cap which flashed when hitting the target, pretty nice to know if you hit or not but it also burned during the flight as a tracer, once again revealing the gun. Some crews had for habits of removing this cap).
About the performances of these guns, imo Wargaming don't do these guns justice (in some case it's just ridiculous).
To compare the numbers from
France 1940, L'armement terrestre by Stéphane Ferrard with WG's values:
Note: the angle is from the vertical.
25mm SA34/35/37: 40mm/30° at 400m / 46~50mm/0° at 100m
37mm SA18: 15mm/30° at 400m / 29mm/0° at 100m
37mm SA38: 30mm/30° at 400m / 34mm/0° at 100m
47mm SA34: 25mm/30° at 400m / 25mm/0° at 100m
47mm SA35: 35mm/30° at 400m / 45mm/0° at 100m (David Lehmann give 40mm/30° at 400m)
47mm SA37: 106mm/0° at 100m / 66mm/0° at 100m
And I still don't understand why the Germans captured French tanks have more penetration than the same guns but on French tanks (Ger 37mm SA38: 41mm - Fra 37mm SA38: 34mm / Ger 47mm SA35: 55mm - Fra 47mm SA35: 45mm).
The guns of the Germans premiums seems in line with the historical values so why not the same on French tanks ?
Still from the discussion with Slakrrrrr (I let out the comparison with guns from others nations as it's not my domain and I don't want to offence anybody if I made a mistake):