Char G1

Char G1
Type	Tank
Place of origin	France
Specifications
Weight	~20-35 metric tons, i.e. tonnes
Length	~5.57 m
Width	~2.94 m
Height	~2.8 m
Crew	4
Armor	60 mm
Main armament	high velocity gun
Secondary armament	two machine guns
Engine	petrol ~280-450 hp
Power/weight	unspecified
Suspension	unspecified
Operational range	~200-400 km
Speed	40 km/h

The Char G1 was a French replacement project for the Char D2 medium tank. Several prototypes from different companies were developed since 1936, but not a single one had been fully completed at the time of the Fall of France in 1940. The projects represented some of the most advanced French tank design of the period and finally envisaged a type that would have been roughly equal in armament and mobility to later World War II standard tanks of other nations, such as the Soviet T-34 and the American M4 Sherman, but possessing several novel features, such as gun stabilisation, a semi-automatic loader and an optical rangefinder.

By 1935 the French Infantry had not yet developed a satisfactory medium tank. Whereas a reasonably effective heavy break-through tank was available, the Char B1, and several light infantry support tanks were on the brink of being taken into production — the Renault R35, Hotchkiss H35 and the FCM 36 — a good medium tank had still to be designed, as the Char D1 was a manifest failure and the Char D2 only a slight improvement over its ancestor. Such a medium tank was needed in a minimal number of 250 to serve in the planned organic tank battalion of the five Mechanised Infantry Divisions, the main Infantry force capable of executing strategic offensive or defensive movements. A good medium tank was already under development by the French Cavalry, the SOMUA S35, but the Infantry rejected this type, both because of technological reasons — its climbing capacity was limited — and because the Infantry wanted to assert its dominance over the Cavalry in the field of tank design.

On 18 December 1935 the first specifications were issued by the Infantry of a Char Moyen d'Infanterie de 20 tonnes ("twenty tonne medium infantry tank"). They called for a tank with a road speed of 50 km/h, an off-road speed of 20 km/h, a range of 400 kilometres, a trench crossing capacity of two metres, a wading capacity of 120 centimetres, a climbing capacity of eighty centimetres and 45° slope, a 47 mm gun and 7.5 mm machine-gun, an armour thickness of 40 mm, a gas-proof hull and the possession of a radio set. The weight limit of twenty metric tonnes was chosen because of railroad, bridge carrying and pontoon constraints. Overall these features were close to those of the SOMUA S35.