After the fall of France to the German war machine a large number of armored vehicles
came into the possession of the conquerors.
With a constant need for additional tanks these vehicles were pressed into service for
their new masters in a variety of ways.
In some cases the vehicles were used as they were found, but often they would receive significant
modifications.
Today’s topic is in the latter category with the tanks starting their lives as FCM
36 light tanks before being converted into a platform to carry the powerful Pak40 7.5cm
cannon and 10.5cm howitzer.
The FCM 36 was one of three light tanks which entered service with the French military in
the late 1930s.
With only 100 made, this tank was few in number but somewhat made up for that with its excellent
armor and superb reliability as reported by the crews.
Regardless of these aspects they would not be enough alone to stop the German invaders
with many being lost or abandoned during the rapid assault.
Though the French did lose many tanks in the fighting, so did the Germans and this led
to captured tanks, including several examples of the FCM 36 to be turned against their creators.
Following the surrender this number of FCM 36 tanks in German service would increase
with somewhere in the range of 37 to as high as 50 vehicles being recovered with different
numbers coming from different sources.
At first it might seem logical for these to be immediately placed into active service
either as reserve units or some other role to lessen some of the need for domestic vehicles
but there was a major issue which largely prevented this.
As most armor enthusiasts know the German army ran primarily on two types of fuel, grass
for their horses and petrol for the vehicles, the FCM 36 on the other hand was fueled with
diesel.
So although an addition of as many as 50 tanks could be seen as incredibly useful, the logistics
of providing diesel specifically for those vehicles made them undesirable.
For essentially this reason alone outside of their use during the westward push into
France the FCM 36 would not see much use after the surrender.
This would remain the case for around 2 years until 1942 when it was decided to put the
tanks, or more specifically their chassis, to work.
The conversion of these tanks as well as many other French vehicles was led by a man by
the name of Alfred Becker or as his unit was later called, Baukommando Becker.
His story is certainly one worth going into further but for the purposes of this video
we can summarize by saying he was ordered by Hitler to take the remaining supplies of
Allied armor in occupied France and modify them for use in the German army.
As many of these were long outdated by this point this largely meant converting them to
self propelled guns.
Combining the German equipment available with the supply of FCM 36 tanks led to the creation
of two new vehicles, first in the fall of 1942 the 10.5 cm leichte feldhaubitze 16 auf
Geschützwagen FCM later followed by the 7.5cm Pak40 auf Geschützwagen FCM in 1943.
For my own sake as well as yours I’ll simply be referring to these as 10.5cm FCM and 7.5cm
FCM for the remainder of the video, keep in mind these are not actually how they were
referred to while in service.
The exact number of these vehicles produced is not clear, but estimates put the 10.5cm
FCM at as few as 8 or as many as 48.
Likely given that around 10 were reportedly used for the 7.5cm conversion and likely fewer
than 50 were captured in total the number of 10.5cm FCM conversions was closer to 8-12
than 48.
This video clip showing part of the construction process lists the number as being 12 which
leads me to believe that is the true number built, at least at that point.
As I mentioned earlier work on these conversions first began in the fall of 1942 with the 10.5cm
FCM 36.
Like with many of Becker's other conversions like the Lorraine 37L tractor and Hotchkiss
light tanks this consisted of modifying the upper portion of the vehicle to create an
open topped gun carrier.
The exact way this was done is not clear but using some photos and a few shots from the
surviving footage is enough for me to make an educated guess.
We see in this frame showing the interior of the vehicle while firing that the two crew
members by the gun appear to be standing inside the hull of the tank below where the turret
once sat with a flat plate behind them.
This leads me to believe the area around the turret ring was removed to create a place
for the gunner and commander to stand with the ammunition stored above the engine deck.
The engine deck itself was also clearly modified to some degree as originally the tank featured
angled armor along its length but afterwards we see both the side armor and the folding
access panels on the sides are now more vertical with a slight outward angle.
This may indicate the engine deck was also lowered but as of now I have no way of confirming
this.
The ammunition does seem to sit lower than the rear armor slope in this photo though
so I’d say there's a good chance of it.
As for the actual superstructure itself it offered little in the way of protection.
At only 15mms thick all around with minimal sloping this meant it could only really protect
from small arms fire and shrapnel.
An additional gun shield was also mounted on the front giving it slightly more armor.
With no armor above them the crew was also at risk from incoming fire into the compartment
from strafing aircraft or another source.
Within this armor would be a crew consisting of 4 or possibly 5, the driver in the original
drivers position with the commander and gun crew in the superstructure.
This would mean the driver was the most protected of the crew with there being no evidence that
the original 40mm frontal armor of the tank was changed.
Still, by 1942 that was fairly thin armor so luckily for the crew this vehicle played
a supporting role rather than direct fire.
To do that the tank carried between 36 and 50 rounds of ammunition with sources differing
on the amount for the 105mm howitzer.
The photo showing the interior has 36 visibly loaded rounds, however more could easily be
stowed out of sight.
Along with this the tank had a single MG34 machine gun on the right side of the superstructure
as protection from infantry.
These vehicles would go on to serve in the first 3 self propelled artillery batteries
of the armored artillery battalion of the western front.
Footage shows these vehicles being driven as well as firing but it is not known if they
ever saw combat.
In a report dated for January of 1944 the tanks were no longer included in the unit's
vehicles.
This seems to have been the result of a decision in December of 1943 to replace them with Hotchkiss
based ones to simplify logistics.
With no further information to go on it is a mystery what happened to them after this
with none having survived.
Following the construction of the 12 10.5cm FCMs Becker also created a further 10 tanks
armed with the Pak 40 anti tank gun in 1943.
These were put into the same unit as the 10.5cm FCMs although it was now known as the 931st
Assault Gun Battalion.
I found even less information on this conversion than the previous one, though it seems they
were mostly identical aside from the main armament.
You may also see this tank labeled as Marder I, a name which it shared with several different
vehicles of similar design.
Although it boasted a powerful armament this tank too seems to have met a similar fate
to its siblings being replaced by the more readily available vehicles.
Once again none survived the war although you can still find this vehicle in World of
Tanks as a premium vehicle for France.
Often it may seem obvious to use captured equipment as a way to bolster your armor reserves,
but as the FCM 36 demonstrates this is not always as easy as one might think.
Whether it be lack of spare parts or even something as simple as what sort of fuel it
runs on logistics usually are the deciding factor for any vehicle.
In the case of the tanks we talked about today, the combination of low production numbers
and a less common fuel required to operate them resulted in them being passed up for
more sustainable options.
Hopefully in the future we can learn more about these modified vehicles and their eventual
fate to complete their page of history.
Until that day comes though I hope you did enjoy today’s video.
If you did and you learned something new be sure to share it with others so we can help
more people learn about these forgotten vehicles.
Thanks as always to my channel members for their support as well as their help picking
this topic for this week.
If you want to check out a similar topic to this one I recommend following this video
up with my video on another modified French tank, this time by Romania.
I’ll see you there.