The Panzer I, armed with just machine guns was
no match for any French or British tank.
The common view of the first year of World War II is that the British and French armies were routed and defeated in six weeks by a superior German armored force using Blitzkrieg tactics.
The truth is, the invading Germans were outnumbered and outgunned by the defenders of France. They won because Erwin Rommel commanded 7th Panzer Division at the front of the invading German Army carrying out a brilliant invasion plan.
The British and French had a combined 3,000 tanks, all of which had cannons capable of destroying any of the German tanks in the invasion force.
The British Matilda tank.
Better armed and armored than most German tanks in France in 1940
The Germans had 2,000 tanks, hundreds of them armed with just machine guns. But the Germans concentrated nearly all their armor on a 20-mile invasion front, while the British and French spread their tanks from the Swiss border to the English Channel. Rommel punched through the allied lines. He personally waded into rivers when his engineers were making bridges for his tanks. Rommel broke through the allied lines and captured huge formations.
Without Rommel carrying out a brilliant invasion plan by General Heinz Guderian, the allied army could have stopped or slowed the German advance and dragged out the war in France. The great early success of Rommel, Guderian and the German Army led Hitler to invade Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Weapons of every kind are wielded by soldiers. How the weapon is used, as much as the weapon itself, determines the outcome of battles.
