Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - The 67e BCC fight in the Champagne region, June 1940

The 67e BCC maneuvers  to help facing the onslaught of the 8.PD at the small hamlet of Jean-Pierre- Papin (who doesn't remember this small hamlet from the 93-94 Champions League won by Milan?). You may keep on reading as all the rest is not based on nonsense. 

The D1 infantry tank, despite being made between 1931 and 1933, still could put on a fight against early German armour due to the tenacity of its crew and their  47mm SA 34 main gun of the second turret, the ST2 (the first one was the FT17 turret and the poorly balanced ST1). It was used by the Vichy forces against US troops and the D1s last fight was at Kasserine were one is told to have destroyed a PzIV. 

All miniatures are MiniGeneral 3d prints. Yes, I know, they don't look like 3d prints. No need this time for the PVA+ acrylic paint paste. With two coats of primer all printing lines were virtually gone and that is because Pedro Pato is making his stuff better and better. 

1st company. The battalion was made mostly from the I/508e BCC and still formed in Tunisia before embarking to face the Germans in June 1940. The numbers on the tanks were not following a logical sequence. 

2nd company. I applied the same camouflage in all tanks but there was also a second type in which the turret camouflage was applied all over the tank. 

3rd company. This company had big white letters in the turret related to the tank commander's name. 

This is the case of D1 number 1085 which displayed a big "O" of Oudet, killed in action at 22 years old. This picture troubled me a bit as I have a son close to this age and a son's friend that looks a lot like Oudet. 

The D1 "1085" of Sous- Lieutnant Paul Oudet. 

The commander of 67e BCC, Chef de Corps Albert Valleteau, was not using a D1 tank but I used the tank of Captain Lapiche, 1st company commander, to have a command tank in the unit.

The main change is the addition of a second usual commander's antenna on the leftside and the necessary withdrawal of the spade from its place. 

 

All tanks got two pices of metal chain in the frontal part and also in the unditching tail. Some also got some stowage but not exaggerated as French tanks didn´t seem to have carried much stuff on the outside. 

These D1, even if old and outdated, managed to destroy a number of Panzers and stoped the Germans at Souain (were ironically the 67e BCC will face the 67. PanzerBataillon),  Croix-en-Champagne, Suippes and other places in those tragic days of 11-13 June 1940 for the Champagne region and for all France. 

All information and painting schemes were taken from the amazing GBM magazine, numbers 124 to 126. 

Next: More France 1940 as I was stung again by the Ooh Là Là bug. Or maybe Germans in Normandy or even Italians in the Western Desert.