Panhard 178

In December 1931, the French Cavalry conceived a plan for the future production of armoured fighting vehicles. One of the classes foreseen was that of an Automitrailleuse de Découverte one of the competing companies — the others being Renault, Berliet and Latil — which had put forward proposals, Panhard, was allowed to build a prototype. The other companies also were ordered to build prototypes: Renault constructed two vehicles of a Renault VZ, including an armoured personnel carrier variant, Berliet constructed a single Berliet VUB and Latil belatedly presented a design in April 1934. The Panhard vehicle was ready in October 1933 and presented to the Commission de Vincennes in January 1934 under the name Panhard voiture spéciale type 178. It carried a Vincennes workshop (Avis) 13.2 mm machine gun turret, as the intended one was not ready yet. After testing between 9 January and 2 February 1934, the type, despite having larger dimensions than prescribed and thus being a lot heavier than four tons, was accepted by the commission on 15 February under the condition that some small modifications were carried out. Of all the competing projects, it was considered the best: the Berliet VUB e.g. was reliable but too heavy and traditional; the Latil version had no all-terrain capacity. In the autumn, the improved prototype, now lacking the bottom tracks of the original type, was tested by the Cavalry. In late 1934, the type was accepted under the name AMD Panhard Modèle 1935. The type was now fitted with the APX3B turret. After complaints about reliability, such as cracking gun sights, and overheating, between 29 June and 2 December 1937 a new test programme took place, resulting in many modifications, including the fitting of a silencer and a ventilator on the turret. The ultimate design was very advanced for its day and still appeared modern in the 1970s. It was the first 4x4 armoured car mass-produced for a major country. ==Production==

The final assembly and painting of the armoured cars took place in the Panhard & Levassor factory at the Avenue d'Ivry in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. There, however, only the automotive parts and lesser fittings were built in: the armoured hull was in its entirety prefabricated by forges serving as subcontractors. At first, the main supplying company was Batignolles-Châtillon at Nantes, which could supply a maximum of about twenty per month; in 1940, the forge at Firminy became dominant. Likewise the turret, fitted with its armament by the Atelier de construction de Rueil (ARL), was made by subcontractors, mainly the Société française de constructions mécaniques (or "Cail") at Denain. Turret production tended to trail behind that of the hulls; on 1 September 1939, this order backlog had grown to 35; that there was little hope of solving this problem is shown by the production planned on 28 October 1939 for the spring of 1940: fifty hulls as against forty turrets per month. On 1 September 1939, 219 vehicles had been delivered including prototypes, 71 behind schedule. However, production increases soon allowed Panhard to reduce the backlog — at least for the hulls. From December, vehicles were produced from two later orders: a seventh of forty, made on 18 January 1938 and completed between December 1939 and April 1940; and an eighth of eighty vehicles delivered from January until the middle of May 1940. The monthly deliveries were: nine in September 1939, eleven in October, eighteen in November, twenty-two in December, twenty-five in January 1940, eight in February, sixteen in March, thirty-four in April and a final thirty in May 1940. The total production of completed vehicles of the standard version of the AMD 35 for France was thus 339. However, the total manufactured of all vehicles of the larger Panhard 178 family was much higher as there were several non-standard versions — and not all production was completed for France. Firstly, there was a radio command variant, twelve of which had been ordered in 1937 and again in 1938, the notification of which was issued on 9 December 1938, the 24 vehicles being delivered between October and December 1939. The next variant was a colonial version, eight of which were produced. The most important addendum consisted of an order for 128 modified vehicles destined for North-Africa. Furthermore, there were two last orders of the standard version, one of twelve notified on 22 July 1939, the second for a hundred made on 27 September 1939, of which both only fourteen hulls would be made for France. After the armistice, another 176 were completed, from prefabricated parts, for the German occupier, for a total of 729. Later projections were even more pessimistic: accordingly, on top of the 657 vehicles notified at that date, on 15 April 1940 another 450 were ordered, a third of them of the radio version, bringing total orders to 1,107. The desired peak rate of sixty vehicles was put forward with two months to September 1940; on 1 October, 1,018 vehicles had to be completed. However, the planned production was now limited to March 1941; as supreme commander Maurice Gamelin had concluded on 27 February 1940 from the events during Fall Weiss that lightly armoured vehicles could not survive on the modern battlefield, thus, from the spring of 1941, the Panhard 178 had to be replaced on the production lines by the heavy Panhard AM 40 P armoured car, which was to be much more heavily armoured and armed. ==Description==

Design In order to function as an effective long-range reconnaissance vehicle, the Panhard 178 had been kept as light as possible. The vehicle was thus rather small, only in length, wide and in height (1.65 m for the hull per se). Also, the tapering engine compartment, where a Panhard ISK 4FII bis V4, 6332 CC, 105 hp motor had been installed, was built very low, giving the vehicle its distinctive silhouette, with a protruding fighting compartment. Both compartments were separated by a fireproof bulkhead. The driver was in the front, using an eight-speed gear box and a normal steering wheel. Steering could be switched into reverse immediately to allow the assistant-driver, facing the rear From the 270th vehicle onwards stowage boxes were constructed on the back fenders, obscuring the pointed form of the engine compartment. The last turrets produced also had a backward pointing episcope for the commander, instead of a vision slit. ==Operational history==

The first nineteen vehicles were in April 1937 taken into service by 6e Cuirassiers. At the outbreak of the Second World War 218 vehicles were fielded with eleven squadrons. In the spring of 1940, ''21e Escadron d'AMD 35'' was first destined for Finland and the Winter War but then sent to Narvik to assist Norway during Weserübung. It was in fact the renamed 4e GRDI (that would be replaced by a new unit of the same name in its former parent 15th Mechanised Infantry Division on 5 May) and was equipped with thirteen Panhard 178s. During the Battle of France from 10 May 1940, on which date about 370 completed vehicles were available, the Panhard 178s were allocated to reconnaissance units of the mechanised and motorised forces. At the time, the Panhard 178 represented one of the best armoured cars in its class in the world. The Cavalry's three armoured divisions, the Divisions Légères Mécaniques, had a nominal organic strength of forty armoured cars, plus four radio vehicles and an organic matériel reserve of four vehicles. This would make for a total of 144 in these mechanised light divisions. The Cavalry's Light (i.e. motorised) Divisions, the Divisions Légères de Cavalerie, had a squadron of twelve Panhards plus a radio car and a matériel reserve of four in their Régiment de Automitrailleuses (RAM). The total in the Cavalry Light Divisions would thus be 85. The type was not just used by the Cavalry; the Infantry employed them in the GRDIs or ''Groupes de Reconnaissance de Division d'Infanterie, the reconnaissance units of the Divisions d'Infanterie Mécaniques'', which (despite their name) were largely motorised infantry divisions. These were 1er GRDI for 5e DIM, 2e GRDI for 9e DIM, 3e GRDI for 12e DIM, 4e GRDI for 15e DIM, 5e GRDI for 25e DIM, 6e GRDI for 3e DIM and 7e GRDI for 1e DIM. Their organisation was basically identical to the units of the DLCs, but the strength was sixteen, making for a total of 112 vehicles. The actual strength of above units might differ, but if all were on strength 24 vehicles were present in the matériel reserve or used for driver training, as apart from colonial vehicles, 378 had been delivered on 10 May 1940. After the start of the invasion, several emergency ad hoc units were formed; these included the 32e GRDI for the regular 43e DI, having five Panhards. The 4e DCR, the armoured division of the Infantry hastily assembled in May, got 43 Panhard 178s. The DLMs used their Panhard units for strategic reconnaissance. In the case of 1DLM, this entailed a movement well in advance of the main body of the division as it was supposed to maintain a connection with the Dutch Army during the Battle of the Netherlands. Within 32 hours, the armoured cars of the group Lestoquoi covered a distance of over 200 kilometres reaching the environment of 's-Hertogenbosch in the afternoon of 11 May. After some successful skirmishes with German armoured cars belonging to the reconnaissance platoons of the German Infanterie Divisionen, they withdrew, as the Dutch were already in full retreat. They were asked by the Dutch to assist an infantry attack on the southern bridgehead of the strategic Moerdijk bridges, held by German paratroopers. As the cars were not suitable for such a task, the commander hesitated after incorrectly concluding the bridgehead was strongly defended. While thus being immobile, this group of Panhards was surprised in open polder landscape by a Stuka-attack with one vehicle disabled and quickly withdrew to the south. The other two DLMs hurried forward to stop the advance of 3 and 4PD after the surprisingly swift fall of Fort Eben-Emael, their Panhards fighting a successful delaying battle against their German counterparts until the Battle of Hannut, the largest tank battle of the campaign. In general, they had little trouble in dispatching the lightly armoured German armoured cars, whose 20 mm main armament was not very effective against the Panhard frontal armour. As the type was well-suited to German tactics, at least 190 Panhards, most of them brand-new, were issued to German reconnaissance units for use in Operation Barbarossa in 1941 under the designation of Panzerspähwagen P204 (f); 107 would be lost that year. Among these were some radio vehicles, designated Panzerspähwagen (Funk) P204 (f). Thirty Panhards were listed as in use on the Eastern Front on 31 May 1943. Some of these were fitted with spaced armour. After the liberation of France, the 1e Groupement Mobile de Reconnaissance would, among a bewildering variety of types, also use some Panhard 178s, some of these modified. ==Modified Panhards==

Radio vehicles The Panhard units were intended for deep strategic reconnaissance and thus could be expected to operate well in advance of the main forces. To fulfil their task of relaying information, long range radio connections were necessary. Therefore, one in twelve vehicles had to be of a special radio "command" version (Poste Commande) with the turret fixed in place and without armament but equipped with the ER27 set, giving a range of 80 - 150 kilometres, and two ER26ter sets with a range of sixty kilometres for communications within the squadron. A dozen "PC vehicles" had been ordered in both 1937 and 1938, the number of 24 being notified on 9 December 1938. The first was planned to be delivered in February, but only materialised in October 1939, followed by seventeen in November and six in December. They were rebuilt with the ER 27 set in the Fort d'Issy. As this number was clearly insufficient to equip all units, on 15 April 1940 an additional 150 PCs were ordered, bringing the total to 174; none of the new order had been built before the armistice. the original Panhard 178 prototype, leaving Bordeaux on 15 September, In the autumn of 1939, the building of a number of tank destroyers was already being considered, as too few units had a motorised anti-tank capacity. n April 1940, Panhard proposed its Voiture spéciale 207, basically a Panhard 178 fitted in the back with a rearward-facing powerful 47 mm SA 37 gun. This type was still in development when the crisis in May and the lack of APX3 turrets — Cail had been overrun and it had been decided to deliver most vehicles as "turretless AMDs" to the troops — led to an emergency programme to fit the surplus hulls with a new turret type. On 29 May 1940, Renault was contacted and quickly initial ideas of improvising an open-topped turret for a 25 mm gun grew into a new closed turret, a design by Engineer Joseph Restany, capable of holding the much more powerful standard 47 mm SA 35 tank gun, a first version of which was finished on 31 May. To provide enough room to operate the larger gun, the back of the new octagonal turret was raised, resulting in an extreme wedge-shaped profile. The armour consisted of welded 25 mm plates all-around, reinforced on the front with a spaced appliqué 13 mm plate. The turret had a single rather narrow top hatch and lacked the rear hatch that had been usual for French designs. The turret had to be rotated by hand, an electrical drive being absent. Also, a machine-gun was lacking. A single vehicle was tested on 5 June and completed on 6 June, but plans to build forty vehicles of the type from 11 June at a rate of four a day came to naught, despite an official order on 13 June, and the intention of attaining a monthly production of thirty-five from August onwards, as Paris was declared an open city on 10 June and the factory evacuated on 12 June. The single vehicle, provisionally called the Voiture 47, was allocated to 1er RAM on 6 June and, on 15 June, defended a bridge near Etignie, destroying two German "heavy tanks" (of an unspecified type) and a column trying to force a crossing. On 17 June, 10:00, it was destroyed by its own crew at Cosnes-sur-Loire when their unit was unable to cross the Loire river with its heavy equipment. On 2 June, it was hoped to mount a 47 mm SA 34 or a 25 mm gun on the "turretless AMDs", protected by a superstructure made of 16 to 20 mm armour plate. Photographic evidence proves that at least one vehicle was fitted with a superstructure but not whether this was armed. Additionally, a few could probably be equipped with a gun shield for a machine gun, most being issued as pure hulls. Modifications by Germany, Vichy France and Italy After 1941, the Germans modified 43 cars as railway-protection vehicles (Schienenpanzer); they could drive on the tracks themselves by means of special wheels and were fitted with large radio frame aerials. Under the armistice conditions, the Vichy regime was allowed to use 64 Panhards for police service. These vehicles, mainly taken from the May–June production batches, had their guns removed and replaced with an additional machine gun. On orders of the Army, the Camouflage du Matériel branch, Engineer J. Restany, using the false name "J-J. Ramon", from April 1941 clandestinely produced 45 new turrets, fitted with a 47 mm SA 35 (about twenty) or a 25 mm gun in order to equip an equal number of hulls hidden from the Germans; some were eventually combined with the hulls for trial purposes. The turrets were of a new design but strongly resembled Restany's 47 mm turret of June 1940. They used 20 mm armour plates for the vertical surfaces and 10 mm plate for the top. To the top hatch, a rear hatch was added. On 28 January 1942, all turrets had been finished. Later, a 7.5 mm FM 24/29 machine-gun was fitted to the right of the main armament. These hulls and cars were partly hidden or dumped in lakes when the whole of France was occupied in November 1942. Some vehicles, however, were used by the Germans in the Sicherungs-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 100. In the summer of 1944, some were perhaps taken into use by the resistance. In 1944, some of the 34 Panhards captured by the Germans when they overran Vichy-France in November 1942, were rebuilt with the 5 cm KwK 38 L/42 or 5 cm PaK 38 L/60 gun in an open-topped turret and used for occupation duty. In November 1942, the Italian Army also captured two Panhards, which would be used by them until September 1943. ==Panhard 178B==

In late 1944, a new turret was designed by Fives Lille, the FL1. It had a cylindrical "camembert" The type with the new turret, a new four cylinder engine and the EM3/R61 radio set was named Panhard 178B and taken into production at Firminy; a first order of 150 was made on 5 January 1945 and confirmed on 31 July 1945. However, before actual manufacture started, it was decided to fit the smaller 47 mm SA 35 gun and a machine gun. In total, 414 vehicles were manufactured, making for a grand total of 1,143 Panhard 178 cars. In contradistinction to this Panhard 178B, older vehicles are sometimes designated Panhard 178"A", though this designation is not contemporary. The B-version was used in France and the colonies, such as Syria, Tahiti, Madagascar and Vietnam. The last French use was in Djibouti in 1960 by the ''15e Escadron Blindé d'Infanterie de Marine''; Syria still used the type in February 1964 during the uprising in Damascus. ==Notes==