VIVE LA FRANCE!

Daniel Brooker returns with France’s ‘What-if’ Cold War Super Tank.

- Daniel Brooker

After the fall of France in June 1940 French tank design, which had led the world in the 1930s, took an enforced hiatus. In 1945 the designers at the AMX factory designers chose the heavy route for future tank design. The first plans were drawn up and named ‘Char AMX M4’ or ‘Project 141’ between 1946 to 1948. This design changed many times and had similarities to the German King Tiger with a projected weight in excess of 50 tonnes. The final weight of the vehicle this was dependant on its armour thickness and armament arrangement and it would not be until 1953 before a first prototype was built featuring a 120mm gun housed in a full rotating turret with a total weight of 59 tonnes. Over the next few years many design changes were introduced to finally produce what the AMX 50 Surblindé (‘AMX 50 Uparmoured'). This still featured the 120mm main gun, but with a piked nosed hull design similar to the Soviet IS-3. The weight exceeded that of the first prototype which, in part, froze any future progress on this heavy tank project, and it was not until 1958 that the project was restarted with a new design and prototype, the AMX 50 Surbaissé (‘AMX 50 Low Profile’). A short while later, in January 1959, the thirteen-year heavy tank programme was finally cancelled after unpromising field trials.

AMX 65