Production of the AMC 35 by Renault/AMX spanned from November of 1938 to January of 1940 with an estimated 57 vehicles being built in all. In the initial production run, only ten to twelve AMC-35 tanks were completed and these were shipped to Belgian to cover a failed AMC-34 Light Tank procurement order (the order was canceled due to poor performance exhibited by the received evaluation vehicle with the Belgians paying a hefty fine in return). It was not until the events of 1939 that production of the AMC-35 ramped up for the German Army was on the move in several brazen offensives - including the eventual invasion of Poland in conjunction with the Red Army in October, an action that turned out to be the historical "official" start of World War 2. The French held 47 AMC-35 examples in inventory at the beginning of 1940 and, in May of that year, the attention of Hitler and his seemingly unstoppable military turned to Belgium and France with an invasion commencing on the 10th.
The Belgian AMC-35 tanks were sent into action against the German Werhmacht, at least eight such tanks forming into a Belgian Army cavalry squadron. In the first day of fighting, half of these were lost to skillful use of German anti-tank guns (37mm) while a further pair were lost to mechanical issues and left by their crews. The final two in service managed to survive the fighting only to be eventually handed over to the German victors on May 28th, 1940 - Belgium's surrender.
This left stunned French warplanners without the expected defensive buffer along their north. French authorities were also slow to react to the quickly unfolding events and even lacked trained crews in which to field with their newly-minted AMC-35 Cavalry Tanks. Eventually, numbers swelled to usable totals but her assigned crews did not hold their tanks in high regard - the systems still proved unreliable in-the-field and were considered limited in respect to their actual combat qualities. Once German forces pushed through Sedan, the AMC-35 was finally sent to war to fight under its national banner. However, all this proved too late for the French capital city of Paris was taken by the Germans on June 14th - an armistice being signed on June 22nd. France proper was officially out of the war, its government now relocated and the Germans taking in a stunning victory over their neighboring rivals who had humiliated them in the world war prior.
Despite the loss of France, the AMC-35 soldiered on in a limited role afterwards for the Germans required services of a security nature to help keep the peace across newly conquered territories. As such, existing AMC-35s were reconstituted by the German Army under the designation of "PzKpfW AMC 738(f)". To help train its troops in the use of the foreign machine, a separate designation - "PzKpfW AMC 738(b)" - was used to mark training vehicles. Beyond that, the legacy of the AMC-35 was a rather unspectacular and forgettable affair by historical standards.
In some of the available texts - particularly those of French origin - the AMC-35 may be referred to as the "Renault ACG-1". This is due to the development of a single "one-off" proposed dedicated 75mm-armed tank destroyer known as the "Renault ACG-2". This design was not accepted into serial production.
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