If the vehicle held any failings, it was in its technologically-advanced design nature which restricted mass production efforts by factories, limited procurement by the Army, and complicated in-the-field operation and repairs. Break downs proved commonplace and abandoned examples were simply taken over by advancing enemy forces as their own. Its heavyweight design made for a ponderous battlefield creature and crew placement within the vehicle made communications quite difficult under chaotic battlefield conditions. The internal make up also required the commander to serve as his own gunner (sighting, loading, and firing) which added a stressful, time-consuming role to a manager already attempting to assess the battlefield situation all the while commanding his subordinates. French doctrine also stated that tanks be used in small, local-defense parties as opposed to large, coordinated formations (as in the Blitzkrieg) against enemy forces and positions. In many ways the Char B1 - as sound an instrument of war as it was - fell because of French tactics as much as it did to enemy fire and mechanical issues.
Only three heavy armored divisions were available to the French by March of 1940 and 163 Char B1 tanks were produced before the German invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to officially begin World War 2. Forty-two more of these tanks followed in 1939 with another 200 in 1940. A total of 405 of these tanks would be built in all including a pair of Char B1 ter vehicles.
Beyond the logistical issues in fielding the Char B1 effectively, French tank tactics - no much evolved from the fighting of World War 1 - doomed the type to failure against the well-coordinated offensive actions of the Germans which involved combined firepower and support from aerial dive bombers, long-range artillery, mobile anti-tank teams, armored formations, and infantry elements. Following the French capitulation, the vehicle was forced into service by the Germans who used it in over a dozen tank groups of their own under the designation of "PzKpfW B1-bis 740(f)" - the lowercase "f" indicating the tank's French origins. Common practice for the Germans was to reconstitute captured weapons and rework them into other useful battlefield roles - the Char B1 therefore became the basis for a line of 105mm-armed howitzer carriers and some served as important tank driver trainers. The PzKpfW Flamm(f) became a dedicated flame tank mounting flamethrower armament which proved highly suitable for weeding out helpless, dug in infantry in fast burning structures or concealed in brush. The Italians were known to have captured up to eight Char B1 tanks at some point but at least six lacked their turrets which rendered them rather useless as combat systems. It is believed that none of these Italian offerings were used in anger during the war.
French work on heavy tanks continued shortly after the war ended in 1945, resulting in the 90mm-armed ARL 44 of which sixty were only ever produced.
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