ong the frontier with Belgium.) From the experience of the First World War, the French had concluded that in industrial warfare the static defensive was supreme (Shepperd, pp. 28-29), and the Maginot Line was intended to be the ultimate expression of industrial-age defense, a Verdun extended along the entire front.
The same reasoning was applied to the deployment of the potentially excellent French tanks. Instead of being concentrated into armored units (as some French officers, notably Charles de Gaulle, had proposed), most French tanks were dispersed among infantry units. Their mission was to serve in effect as movable pillboxes, employing their mobility only in a very local, tactical sense. Fatally, most were not equipped with radios, precluding coordinated armored operation even if a commander had several tanks on hand. Whatever the individual qualities of the tanks and crews, they would be hopelessly outmatched if faced by entire German armored colum
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