Landships II

In 1936 the French government came to realise that France might find herself at war with Germany again. Whilst there was a school of thought in the Fench military (including the a certain DeGaulle)that followed what might be called the Liddel Hart school of tank strategy there was a body that feared they might face what would be the Hindenberg Line mark 2. The French had no tank that could operate succesfully in a shelled area with wide anti tank ditches and concrete emplacements (The F2C was seen to have far too thin armour). Consequently a project was set in motion to produce a 'Fortress Tank' (ie a tank to attack fortresses not be one). This is very much the same spec that in Britain led to the Old Gang (Wilson Kepple and Betty - no no Wilson Tritton and Sterne) to produce the TOG 1 and TOG 2 throwbacks to WW1. A number of design studies were initiated in 1937 almost all harking back to WW1 designs. There were five basic projects known as  -

The Maximum Tank, initially intended to produce a modern larger  more heavly armoured form of the Mk V* (yes the Mk V* was named in the specs)
The New Skeleton Tank (which I've covered in an earlier thread)
The Boirault Train Blinde based on a WW1 design - again covered in an earlier thread (odd Schnieder)
The Minimum Tank  Flamethrower. Little is known of this vehicle (perhaps looking back to the US steam tank?)
The Minimum Tank Gun version of which equally little is known (by me anyway)

The Minimum Tank dsigns were rejected as not having sufficent trench crossing capability. The Boirault abandoned as being to vunerable to engine damage. The Maximum Tank was selected as the main project with the intention of first deliveries taking place in 1941 whilst the New Skeleton was to be a back up project with much lower priority. The Maximum tank was to have two turrets, initially to comprise one big front turret and a smaller rear turret.The project became known as the Char C. Progresswas slow and bedeviled with beaurocracy and not much was done (other than a wooden mock up by FMC with the turrets reversed) by the time the Germans demonstrated in 1940 that Liddel Hart had been right all along. AMX and ARL also produced designs for a tank to the same spec but little is known.
Amazingly the project was revived in 1944 and then quickly dropped when it became clear that any future Hindenberg line would probably be dealt with by heavy bombers (possibly nuclear armed)