The Belgian Army at the outbreak of WW2

[snotvod]

Since there simply isn't a comprehensive source of information about the Belgian army on the net, i'll try to make a thread as complete as possible about this gravely underestimated army.

First, a little background information.
Since Belgiums' neutrality had not been respected by Germany in the first World War, they had little thrust in their eastern neighbours. So the already extensive line of fortresses near the border was expanded by several new forts, and the old ones where "modernized". This defensive strategy was copied from the French, with their Maginot line. The French however where wrong to think that the next war, should it come, would end in a stalemate.
The defence of Belgium was mainly dependant of this line of forts.
The plan was to at least hold this line for 5 days, so the English and French troops could come to their aid.
Why not let these troops be stationed at the line beforehand you say?
King Leopold thought this would provoke the Germans into attacking, should they not have that plan already. He decided Belgium should remain neutral once again, hoping they would be left alone this time.
He was wrong.
Fall Gelb, Von Mansteins plan to invade France, required Entire German armygroups to march trough Belgium and Holland, eliminating these countrys while they were at it.
The one problem was fort Eben-Emael, believed to be the strongest fortress in existence. Covering three bridges over the Albert Canal with 120 mm cannons in revolving copulas, several antitank guns, houwitsers, machineguns,... No army could get past this concrete monster.
It had one fault though, it had only one AAA battery.
So the fort was vulnerable to an attack from the sky.
FJ attacks where not an option, because the troops would be too scattered to have any real effect. So the attack was done with gliders, 13 of them.
The fort whas completely crippled in less than 2 hours, the garrison, comprising 800 men, surrendered after 2 days. This attack was carried out by 86 Fallschirmjaeger, the very elite of the German forces, trained for months specifically for this one mission, armed to the teeth.
Once the fort was disabled, the Germans could freely cross the Meuse river and the Canal, for some bridges had not been destroyed in time.
The next line was the K(oningshooikt)-W(aver) line. Nicknamed the Iron wall for some reason
Sadly, this line had to be left, before the enemy got in sight, because the Germans had flanked this position from th south, where the French had been defeated at Sedan, so the line was rendered useless.
The next position of retreat was the Schelde river. Here some hefty battles took place, land conquered by the Germans was quickly retaken after risky counterattacks, untill this line fell too.
The last position where the army staff wanted to retreat to was the Yser river , they could not get their in time though, and an improvised defensive line was made at the River Lye.
Here the Belgian army was able to make a stop to the German blitzkrieg, accurate artillery fire rained down on the Germans, if they put their heads up it was riddled with machinegun fire,… The Ardense Jagers, a Belgian elite force, proved what they where worth, killing hundreds of Germans, of which dozens of officers. The Germans got so frustrated with the situating, they killed 86 innocent civilians, because they thought they where providing the Belgian artillery with coordinates and locations of German HQs. The Belgian gunners just where good at what they did, and these civilians had nothing to do with that.
However strong the line was, there was little or no hope for the Belgian army, since they where being flanked at the south, new German troops kept coming in by the thousands, the British army was retreating back to England,… Thus King Leopold decided to prevent his people from being slaughtered and surrendered on the 28th of may.
Hundreds of men kept holding the line though, but they where all killed or taken Prisoner.
Some fortresses at Liege even managed to keep on fighting for 3 days after the country had surrendered.
So don’t you ever claim the Belgian army was a bunch of worthless cowards.

Now something about the Equipment
The Uniform
The uniform of the regular infantryman was inspired by the French uniform, but with several differances.

The vest model 1935 came in two colours
Mustard (as worn on the drawing)

And green

The clip carriers (or whatever they're called) where either a Belgian model

Or Ex- German ww1

Troops that were likely to see combat had two of these with 3 containers,
second line troops (artillery, engineer) had 2 with one bag each.
like this

You can also see the snake belt here

The helmet was either a ww1 m15 Adrian


Or an m26/31 Adrian

And the fieldbottle

The officers had a very British feel to them.

Personal weapons
The standard rifle was the Mauser Fusil/Geweer M1898, or just M89.

The Carbine version was used by cavalry and tank crew
[img=http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/5188/mauserm89karabijnvdcavaleriert2.th.jpg]
And the Mauser M36 was used by Motorbikers, Commando troops, bicycle riders, Scouts, NCOs,...
[img=http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/5188/mauserm89karabijnvdcavaleriert2.th.jpg]
Top to bottom: M89, M89 CC, M36

These are all derivatives of he German mauser 1888, the weird "tube" at the muzzle, is a barrel protector, and it contains the entire barrel, to protect it against dirt, rust, and the warping of the wood, so the gun would remain 100% accurate even in adverse conditions. The magazine contained 5 rounds, the calibre was 7.65mm.
Two pistols where issued,
the GP-35:

and the FN1910:

Theses were issued to officers, machine gunners and the like.
The SMG whas the Mitraillette 34, an improved version of the mp18:

[snotvod]

LMG was the FM-30, an improver BAR, with pistolgrip, removable barrel ,improved bipod and ironsights, the Polish wz28 was ordered after the Fm-30.

Standard HMG was the vintage MG08 on the sled mount.

Grenadier batallions were issued with Lebel1886 rifles fitted with VB grenade launchers:


Standard AT rifle was the Boys rifle


That's all for now, i will post information about the vehicles and planes some time soon.

[snotvod]

THIS is an M36 and not the rifle on the pic in the first post:

[[nl]Invincible]

Thanks Snotvod!!! (you read my reqeust??)
I (Stil have) a realy good read! this helps me to surfive at work hehe.
Much peaple have a big underestimated of the belgian army just like the dutch.. Rep+ for you hehe

[Propa McGanda]

There was a neat little show on the History Channel about the glider attack on belgium. If the germans hadn't of attacked swiftly, the Belgians would've destroyed a vital bridge with their larger guns. I can't remember much about it. I saw it a few years ago.

[Unkn0wn]

Now you're overrating the Belgians though.

Dang patriots!

[Green_Vietnam]

hey snotvod, you got any info on the belgium airforce during ww2?

Great read btw, strange that in history classes they directly talk about soviets/germans/americans, but dont talk about their own country during ww2. Strange...

[snotvod]

The Airforce
The Belgian army was one of the first to include planes for tasks like reconnaissance and artillery observation.
Already in 1907 3 planes where in service.
After the first world war the Belgian army received several German and British planes. In the 1930's it was realized that the airforce needed an update, and several models where ordered at the British Fairey company, like Fairey battles, Fairey Foxes, Fairey fireflys, and these planes where produced at the Fairey concern in Belgium.
Other planes ordered included Hawker Hurricanes, Gloster Gladiators, and from the US, Brewster Buffaloes.
The latter could not be delivered in time, and by early 1940, it was decided the Army needed more planes as fast as possible, so the Fiat company was contacted, where they ordered Cr42 Falcos.
The mainstay of the BAF was made up of obsolete biplanes, albeit the best of their kind.
In 1940, the Belgian army counted 234 first line aircraft, of which 36 trainers.
At the outbreak of the invasion,many planes were destroyed on the ground by bombing missions. The planes that could get in the air on time managed to take down several enemy fighters, transports and bombers, but it was all a futile struggle, the odds were way too great.
One memorable mission was the bombing of a bridge over the river Meuse by a squadron of Fairey Battles.This bridge had failed to blow up, and was captured by the Germans. It was a very important entrance to Belgium, as entire Armoured division had to cross it. Armed with nothing but 100 lb bombs, there whas little the Fairey Battles could do to blow up the bridge, and heavy flak batteries had been placed around it, so only 5 of the 15 planes returned. Several enemy tanks and Armoured cars were destroyed though.
The Belgian Air Force could be concluded by : too small and too old.

Planes
Hawker Hurricane
This was the most modern plane in service.
80 of them where built in license, and 10 were ordered in England.
18 were ready by may 1940.
Basically the Mk1, but armed with 4 .50 MGs instead of 8 .303 MGs.
A Belgian Mk1

Destroyed by bombing.


Gloster Gladiator
A late kind of biplane, armed with two .50MGs
22 ordered, and 15 in service on may 1940.



Fiat cr42 falco
As i said, these were ordered because the Buffaloes could not be delivered soon enough.
Armed with 2 .50s.
34 were ordered, 24 in servie in may 1940.
These were the first Belgian planes to see action, and the first to shoot down an enemy. The pilots flying the falco were the highest scoring pilots in the Belgian Airforce. They shot down a total of 12 planes, of which 4 bf109.


Fairey Fox
These light bombers/fighters were the most numerous plane in the Belgian Airforce.
90 of these were license-built and 89 were in service in may 1940.
1 kill was made with a Fox, a bf109.

[snotvod]

Fairey Battle
these were the standard bomber plane of the Belgian Air Force.
12 were in service, and they performed several dozens of bombing missions.
They were even more obsolete than some of the biplanes though.


These are two British Battles, but they're the same as the Belgian.

And finally, the only Belgian plane in service, the renard R31, a trainer/light bomber/fighter.
It was a very robust plane, though it was not agile or fast.
Armed with 2 .30 Mgs and 160 lb bomb.
Top speed was 295 km/h.



That concludes the air force section, next on the list are the armoured and tracked vehicles.

[[nl]Invincible]

I thought belgian also used some of our Fokker C10's but i think i mistaked them with your renard R31.
How bad where thoes Fairy battles's?
Nice read thought..

[[nl]Invincible]

Ohhhh Snotvodd I need to talk with you about somthing

[snotvod]

Since Invincible brought this back up, i might as well continue

The Armour
By 1940, the Belgian army was far from being fully motorised.
Horses were still a widely used means of transportation, both for men and materiel. There were 2 fully mechanised divisions, one armoured regiment and two fully motorised divisions.

By the early 1930's, it was realised that the ww1 vintage Ft-17 tanks were no longer suited for combat, and so a replacement was searched for. This was found in the French amc-34. After some troubles with the production, it was decided to wait for the improved amc-35 (Auto-Mitrailleuse de Combat 1935), also called acg-1.

A belgian ACG-1

Despite that the Belgian politicians weren't too happy with the fact that the military had ordered tanks -wich were considered as offensive weapons-,
the order for 25 acg-1's was kept, but only 12 were delivered before the war broke out.

Since Belgium was strictly neutral at the time, an alternative was searched. This was found in mounting a 47mm FRC antitank gun onto several different chassis, either in an open superstructure, or in a revolving turret.
Being a tank destroyer, this was considered a defensive vehicle, one version even had a backward facing gun .
There were 4 versions, The first one being the VCL 47:
Simply a VCL artillery tractor with a cannon bolted onto the front part.
This was not a good solution and others were tried.

VCL47
The next versions were the T13 BI and BII, these had a cannon mounted in a half open turret surounded by fixed armoured plates. To allow 360 degree rotation, these had to be folded down. Of these two versions a total of 50 was produced.

T13BII preserved at the royal army museum, plates folded down.

same vehicle, plates folded up

The third version was much more advanced, being a tank in every aspect, exept perhaps its poor armour (8mm max). 150 units of this version were produced.

T13BIII

The weapon mounted in all of these vehicles is the 47mm FRC, a fine little gun, performing better then the German equivalent, the pak 36, the French 47mm was slightly better though.

47mm FRC

This was towed by a funny little vehicle, the Vickers Artillery Tractor. It came in two versions, the infantry version, with extra armour and lower speed, and the cavalry version with, you can guess, no extra armour and higher speed

Uutility, infantry version

Utility, cavalry version

And last but not least, an armoured car mostly used to tow light guns, like the 47mm: The Marmon Herrington Armoured car, seen here in German hands:


Now, looking at these steel monsters, let's not forget the most important thing, the men driving, operating, and sometimes cursing them:



Next up: Softskin vehicles...

[Von Mudra]

Hey, snotvod, I have a website for yah:

www.abbl1940.be

enjoy!

[snotvod]

I knew of that site already, i even know the guy who made it, but thanks anyway

[craka)(craka]

General: Why?