There's another reason why French units outside Metropolitan France may have less armoured vehicles - they were never issued the full complement in the first place. Despite what real world TOE's state, a number of French units deployed outside France never had the number of armoured vehicles that they should have had.
My source? An old friend who was an Infantry Corporal in the French Foreign Legion in the late 1980s-early 1990s who had been stationed in Djibouti for a few years plus spent time in French Guiana.
One particular thing I remember him saying was that one of the infantry units in Djibouti didn't have the full number of APCs allocated and the base they were stationed at was still operating two SdKfz251 halftracks (that had been refurbished in France after WW2 and sent to French units in Djibouti in the 1950s).
Yes this is anecdotal but it's not atypical of overseas deployments for some militaries and could be used to help explain the lower number of armoured vehicles compared to what the official lists state it should be.
Last edited by StainlessSteelCynic; 05-11-2012 at 11:18 PM.
Reason: correcting spelling
|