| French 1st Light Mechanized Division |
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The name of the unit is most often translated with "Light Mechanized Division", but a better translation, both from a linguistical as a military point of view, would be "Mechanized Light Division". In French the adjective ''mécanique'' qualifies ''légère'', not the other way around; and this makes also sense in a tactical way: "light" here is a synonym of "mobile". While any "mechanised" division was "light", not every "light" division was "mechanised": motorised infantry divisions without tracked vehicles would also be called "Light Divisions". Another confusion often caused by the category indication is the mistake to assume that such units were "lightly" equipped: in fact most heavy equipment was concentrated into the motorised units which were thus the most powerful of the French Army. The ''1re DLM'' used the AMR 35 as a light skirmisher and the SOMUA S35 and Hotchkiss H35 as battle tanks, though the latter vehicle was not really suited for this role as its armament was too weak. The artillery and infantry components were fully motorised; part of the organic infantry was also mechanised, using Half Track s. In organisation a DLM thus closely resembled the contemporaneous German '' Panzerdivision '' of the ''Panzerwaffe'', though it would be more "tank-heavy", not so much the ''Leichte Kavalleriedivisionen'' of the German Cavalry , which units in the thirties still were only partly mechanised. During the Battle Of France in May 1940 the Division contained the following units:
It was an active division which existed during peacetime. |