Digging up some more info to compare against the German panzer figures for the end of 1941 ,[from Jentz; Speilberger and chamberlain etc]

Group A

~ 600 StuG-III

511 x Pz IV

1825 x Pz-III

426 x Pz-38t

~ 160 Pz 35t

881 x Pz II

728 x Pz-I

300 Bef command tanks

In addition the records reveal that another 2400 captured French tanks were also in German hands at this time , but by the tie they were converted in 1942/43 only about 2/3 were still usable. These initially included .

Group B

~300 Char B

~375 Somua

~600 Hotchkiss

~800 Renault

~ 370 AMR/FMC

~546 Lorraine Schlepper load carriers

~3200 Ue-630 tankettes

~ 450 Ue-303/4 half tracks

plus it seems several hundred capture polish AFVs and 500-1000 WW-I French FT-17/18.

That’s ~ 7800 tanks plus ~ 4000 tankettes and other AFVs. However the official lists only included the 5400 tanks in group A . At that time roughly 1/4 of the tanks, in group A, would be either needed as munitions Schlepper [Ammo haulers] , Bergeweg [ARV], Pz Art Beob [FO] , Pz Bef [Radio HQ] plus numerous detachments at the regimental level back home for training [Ersatz Heer]. So of the 5800 German tanks likely only about 4400 were actually with the troops , of which only a small fraction was still operational at the end of 1941.

However into 1941 panzer divisions were being raised using formations of Hotchkiss and Somua tanks before transitioning to Panzers. Jentz figures suggest 300-350 French tanks for this purpose. So at least some of these French tanks were being put to good usage.

Of the total German tank inventory of group A & B, about 1/2 are captured French tanks that would have to be converted before used. While such conversion may be labor intensive ,its not resource intensive especially if you also used capture enemy guns. One of the first changes towards 'total war economy' is 'incentive based contracting' to reduce man-hours per unit and adding second shift . Combined this frees up labor much faster than can be re channeled into producing more panzers, due to lack of resources. If this second shift is used to convert captured or obsolete tanks, all the tanks in Group B could be converted through 1941.

If the entire 7800 vehicles are to be used , then the 1/4 set aside for training command etc, becomes ~ 2000 vehicles which could be covered by the captured French tanks. That intern would leave all the German tanks in the inventory for the Front line units plus at least 700 French tanks. Given the cramp and slow nature of French designs, the biggest and fastest would be the likely candidates for front line usage. For example the [300] Char B & [375] Somua tanks, since both had the excellent French 47mm guns and are large enough to be used , but the Char B is slower. The [600] Hotchkiss tank is fast like the Somua and could instead be used at a pinch , but its 37mm gun is puny even by 1941 standards.

The next alternative would be to re task them to lesser combat roles that they could manage. For example ~ 1700 of the German tanks were obsolete Pz I & II plus some Pz 35t, that were being phased out of usage through 1941/42. These would be less combat value than a Hotchkiss tank or a FMC/AMR tank. But alternatively they could all be converted en mass into 2000-3000 x Panzerjagers mounting some of the Capture French or Czech 47mm ATG [Germany produced 500-600 in 1939/41] or some of the 7000 captured French 75mm field guns.

Converting to the roles of recovery or munitions haulers is fairly basic conversion of removing the turret and opening up the fighting compartment and installing racks for shells….or mounting a winch and crane assembly plus filling up the interior space with & tools etc. The ARV should have large engine for most torque to pull out tanks stuck in the mud etc. Command tanks should resemble the Regimental tanks so as not to be singled out by enemy fire and may have to be reserved for Panzer III/IV as is the case for Pz Art Beob tanks [artillery observers].

Looking at the 1934 idealize panzer division, the artillery included a armored howitzer to follow the armored panzer brigade giving it organic artillery in any break through operation. To that end a batch of the conversions could be directed towards supplying each Panzer division with at least 1 armored howitzer battalion.

In this role only small howitzers of in the 2-3 ton range can be mounted on chassis in the 10 tons region. That narrows the field , but the 10.5cm LeFH18 howitzer makes most sense unless these are in short supply. Alternatively some of the 600 x older German sFH-13 , 150mm howitzers could be used in an open topped armored chassis. This was actually done with the French Lorraine Schlepper cargo hauler, although a massive digging blade had to be mounted to ensure stability during firing. In theory you could end up with 550 x “15cm sFH13/1(sf) auf Geschutswagen Lorraine Schlepper (f)” by the end of 1941.

The ~ 1/3 of the 3200 UE 630 tankettes were converted later into the war sprouting LMG 34 and armor or as primitive mounts for PAK 35/6 guns. In theory these could fill some kind of Armored recon forces for the infantry? Perhaps a better alternative might be to mount 4 of the newly produced 28cm , sWG 40/41 engineer rockets. Historically this was done later in the war producing a simple engineer vehicle for heavy assault.

By 1942 the Char ; Somua & Hotchkiss tanks would be obsolete along with the Panzer 38t tanks leaving an inventory of about 800-900 tanks to be converted to secondary roles through out 1942. In addition the Germans had also captured in 1941 ~ 5000 Soviet tanks intact , that they could convert and put to use later. I have no firm figures of those but given the 1941 soviet inventory of tanks it could mean about

~1400 Bt-5/7 light tanks [similar to Hotchkiss/Panzer 38t]

~2100 T-26 light tanks [similar to slow Renault]

~1500 other tanks including some T-34/KV and older tanks

By the end of 1942 the German panzer inventory included

~ 2000 Panzer I & II & Pz 35/38t [converted to Panzerjagers in ATL] . Although historically ~ 600 had already been converted as such [1940-42] and are not included in these numbers. In addition another 825 xPz II /Pz 38t were historically built as Panzerjagers. So the figure of Panzerjagers could actually top 3000 in total.

Historically about 2100 x PaK 40 [75L48] guns were built and could be used in larger heavy Panzerjagers [Pz-II/Pz-38t & BT chassis]. Further 5000 Russian 76mm field guns were captured along with several million shells, which could be until these captured guns can be re chambered into PaK 36r to accept German ammo later in 1942/43.

2793 Panzer III

[with the excess labor all should be up-gunned to 50L60 by early 1942 by re channeling some of the production of ~ 4400 x 50mm guns as “PaK 38” into more production of tank guns as “KwK 39”.]

957 Panzer IV.

[ 823 Panzer III built as StuG-III mostly with 75L43 guns. The rule of thumb on Sturmgeschutzen production was that it took 10% less time to produce so if they were instead produced as Pz IV that could result in 740 additional Pz-IV f produced through 1942. By the end of 1942 the Pz IV inventory should be up by ~ 450 additional Pz IV]

35 Tiger I plus ~ 400 older StuG-III built prior to 1942.