During World War II, France, as an important strategic target of Germany, not only stabilized the Western Front, but also provided war supplies with the help of France's huge industrial and agricultural facilities, including an excellent heavy truck Citroën T45 (also known as P45) in the German supply list.
The Citroën T45 was developed by Citroën in 1933 and was originally based on the Citroën T29 truck, a two-axle rear-drive truck with a typical heavy-duty truck layout, which was initially used primarily by the French for civilian freight or converted into buses (T45S), fire trucks (T45U) and trailers (T45D).
T45 is different from its predecessors, it is designed as a heavy-duty truck, in addition to the sturdy and reliable leaf spring suspension, etc., its biggest difference from other Citroën trucks is that it has a 73 horsepower 6-cylinder engine, which is an engine specially designed for heavy-duty trucks, the T45 is designed to carry a weight of nearly 4 tons, a length of 6.38 meters, a width of 2.33 meters, a height of 2 meters, and a maximum road speed of 60 km / h.
T45 is known for its high reliability and strong carrying capacity, its production work continued until 1953 can explain the problem, the total production of about 72400 vehicles, before World War II, the French army also equipped a lot, about 4000, the French army mainly used it to pull artillery and transport artillery shells, etc., but also sent a large number of T45 to overseas colonies; the car is also a star model exported by Citroën.
After the end of the Battle of France in 1940, the German army asked Citroën to provide it with T45 heavy trucks to supplement the German Army, which was good at fast-moving operations.
The problem facing Pierre-Jules Boulanger, the head of Citroën, was that he had to cooperate with the Germans, that it was impossible not to produce, that the Germans had their own technical advisers, and that it was impossible to make obvious moves in production.
The Germans attached great importance to the T45, most of the T45 produced after the Battle of France was used by the German army, the German army also handed over a small part of it to the Finnish army, according to the Entente Germany was supposed to provide some strategic materials to Finland, due to the lack of quantity caused by the war, so it used T45 trucks to make up for some of it.
The T45 produced by the Germans was completely painted in standard dark gray, and in 1943 the Germans changed the basic livery to yellow/brown, which was called the Dankelgelb, and during this period the Germans also proposed a 3-color camouflage scheme, they sprayed the trucks with olive and reddish brown.
What has puzzled the Germans is that these standard-produced trucks have a high engine failure rate in use, but the French themselves have no problems, but the mechanics have not found any problems, and the engine and other parts are completely produced according to the standards, and this magical phenomenon has always plagued the Germans. In fact, the root of the problem is very simple, Pierre-Jules Boulanger on the humble oil gauge, he changed the scale marking the lowest oil level to lower, strict German soldiers according to the dipstick position to add oil, which led to the engine is more prone to insufficient oil, aggravating parts wear and overheating, thus affecting normal use.