The hope was that declaring war would be enough to cause Hitler to not actually invade. The reality was that the UK (who are the ones we were talking about) really didn&#x27;t have much in the way of army or air force at that time.<p>As for the French tanks. In 1939-1941 tanks were fairly useless. The German dive bombers were the dominant weapon system -- it was only when the allies had decent air forces that the dive bombers became irrelevant.