The Amiot 351 was a modified 340 that served as the prototype for the Amiot 354. It flew for the first time on 21st January 1939 after reciving the new Gnome-Rhône 14N 20/21engines with 1020hp of power each. It featured a twin-tail and redesigned engine hoods in order to reduce the drag. It was going to be armed with three 7.5mm MAC 1934 machine guns, a ventral one, another one in the nose and another one at the back of the cockpit, however due to the lack of time and resources being diverted to more prioritary projects, most of the bombers didn't receive any defensive armament at all. The prototype was named as Amiot 351 Nº1 and was damaged on a crash on 4th July, just before the start of the war, so it was repaired and assigned to G.R.I/33 to be evaluated against the Potez 637.
The aircraft was well liked and accepted by the crews, however its production was terribly slow as only 5 aircrafts were accepted into use by January 1940, seventeen by 1st March, 21 by 1st April and 37 by 1st May, by which time much more of them should've been ready and deployed on the battlefront.
Sources:
1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiot_354 (translated)
2. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_amiot_351.html
3. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action - French Bombers of World War II in Action
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