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Renault FT-17

1917 SPANISH CIVIL WAR WORLD WAR 1 WORLD WAR 2

History of the Renault FT-17

The Renault FT-17 light tank series is an evolutionary design in the field of main battle tanks that will influence tanks for almost a century. The FT-17 was designed to be lightweight from the outset, offering better maneuverability and travel speed compared to bulky medium and heavy tanks.

The FT-17 plays on two key design elements still used in tank design today - a fully rotating turret that concentrates the main armament (the turret is available in cast and welded versions) and an engine mounted in the rear of the hull. Install.

The FT-17 is partly due to the persistence of French Army Colonel Jean-Baptiste Estienne. The idea of ??using light tanks in World War I was a "ridiculous" theory by the French authorities, as the accepted doctrine was the use of the large and bulky "landing ships" used by the British as the development of heavy tanks - equipped with cannons and machine guns of itinerant fortresses.

In any case, the resulting Renault light tank design, the FT-17 in 1917, produced a two-man system fitted with the then powerful 37mm gun or one or two infantry 7.62mm machine guns for self-defense. On the surface, the FT-17 is a unique military tank design, but due to its compact shape and functional appearance, it closely resembles the appearance of a life-size children's ride-on toy.

Nonetheless, the FT-17 proved vital to the French offensive later in the war, and this importance spread to the American Expeditionary Force, which received the American Expeditionary Force as the participation of French and British tanks increased in 1918 they. The Americans even took the FT-17 as the M1917 6-ton and equipped it with American-influenced systems to simplify logistics.

The FT-17 series entered service in the spring of 1917, although the type did not enter direct combat until the 1918 offensive.

The FT-17 proved to be such a capable tracked armored combat system that it continued to exist on an operational level in the postwar years. In addition to being adopted by the French and Americans, the FT-17 also found its way into Italian and Russian inventories, which inspired the development of localized forms - which influenced the 1920s and through the 1930s. Notable operators include Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Iran, Japan and Poland.

Unfortunately for some of the 1930s host nations, the FT-17 (or its derivatives) remained active defensively and offensively during the Spanish Civil War (1935-1939) and World War II (1939-1945) part.

Large production orders during and after the First World War ensured the decades of history of the system since its inception. The final form was phased out in the late 1940s, by which time 3,694 examples had been produced. One of the last major records of the use of the FT-17 tank was in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 - the modern battlefield for tank development during World War I.