Renault FT-17 Tank
Designed by French tank pioneer Jean-Baptiste Estienne, this particular tank is one of the original prototypes built in 1917. Estienne envisaged hundreds of tanks swarming across enemy trenches and swamping them with numbers.
This design was in many ways revolutionary, with many features that can be found in modern tanks - a fully-rotating turret, the driver in the front and the engine and gearbox in the back in a separate compartment from the crew. As a prototype, this version does not feature any armour, just metal plate.
This tiny tank (just over 7 tonnes in weight) was a direct contemporary of the British Whippet (14 tonnes) and had the same role of effecting a rapid breakthrough. The male version was equipped with a 37mm anti-tank gun, but the female, like this one, was armed with an 8mm machine-gun.
Then-Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D Eisenhower took one of the 950 FT-17s built for the American Army on the 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy, a 56-day(!) Army expedition using a variety of motor vehicles on a trip from Washington DC to San Francisco in an era when paved roads were limited to city/town environs and adjacent areas.
The FT-17 remained in military service until 1945. - Notes from the Tank Musuem.
Seen in the new hall at The Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.
Renault FT-17 Tank
Designed by French tank pioneer Jean-Baptiste Estienne, this particular tank is one of the original prototypes built in 1917. Estienne envisaged hundreds of tanks swarming across enemy trenches and swamping them with numbers.
This design was in many ways revolutionary, with many features that can be found in modern tanks - a fully-rotating turret, the driver in the front and the engine and gearbox in the back in a separate compartment from the crew. As a prototype, this version does not feature any armour, just metal plate.
This tiny tank (just over 7 tonnes in weight) was a direct contemporary of the British Whippet (14 tonnes) and had the same role of effecting a rapid breakthrough. The male version was equipped with a 37mm anti-tank gun, but the female, like this one, was armed with an 8mm machine-gun.
Then-Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D Eisenhower took one of the 950 FT-17s built for the American Army on the 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy, a 56-day(!) Army expedition using a variety of motor vehicles on a trip from Washington DC to San Francisco in an era when paved roads were limited to city/town environs and adjacent areas.
The FT-17 remained in military service until 1945. - Notes from the Tank Musuem.
Seen in the new hall at The Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.