Renault FT


The Renault FT was a French light tank that was among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history. The FT was the first production tank to have its armament within a fully rotating turret. The Renault FT's configuration – crew compartment at the front, engine compartment at the back, and main armament in a revolving turret – became and remains the standard tank layout. Consequently, some historians of armoured warfare have called the Renault FT the world's first modern tank.
Over 3,000 Renault FT tanks were manufactured by French industry, most of them during 1918. Another 950 of an almost identical licensed copy of the FT were made in the United States, but not in time to take part in World War I.

Development

The FT was designed and produced by the Société des Automobiles Renault, one of France's major manufacturers of motor vehicles then and now.
It is thought possible that Louis Renault began working on the idea as early as 21 December 1915, after a visit from Colonel J. B. E. Estienne. Estienne had drawn up plans for a tracked armoured vehicle based on the Holt caterpillar tractor, and, with permission from General Joffre, approached Renault as a possible manufacturer. Renault declined, saying that his company was operating at full capacity producing war materiel and that he had no experience of tracked vehicles. Estienne took his plans to the Schneider company, where they became France's first operational tank, the Schneider CA.
At a later, chance meeting with Renault on 16 July 1916, Estienne asked him to reconsider, which he did. The speed with which the project then progressed to the mock-up stage has led to the theory that Renault had been working on the idea for some time.
Louis Renault himself conceived the new tank's overall design and set its basic specifications. He imposed a realistic limit to the FT's projected weight, which could not exceed 7 tons. Louis Renault was unconvinced that a sufficient power-to-weight ratio could be achieved with the production engines available at the time to give sufficient mobility to the heavy tank types requested by the military. Renault's most talented industrial designer, Rodolphe Ernst-Metzmaier, generated the FT's detailed execution plans. Charles-Edmond Serre, a long time associate of Louis Renault, organized and supervised the new tank's mass production. The FT's tracks were kept automatically under tension to prevent derailments, while a rounded tail piece facilitated the crossing of trenches. Because the engine had been designed to function normally under any slant, very steep slopes could be negotiated by the Renault FT without loss of power. Effective internal ventilation was provided by the engine's radiator fan, which drew its air through the front crew compartment of the tank and forced it out through the rear engine's compartment.
Renault's design was technically far more advanced than the other two French tanks at the time, namely the Schneider CA1 and the heavy Saint-Chamond. Nevertheless, Renault encountered some early difficulties in getting his proposal fully supported by Estienne. After the first British use of heavy tanks on 15 September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, the French military still pondered whether a large number of light tanks would be preferable to a smaller number of superheavy tanks. On 27 November 1916, Estienne had sent to the French Commander in Chief a personal memorandum proposing the immediate adoption and mass manufacture of a light tank based on the specifications of the Renault prototype. After receiving two large government orders for the FT tank, one in April 1917 and the other in June 1917, Renault was at last able to proceed. His design remained in competition with the superheavy Char 2C until the end of the war.
The prototype was refined during the second half of 1917, but the Renault FT remained plagued by radiator fan belt problems throughout the war. Only 84 were produced in 1917, but 2,697 were delivered to the French army before the Armistice.

Name

Although it has sometimes been stated that the letters FT stand for the French terms faible tonnage, faible taille, franchisseur de tranchées, or , none of these names are corect. Neither was it named the FT 17 or FT-17; or there was an FT18. The name is derived from the two-letter production code that all new Renault projects were given for internal use: the one available was 'FT'.
The prototype was at first referred to as the automitrailleuse à chenilles Renault FT modèle 1917. Automitrailleuse à chenilles means "armoured car with tracks." By this stage of the war, automitrailleuse was the standard word for an armoured car, but by the time the FT was designed there were two other types of French tank in existence and the term char d'assaut, soon shortened to char, had at the insistence of Colonel Estienne, already been adopted by the French and was in common use. Once orders for the vehicle had been secured it was the practice at Renault to refer to it as the "FT". The vehicle was originally intended to carry a machine-gun, and was therefore described as a char mitrailleur - mitrailleur had by this time come to mean "machine-gunner".
Many sources, predominantly English language accounts, refer to the FT as the "FT 17" or "FT-17." This term is not contemporary, and appears to have arisen post World War One. In Estienne's biography, his granddaughter states, "It is also referred to as the FT 17: the number 17 was added after the war in history books, since it was always referred to at Renault as the FT." Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Malmassari states, "The Renault tank never carried the name FT 17 during the First World War, although the initials F.T. seem to appear in August 1917." Some confusion might also have been caused by the fact that the American version of the vehicle, produced in the US under licence from Renault, was designated the M1917. When it was decided to equip the FTs with either cannon or machine-guns, the cannon version was designated char canon and the latter, in accordance with French grammar, renamed char mitrailleuse.
It is frequently claimed that some of these tanks were designated FT 18. Reasons given for the claim include: it distinguished tanks produced in 1918 from those of 1917; it was applied to FTs armed with cannon as opposed to those with machine-guns; it distinguished FTs with a cast, rounded turret from those with a hexagonal one; it referred to the 18 horsepower engine; it indicated a version to which various modifications had been made.
Renault records make no distinction between 1917 and 1918 output; the decision to arm FTs with a 37mm gun was made in April 1917, before any tanks had been manufactured; because of various production difficulties and design requirements, a range of turret types were produced by several manufacturers, but they were all fitted to the basic FT body without any distinguishing reference; all FTs had the same model 18 hp engine. The Renault manual of April 1918 is entitled RENAULT CHAR D'ASSAUT 18 HP, and the illustrations are of the machine-gun version. The official designation was not changed until the 1930s, when the FT was fitted with a 1931 Reibel machine gun and renamed the FT modifié 31. By this time, the French Army was equipped with several other Renault models and it had become necessary to distinguish between the various types.

Production

France

About half of all FTs were manufactured in Renault's factory at Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris, with the remainder subcontracted to other companies. Of the original order for 3,530, Renault accounted for 1,850, Berliet 800, SOMUA 600, and Delaunay-Belleville 280. When the order was increased to 7,820 in 1918, production was distributed in roughly the same proportion. Louis Renault agreed to waive royalties for all French manufacturers of the FT.

United States

When the US entered the war in April 1917, its army was short of heavy matériel, and had no tanks at all. Because of the wartime demands on French industry, it was decided that the quickest way to supply the American forces with sufficient armour was to manufacture the FT in the US. A requirement of 4,400 of a modified version, the M1917, was decided on, with delivery expected to begin in April, 1918. By June 1918, US manufacturers had failed to produce any, and delivery dates were put back until September. France therefore agreed to lend 144 FTs, enough to equip two battalions. No M1917s reached the American Expeditionary Forces until the war was over.

Turret

The first turret designed for the FT was a circular, cast steel version almost identical to that of the prototype. It was designed to carry a Hotchkiss 8mm machine gun. In April 1917 Estienne decided for tactical reasons that some vehicles should be capable of carrying a small cannon. The 37mm Puteaux gun was chosen, and attempts were made to produce a cast steel turret capable of accommodating it, but they were unsuccessful. The first 150 FTs were for training only, and made of non-hardened steel plus the first model of turret. Meanwhile, the Berliet Company had produced a new design, a polygonal turret of riveted plate, which was simpler to produce than the early cast steel turret. It was given the name "omnibus", since it could easily be adapted to mount either the Hotchkiss machine gun or the Puteaux 37mm with its telescopic sight. This turret was fitted to production models in large numbers. In 1918 :fr:Ugitech#L'arrivée de la Première Guerre mondiale|Forges et aciéries Paul Girod produced a successful circular turret which was mostly cast with some rolled parts. The Girod turret was also an "omnibus" design. Girod supplied it to all the companies producing the FT, and in the later stages of the war it became more commonplace than the Berliet turret. The turret sat on a circular ball-bearing race, and could easily be rotated by the gunner/commander or be locked in position with a handbrake.

Service history

World War I

The Renault FT was widely used by French forces in 1918 and by the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front in the later stages of World War I.
Its battlefield debut occurred on 31 May 1918, east of the Forest of Retz, east of Chaudun, between Ploisy and Chazelles, during the Third Battle of the Aisne. This engagement, with 30 tanks, successfully broke up a German advance, but in the absence of infantry support, the vehicles later withdrew. From then on, gradually increasing numbers of FTs were deployed, together with smaller numbers of the older Schneider CA1 and Saint-Chamond tanks. As the war had become a war of movement during mid-1918, during the Hundred Days Offensive, the lighter FTs were often transported on heavy trucks and special trailers rather than by rail on flat cars. Estienne had initially proposed to overwhelm the enemy defences using a "swarm" of light tanks, a tactic that was eventually successfully implemented. Beginning in late 1917, the Entente allies were attempting to outproduce the Central Powers in all respects, including artillery, tanks, and chemical weapons. Consequently, a goal was set of manufacturing 12,260 FT tanks before the end of 1919.
The Renault FT tank was the best designed battle tank of the entire war, efficient, economical, and adapted to mass industrial production. It played a leading role in the offensives of 1918, when it received the popular name of "Victory Tank".
The British Army used 24 FTs for command and liaison duties, usually with the gun removed.
Italy received 3 FTs in June 1918, but they did not see action and no other tanks were received until the end of the war.

Interwar

After the end of World War I, Renault FTs were exported to many countries. Renault FT tanks were used by most nations having armoured forces, generally as their prominent tank type.
They were used in anti-Soviet conflicts such as the Russian Civil War, Polish-Soviet War and Estonian War of Independence. On 5 February 1920 Estonia purchased nine vehicles from France.
French tanks deployed in Vladivostok were given to the Chinese Fengtian Army of Zhang Zuolin in 1919. 14 more Renaults were bought in 1924 and 1925. These tanks saw action to protect the border from the Soviets in the 1920s and against the warlord Wu Peifu in 1926. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, nearly all were handed over to the Manchukuo Imperial Army.
Renault tanks were also used in colonial conflicts, for instance crushing a revolt in Italian Libya in 1919. The French Army sent a company of FT tanks to Syria during the Great Druze Revolt. In Brazil, the FT tanks were used by the Old Republic to crush various revolts between 1924 and 1927 and by Vargas forces against the Constitutionalist Revolution.
During the Rif War, after the Annual disaster, the Spanish Army ordered 10 FT armed with Hotchkiss machine guns and 1 char TSF to supplement a first Renault bought in 1919. These tanks formed a company deployed from 1921. After a first failure, they proved to be very effective and six more were delivered in 1925. The Spanish FT were the first tanks to take part in an amphibious assault, the Alhucemas landing. The French Army deployed two battalions of FT during the war, including one company of tanks with Kégresse tracks. After the end of the war, the French tanks remained in North Africa to finish the "pacification" of Morocco in the Atlas Mountains. When the Spanish Civil War broke, half of the Renault crews remained loyal to the Spanish Republic while the others joined the rebels. France later sent 32 FTs to the Republicans and Poland 16, officially sold to Uruguay.

World War II and after

Renault FT tanks were also fielded in limited numbers during World War II, in Poland, Finland, France, Greece, Romania and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, although they were already obsolete. In May 1940, the French Army still had seven front-line battalions, each equipped with 63 FTs, one under-strength battalion as well as three independent companies, each with 10, for a total organic strength of 504. 105 more were in service in the colonies of Morocco and Algeria and 58 in French Levant, Madagascar and Indochina. Some FT tanks had also been buried within the ground and encased in concrete to supplement the Maginot Line.
The fact that several units used the Renault FT gave rise to the popular myth that the French had no modern equipment at all; actually, they had as many modern tanks as the Germans, however the majority had one-man turrets and were less efficient than German tanks such as the Panzer III and IV. The French suffered from strategic weaknesses rather than from equipment deficiencies. When the best French units were cut off by the German drive to the English Channel, around 390 FTs, previously used for training or stored in depots, joined the 184 to 192 FTs in service with internal security units. The Wehrmacht captured 1,704 FTs. They used about 100 for airfield defence and about 650 for patrolling occupied Europe. Some were used by the Germans in 1944 for street-fighting in Paris, but by this time they were hopelessly out of date.
Vichy France used Renault FTs against Allied invasion forces during Operation Torch in Morocco and Algeria. The French tanks were no match for the newly arrived American M4 Sherman and M3 Stuart tanks. The last combat of the French Army FTs was during the Japanese invasion of French Indochina, when a section defended the Hue fortress.
The last "combat" use may have been in the 1980s during the Soviet–Afghan War, when some FTs were reportedly used as pillboxes or roadblocks.

Derivatives

The FT was the ancestor of a long line of French tanks: the FT Kégresse, the NC1, the NC2, the Char D1, and the Char D2. The Italians produced the FIAT 3000, a moderately close copy of the FT, as their standard tank.
The Soviet Red Army captured 14 burnt-out Renaults from White Russian forces and rebuilt them at the Krasnoye Sormovo Factory in 1920. Nearly 15 exact copies, called "Russki Renoe", were produced in 1920–1922, but they were never used in battle because of many technical problems. In 1928–1931, the first completely Soviet-designed tank was the T-18, a derivative of the Renault with sprung suspension.

Operators

in June 1940.
Approximately 41 FTs, two Russkiy Renos, and three FT TSF survive in various museums around the world.
Europe:
North America:
South America:
Australia: