HOME | DD

Shadowless Tanks Pt.3 — Description
Disclaimer: This is meant as a reference for my alternate reality comic "Shadowless".
Although most of the vehicles existed in real life, a lot of the details have been changed.

Had the lineart to this drawing lying unfinished on my hard disk since '12, coloured it last year and added a few more vehicles a couple of months ago. Finally, it's finished...

Download for full view.

Follow-up to this.

The typology of the Renault FT light tank, as used by the Second French Empire during the Great War against the British Imperial Federation, 1899 to 1907.

After the first months of the conflict showed the operational limitations of armoured cars for close infantry support, the French High Command ordered the development of a light two man tank capable of accompanying the troops through terrain churned up by artillery.

Unfortunately, like it was the case with the first French tanks, the Schneider Ca1 and St.Chamond, corporate rivalry had it's say again, with the two main firms contracted for the job, "Renault SA" and "Société Anonyme des Automobiles Peugeot" each coming with it's own twist on the army approved prototype. The Renault machine, known as the "Renault FT" after the factory's internal prototype combination code, was initially armed with a 8 mm Hotchkiss Mle 1900 machine-gun in a cast turret with 360 degrees of rotation, while Peugeot went with a the same 75mm Blockhaus Schneider howitzer as the Schneider CA1 in a fixed casemate and a slightly improved suspension.

Weighing in at 6 tons each, equipped with the same 4 cylinder 39HP engine providing a speed of 12km/h, both tanks proved highly successful in combat, but it was the Renault vehicle, with its innovative layout, that would become the classic.

After the initial success, it was decided to equip the tank with 37mm Puteaux SA (semi-automatic) for close in infantry support, since, although the Peugeot machine, with it's 75mm howitzer, was very effective against pillboxes, the lack of turret meant it was ill suited for the latter role.

Although originally fitted in the small cast turret of the machinegun armed version, it was soon discovered that space was insufficient to accommodate the the 37mm SA without severely hampering the reload procedure, so by mid-1902 a larger cast and rolled turret called "tourelle omnibus" was ordered into production which was able to accommodate the larger weapon.

The new turret was produced by a number of different firms, most notably "Aciéries Paul Girod d'Ugine" but also "Delaunay-Belleville" and "Berliet et Cie", but delays in production due to the labour intensive casting led to the development by Renault, later in the year, of a second, even easier to construct, octagonal turret made in-house from bolted armour plates in order to expedite deliveries. For the same purpose production of the tank was also started at "Delaunay-Belleville", "Berliet et Cie" and "Schneider" but the bulk of production still rested with Renault, with a staggering 2000 tanks manufactured until the end of the conflict (as opposed to 281, 801 and 600 made by the aforementioned factories and a further 200 produced by Peugeot later in the war.)

About the same time, a revolutionary weapon was produced the "Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Cie"which was a 25mm high velocity cannon for use in armoured cars which relied on the speed of the projectile to defeat armour. Since the latter were proving less reliable and able to traverse rough terrain than the new Renault tanks, the decision was taken to add this weapon to the arsenal of the FT, so 25mm armed versions rolled off the production lines alongside the machinegun and 37mm armed models.

One of the lessons learned during the ferocious fighting of 1904 which culminated in the French Army's retreat to the Sarthe was the need for a mobile radiotelegraph post to both keep contact with HQ and keep up with the troops. Initially TSF cars were used, but, as they proved to lack both in the terrain crossing and protection departments, the decision was taken to modify existing FT hulls and build a specialist "signals" vehicle. Unlike the regular FT, the Renault FT TSF had a crew of three, but no armement. Insted the space was taken by radio telegraph equipment (not only was voice radio too bulky, but the noisy interior of the FT was also poorly suited for voice transmission) in a fixed casemate, with a telescopic antenna mast situated on the engine deck.

Another lesson was the fact that tank-on-tank engagements were becoming routine and the FT was severely underarmed when compared to the British "rhomboidal tanks" such as the Mark IV and the Medium Mark A "Whippet". Inded, during the British Summer Offensive of 1904 around five FTs were lost for each British tank destroyed.

Because of this, the Ministry of War decided to commission Renault to upgrade the FT in terms of armament, protection and mobility.

To this end, the "Atelier de Puteaux" produced an improved version of their 37mm gun with a redesigned breech and significantly longer barrel called "Puteaux 37mm TRP (tir rapide)". It boasted faster firing, vastly improved muzzle velocities and armour piercing ability, and, in conjunction with a new, specialist APEX steel-core explosive round, it essentially supplanted the 25mm SAL in the antitank role, since the latter weapon, despite being able to penetrate most British tanks lacked "punch" due to the modest weight of the projectile.

To improve crew protection, Berliet provided some slight changes to the tanks it was producing by introducing an extra 5mm thick mask located in front of the mantlet, reconfiguring the driver's side plates and vision slits as well as other minor tweaks, but these modifications were not adopted by the other manufacturers and indeed remained a particularity of the tanks produced by this manufacturer.

At he same time Renault changed the suspension of its FT model to improve cross country performance, giving birth to the Renault NC, a fast infantry support tank with a maximum speed of 18.5km/h provided by it's 62HP engine located in a redesigned and lengthened rear compartment.

The Renault NC was initially equipped with the standard FT "omnibus" turret, both round and octagonal versions, and used all the weapons available to it's predecessor, but an improved turret was a also designed by Schneider in order to mount both a cannon and machinegun, a revolutionary idea at the time. This turret, named ST1 (Schneider Tourelle-1) was equipped with vision blocks instead of simple viewing slits and could also accommodate a bigger 47mm gun (a shortened version of the marine M1892) instead of the 37mm SA and TRP and coupled it with a Hotchkiss 8mm MG, yet for all it's advanced features it was very unpopular with crews owing to the cramped interior and strange contortions one was required to undertake to service both the cannon and the machinegun.

Nonetheless, it was put into series production and used alongside the earlier versions for the rest of the war, on both the Renault NC and FT.

In fact, one could say that the late war procurement and equipment of tanks was haphazard and hectic, with the Renault FT being supplanted by the NC at the Renault factory, while Berliet, Delaunay-Belleville and Schneider maintained the former in production right up to the end of the conflict. At the same time all tanks coming off the production lines were equipped with turrets and weaponry in accordance to whatever was available at any given moment, which meant that a brand new NC could be fitted with an "omnibus" turret armed with a short barrelled 37mm gun while an older FT undergoing repair and refurbishment work could find itself rearmed with a ST1 turret and a 47mm cannon. Since the turrets and many parts were interchangeable even between the FT and the NC one can find a bedazzling array of variations and, in some cases, even field modifications.

***********************************************************************************************************

Another measure that was taken was to create the Renault FT AC (anti-char) a specialist "tank hunter" vehicle by replacing the turret of existing FTs with an open superstructure with a pedestal-mounted 47mm/ L40 Hotchkiss Mle.1902 naval gun, which made it a truly fearsome opponent when used in an ambush role, as it could punch with ease through the British tanks' 12 mm of armour at a range of almost 3000 meters.

***********************************************************************************************************

From the start there was bad blood between Renault and Peugeot, with Renault trying to replace the Peugeot BS with it's own vehicle mounting the 75mm Blockhaus Schneider short barrelled howitzer.
Unfortunately for them, the first prototype, "Canon autotracte Blockhaus Schneider" fared poorly in trials against the Peugeot machine because it had the gun mounted low in the hull, the driver perched on top of the engine deck and bad cross-country characteristics due to its high centre of gravity.

By mid-1905, however, with the help of some adroit political manoeuvres at the Ministry of Defence, and using part standardisation as an excuse, Renault finally managed to get the Peugeot tank replaced with it's own FT 75 BS, a variant with the gun in a more conventional fixed casemate which had performance equal to the Peugeot BS.
Peugeot was relegated to building armoured cars until they relented and bought the "FT BS" licence from Renault.

When it comes to prototypes, Renault also tried to implement the new and exciting idea of stroboscopic machine gun mask and cupola, as used on the Char 2C super heavy tank, but, unfortunately, these systems proved to be costly, unreliable and easily damaged.

***********************************************************************************************************

In terms of painting, the first French tanks of 1900-1902 were painted in "gris artillerie" a type of light blue-gray common to all the artillery equipment, but very soon the advantages of camouflage became apparent and most tank commanders opted to paint their machines in in an assortment of colours in an attempt to minimise visibility, although the smaller tanks retained their factory liveries or were painted in a dark olive green called "vert armée" which was standard to some infantry equipment such as field kitchens.

By the early 1903, spurred by a number of friendly fire incidents (the army was operating a number of captured British Mark I and II to supplement it's own stock of largely ineffective machines) the French Army High Command ordered a unified scheme of camouflage and tactical markings to be adopted.

Although the actual design was still the whim of the tank commander, the machines were to be painted in only three colours, tan, light brown and medium green (to ease logistics, the vehicles came off the production line painted in the latter) with dividing lines of darker brown while in the winter a special mix of tan with two tones of blue-grey was to be applied. In reality though, a lot of tank crews preferred to whitewash their vehicles rather than repaint them. Later, owing again to stock availability, other colours were added to the mix, such as a brick-dust red, ochre, light olive-green and coal grey for the dividing lines, all of which were also standard camouflage for artillery equipment.

Also about the same time, a new set of tactical markings was introduced to maximise cooperation between individual tanks before the advent of vehicle portable radio sets.
The new system used aces to identify the platoons or troops in the bridge playing order (Spade, Heart, Diamond and Club) while differing colours were used to identify different units. The company or squadron commander's vehicle was identified by displaying all four aces in the company or squadron colour.
The same system was later applied to flying ships.

Throughout the whole conflict, the national insignia was prominently displayed on the sides of the vehicles and a white serial of five alphanumeric characters which was often supplemented with the individual vehicle number in the platoon/company represented by large numbers in either white, red or black, in a style and size determined company level.

Personal insignia were also very much in evidence, with certain vehicles bearing names of historical French Provinces or towns as well as fictional and historical characters, uplifting slogans etc.