Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Second World War => Topic started by: Ultravanillasmurf on July 08, 2017, 09:36:30 AM
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The Carden Loyd Carrier
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rY3TB3XNfnQ/WUv-9OegWNI/AAAAAAAACaA/kXlHUBrPRb0emGyyxUYyYMGpYGkqIjdDwCLcBGAs/s1600/cardenloyd1-2.png)
There has been some discussion on the two pounder tow thread on the carrier, so rather than derail it, I started a new thread.
The above is an Empress model of the medium machine gun carrier. I have painted it for Operation Sea Lion, hence the overabundance of ammunition.
Existing links from the other thread to follow.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carden_Loyd_tankette (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carden_Loyd_tankette)
http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/transport-tankettes.htm (http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/transport-tankettes.htm)
Tank chat:
https://youtu.be/BAKoCR6Ttr0 (https://youtu.be/BAKoCR6Ttr0)
http://tankdevelopment.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Carden%20Loyd (http://tankdevelopment.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Carden%20Loyd)
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While searching elsewhere for a mysterious image I remember I found this (single source) information which may or may not be true (for various values of true).
"The second engagement came with British forces in May-June 1940, opposing the German forces. Alongside the more famous “Bren-carrier“, around 200 tankettes took part in the defense of the Dyle-Namur line (in Belgium). Some Mark VIs fielded by Dutch units also saw action. Nearly all were left behind at Dunkirk. The remainder, former training vehicles and auxiliaries were mobilized to face the awaited German invasion of the British mainland in July-August.".
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/gb/Carden-Loyd_MkVI.php (http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/gb/Carden-Loyd_MkVI.php)
Now I know there is another member of this parish who has used the Reiver model (the non cabriolet version) for his Dutch army.
So is the above wishful thinking or are there any other references?
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Just for completeness, here's some more detail of the howitzer trailer http://tankdevelopment.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/trailer-37-howitzer-1930.html
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I'd be a bit wary of that attribution. Apart from anything else, the BEF used Bren carriers, Scout carriers and the rarely seen cavalry carrier. Then there are the Dragons. All could be vaguely called 'tankettes'. The Dutch did have some C-L vehicles though & the Belgians (who were on the Dyle Line) had numerous 'tankette' types.
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It did seem questionable.
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Dutch usage:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=100840.0 (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=100840.0)
https://arteis.wordpress.com/2016/10/08/carden-loyd-tankette-for-my-ww2-dutch-army/ (https://arteis.wordpress.com/2016/10/08/carden-loyd-tankette-for-my-ww2-dutch-army/)
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Tank Chat: https://youtu.be/BAKoCR6Ttr0 (https://youtu.be/BAKoCR6Ttr0)
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Interesting video, although the MG carriers supplied to the EMF were proxies for the light tanks that hadn't been made at that point. Note in the photos the RTC vehicles have no tripods and indeed their two men could not man the gun and move the vehicle off as described.
The MG (and mortar) carriers as originally intended for the infantry, would have towed the rest of their crew on a trailer (as on the Warlord AT model), as well as ammo, hence the tripod mounting bracket.
As for Tank Encyclopedia, I suspect there is some confusion between the Vickers Light Tank Mk VI and the Vickers Carden Loyd tankette Mk VI, not least that 'tankette' is a term we nowadays use, but wasn't common back then and that VCL was synonymous with Vickers on the foreign market. For example the Vickers T15 light tank was called the Char Léger de Reconnaissance Vickers-Carden-Loyd Mod.1934 T.15 by the Belgian Army, despite not actually being strictly a 'VCL' design as such.
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I suspect when Vickers (Armstrong) bought Carden Loyd the sales staff just hyphenated the two companies names, especially for the lighter end of the market.
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You should use it for it's proper use, repelling septics intent on invading Canada in some fictional Plan Red, then blitzkrieging across the Northern Planes in company with Vickers Mediums. :-)
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You should use it for it's proper use, repelling septics intent on invading Canada in some fictional Plan Red, then blitzkrieging across the Northern Planes in company with Vickers Mediums. :-)
Good point, I am looking at converting the Empress FT to an M1917 (swapping the exhausts over is the main change).
I suspect that Six Ton tanks are likely to be brought into His Majesty's service and rushed across the pond in response to American aggression.
Oh and in case you have never heard of it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red)
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'Blitzkrieging' and a 30 mph road speed aren't sitting well with me, but the sentiment is appropriate.
Six Ton tanks are likely to be brought into His Majesty's service and rushed across the pond in response to American aggression.
Good God man! Do you know how much 3pdr shells are each? Good old .303 will do, the Yanks have 19th place in the number of men under arms world-wide (174k in 1935), that's lower than Portugal and Belgium!
Joking apart the U.S. Army armored corp's birth pains were worse than the UK's. Until the Mid-'30s, light tanks had to be less than 5 tons, so that the Transport Corps could carry them and mediums had to weigh less than 15, so that bridges could take them.
In 1940 the U.S. had 10 medium and 18 light tanks (built from 1919 onwards), with around 900 WWI relics in ordnance depots, on display, or on the strength of infantry regiments; often not in working order.
What might have made Plan Red successful was that Canada only had 5k Regulars and 50k Active Militia in the Mid-30s, with a few carriers and armoured cars, but no tanks. As the UK told France in 1935, it only had a Division and a half able to deploy freely outside the UK. When the Palestine revolt increased in tempo in 1936, they didn't even have that.
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I happened to rediscover the MAFVA census number list for the British Army (that lists all the 'T', 'D' or 'M' numbers you see on vehicles, as well as their registrations). It can be dull stuff, but I was able to count up all batches of Vickers Carden Loyd tankettes (listed as Carden Loyd Mk. VI [variant]) accepted into service, as opposed to the odd ones, twos and threes for experimental purposes.
Totals are;
34 Carden Loyd Mk. VI (unarmed liaison models, test-beds etc).
1 Carden Loyd Artillery Observation Vehicle and FOO trailer.
26 Carden Loyd MG Tractor (the model presumably to tow the 24 20mm or '1 pdr' SEMAG-Becker guns purchased)
75 Carden Loyd "MG Carrier Mk. VI" or ".303 CL Mk. VI"
16 Carden Loyd Mortar Carrier
In addition it also lists the 4.7" Howitzer trailers, of which there were only four and the GS Trailers of which there were 62 (24 of which would have been used to carry the SEMAGs).
Make of these what you will, but that's enough MG and Mortar Carriers to equip 8 rifle battalions (8 MG and 2 mortars per battalion on the Pre-1937 organisation), two AT Companies (12 gun tractors +1 or 2 HQ tractors each) and one artillery troop (8 carriers, 4 gun trailers, 4 GS trailers, HQ Carrier and the observer's vehicle and 'FOO Trailer').
That leaves enough 'plain janes' to be added in pairs to each cavalry/tank regiment HQ and brigade HQ, so as to equip four brigades (2 regiments per cavalry or tank brigade). Around ten MG carriers are left over as probable training/experimental vehicles/replacements/show and tell vehicles.
As these numbers were issued in series and that the last Carden Loyd comes before the first 'production' Lanchester II Armoured Car, it shows the Army didn't receive any after c.1930.
In comparison the Army accepted 61 Vickers GS Tractors Mk. I and Mk. IA, followed by 82 GS Mk. IA 'High Speed' Tractors, around 1934-35, some of which went to equip 1st Battalion Durham Light Infantry, briefly in the role of experimental MG Battalion (3 MG Companies of 12 guns and an AT Company of 16 guns) in 1935-36. The rest went to the three battalions of 6 Infantry Brigade (2nd Warwicks, the DCLI and 1st South Staffs) for their mortar platoons (four mortars each) and tripod AA 'LMG' Platoons (4 guns). This was the first trial of rifle platoons with just three sections, each with an integral bipod LMG.
I have to say that I'm a bit non-plussed about the quantities of both these vehicle types. I'd sort of got the impression that they were in much wider use than turns out to be the case.
:?
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That was "widespead" by the standards of the early 1930's British Army! 8)
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I should know better, after all I was aware that mechanising the cavalry with light tanks was a really slow process before 1938 and indeed only one RHA Brigade was vehicle towed before the same year. I keep reading 'low budgets' and 'need for reform' every time I look into these things and even into 1940 I've read of TA 'Tank battalions' receiving obsolete vehicles in ones and twos where none existed previously.
It's sinking in though. ;)
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We also forgot how horse drawn the German army was, all the way through the war.
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Nice work compiling those numbers, that's handy!
One shouldn't be surprised at low mechanisation rates. The bulk of the army was spread from one side of the Empire to the other and it was largely organised for Imperial policing. Right up to the end of the 1930s battalions were organised on the Imperial model, with an MG company to each.
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Thanks. A subaltern remarked after the Armistice in 1918, that now the Army could get back to 'real soldiering'.
;)
What has become apparent to me is a circular cycle. Support weapons went to battalions Post-WWI to support the Imperial role, but all 'European War' experiments re-concentrated the MGs into MG battalions and created brigade AT companies (from battalion AT platoons created Mid-'30s), and divisional AT regiments.
This line of thought won out from '38 onwards and so the BEF of 1940 went to France with a WWI mindset of centralised control of support assets. All through WWII we then see experiments with re-integrating support back into battalions, that essentially returns the Army to the same model it adopted after the armistice; but motorised.
We also forgot how horse drawn the German army was, all the way through the war.
All armies, even the U.S. were still mostly horse-powered in 1940, even Britain had a horse division left until 1941, despite its apparent 'total mechanisation'.
All things being equal though, the British only had to find vehicles for 120 or so battalions before 1939, the Germans had 54 divisions and the French 98 at the end of that year. Truck for truck things were possibly fairly even at the start of the war.
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I'm away from all reference sources at the moment but is itv just possible the MAFVA Census is incomplete? There is some Pathé News footage of the DLI in their Vickers Tractors but they were strippe of their special equipment the following year for troops going to Palestine. Can I re-emphasise the Carden Loyd was an MG carrier and not intended to be a tankette. There is a whole interesting series of vehicles tried out to meet the spec for an MG carrier, my favourite being the Burford Kegresse half track, and ending up with the MG Carrier Mk 1, leading on to Bren, Scout, Cavalry and Universal Carriers
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I didn't check for gaps but it didn't jump out to me that there were any either. They were in series order, so each number or group of numbers ran on, rather than it being listed by vehicle types, followed by the numbers.
I imagine that once the experiment was completed/foreshortened with the DLI, that the tractors were passed to other unit(s), possibly to the support echelons of the 'Mixed Battalions' subsequently created, prior to delivery of actual MG carriers. Certainly when the two armoured car regiments changed posts, their vehicles were left behind and taken over by the incoming unit, who painted their own unit markings on them.
Certainly the Carden Loyds did the rounds, starting off in the Experimental Mechanised Force and its successors, before being used as proxy light tanks in the RTC and cavalry until real ones arrived. I seem reading that they were still being used as light tanks in 1937, before being retired finally in 1938.
So while we might get the impression they were numerous, they seem to just be the same few vehicles being passed around over a ten year period.
If anyone wants to look for themselves, the download link is: http://www.mafva.net/other%20pages/PRE48CENSUS[1].doc
It runs up to 1948, so there's something for everyone there, even VW's Burford-Kegress halftracks.
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All armies, even the U.S. were still mostly horse-powered in 1940, even Britain had a horse division left until 1941, despite its apparent 'total mechanisation'.
Apart from the Soviets lol
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:? The Soviets utilised 3.5 million horses in their Army in 1940, about 60% of their national stock.
They had a complete cavalry army corps, besides other cavalry units, horse-mobile artillery and logistics units.