The ubiquitous, rather than the obscure (armoured warfare edition)

[FramFramson]

After being tempted into finally buying Mick A's wonderful painted Whippet, I've decided to acquire a small selection of interwar armoured vehicles to supplement my civilian cars and trucks for Pulp games.  

In an effort to save space and money, I want to go for the most ubiquitous possible collection, and was wondering what armoured vehicles would be most useful here. Which interwar vehicles saw the widest service? There's going to be a fudge factor here, so vehicles that only saw use after being captured or vehicles with small variations or that can pass for one another are good.

Besides the Whippet, which saw service from Europe to Eurasia, I am looking at potentially getting the traditional Rolls Royce armoured car (it saw wide use over a long period, thanks to the British and can pass for a couple of other similar designs like the Fordson) and maybe a generic-looking ex-WWI heavy tank.

What other armoured cars or tanks would be good for this? Some variation on the Renault FT? Another armoured car like an Austin (not sure about Austins being used into the 30's) or Minerva?

[von Lucky]

Wide scope, but I think from most common to least and taking the a wide geographic scale in mind, you can't go wrong with:
- Rolls-Royce Armoured Car
- Renault FT-17
- Lanchester Armoured Car (4 or 6 wheel)
- Austin armoured car series 3 or model 1918 (used by the Austrians up to 1935)
- Vickers 6-Ton / T-26
- Christie / BT tank of some sort

[FramFramson]

Sounds good!

One of the more interesting things I've found is that there really is very little record of what happened to most of the British heavy tanks (the bulk of which would be Mark IVs and Mark Vs). A fair number went to Russia, a few others to Germany and most of the rest were retained in the UK, either as monuments, reserve weapons (yes, the Home Guard actually put a couple into running order), or were sold for scrap, but there are almost no clear records for most of those.

That leaves the ultimate fate of hundreds of tanks... conveniently mysterious. Who knows where a few sold for "scrap" really wound up?  

[Arlequín]

I would not really call the Lanchester 6x4 'ubiquitous' as it was only in limited use by the British, but otherwise I'd agree with Von Lucky's list. Most common was the Renault FT, followed by the Vickers 6-Ton and its derivatives.

I would also add the Carden-Loyd Tankette, which was not only widely used by a number of nations, but also formed the basis for several 'tank' designs here and there too.

The Renault R-35 got about a bit, as did Citroën-Kégresse halftracks, or variants of them.

As for the British Heavy tanks, some actually remained in service for quite a while with the RTR, but were not replaced when they became unserviceable. Some were fitted with cranes or bridges and some were converted to make an experimental APC. Ninety or so Mark V-Star were given to the French, who kept them going in service until the early 30s. 

[Cubs]

Seconded about the FT17, it cropped up everywhere.

I heard a tale about a WW1 tank being used at the defence of Berlin, where it was swiftly disabled. I guess when you're desperate ...

The Indiana Jones movie also springs to mind, with Alexei Sayle's African tinpot dictator having a converted British tank (with turret, no less) as part of his arsenal. One can imagine them being sold off cheap to all sorts of smaller nations after the War.

A lot would have scrapped of course. I remember the depressing photo of universal carriers being stacked up in their hundreds after WW2, ready to be scrapped.

[carlos marighela]

FT-17 by a long chalk. China, Algeria, RCW,  Russo-Polish War, SCW, Morroco,The Rif War. Brazil used them in two civil wars in the 1930s, some wete even purchased by Afghanistan. Makes a handy proxy for the Italian Fiat Tipo 3000, which adds The colonial war in Libya to your score.

The British did not export it's stockpile of Great War era tanks widely, there simply wasn't  a market. Leaving aside the handful sent to the White Russians and subsequently used by the Bolsheviks, a couple of examples sold to Japan and those war time transfers or co-operative builds with the US and France, pretty much all of them were scrapped after their service with the British Army.

British export success really came in two areas, the aforementioned Vickers 6 tonners and the even more ubiquitous Carden Lloyd carriers/ tankettes. Those were sold very widely from South America to Japan and of course copied by everyone else, the Italians, the Russians, the Poles etc, etc

Oddly enough, I'd suggest that the next cab off the rank would be the various iterations of the Czech CKD/LKD series. These were widely exported. Iran bought them as did Sweden and a number of other countries. I've seen preserved examples in Peru that fought in the war against Ecuador. People forget that Czechoslovakia was a major arms exporter in the interwar period. Bolt Action do a Pz-38 that would make a decent proxy.

[FramFramson]

Was the FT 17 ever retrofitted to be a bit faster? One of the reasons the Whippet was attractive for gaming was that it's at least capable of a little bit of speed, allowing it some interaction with unarmoured civilian cars of the period (the Whippet top speed is given as 13 kmh and I can fudge that a bit higher). In spite of it's comparitively lighter design, the FT-17 was quite slow, if I understand correctly (7 kmh on a really good day).

If not, I might be better off with one of the early light tankettes like the Vickers 6-Ton / T-26 /Czech designs.

Also, for hilarity points, I discovered that in the game the World of Tanks the FT 17 can be retrofitted with a 75mm Schneider Cannon.  

[Cubs]

Also, for hilarity points, I discovered that in the game the World of Tanks the FT 17 can be retrofitted with a 75mm Schneider Cannon.  

It happened! Not many were built, but they were definitely real. It was called the FT75BS.

Renault and various countries kept on fiddling with the basic FT design right up to nearly WW2.

[Arlequín]

Indeed it did, it was the same 75mm gun as appeared on the Schneider CA-1, popularly known as the 'Blockhaus Schneider'.

[FramFramson]

I am imagining the whole tank recoiling.

[carlos marighela]

Yes, in the interwar period Renault fiddled about with a range of FT-17 variants, the NC series. A number were exported but they weren't bought by the French Army. One of those variants, the NC 31 could manage the outrageous speed of 20kph. The Italians updated their Fiat 3000s and the Japanese who bought a small number of NC tanks and then re-engined them with more powerful Mitsubishi motors.

The later NC variants had different suspension and running gear.. IIRC someone, maybe Warlord, does a Char D1, this was the ultimate evolution of the NC 31.

[Arlequín]

I imagine the principle difference between a FT and the FIAT 3000 being a more robust and louder horn. 

Universal carriers turned up all over the place. I do remember seeing one being used on a UK farm as late as the early 70s. The Egyptian Army had quite a few pre-Six Day War and at least one was used by the Portuguese as a run about for a mine-clearing team (in Angola iirc). When you consider that each infantry battalion in WW2 had ten, plus the various other ones in other formations, that's a lot of carriers!

[carlos marighela]

I imagine the principle difference between a FT and the FIAT 3000 being a more robust and louder horn. 

I like to think of it as an early model Fiat Bambino, sans the sunroof.

[Cubs]

There was a farmer when I was a kid who got a load of those and used them as tractors/runabouts. (well at least thats how he justified it to 'her upstairs' I guess.)

That's the first thing I thought when I saw them. It's a perfect little runabout and probably one of the more useful military vehicles to have in civilian life (probably not that practical to take the winter feed up to the top field in a Cromwell) ... I guess fuel prices and availability were a big factor in people not taking more of them.

I'd love to have one of those. In fact, when I get my big lottery win, that's going on the list. It'll be perfect for scooting about my acreage.

[carlos marighela]

And somethings just soldier on. I saw a really cool conversion of an M-8 Greyhound armoured car into a road clearing anti mine/IED vehicle in the military museum in Bogota. It looked very Mad Max. Apparently used up until quite recently.