WWI Tanks in WWII

I think that its pretty amazing that the FT17 was in use for so long and with so many armies. Truly a statement there that out of all the tanks that were used and designed the FT17 was the considered the best.

 

A little more info on the Char 2c,

"The Char 2C was a first in many areas, it was the first tank with a three man turret, a relatively high velocity gun in the 75mm rapid fire 1897 Mle gun with relatively good armor penetration (especially for the time of design in 1917!). The Char 2C also had 4 machinegun mounts for protection from infantry assault – one in front, a turreted rear firing weapon and two side firing ball guns. Armor was relatively good at 45mm frontally and 24mm on the sides, and one was up-armored to 90mm frontal armor and 60mm side armor in 1938-39, as the command tank as part of a program to make them impervious to German anti-tank guns of the day."

 

"one was up-armored to 90mm frontal armor and 60mm side armor in 1938-39, as the command tank as part of a program to make them impervious to German anti-tank guns of the day."

I wonder how well this would have fared against the mythical "88"?

 

Brazil 1940

 

Dang it!! I had a nice shot of a Bren carrier going past a disabled FT-17 on the side of a road . It didn't show up .

 

Captured French FT-17 used for training by the Germans

 

"There's no one here but us chickens!"

 

More German

 

And another

 

And there in amongst all the "Awesome" German armor is one of the lowly FT-17s LOL.

 

Looks like some Italian tanks also. Not sure what the tank is on the right of the pic above the 3 Panthers.

 

Assuming it's German it looks like a Tiger I minus mudguards to me, in the background there are two (maybe 3) that look like Italian M13s (or the very similar M14 and M15) and one L3 tankette and the thing on the left of the panthers could be part of a kettenkrad. This makes me believe we are probably looking at a post-war junkyard in some factory area where the wrecks were stored before melting them again, the FT-17 looks like an original not the Italian Fiat 3000 copy that had a "boxish" rather than wedge shaped rear hull so I'm wondering where this shot was taken, there were some FT-17 in Italian service but the copy was more common.

 

I wasn't sure as it looks like the rear exhausts and the rear of the turret being missing threw me off. But back to the subject LOL.

 

The Fiat 3000 already came up in this thread and I think it's legitimate as it was a copy of the FT-17 ww1 design though it was produced after the close of ww1.

According to what I was able to find two models existed, the model 21 and the model 30 officialy called L5/21 (only MG armed) and L5/30 armed with either 2 MGs or a 37mm gun.

Employment in ww2 was marginal but widespread:

Some L5/21 partecipated in the 1940 attacks on the French border in the Moncenisio area.
L5/21 and L5/30 were deployed in the Balkans though I found no evidence of actual combat.
Two companies of Fiat 3000 were in Sicily in 1943 one of them was part of a mixed formation of L5, L3 and R35s used by the Livorno division against the rangers at Gela with little effect.

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The above picture is reported as taken in Sicily in 1943 where the tank was used as part of airfield defence and captured.

 

Thanks for that. I found the FT-17 pic again!! .

 

I would love to know what the purpose was for this FT-17.

 

French Troops in Somalia 1940

 

I forgot to mention that I seem to remember someone stating that FT-17s were not encountered in North Africa. I have read two accounts so far that they were and the photo above with the Bren Carrier passing the abandoned or knocked out FT-17 was taken in North Africa.

 

The char demineur - one of the earliest minesweeping tanks, char canon BS - a 75mm version which was encountered by the Allies after D-Day,



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