This is an M22 Locust.A lightweight tank designed to be carried into battle along with Airborne troops.Placed into service in 1944.
Unlike Christian(who can come up with millions of trivial tank facts on demand)I didn't know this one right away.I just happened to have my trusty 'TANKS OF THE WORLD' book on hand.Every tank geek should have such a book.
strange tank, did they just it drop it with a parachute or did they landed the planes ???? i know this could sound as a stupid question
They were designed to be carried by a large glider (the Hamilcar IIRC). Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
They could also be carried slung underneith a C-47, with the turret removed and stowed inside the aircraft. Though obviously this was purely for transport, not for operational deployment!
Nope! Although I may have got the aircraft type wrong... from http://ww2photo.mimerswell.com/tanks/us ... 22/m22.htm It also has a shot of one exiting a Hamlicar glider:
I worked with a guy who was on a glider with one of those, the driver had to stay in the tank during the flight because there wasn't enough room in the aircraft for him to climb out once he'd driven it aboard. The guy I worked with said he could see the drive say all on his own, getting more and more nervous as they approached the enemy coast. Until he finally lost his bottle, started the tank up and drove it out in mid-air somwhere over the North Sea. Not entirely sure that's possible - what would happen to the rest of the glider once the nose has had a tank run through it in flight? If true then all I can say is, poor sod. Oli
Light airborne tanks ? Looking at the pictures of the Locust made me think : what was the usefulness of these light airborne tanks (Locust and Tetrarch) ? The paratroops of course wants as much heavy equipment as possible so they can fight on equal terms agianst 'ordinary troops'. But thes mini tanks are hardly armoured against light guns, and neither do they pack any reasonable punch (37 or 40 mm guns are not very effecient against neither tanks nor infantry I guess ) So apart from being used as armoured and mobile machine gun nests, what could they be used for ?and are there any acounts of their successfull use against a well-equiped adversary such as the Wehrmacht ?
Mobile machine gun nests are better than nothing if you're a para - "Fly light, die early". Tetrachs - the British equivalent, 2pr gun were landed on the evening of D-Day for the first ever airborne tank assault. Locusts were used by 6th Airborne for the Rhine crossing. Limited usefulness maybe, but still useful. The armour would stop small arms, thus making the Germans bring it tanks or anti-tank weapons, pulling them away from other areas. Don't forget that paras were meant to be an initial attack, in fast, tie up the bad guys and hang on until regular ground forces arrive. Don't forget, even at the end of the war, the majority of German armour was still Pzkpfw III and IV variants, side and rear shots were still possible. And Panther wasn't totally immune to a 2pr in the rear. Oli
Re: Light airborne tanks ? Note that both in Normandy on June 6th 1944 and during the Rhine Crossing we're not talking about crack German divisions with top-of-the-line equipment. Most of the troops in Normandy were substandard in training, morale, equipment and heavy weaponry; they'd typically have French captured tanks for divisional support, and therefore a Tetrarch here and there could really still make a difference.
Light airborne tanks ? Thank you Oli and Roel for the excellent replies. Do you know if the tanks were involved in heavy combat and if they ever fought against enemy armor ?
Sorry, couldn't say for definite, but there is a new book out, see http://www.helion.co.uk/product.php?xProd=8649 Should give you more. Or just "locust tank combat" "tetrach tank combat" in Google - worked to get my previous post. Or 6th airborne. Oli
