Carden Loyd tankette

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Carden Loyd Tankette
A Carden-Loyd tankette towing a howitzer.
Type	Tankette
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
Used by	see text
Wars	World War II, Chaco War, French-Thai War
Production history
Designer	Carden-Loyd Tractors Ltd.
Manufacturer	Vickers-Armstrong
Produced	1927-1935
Number built	450
Specifications
Weight	1.5 tonnes
Length	2.46 m
Width	1.75 m
Height	1.22 m
Crew	2

Armour	6 mm - 9 mm
Primary armament	0.303 inch Vickers machine gun
Engine	Ford Model T petrol 4 cylinder 40 hp
Suspension	Bogie
Operational range	144 km
Speed	40 km/h (road)

The Carden Loyd tankettes were a series of British pre-World War II tankettes, the most successful of which was the Mark VI, the only version built in significant numbers. It became a classic tankette design worldwide, was license-built by several countries and became the basis of several designs produced in several different countries. It was not so much a light tank as a tracked machine gun carrier.

1 Development
2 Production
3 Operators
4 External links

[edit] Development

The Carden Loyd tankette came about from an idea started, as a private project, by the British military engineer and tank strategist Major Giffard LeQuesne Martel. He built a one-man tank in his garage from various parts and showed it to the War Office in the mid 1920s. With the publicization of the idea, other companies produced their own interpretations of the idea. One of these was Carden-Loyd Tractors Ltd, of John Carden and Vivian Loyd. Besides one-man vehicles they also proposed two-man vehicles which turned out to be a more effective and popular idea. Vickers-Armstrong manufactured and marketed it worldwide.

Considered a reconnaissance vehicle and a mobile machine gun position, the Mark VI was the final stage of development of Carden Loyd series of tankettes.

[edit] Production

Production started in 1927 and lasted until 1935. From 1933 to 1935 production was by Royal Ordnance. Some 450 were made in all. The British Army used at least 325 Mark VI tankettes (other data: 348) in several variants, mostly as machine gun carriers, but also as light gun tractors, mortar carriers or smoke projector vehicles.

In 1929, Poland bought 10 or 11 Mark VI tankettes with a licence and used them for development of their own TK tankette series, which was in turn the predecessor of the Polish TKS tankette.

Czechoslovakia also bought three Mark VI tankettes in 1930 with a licence, and then improved the design, producing 74 of Tančik vz. 33 tankettes in the ČKD (Praga) works (the original British construction was evaluated as unusable in modern warfare).

The Soviet Union bought 20 Mark VI tankettes (designated K-25 in Russia) as well as a license. However, the final project was significantly modernised and the license was dropped. Instead, the Bolshevik works in Leningrad started the production of the T-27 tankette, a modernised and enlarged variant of the British design. A total of 3,228 T-27 tankettes were built between 1931 and 1933.

Japan also bought six Mark VIb tankettes and later developed its own Type 94 Te Ke design that was based on them. Similarly, Italy bought a number of Carden Loyd Mark VIs and built a small number of licence copies designated CV-29, and then developed this design further into the L3/35 tankette.

A number of Carden Loyd tankettes were purchased by Belgium and converted into the T15 (machine gun carrier) and the T13 tank destroyer. These "tanks" saw action during the German invasion of Belgium in 1940 and the 47mm anti-tank gun of the T13 was judged to be an effective weapon.

In addition, the Carden Loyd tankettes were also supplied in small numbers to Canada, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands (5), and Siam. The 5 Dutch tankettes werde involved in fighting German parachute troops during the May 1940 invasion of the Netherlands. The French unarmed Renault UE carrier was based on the Carden Loyd design. Bolivia had two Mark VIb tankettes and used them during the Chaco war. In addition to this, the design of the German Panzer I light tank was influenced by the Carden Loyd tankette.