Thursday 3 May 2018

Tank Armies

Despite its very young industry, the USSR was focused on building a large amount of tanks right off the bat. It might seem weird to focus on something like that so early on, but once you see the intelligence information at the army's disposal then everything falls into place.

This map maps the tank armies of European nations by the fall of 1931 (according to German sources). The data is as follows:
  • Sweden: 10 light "21" tanks
  • Finland: 32 Renault
  • Estonia:
    •  10 Renault
    • 4 Mk.V
  • Latvia:
    • 7 Renault
    • 10 Mk.V
  • Lithuania: 
    • 16 Renault FT
    • 12 Renault M.26
  • Poland:
    • 25 Char 2C
    • 100 Renault FT
    • 120 Renault M.27
    • 20 Renault NC-27
    • 10 "gas" Renault
    • 20 Mk.V
    • 5 A7V
    • 20 Carden-Loyd
    • 10 MP
  • Czechoslovakia:
    • 30 Renault
    • 50 convertible drive
  • Romania:
    • 75 Renault FT
    • 6 Schneider M.16
  • Yugoslavia:
    • 50 Renault FT
    • 20 Renault 27
  • Italy:
    • 100 Fiat
    • 40 10t Fiat 
  • England:
    • 20 heavy tanks
    • 100 Mk.V
    • 1 "heavy Vickers"
    • 25 SPGs
    • 220 light Vickers Mk.III
    • 10 light Mk.II
    • 5 light Mk.I
    • 200 Carden-Loyd
  • Belgium: 49 Renault FT
  • France: 
    • 2200 Renault 26
    • 1200 Renault radio
    • 1500 Renault NC-27 (by 1935)
    • 100 Mk.V*
    • 90 Char 2C
    • 10 (?) Char 3C or D
    • 20 Saint-Chamond
    • 62 Schneider-Lorraine
  • Spain:
    • 20 Renault FT
    • 5 Trubia 1925
    • 10 Schneider 16
In retrospect, of course, this map is terribly wrong. There were hardly hordes of French superheavy tanks wandering around in Europe, but that was the boogeyman of the time. 20 years later you see the exact same thing with IS-3 tanks reported everywhere in Korea, for instance. 

3 comments:

  1. It makes me wonder if they were taking reports from multiple sources as a kind of total count, instead of four or five people counting the same tank once.

    That and a touch of "tiger fever" (where every German tank "was a Tiger",) to influence the numbers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "2Cs, 2Cs everywhere" to quote an old meme. Judging by this that big old junker was scaring otherwise sober men out of their wits.

      Delete
  2. Seems like you got Yugo numbers wrong.
    Yugoslavia on the map has:
    50 Renault FT
    50 Renault 27 and
    15 Renault Kristi

    ReplyDelete