- Yes
- No
Hello and welcome to my first suggestion, hopefully the first to a long journy of suggestions. This one is dedicated to Sweden’s Renault FT that was bought in 1921 and nicked named Putte.
History:
It was long thought that the German LK-II’s bought by Sweden was the first tanks on Swedish soil but by 2018, documents where found thanks to a news articel where it was found that the the Renault FT that was thought to have been bought in 1923 was actually bought in 1921 and tested the same year.
The story for Putte begins the 22nd January of 1921 when the chief of The Army Administration’s Artillery Department and the General Staff, Friherre Ulf Lars Carlsson Sparre, sends out letter to the military attaches in Berlin, Paris, Rom, London och Washington. The letter was about buying different type of guns with ammunition, bouth for anti-tank usages and ant-air, towing vehicles for artillery and one light tank.
Shortly after Lieutenant Colonel Ljungberg from the military attaché in Paris got back to Carlsson Sparre with the messege that soon they will get to know what material France will allow them to buy. One of the things Sweden would be allowed to buy was a Renault FT produced the 23rd June of 1920 for 11500 francs / ≈37000 SEK . The FT would also be sent with 200 rounds of ammunition.
19th of July 1921, Aftonbladed reported that a french tank had arived with the steamboat Vega as of her latest return voyage. A few days later (25th of July), the FT had been transfered to then A 9 – Royal Field Artillery Regiment, here a “trailtroop” was created tasked with the basis for caretaking of the FT.
By the 27th of August 1921 was the FT used in a training exercise at Malmslätt, outside of Linköping, this was the first time it saw real active service with the army and the first trials could be done.
Thru out October, the tank would be partacing in a large scale training exercise, the tank was rather successful as it was able to cause both horror and confusion. Sadly though we do not know much about what the FT was up or where it was under 1922. Documents starts appearing for it dated 1923 again so it is possible it sat in storage for a year or what trails was conducted with it was just porly documented for that year.
A tank company was created at Svea Livgarde where Putte was put to use again. At this point, Pansarvagn fm/22, later renamed Stridsvagn m/21, had been bought and assembled and trials could be conducted to compare them to each other. At some point it was decided to remove the SA 18 canon from Putte and mount it to Pansarvagn fm/22 (nr.5) to conduct fireing trials. This was probably done as Major Burén point out that the turret of the FT need to be reworked, it was not possible to lay the gun on target rapidly. Under the fireing trials it was found that the gun met the expectations but 1/3 of the ammunition missfired.
Under 1924, continued useage of Putte started to show some major technical faults that were not easy to fix, noted by Major Burén. He also notes that due to these technical problems, the trials where not satisfactory. Putte ended up becoming a radio tank as of 16th of August 1924, this was done as a effort to keep the tank in a somewhat useble state. It also had not gotten its canon back as evident by this picture below.
Putte continued to see serve as a radio tank into 1925 but later half of that year, the radio it had was moved over to Stridsvagn m/21 (nr.10) and after that, Putte was not needed anymore and as of 1926, it was decided that Putte would be come a fireing target. The tank lasted from August to October when it was decided to scrap the remains of Putte and to end the story of Sweden’s first tank.
Armor
We all know the FT does not have any good armor when it comes to how it would preform ingame. As Putte had a riveted turret, it only has 16 mm of armor compared to the casted turret that has 22 mm all around.
Chassis
Front: 16 mm
Sides: 8 mm
Rear: 8 mm
Turret
Front: 16 mm
Sides: 16mm
Rear: 16mm
Crew
The Renault FT was a two-man tank, which ingame makes it devistating of just one shell penetrate the armor as both crewmembers are located in the fightcompartment.
Crew:
Commander
Driver
Armament
The main armament of Putte was the short 37mm Puteaux SA 18 used on the male variants of the Renualt FT. This gun is already ingame on some french tanks like the FCM.36. Though the french tanks gets a APCR shell, that would not be the case for Putte. The APCR Mle1937 as the name suggest came almost ten years after Putte was scrapt, so the shells available for Putte would be the AP (with a velocity of 410 m/s and HE (with a velocity of 410 m/s). Thus the penetration would be even worse than the APCR Mle1937 found on the french tanks.
Mobility
We all know the mobilty of the FT aint that good by todays standards but back then, tanks where just supposed to be able to travele the same pace as the infantry.
Engine: Renault 4-cyl producing 39 hp (29 kW) at 1500 rpm
Speed: 7-9 km/h (depending on the source)
Mass: 6.5 tons
Power to weight: 5 hp/t