- Yes
- No
I would like to suggest an odd light tank that was used in China, the AMR-ZB 47
In 1932, the French Army was developing a new type of tank on their own, the Auto-mitrailleuse de Reconnaissance. or AMR. this development led to the AMR 33 which received a production relatively interesting for the French army but the vehicles were mostly obsolete. the development of an improved version took root as early as 1933 and Renault Proposed an upgraded version of the AMR-33 named the Renault ZB for the successor of the tank. at the same time, they offered a completely new version, the Renault ZT because of the AMR-35.
but it wasn’t the end of the Renault ZB. As the French army had no interest in the ZB, the tank was offered to the international market where it was been noticed by the Yunnan local government who appreciated the tank and put an order of 4 of them armed with a 13.2mm. those tanks seem to have been received the same year.
later this year it was the turn Nanjing national government to take the fancy of the Renault ZB but found the firepower insufficient. Nanjing had put a request to have a version that could carry better firepower to face tanks than the 13.2mm, the variant is the one we propose in this topic. Renault answered with a simple addition of a 47mm gun which is likely to be a Schneider Mle 1936. the Chinese record seems to mention a Puteaux 37mm SA18 which is not correct. the internet community identified it as the Skoda 47mm M1936 due to the muzzle but this gun was certainly not available in 1936 when Renault was building the tank. the only possible gun in my opinion is the 47mm Schneider mle 1936 which was proposed in the early 30s for France but was refused services and exported to Romania bought a license to produce the gun. As the Schneider 47mm Mle 1936 was refused by France, and was approved to export, and Schneider was another French company, the Schneider and Renault company, who was in general rival, could easily have agreed to install a few guns to the new tank. in total 6 tanks were armed with the 47mm gun and arrived in China, along with 6 other machine-gun tanks (those were probably armed with a Ribel 7.5mm MAC 31) in 1938. they were integrated into the Chinese 1st Army. but that tank was infamous for its lack of reliability, yet they managed to serve all the WW2 up to 1945 when they was used during the second part of the Chinese Civil War and lost (destroyed and captured) to the communists.
during WW2 they were used by the Chinese expeditionary force in Burma in 1942 and they weren’t used in any direct action before 1945 when they were lost to the Communists. after they fell into the hands of the communists, the Renault ZB, who was often called AMR-ZB (47) disappeared from the record.
the armament of the ZB is the subject of discussion. as most of the sources claim the 47mm gun was the 47mm Skoda 1936, the chance of the Skoda gun was exported to china is rather low. as the gun was produced in 1939 and under the German occupation. the German had an agreement with his most important allied, the German-Italian-Japanese alliance was specifically forbidding to maintain commercial relation with each other enemy, the Whole China was enemy of Japan since 1937 and the German and Italian relation immediately stop at that exact time. plus the Renault ZB was delivered with the gun already in place.
the most likely fact was the gun wasn’t the Skoda but a Schneider Mle 1936 who happened to be a french gun who was produced from 1936 to 1945 by France and Romania. but of course, this gun is a lot less known than the Skoda. both guns share the same sort of muzzle the Schneider which is likely to be the reason for the miss identification opposite to the Skoda model, The Schneider was produced in 1938, a few years ago, came from the same country, and was subject to no export restriction toward china.
as for his service history. the Chinese received the Renault ZB from 1938 to 1940. There was evidence they used them but the track of their service was lost as China didn’t keep clear records during that time. it seems they were shipped by French Indochina to Burma where it reached the Chinese expeditionary force. after being in Chinese hands. they just disappeared from the record with a few photos of unidentified times and places showing they existed. the combat history is unknown, and their fate is unknown. but in 1945 they weren’t used anymore. they didn’t appear anywhere during the last part of the Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949. there is a possibility they were destroyed by the Japanese, in one way or another. or just abandoned as the tank was known to be unreliable and requiring a lot of maintenance. China didn’t have many spare parts and supposing that an important comportment was broken, such as the suspension, transmission, or engine, there was little to be done to fix it. The abandon or scavenging was likely to happen if it broke down. at least one remained in service long enough to fall in the hands of the communists in 1945 but it seemed it was unarmed
armament (3 possibility)
the armament is not certain. as whatever it was a Skoda or a Schneider. and it seem to be a tank version of those field guns. the barrel length may also been shorter. but in any case, the gun should have a penetration decent enough to make it in the game.
47mm Schneider mle 1936
Spoiler
according to the French historian, Stéphane Ferrard, the Schneider 47mm had a penetration of 70mm of armor at an angle of 30° @ 400m, using the Gaijin calculator, a 2.3kg 47mm at 750m/sec should have a penetration of 96.53mm. the Romanian test reported 40mm of penetration at 500m (unknown angle). in any case, even the lowest possible penetration seems to be enough to give it decent gameplay. but in the eventuality the gun was shorter than the field gun, the velocity would certainly be affected and the penetration as well. still, as long the velocity is above 400 m/sec (which is very likely to be) the penetration should be above 40mm which is enough to my standard. the fact is the Yunnan government had ordered the first 4 AMR-ZB with the machine-gun which was later rearmed with the DP-28 (confusing with the 13.2mm) the Kuomintang government soon ordered 12 other tanks of which half was going to be armed with Anti-tank gun at the specific request of the Chinese at the last minute. the only easy way was to get the Schneider 47mm which was going into export and fix it in the tank.
47mm Skoda 1936
Spoiler
if the gun was indeed a Skoda gun, the penetration should reach 93mm @ 100m with 30° angle. which is a bit better than the Schneider but as I do not believe it was this gun, I do not think it should be taken into consideration, to not shut the door out of pride, I mention it anyway just in case I am wrong. like the Schneider, the Skoda gun in this tank seems to be shorter than the field version, and again as long the velocity is above 400 m/sec it should be fine.
on the downside, there does not appear to be any coaxial gun. the ammo load is also unknown. We only know that along with the 16 tanks, there were 1500 HE, 1500 HE-T rounds, 3000 AP rounds, and 300 practice rounds. most likely to be all for the 47mm as the LMG (or HMG) was easily run out of ammo with that little provision.
37mm Schneider 1930
Spoiler
another weapon could be a tank version of the 37mm Schneider Mle30 AA gun. this gun was proposed in the early 30s but only went into production in 1940 for the army of France, there was an order from the French navy, and exported to Spain during the Civil War and to Romania as well. it could be an adapted version for the tank of this gun which could explain the confusion between the 37mm and 47mm that is often referenced in the various sources. this could also explain the absence of the coax as the gun has a good ROI but again it would need to be a shorter version to be fitted in a tank turret.
Mobility.
the Renault ZB was different than the ZT version used in France. The ZT had 4 road-wheel and 1 bogie while the ZB as used in China had 5 road wheels and 2 bogies. they were using the same engine, the Renault 432 22 CV 4-cylinder engine which could provide 85 to 88hp. the mass seem to be a bit different as it retained most of the AMR-33 chassis. it gives a weight of a bit over 5 tons but keeps the bad reliability of the AMR-33. the top road speed was tested just a bit under 64 km/h on the road but the cruising speed was 35 km/h.
Protection
the armor is not his best feature. with only 13mm of armor pretty much all around and 9mm on the horizontal part, this vehicle will not be much protected. but the 13mm should at least protect it against LMG from the coax guns. his small size and high mobility should make up for his lack of protection. also, the crew of 2 men is not likely to allow good survivability either.
source
Spoiler
Weapons, including possible miss-identified one
- Tun antitanc Schneider calibru 47 mm model 1936 - Wikipedia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4,7cm_KPÚV_vz._38
- Degtyaryov machine gun - Wikipedia
- Reibel machine gun - Wikipedia
- Hotchkiss 13.2 mm machine gun - Wikipedia
the tank itself (including the AMR 35)
- AMR 35 - Wikipedia
- Renault ZB - Tank Encyclopedia
- Renault AMR-ZB.: seryj221221 — LiveJournal
- Francois Vauvillier - The encyclopedia of French tanks and Armored vehicles 1914-1940
the Chinese services
