Landships II

James H · Legend

Belgian FT17s?

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

According to Steve Zaloga, in his Osprey book on the FT17, France exported 54 of them to Belgium in 1919. They served in a tank regiment until 1934, and then in the Gendarmerie Mobile. All were supposedly scrapped by 1938.

James H · Legend

I thank you. I should have thought to look there.

Actually, I haven't got the book - just a set of (probably illegally) photocopied pages from the copy in Manchester Central Library, a place with which Centurion is acquainted. Why on earth won't Osprey re-issue the thing? Publishers will reprint all manner of obscure material, the 1906 Handbook of the Belgian Army for example, but not this, which would probably sell thousands.

What do we know?

Centurion · Legend

Ah yes the library with a circular reading room designed to amplify sound and maximise echoes so that just shutting a book sounds like something from the last judgement - the final closing of a very large tome.

Michel Boer · Brigadier

Rhomboid wrote:

According to Steve Zaloga, in his Osprey book on the FT17, France exported 54 of them to Belgium in 1919. They served in a tank regiment until 1934, and then in the Gendarmerie Mobile. All were supposedly scrapped by 1938.

The Polish Militaria book nr 223 on the FT states basically the same, although a leaflet from the Brussels Tank Museum mentions a number of 49 tanks. The leaflet doesn't mention the word 'scrapping' but rather 'de-classed' or 'de-mobbed'. No further details are given, so maybe it's best double-checked with:
vzw. Tank Museum
3 Jubelpark
1040 Brussels
Belgium.

all the best,
Michel.