Landships II

After much thought, I think this is just a mis-identification. I think the first picture is the actual proposed D-B, which was never perfected. Pic no.2 is, I think, just a Renault FT, not lengthened (as some sources say) but with a different suspension. If you look at the strut from the idler to the drive sprocket, it's a normal FT part, and the engine compartment doesn't seem any bigger. Something is protruding at the rear that I take to be the Williams-Janney gear, but otherwise this seems to be a standard FT made to look a bit longer by the angle of the photgraph.

Knowing that Louis Renault was a bit possessive when it came to his designs, it seems most likely that this was a Renault project and FSU have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Unless, since some FTs were built by D-B, it's a project of their own - but it's not a "Medium Tank".

Ah. The NC is news to me, but now I've had a look at one I see what you mean. Some excellent pics on Chars Français.

On this page http://www.chars-francais.net/new/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=684&Itemid=37 several post-war models are described, including the D-B. It says, "The machine, an enlarged FT, did not fit the bill (loosely translated) and was quickly rejected."

So by 'enlarged' they don't mean scaled up, just that the engine compartment was modified - the hull is otherwise a normal FT, but you're right - there's some sort of extension at the rear of the beam. It looks as if Renault did allow D-B to tinker with one of his tanks, but it came to nothing. And it was a different machine altogether from the first D-B, which they were still trying to get right in 1920.

Pic of NC enclosed, just out of interest.

MTorrent wrote:

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The drawing looks like it is concentrated only on tracks and engine.

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No, that was me, trying to clean the picture up. It's from a very old and battered blueprint that scans very badly. When I tried to bulk erase the blue, all manner of extraordinary things happened. I'm working on a better one.

If I am reading things correctly, the D-B 1916 never entered production and, assuming a prototype was built, it was scrapped in 1920. The later D-B seems to have been a 1924 attempt.

Trying to get D-B No 1 to 2.5 tons was a bit ambitious - the Renault was supposed to be 4 and ended up at 7.

It was a curious machine. The diameter of the turret was 1.8 metres - 6 feet - and it was only 0.4 metres deep. Total crew was supossed to be 3 or even 4, in a vehicle only 1.9 metres high, 1.9 wide, and 4.1 long. The turret had integral seats for the gunners, so there must have been some sort of mechanism to rotate it, either some form of crank or maybe it was powered somehow. The machine was on a 7-bogie Holt-type chassis.