Landships II

kkfj1 · Major

White Russians made tanks in China?

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Great photo. Good question. I'd suggest this is based on an American tank. It has a passing resemblance to a Medium Model 1922.

Gwyn

kieffer · Commander in Chief

The armoured car is a Renault I think, with some alterations at the bow? I would put my money on French origins of the tank too, but it's speculative. The rear wheel and the turret reminds me at something but I can't lay the finger on it.

Kieffer

James H · Legend

I was looking for something Russian and post-War, but Gwyn's clue led me to the U.S. M1921, or something like it.

http://armypictures.blogspot.com/2009/04/medium-tank-m1921-pictures.html

kkfj1 · Major

kieffer wrote:
The armoured car is a Renault I think, with some alterations at the bow? I would put my money on French origins of the tank too, but it's speculative. The rear wheel and the turret reminds me at something but I can't lay the finger on it.
Kieffer

�I wonder why you think the armored car is a Renault. I don't know a Renault armored car which looked like this.

The tank's chassis�did have some�similiarities with�U.S. M1921, but there are differences. And the turret is totally different.

kieffer · Commander in Chief

don't know the time line, in 1929 some Renault AC's (or at least Renault based) were made and used in French Morocco. But, as I said it's speculative and more than one AC from that era had similar looks. May be this one is just a one of a kind? The tank: that rear wheel made me think at later French B tanks, and earlier drawing board designs never taken in production. Sometimes there's a red line in technical design, for instance prewar (ww2) French AC's like the Panhard or the Renault AMR, their concept and looks to be found back in postwar products. That made me think.

Kieffer

kieffer · Commander in Chief

James H wrote:
I was looking for something Russian and post-War, but Gwyn's clue led me to the U.S. M1921, or something like it.
http://armypictures.blogspot.com/2009/04/medium-tank-m1921-pictures.html

�But..was that M1921 taken in production? I read somewhere that it was just a test model but I don't know if that's correct.

Kieffer

James H · Legend

I'm quoting from Fred Crismon's U.S. Military Tracked Vehicles. It's not really my period, so that's all I've got to go on. Ooh, I've just thought - there might be something in Jones, Rarey, & Icks. Hang on.

Right. According to the latter, production was as follows:

Medium A, M1921 - 1

Medium M1922 -1

Medium T1 (aka T1E1) - 1

Crismon agrees, as far as I can make out. Which raises the very interesting question of how one ended up with Zhang Zongchang. The M1922 is supposedly still at Aberdeen. Those are the only vehicles that resemble the one in kkfj1's photo. Something very noticeable is the absence of mudchutes, as if the tank has been uparmoured in some way. That's the best I can do, I'm afraid.

kieffer · Commander in Chief

Not really my period either, I only just read a few bits. As many countries were involved in some way, weaponry in that region could have had its origins from everywhere, from Japan, Russia, France, UK, Germany, US etc. There must have been some factory in Shanghai too, 'building' armoured vehicles. May be this tank or its chassis was a customised product too, who knows. I don't disagree with the M1921 resemblance though.

Kieffer

kkfj1 · Major

Accroding to the book "Arming the Chinese", Zhang Zongchang did build tanks under the instruction of foreign engineers in his arsenal in Jinan.
But I don't know how reliable this info is... I think making a tank ought to be a very complicated thing...