The Renault R35 had its origins in a design known originally as the Renault ZM, produced in late 1934 in answer to a French army request for a new infantry support tank to supplement and eventually replace the ageing Renault FT 17 which dated back to World War I. Trials of the new tank started in early 1935, and in that same year the design was ordered into production without completion of the testing as Germany appeared to be in the mood for conflict. Before production got under way, it was decided to increase the armour basis from 30mm (1.18 in) to 40 mm (1.575 in).
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| Two-man infantry support tanks in the Great War tradition, the R 35s were built in the belief that tank warfare had changed little since 1918. |
The R35 never entirely replaced the FT 17 in service, but by 1940 over 1,600 had been built and it was the most numerous French infantry tank in use. Its overall appearance was not unlike that of the FT 17, for it was a small tank with a crew of only two. The design made much use of cast armour, and the suspension followed the Renault practice of the day, being of the type used on the Renault cavalry tank designs. The driver's position was forward, while the commander had to act as his loader and gunner firing a 37-mm (1,456-in) short-barrelled gun and co-axial 7.5-m m (0.295-in ) machine-gun mounted in a small cast turret. This turret was poorly equipped with vision devices and was so arranged that the commander had to spend much of his time in action standing on the hull floor. Out of action the rear of the turret opened as a flap on which the commander could sit.
For its day the R 35 was a sound enough vehicle, and was typical of contemporary French design, In 1940 a version with a revised suspension and known as the AMX R 40 was introduced, and a few were produced before the Germans invaded in May 1940. The little R 35s soon proved to be no match for the German Panzers. For a start, they were usually allocated in small numbers in direct support of infantry formations, and could thus be picked off piecemeal by the massed German tanks. Their gun proved virtually ineffective against even the lightest German tanks, though in return their 40-mm (1,575-m) armour was fairly effective against most of the German anti-tank guns. Thus the R 35s could contribute, but little to the course of the campaign and many were either destroyed or just abandoned by their crews in the disasters that overtook the French army as the Germans swept through France.
Large numbers of R 35s fell into German hands virtually intact. These were duly put to use by various garrison units in France while many eventually passed to the driver and other tank training schools. With the invasion of the Soviet Union, many R 35s were stripped of their turrets and used as artillery tractors or ammunition carriers. Later, many of the R 35s still in France had their turrets removed so that their hulls could be converted as the basis of several self-propelled artillery or anti- tank gun models, the turrets then being emplaced in concrete along the coastal defences of the Atlantic Wall.
Thus the R 35 passed into history, and despite its numbers, its combat record was such that it proved to be of more use to the Germans than the French.
Specification
Renault R 35
Crew: 2
Weight: 10000 kg (22,046 lb) Powerplant: one Renault 4-cylider petrol engine developing 61 kW (82 bhp)
Dimensions: length 4.20m(13ft 9.25in); width 1.85 m (6 ft 0.75 in); height2,37m(7ft9.25in) Performance: maximum speed 20 km/h (12.4 mph); range 140 km (87 miles); fording 0.8 m (2 ft 7 in); vertical obstacle 0.5 m (1 ft 7,7 in); trench 1.6m (5 ft 3 in).