Renault FT - Service History

Service History

The Renault FT was widely used by French forces in 1918 and also by the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France in the later stages of World War I. A young George S. Patton (33 years old) was the commanding officer and organizer of the first US Light Tank Brigade, entirely made up of Renault FT tanks. He personally led his Renault FTs in battle during the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives and was severely wounded during the latter action. The first French engagement of the Renault FT occurred on 31 May 1918 at Ploisy-Chazelle, between Soissons and Villers-Cotterets during the Second Battle of the Marne, following which increasingly larger numbers of Renault FT tanks were deployed together with the older Schneider CA1 and Saint-Chamond tanks. As the war had turned into a war of movement during the summer of 1918, the lighter Renault FT tanks were often transported on heavy trucks and special trailers rather than by rail on flat cars. Estienne had initially proposed to overwhelm the enemy defences using a "swarm" of light tanks and thus he saw his strategic vision successfully implemented at the end. Beginning in late 1917, the Entente allies were aiming at outproducing the Central Powers in all respects including artillery, tanks and chemical warfare. Consequently a goal was set of manufacturing 12,260 Renault FT tanks (including 4,440 of the US version) before the end of 1919.

After the end of WW-1, Renault FTs were exported to many countries (Poland, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Japan). More generally, Renault FT tanks were used by most nations having armoured forces, generally as their prominent tank type, including the United States. They took part in many later conflicts, such as the Russian Civil War, Polish-Soviet War, Chinese Civil War, Rif War, Spanish Civil War and Estonian War of Independence.

Renault FT tanks were also fielded in limited numbers during Second World War, for instance in Poland, Finland, France and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, although they had become obsolete by then. In 1940 the French army still had eight battalions equipped with 63 FTs each and three independent companies with ten each, for a total organic strength of 534, all equipped with machine guns.

Many smaller units assembled after the war had begun in September 1939 also used the Renault FT. This has given rise to the popular myth that the French had no modern equipment at all; in fact they had more modern tanks than the Germans; the French suffered from tactical and strategic weaknesses rather than from equipment deficiencies. When the German drive to the English Channel cut off the best French units, as an expediency measure the complete French materiel reserve was sent to the front; this included 575 FTs. Earlier, 115 sections of FT had been formed for airbase defence. The Wehrmacht captured 1,704 FTs. A hundred were again used for airfield defence, about 650 for patrolling occupied Europe. Some of the tanks were also used by the Germans in 1944 for street-fighting in Paris. By this time they were hopelessly out of date.

The FT was the ancestor of a long line of French tanks: the FT Kégresse, the NC1, the NC2, the Char D1 and the Char D2. The Italians produced as their standard tank the FIAT 3000, a moderately close copy of the FT.

The Soviet Red Army captured fourteen burnt-out Renaults from White Russian forces, and rebuilt them at the Krasnoye Sormovo Factory in 1920. Nearly fifteen exact copies, called "Russian Renoe" were produced in 1920-1922, but due to many technical problems with producing such advanced war machines, they never actually saw the battlefield. In 1928-1931 the first completely Soviet-designed tank was the T-18, a derivation of the Renault with sprung suspension.

In all, the Renault FT was used by Afghanistan, Belgium, Brazil, the Republic of China, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, France, Nazi Germany, Iran, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Philippine Commonwealth, Poland, Romania, the Russian White movement, the Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.