you
this is the little remo the ft-17 I say
little it's a considered a light tank in
its day it weighed about 7 tons so it's
not all that light but still it is in
many respects the forerunner of the
modern tank it has far more of the
modern tank in it than any British
equivalent at the time the first thing
is caught for rotating turret with the
full 360-degree rotation and secondly
the engine which is a four-cylinder
Renault engine is at the back in the
separate compartment so you've got the
crew at the front the engine at the back
it's much more in that sense like a
modern tank it's also got a sprung
suspension which the British tanks
didn't have the only difference was it's
only a two-man tank you've got a driver
sitting down the front here and a gunner
can tank commander sitting in the turret
it didn't really matter
the French conceived this as what they
called a mosquito tank the idea being to
have them swarm on the battlefield and
there were always too many for the enemy
to shoot at so in theory at least you
won that way they had 22 millimeters of
frontal armor which is quite good for
its day but it still meant they were
vulnerable to fuel guns and that kind of
thing
now the sprung suspension is really
clever it works first you've got a large
spring here which really is actually a
tented track tensioner holding up this
bar here but also there are springs
inside the the main suspension unit here
the tops of the springs are there you
can see them and just about but it means
that the tank is actually sprung when
it's kind of cross country shall get
them to see one of these going and which
I have done in France is quite an
experience they're quite a sight when
they're running they rattle along very
very well actually the tracks are not
particularly advanced they're flat
plates with grouses on the edge to give
you grip and the other thing is the
idler at the front is because they
hadn't got returning arrangements for
dealing with large discs is made of
laminated wood it's adjustable so you
can adjust the tension the track that
way the drive sprockets at the back to
drive the tank
long and they had quite a reasonable
cross-country performance all things
considered but the headlands will tail
at the back to help them over trench
isn't that sort of thing
there are two battalions of these light
tanks were actually used by the American
army in France and one of them is
commanded by a chap called
George Patton who probably became more
famous during the Second World War he
actually got shot in the backside during
the First World War but still and we've
all got to suffer some bits and pieces
otherwise it's actually quite an
interesting design a few of them we use
by the British Army they were mainly
done for the Azon purposes and you often
found that they were issued to infantry
regiments the Brigadier in charge of a
brigade had one of these tanks and used
it to liaison around the battlefield he
had protected transport not of that
comfortable but least it was safe and
the thing that the Renault is the French
produce so many of them that by 1940
they still had loads left and a lot of
them ended up fighting the Germans and
the Germans invade in 1940 and then the
remainder fell into German hands and we
use for internal security duties during
the Second World War so they had a much
longer lease of life than any other the
turret in this case mounts a heavy
machine-gun a Hotchkiss 40 millimeter
machine gun you can also get versions of
this turret with angled plates rather
than cast with a 37 millimeter gun in
them so that you actually get about
three or four different versions of the
Renault which you need to take each one
individually this sexual version is one
of the prototypes it has a little plate
on the front which says non 20j which
means that the armor is not really
properly armoured it's not protected
against incoming fire but that's the
fact that's the only one the French will
give us I think at the end of the war
the tank is completely empty there's
nothing in it at all no engine no
interior it's been completely gutted but
some outwardly it looks the part and
it's a very distinctive little vehicle
so that's why we're so pleased to have
it here
you