Canadian Renault tanks

[David DeWeese]

Around 5 years ago I was in Montana picking up a Dodge WC12 from a friend who gave me Hayes Otoupalik's phone number as a possible source for parts. Mr. Otoupalik turned out to be a very nice gentleman who later sent me a free copy of a video he produced about his Model 1917 Six Ton Tank. In the video he personally gives a complete "walk around" of the features and operation of his tank, and even uses it in a mock WW1 battle at the end. If you are interested in these tanks, you will want a copy. The last time I wrote him he could be reached at this address.

[Bob Cohoon]

For anyone`s interest, at the Rhinebeck vintage Aerodrome,near Kingston, New York, there is an old Renault which runs and forms part of the show certain week-ends when they get the old WWI airplanes up in the air.Rhinebeck specializes in this and has a few actual WWI fighters.

[Gunner]

These little buggies show up in the most unusual places!

Bamako, Mali, North-West Africa, March 2008

Seems it and its brother were used to awe the locals in the former French colony back in the 1920's. It has an interesting postwar(?) mod in that the wheels are spoked cast iron with triangular tin covers between the spokes.

Cheers! Mike

[servicepub (RIP)]

Can we expect to see one of these at the Swords and Ploughshares gates?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Gunner

These little buggies show up in the most unusual places!

Ah yes, they seem to do so. It seems this one has been standing idle for a long time, don't you think Mike?

The FT-17 really is the grandfather of all tanks - it's basic layout was copied the world over, and many examples were exported.

The Netherlands bought one as well. Not so much to find out if it was a useful weapon of war, but to show the waterlinie, a defense system consisting of flooding vast areas of land, was capable to stop tanks. In some cases it did, but when it did not, the authorities made sure to make the public think it did! But it did not, of course. And some idiot revamped the water defense line in the 1950s, spending millions on the concept right after everyone was convinced by force the tank was there to stay. . . Ironically, worn out tanks were incorporated in the IJssellinie as fixed defences.

Today, two FT-17's survive in the Netherlands: at Overloon and Delft. Both are most likely ex-Wehrmacht vehicles as they used many ex-French captured ones for air field defence and the like.

H.