Product Code Database
A tankette is a Continuous track armoured fighting vehicle that resembles a small tank, roughly the size of a car. It is mainly intended for light infantry support and reconnaissance. T-27 Tankette (from the 'battlefield.ru' website, with further references cited. Accessed 2008-02-21.) Colloquially it may also simply mean a small tank.
Several countries built tankettes between the 1920s and 1940s, and some saw limited combat in the early phases of World War II. The vulnerability of their light armour, however, eventually led armies to abandon the concept with some exceptions such as the more modern German Wiesel AWC (Weasel) series.
In 1925 United Kingdom tank pioneer Giffard Le Quesne Martel built a one-man tank in his garage and showed it to the War Office, who agreed to production of a few (known as the Morris-Martel) for testing. The publicity caused John Carden and Vivian Loyd to produce their own. Both types were developed further, but the two-man Carden Loyd tankette was considered the classic and most successful design, with many other tankettes modelled after it. While the design was influential, few Carden Loyd tankettes saw combat, other than those the Bolivian side used during the Chaco War. However, the design did lead to the 'Bren Gun Carrier' which in final form as the Universal Carrier had an extensive operational history in the Second World War.Fletcher & Bryan, p. 3 In 1928, the British Army Council objected to the use of the word "tankette," noting that the "mechanization of the Army" was still in its infancy.
The Italian Royal Army ( Regio Esercito) equipped three armoured divisions and three "fast" ( celere) divisions with L3/33 and L3/35 tankettes. The L3s were used in large numbers during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, and almost every place Italian soldiers fought during World War II. Some L3s went with the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia ( Corpo di Spedizione Italiano, CSIR) as late as Operation Barbarossa.
The French armoured reconnaissance type ( automitrailleuses de reconnaissance, "machine-gun scout") of the 1930s was essentially a tankette in form, specifically intended for scouting ahead of the main force.
In 1935, the Soviets experimented with transporting T-27s by air, suspending one under the fuselage of a Tupolev TB-3 heavy bomber.
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) became one of the most prolific users of tankettes, producing a number of designs for reconnaissance and infantry support in Second Sino-Japanese War and jungle warfare. However, by the time of the Second World War, many were already obsolete and some were proven unsuccessful in their appointed task. Many were relegated to tractor duties for artillery or logistics units. U.S. Forces Encounter Old Jap Tankette (from Intelligence Bulletin, September 1945, via lonesentry.com. Retrieved 2008-01-06.
Due to their limited utility and vulnerability to anti-tank weapons (even machine guns), the tankette concept was abandoned, and their role largely taken over by armoured cars.
However, in Vietnam War, the US Marines employed the similar, somewhat larger, M50 Ontos tank destroyer with some success.
The 1980s saw the renaissance of a similar concept in the West Germany Wiesel AWC, introduced to provide airborne troops with armoured reconnaissance capability; while these are called "armoured weapons carriers", they fit the definition of a tankette.
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