Canadian Renault tanks

[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.