2 years ago

The Renault FT, (later called the FT17 in WWII) was a French light tank that was among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history.
The FT was the first production tank to have its armament within a fully rotating turret.

The FT was developed in started in 1915, Renault would actually decline to develop the FT and Schneider company, would start on the development of the Schneider CA, which became the first French operational tank.

But in 1916 Renault started on the design of the FT, Louis Renault himself conceived the new tank's overall design and set its basic specifications.
The prototype did have some problems and only 84 were produced in 1917, some problems would never be solved and the FT would be plagued by radiator fan belt problems throughout the war.

Because the Renault FT had a great base for several rolls and being the first real modern tank numerous variants were produced on top of the chassis.
One of them was the Char Renault TSF (télégraphie sans fil – telegraph without a wire), a radio command tank.
The TSF was developed in 1916/17 after the need of an observation vehicle which could provide contact between units
and their headquarters became clear. The crew was increased from two to three men, a driver, radio operator and commander
and the turret was replaced by a fixed armoured superstructure,
equipped with a cupola on top, an observation window in front a periscope.
During 1917 the number of required radio tanks
was originally 200 but this was later increased in early 1918.

This Renault FT TSF was restored to running condition by the Weald Foundation. It was restored from several FT parts and
the superstructure, was collected from a private collector in France, which probably got it from the Maginot Line were many of these
superstructures were used.

Being that this TSF was built up from several parts, makes this vehicle not an original build tsf.
That's nothing weird because this is an extremely rare vehicle, with only 6
real hulls left in the world.

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■ Information obtained from several sites.
■ Wikipedia
■ tanks-encyclopedia
■ the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Panzers
■ preservedtanks
■ pantser.net
■ the.shadock.free.fr/Tanks_in_France

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