Best tank of the Spanish civil war?

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2008-05-27 08:13am

The Spanish civil war saw a lot of equipment from various countries.
For planes I think the Bf-109 was the unconstested winner, but on the ground, what could be considered as the best armored vehicle/tank that was used during the war?

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-05-27 08:35am

The T-26 fared fairly good against the opponents, as did BT. The issue was a lack of coordination, which could not be compensated by good armour

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2008-05-27 09:02am

Stas Bush wrote:The T-26 fared fairly good against the opponents, as did BT. The issue was a lack of coordination, which could not be compensated by good armour

1941 KV1?

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2008-05-27 09:18am

Stas Bush wrote:The T-26 fared fairly good against the opponents, as did BT. The issue was a lack of coordination, which could not be compensated by good armour

As a piece of equipment the BT-7 should be the best tank deployed in that war. It's 45 mm gun against 20 mm pea shooters and machine guns on opposing sides tanks is no contest.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-05-27 09:56am

Yeah, but what good was that in Spain? IIRC, once a brigade of BT tanks captured a city but were forced to leave it because the Republican forces supposed to guard it just.... left.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2008-05-27 06:09pm

I’m pretty sure nothing better then the BT-5 was sent to Spain, but even that vehicle would still be the best around. The BT-7 had a bigger and better engine, more fuel, more ammo and a different 45mm gun.

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2008-05-28 01:35am

I'm pretty sure the Italians sent a number of tanks to Spain. How did 30s-era Eye-Tie tanks stack up? I thought some had 47mm guns.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2008-05-28 03:51am

The best Italian tank during the Spanish civil war was the Fiat-Ansaldo M11/39, an awful vehicle. It weighed about 12 tons, with a 37mm gun in the hull and 30 degree field of fire, plus a one man turret for the commander with two machine guns. Max armor was a decent 30mm, but only over part of the frontal arc. Mobility was very poor, and I’m not sure they sent even this tank to Spain. Its replacement was the Fiat-Ansaldo M13/40 in 1940, commonly called mobile coffins by the crews in the western desert in WW2. This tank did have a 47mm gun in a turret, but while the 42mm armor wasn't awful it still had just 125hp giving it little mobility. Italian tank units also generally didn't have any radios issued below the battalion level, making effective mobile operations very hard.

Mostly Italy in the 1930s relied on tankettes, often clones of the FT-17 of WW1 vintage, but also several domestic designs with no turrets at all, armament 2 x machine guns or one flamethrower. They worked out very poorly in combat.