"Polish Tank Destroyer" Topic

"The growth of tactical-technical requirements is a normal phenomenon for any army in the world. The brass also often doesn't know when to stop, which results in a strange metamorphosis. This happened to the tankette class of vehicles. Initially, the concept was something akin a mobile machine gun nest: a machine gun with a shield, engine, and tracks. Early tankettes were one-man vehicles, but experiments in the early 1920s showed that you need at least two crewmen. The Carden-Loyd Mk.VI is a classic example of this concept. Nevertheless, many nations quickly started treating it as a tank, albeit a small one. Requirements for these tankettes grew until they were more suited to tanks, and so the tankette withered away.

Poland was among the nations where the tankette lasted for much longer. These small AFVs made up the backbone of Poland's armoured forces. Of course, the army wanted something bigger and more heavily armed, but they had no other option. Over 650 TK family tankettes were built and actively used in September of 1939. Among them were two dozen tank destroyer tankettes armed with the nkm FK-A wz.38 20 mm autocannon. These vehicles were the result of work that began back in 1931…"

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Armand

(First Post Newbie – so please forgive the formatting) Pretty much every combatant was fielding tankettes, so the concept had hardly "withered away" by the time of the Polish campaign. The Italians had their CV33:-
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The Russians had their T-27:-
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The British had the Vickers MkVI and Matilda I, and the Germans the Pz I, not forgetting the IJA's Type 94, the Soviet T-37/38/40/60, the French ZTs and VMs (admittedly all these sporting a revolving MG, rather than the casement variety). Belgium and Netherlands repurposed Carden-Lloyds with a variety of weaponry, while the Germans did a similar job with the French UE. US blushes were only partially saved by the fact that they didn't enter the ground war before ditching their Marmon Herrington and M1 & M2 Combat Cars (but see Philippines).
In effect, the tankette was the starting point for every major nation in 1939. Nothing better was available in sufficient quantities, given the budget constraints of the 1930s, to displace them.

Back to Poland – tankarchives seem to have left out two further developments of the TK series – admittedly experimental – to turn them into SPs with an anti-tank capability, which saw service with 10th Mech!
derela.pl/tkd.htm
Dontcha just love pop-gun wars?! :)
Kev

Welcome as a newbie and a great opening contribution. (tango wil be grateful that anyone responded, but esp with this input.

Imagine riding around in a tankette. Any A/T rifle would pass right through front and back.

I would argue that the Matilda I was a bit more armoured than that (actually much more) but still had the daft idea of a one man turret where the poor commander loaded, fired an MG, commanded the crew and looked out for the opposition.

Welcome too… and thanks!

Armand

People forget that early in the war all sides had tanks that would be considered hopelessly outclassed later in the war, but were considered perfectly capable in 1939-41.

The much derided Japanese light tanks rushed past the British to make the Siege of Singapore possible.

Tankettes were still largely untested and unproven in the first year or two of the war, especially against Mark I and 2 Panzers.

Thanks for the welcome everyone. It's true many people don't realise that early tanks could almost be compromised with a can opener and a bit of determination :)
No disrespect to Armand (I've been a lurker for quite a while here, and I've seen how much he contributes to several of the TMP boards), and many a rabbit-hole he has sent me down! He isn't responsible for an author just accepting the erroneous myths which have become embedded as historical fact. We don't realise how lucky we are these days with the research tools available. If somebody had told me 30 years ago that "F Pelham – Fallen Giants" would detail virtually every known T-35 as to batch number, variations, unit assigned, where and when lost etc, I would have dismissed it as fanciful, but here we are.

Challenging unsupported historiography is a bit of a hobby horse of mine, so if you want to "dog-whistle" me, you know where to start! :)

Kev