WWI FT17 Tank (1 Viewer)

[Chuck Harris]

For those of you interested in WWI History go here to see what was found Afgan. junk yard.

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/feb2003/a022703b.html

 

[desk11desk12]

Very interesting Chuck.

Carlos

 

[DMNamiot]

HI Guys,

As a retired Tank Commander I alway love seeing articles that show something cool like the recovery of an important tank such as this. The last time I was at the Patton Museum they still had the FT 17 so I am glad they are getting one of these back. There is another one on FT Meade Maryland that has battle history and was employed by the forerunner to my Regiment her name is the 5 of Hearts and she fought well in our first engagement at the Meuse Argonne. She was in the C Company of the 344th Tank Battalion and should be with her Regiment the 66th Armor but is probably sitting neglected still since FT Meade has no Armor Units to keep an eye on it. Maybe that will be resolved some day.

Have a great day

Dave

 

[Louis Badolato]

Guys,

Unless I am loosing my mind, there is an FT-17 on display at the West Point Millitary Museum in up state New York. Are these things really that rare?

 

[DMNamiot]

Hi Louis,

The FT 17 is actually pretty rare They only made a few thousand and a lot of them were either destroyed or captured during WWII. The Germans actually pressed them into service mainly in crowd control/airfield security. There are a few around but a lot of them were sent for scrap during the build up to WWII. My dad who grew up in NYC remembers seeing a bunch of them going out for scrap. There was also an American version of the vehicle built called the M1917 which looks a lot like the FT 17. The big difference in them is one being metric and the other being US Standard so its kind of difficult to tell them apart.

Dave

 

[Louis Badolato]

Dave,

Thanks for the info. I guess I saw an M1917 at the West Point museum.

 

[DMNamiot]

Hi Louis,

I took a quick look at the WP military museum website and cant tell which vehicle they have. However, I suspect it is an FT 17 because the armament appears to be an 8mm Hotchkiss MG but I cant tell for sure since the picture is so small and they dont say specificly which vehicle it is. I do have some friends that went there and can see if they know if you want.

From what I know the French supplied the AEF with 520+/- vehicles. We had to pay for them so it is logical that we would bring the surviving vehicles home. Eventhough we didnt do a lot with Armor during the interwar years we still had a few units that were designated as Infantry Tank Battalions and had to continue training until the FT 17 was rendered obsolete by technology. I found some numbers for the M1917, there were 64 completed with 10 actually delivered to France before the war ended. The vehicle was further modified and a 6ton version was developed of which 950 were delivered to the Army and were used as the standard vehicle until 1931 when it was retired. However we sent 329 to Canada as part of the 1940 lend lease Act and the Canadians used them as training vehicles not sure who got the better end of that deal.

Well I hope this is helpful.

All the best

Dave

 

[Louis Badolato]

Dave,

Thanks again for all the info. That's one of the things I love about this forum. I'm always learning something new.

 

[Ken & Ericka Osen/H&A Studio]

Probably the best FT17 story I ever heard was back in the 1970s when a Viet Nam period US Marine self propelled artillery vet told me about an encounter he witnessed while serving in Southeast Asia.
This fellow...who was a military modeler before he went into the service, told me that in 1968 he witnessed an attack on their position by the North Vietnamese that included armor. The Marine position was suported by an M-48, and a US Army 'Duster' with twin 40mm Bofers guns.
He told me that much to his surprise they heard the sounds of a tank advancing toward them. An old French FT17 turned onto the road approaching their position and the Marine M-48 put a round right through the thing. The Duster crew opened up on the little FT17...in his words "because they never had a chance to shoot at enemy tanks before!" and reduced it to a pile of junk. The footnote to all of this is that after the firefight he and other curious GIs went to examine it and he lamented what a shame it was that this vintage example was now trashed! When he related this to me he shook his head and said how neat it would have been to see it saved instead of shot up...