During the 1930’s tank design and combat was in it’s infancy, tanks were still a relatively new concept and their baptism of fire came late on in the First World War, where tactics were based more on infantry support.
Tank design, along with the design of aircraft was fast changing, the climate of the 1930’s left some countries lagging behind in their designs whilst others prevailed. The design of the French Renault FT-17 was revolutionary up against it’s contemporaries in the First World War and from that design concept of a fully traversable turret and angular body tanks evolved into a very formidable weapon.
Probably the best tank design used in the Spanish Civil War was the Soviet T-26, that was closely followed by the BT-5 both of which were supplied to the Republicans from Soviet Russia, however due to poor tactics and bad leadership these formidable tanks were soon captured and ended up in service with the Nationalist forces, to their delight. The capture of these tanks also highlighted the inadequacies of their own German supplied Panzer 1, which had absolutely no offensive capability against other tanks, a problem that would later be solved (in part) by upgrading the twin machine gun armament on a few vehicles to an Italian 20mm Breda anti tank gun.
This failing in the Panzer 1’s design highlighted the tactics of tank warfare at the time which was based more as an infantry support role and it is in combat during the Spanish Civil War where the German and Russian leaders would realise just how useful tank warfare could be.
Republican Tanks
Infantry light tank M-1926 & M-1936
Renault FT-17 Tank
Schneider CA-1
Soviet BT-5
Soviet Ba-3 – Very small numbers of these arrived, widely regarded as 3 vehicles.
Soviet Ba-6
Soviet T-26
Nationalist Tanks
Pzkw-I Ausf. A (Panzer 1 A)
Panzer 1 Ausf. A mit 20mm Flak L/65 Breda Model 1935 (Panzer 1 A Breda)
Panzer I Ausf. A Lanzallamas (Panzer 1 A Flame Thrower Tank)
Pzkw-I Ausf. B (Panzer 1 B)
Panzer I Ausf. B Lanzallamas (Panzer 1 B Flame Thrower Tank)
Sd.Kfz.265 Kleiner Pz.Bef.Wg.1 Initial Production (Panzer 1 B Command Tank)
CV33 (L3/33) Tankette
CV35 (L3/35) Tankette
CV35 (L3/35) Flame Thrower
Soviet BT-5 – Captured from Republicans
Soviet Ba-3 – Captured from Republicans
Soviet Ba-6 – Captured from Republicans
Soviet T-26 – Captured from Republicans
This list contains the active tanks throughout the war, there were a number of Spanish built prototypes which were in existence during the 1936-1939 period but I feel that these are irrelevant for the purpose of this list.
There were also a number of armoured cars used throughout the war and I will cover these in a separate post.
For a full and comprehensive list of Tanks please look here: A Comprehensive List of Participating Tanks and AFV’s
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