152nd National Guard.

 

The 'Haven' Scenarios require a new vehicle that being a Humvee. Now, as they didn't exist in the inter-war years I had to look for something else. I did some research and came up with the Renault FT-17, which seems to fit the bill. Models of it are hard to come by, but I've managed to acquire a couple of free cardboard downloads which ill be this week's project.

 

 

 

 

(pages 30, 31)

Heavy Infantry

By the turn of the next decade Colonel Mossely Hill had successfully petitioned the Army Board and Local Government to designate the 152^nd as a ‘Heavy Infantry’ Regiment. This entailed being equipped with the Six Ton Tank, based on the old French Renault FT 17 tanks.

The FT 17was a French light tank; among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history. The FT was the first operational tank to have its armament within a fully rotating turret[1]and its basic configuration with the turret on top, engine in the back, and the driver in front became the standard pattern, repeated in most tanks to this day. Armour historian Steven Zaloga has called the Renault FT "the world's first modern tank"[2]. FT tanks were used by most nations having armoured forces, invariably as their first tank type, including the United States.

It morphed into the Six Ton Tank (or Special Tractor) M1917 and was America's first important mass produced tank[3]. The Six Ton Tank M1917 was a licence built near-copy and was accepted by the army in October 1918. The US Army ordered approximately 4,440 Six Ton M1917 Tanks between 1918 and 1919, receiving about 950 tanks before cancelling the contract. No US manufactured tank reached Europe in time to participate in World War I But were utilised by the National Guard. The M1917 did not take part in any combat. In July 1932 six M1917s were deployed during the dispersal of the Bonus Army in Washington D.C. George S. Patton Jr. states in his diaries that these vehicles were carried in trucks as a deterrent, but contemporary film shows them moving on their tracks along Pennsylvania Avenue[4]. It is not believed that any shots were fired.In June 1920 the Tank Corps was abolished as a separate branch, and control of tanks handed to the infantry. The number of tank units was progressively reduced, and the vehicles mothballed or scrapped.The 52^nd employed The Six Tonne Tank in an anti-bootlegger role, during Prohibition.

Destruction of Illegal Stills Moor City 193?

It supported the Guard and civilian law enforcement agencies in several operations before being deployed into Purgatory during the ‘outbreak’[5].

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[1] The British prototype tank "Number 1 Lincoln Machine" was fitted with a turret but the design was not carried over into the first British tanks to enter service

[2] Steven J. Zaloga, The Renault FT Light Tank, London 1988, p. 3

[3] Zaloga, Steven J. Armored Thunderbolt, The US Army Sherman in World War II. 2008, Stackpole Books.

[4] British Pathe

[5] Hill, M. Col. (retd). Use of Light Armour in Urban Environments. 1938, Rosewood Books.

(Thanks to 'Wiki', Google and Paint.net)