Renault R35

Char léger Modèle 1935 R ("R 35")
R 35 in the Yad La-Shiryon museum
TypeLight infantry tank
Place of originFrance
Service history
Used by France

 Romania
 Poland
 Turkey
 Israel
 Kingdom of Yugoslavia
 Nazi Germany
 Italy
 Bulgaria
 Hungary
  Switzerland
 Australia
 Syria

 Lebanon
WarsSecond World War
1948 Arab–Israeli War
1958 Lebanon Crisis
Production history
Designed1934
ManufacturerRenault
Produced1936–1940
No. builtR 35: 1,540
"R 40": 145 approx.
Specifications
Mass10.6 metric tons
Length4.02 m (13 ft 2 in)
Width1.87 m (6 ft 2 in)
Height2.13 m (7 ft 0 in)
Crew2 [1]

Armour43 mm
Main
armament
37 mm L/21 SA 18 gun
Secondary
armament
7.5 mm MAC31 Reibel machine gun coaxial
EngineRenault V-4 gasoline engine
82 hp [1]
Power/weight8.0 hp/tonne
SuspensionHorizontal rubber cylinder springs
Operational
range
130 km
Maximum speed 20 km/h (12 mph)

The Renault R35, an abbreviation of Char léger Modèle 1935 R or R 35, was a French light infantry tank of the Second World War.

Designed from 1933 onwards and produced from 1936, the type was intended as an infantry support light tank, equipping autonomous tank battalions, that would be allocated to individual infantry divisions to assist them in executing offensive operations. To this end it was relatively well-armoured but slow and lacking a good antitank capacity, fitted with a short 37 mm gun. At the outbreak of the war, the antitank role was more emphasized leading to the development and eventual production from April 1940 of a subtype with a more powerful longer gun, the Renault R40. It was planned to shift new production capacity to the manufacture of other, faster, types, but due to the defeat of France, the R35/40 remained the most numerous French tank of the war, with about 1685 vehicles having been produced by June 1940. At that moment it had also been exported to Poland, Romania, Turkey and Yugoslavia. For the remainder of the war, Germany and its allies would use captured vehicles, some of them rebuilt into tank destroyers.

  1. ^ a b White, B.T (1983). Tanks and other Armoured Fighting Vehicles of World War II. Peerage books. p. 91. ISBN 0-907408-35-4.