Copper Horns

The need for communications equipment in armoured vehicles became clear soon after their creation. Semaphores and signal flags were just a half measure. It was necessary to equip tanks with radios, but the road to equipping even a part of them was a long one. The modern system with a radio in the turret and a whip antenna was also far from the initial norm. There were many alternative visions of how a tank radio antenna should look.

The rail antenna was a characteristic feature of Soviet tanks in the 1930s.

 

Rail antennas became one of the characteristic features of Soviet tanks in the interwar years. "Horns" around the turret became a calling card of this generation of tanks. Few people stop to consider where such a strange antenna came from and how it works, especially since their age was brief. They were no longer used by Soviet industry after 1939, as opposed to the nation that came up with them originally.

Krupp Leichttraktor: Rival with no Future

During the First World War, a special technical commission presided over all German tank development, headed by General Friedrichs. The commission appointed a captain from the automobile forces, Joseph Vollmer, to direct design work. When Germany lost the ability to develop and produce tanks after the war, a part of their engineers left the country and began building tanks for other nations. However, several years later, work on new vehicles resumed, and companies who were left during WWI had their chance. The Krupp conglomerate was one of those companies.

LK.II Reimagined

Founded in Hessen in the early 19th century, the Krupp steel casting company turned into a manufacturing giant by the end of the century. Its armament, especially cannons, quickly became one of the most important products of the quickly growing company. By the start of WWI, 140,000 people were working for Krupp in Hessen. This was a true manufacturing army, capable of supplying the Kaiser with a weapon of any caliber, in any numbers.

Naturally, Krupp couldn't walk by such a promising novelty as tanks. The German A7V was built with hulls built, in part, in Hessen. It is expected that Krupp would wish to build its own tanks in house. This possibility arose when work on the LK (Leichter Kampfwagen) light tank began in 1917. Krupp united its efforts with Daimler and challenged Captain Vollmer.

Rheinmetall's Fighting Tractor

German tanks of the first half of the 20th century are commonly associated with Tigers and Panthers, light and medium "Panzers" designed in the 1930s, and the first German tank, the A7V. Meanwhile, the work of German tank designers in the 1920s remains in obscurity, although many interesting designs were developed during that time. For various reasons, German designers were forced to work abroad. Nevertheless, secret work on domestic tanks began in Germany in the late 1920s. One of those tanks was the Leichttraktor.

Small and Smaller

According to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forbidden from developing and producing armament and military vehicles, including tanks. Engineers in that field left Germany and began working in other countries. This explains why German tank design skipped over the various cadavers that were built in other countries. German engineers worked on these dead end designs while foreign money paid for it. Nevertheless, this could not continue forever, and sooner or later, work had to start in Germany.

World of Tanks History Section: Rheinmetall Leichttraktor

At the end of WWI, Germany ended up on the losing side, tied by harsh sanctions. Reichswehr was heavily limited, losing 90% of its heavy armament, but never lost all of it. In 1919-21, Germany was engulfed in a revolutionary spirit. In order to prevent the fall of the Wiemar Republic, a commission of allied countries allowed Germany to have a small amount of armoured cars, up to 150 in total. The situation with tanks was more difficult. After quelling the Berlin uprising, Germany was forced to destroy its A7V and captures MkIV tanks, as well as prototypes of the K-Wagen "Kolossal" and light LK-I and LK-II.

In early 1919, Germany made an agreement with Hungary, in which they built 14 LK-II tanks. Another batch of LK-II tanks was build for Sweden. The deal was made by the Steffen & Heyman company. Sweden also received German specialists to help with assembly. The LK-IIs were accepted into service under the name Stridsvagn m/21. In the early 1930s, they underwent modernization, and remained in service until 1941. With this, tank building in Germany stopped for some time. However, the Germans not only retained their experience, but managed to obtain some novelties from their former adversaries.

Work on a light tank, designated VK 31 (called Kleintraktor, or small tractor, for secrecy), started two years after the heavy Grosstraktor. This project was launched by the Reichswehr, on March 28, 1928, by announcing a request for tender for a tracked combat vehicle up to 12 tons in weight. Prototypes were to be constructed by 1930 and cost less than 50 000 Reichsmarks. The winner would receive an order for at least 17 tanks.

The request was delivered to three companies: Daimler-Benz, Krupp, and Rheinmetall-Borsig in May of 1928. By that time, the weight requirement was lowered to 7.5 tons. Additional requirements included 14 mm of front and side armour and a crew of 4. The armament of the Light Tractor was to be a 37 mm semi-auto gun and a 7.92 mm Dreyse machine gun. The tank also had to have a radio to provide voice communication with a range of 2-3 km and a telegraph for 7 km. Chemical protection was also required, in case of a gas attack. Maximum highway speed was 25-30 kph (40 kph by some sources), and 20 kph off-road.

Daimler-Benz refused to participate, leaving Krupp and Rheinmetall-Borsig in the competition. Both companies developed a "Kleintraktor" (renamed "Leichttraktor", or light tractor) together, and their results were very similar. Not having much experience with tank suspensions, Rheinmetall engineers used the tracks from a tow tractor. Each side had 12 road wheels, two wheels per bogey, one tension idler, and two support idlers, a front directing, and a rear leading wheel. In order to protect this system, a side screen was retained, with three openings to clean the mud out of the suspension. The hull was a combination of welded and bolted, from armoured steel 4-10 mm thick. The layout was inherited from a tractor. The front, which had the transmission, also housed a Daimler-Benz M36 carburator engine, 36 hp in power. The middle part had the control compartment (the driver sat on the left side). The driver had a small rectangular turret with vision ports above his head.

Krupp engineers did not trust tractors, and built their own chassis. Krupp's vehicle was slightly longer and taller, which allowed two hatches on the side for entrance and evacuation. The Krupp tank had 6 small diameter road wheels per side, with a vertical spring suspension, grouped in two groups of three, with the front-most and rear-most wheels slightly larger than the others. There were also two idlers, a front directing, and a rear leading wheel. Rheinmetall was responsible for both turrets. All VK 31s had radio stations.

The Soviet Union took a large part in creating Germany's tank army. A treaty on the creation of a Soviet-German tank school in Kazan was signed in Moscow, in 1926. It was headed by the Reichswehr colonel Malbrandt, whose name led to the project being codenamed KaMa (Kazan-Malbrandt). All four light tank prototypes were shipped here, numbered 37 and 38 (Krupp), 39 and 40 (Rheinmetall). The Special Technical Commission (TEKO), created to exchange experience in the area of tank building, began its work.

By 1933, each prototype traveled from 1660 to 1865 km. Soviet specialists agreed that these vehicles are not of any interest to the RKKA. However, Soviet engineers were interested in the suspension and the turret layout (namely the coaxial machine gun), as well as the tanks' radios. German specialists were not in awe of their vehicle either. Further modernization and up-armouring was not possible without increasing weight, and reducing the already unimpressive mobility of the tanks.

All four Leichttraktors were shipped back to Germany in 1933, when KaMa was closed down. In 1934, the tanks were moved to Munster for the winter. From 1935 to the start of WWII, they were used as training vehicles in Pultos.

Original article available here.