Spanish Civil War Tanks (1936-1939)

Short guide about the tanks used during the Spanish Civil War.

Context and foreign support

The 1930's were extremelly violent years for Spain, with many uprisings and revolts since 1930. In the month of the 1936 elections alone, over 400 people were killed for political reasons in both sides.
Many generals in the military had been plotting against the Republican Government for a long time, and decided that if the left won, they would attempt to take control of the country by force. The long planned militarist coup[en.wikipedia.org] finally happens after the Popular Front left wing coallition wins the elections: The coup fails though, and Spain becomes split in two, with many parts of the army and all of the navy still loyal to the Government of the Spanish Republic. Fighting ensues.
A "non-intervention" committee is created in Europe to avoid the Spanish War from escalating into a bigger European conflict.
Germany and Italy were part of the committee in theory, but still supported the national side for ideological interests and to try their newest weapons. Most of the support from Germany and Italy were in the form of aircraft and infantry respectively. The Salazar regime of Portugal also sent the "Viriatos" volunteer force.
The national side had no issues financing the cost of war, while the Spanish Republic had to buy russian aircraft and tanks with their gold reserves.[en.wikipedia.org]
The republic also had semi-independent paramilitary troops and militias, ranging from anarchists, syndicalists, communists and foreign volunteers.[en.wikipedia.org]

Please note:
From now on, wherever nationals are mentioned, its the military rebellion[en.wikipedia.org].

Whenever the Republic is mentioned, its the legitimate Spanish Government of the 30's.[en.wikipedia.org]


Pink: Areas controlled by the Spanish Republic
Olive: Areas controlled by the military uprising

Republican Army and People's Front

T-26[en.wikipedia.org]
The first batch of 50 arrived at Cartagena in 1936. They quickly entered combat just two weeks after, near the town of Seseña.
These tanks were superior to the national side armored vehicles, and the nationals decided to give 500 pesetas for each T-26 captured from the republicans.
A total of 281 T-26 were sent to Spain during the war, being the most numerous tank of the conflict. Most, if not all, were T-26B.

BT-5[en.wikipedia.org]
A regiment of 50 BT tanks fought on the Republican side, manned by members of the International Brigades[en.wikipedia.org] trained in the USSR and by some Soviet tankists. They were probably the fastest tanks in the war. Their first combat was disastrous and 13 were lost due to bad tactics. Some of them were also captured by the nationalists.

Renault FT-17[en.wikipedia.org]
The first armored vehicle of the Spanish army, the Renault FT-17 tank, was widely popular in Europe and the Spanish Government bought one from France in 1919. After succesful tests, in 1921 more were bought, armed with 7,7mm guns. This helped Spain modernize their army during the heavy losses from the Rif War[en.wikipedia.org] and they were stationed in Morocco until 1930. They were also used during anti-riot activites in Spain in the early 30's. Only 10 of these tanks were operational at the start of the Civil War, 5 of wich were instantly captured by the nationalists. Poland and France also sent the Republic at least 30 tanks of this model during the war.

Schneider tank[en.wikipedia.org]
Six of this french tanks from the Great War[en.wikipedia.org] were sold to Spain in 1921, and were used during the Rif War. One of them survived the Civil War and is currently the oldest tank still operational.

Local tanks used by the Republican Government

• Carro Sadurni de Noia[sergio-camero.blogspot.com] - 6
  
• Barbastro[www.tanks-encyclopedia.com] - 1
  
• Landesa[www.tanks-encyclopedia.com] - 2
  
• Trubia-Naval[www.tanks-encyclopedia.com] - 15-20

Rebel nationalist faction and Axis volunteers

L3/33[en.wikipedia.org] and L3/35[en.wikipedia.org]
Italy sent a total of 155 of these "Carro Veloce" tankettes, a few of wich were the "Lf" flamethrower variant. They were part of the "CTV" italian volunteer force of 50.000 men. They proved to be outmatched by the T-26 in their first engagement, where 11 CV-33's were destroyed. The CV-33 only weapon was a 6.5mm gun, so plans about using 20mm Breda cannons or german flamethrowers started being proposed.
These tankettes earned the nicknamed "lata de sardinas" (sardine tin) because of their small space and poor armor.

Panzer I[es.wikipedia.org]
Germany sent 122 Panzer I tanks to the rebels. ] Their 7,7mm machineguns were useless against any armor past 150 meters, so a few were equipped with 20mm Breda cannons taken from the italian tankettes. Two were equipped with flamethrowers.[www.tanks-encyclopedia.com]

Captured tanks

The tanks of the nationals were simply no match for the soviet tanks, and sustained heavy losses whenever in direct combat with them. Commanders encouraged soldiers to try to capture enemy tanks whenever they could.

• 178 T-26 tanks captured - 150 reused
• 24 FT-17 tanks captured and used
  
• At least 1 BT-5 was captured

Local tanks used by the military coup

• C.C.I. Tipo 1937[www.tanks-encyclopedia.com] - 1
  
• Verdeja[es.wikipedia.org] - 1
  
• Trubia-A4[www.tanks-encyclopedia.com] - 3

Light vehicles and "tiznaos"

Spain barely had any armored vehicles when the war started. Only a handful of french WW1 tanks, so people started using armored police vehicles that were available, or making their own armored vehicles.

Tiznaos

Armored vehicles made by civilians and militias, called "Tiznaos", were mainly just average trucks or cars, but with an armor on top of them and possibly some machineguns.


The UNL-35 was the best Tiznao available. Around 150 were built by the factories of UNL in the eastern coast of Spain.

Conclusion

At the end, the huge tank and navy superiority of the Spanish Republic wasn't enough for them to win the war. Their untrained militias and poor leadership lead to defeat and to 40 years of the Franco authoritarian regime.
I hope you enjoyed this guide, and I recommend you check out my Spanish Civil War Air Forces guide that I did a while back.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Tanks Encyclopedia
Spanish Blogs

[MirageTank]

Verdeja?

[*CHAOS ARCHANGEL*]

Good to know this, thanks. (im from spain) :P

[Raffles_Incorporated]

*event rewards. Sorry.

[Raffles_Incorporated]

I think at the very least some of these would make cool ingame camos (Some vehicles already have them) but other then that I dunno what would happen. Maybe an event vehicle? God knows how many israeli and finnish vehicles are floating around as even rewards.

[Crusader01]

Nice and interesting!

[1900]

Based Tank Research Thank You King