Char D1

The Char D1 was an interwar French light tank. The French plan of 1926, calling for a Light Infantry Support Tank, led to the development of the existing Renault NC-1 prototype into the Char D1. A pre-series of ten and 150 standard vehicles, 160 in all, were built between 1931 and 1935. Until 1936 they carried Renault FT turrets because the intended cast ST2 turret was not ready; the ST2 carried a short 47 mm SA 34 gun with a coaxial 7.5 mm machine gun and weighed 1,788 kilograms, bringing the total weight to fourteen tonnes. The series vehicles had a 74 horsepower engine instead of 65. The type did not serve as an infantry support tank but as the major battle tank of France in the early 1930s, and it was phased out in 1937 because of mechanical unreliability and relegated to colonial units in North Africa. It is 2.16 metres wide and 5.76 metres long with its tail, and its Renault FT ancestry shows in the sloping engine deck and the profile of the side armour plates.