Renault R40

The Renault R40 was a French light infantry tank used early in the Second World War, officially still a Renault R35 but widely known by its own name because it carried a new suspension. Its type designation was Char léger modéle 1935 R modifié 1939. It was developed as an improvement of the R35, whose horizontal rubber spring suspension rode badly and wore tracks quickly, and it adopted an AMX design of six vertical coil springs with twelve road wheels per side and a track borrowed from the Char B1. From May 1940 it also gained a longer 37 mm gun in the cast APX-R1 turret, a tail to help climbing and, unlike earlier French light tanks, a radio set. Production was halted in June 1940 after probably about 145 hulls, and the article records no surviving vehicles.