WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.399 So, have you ever wondered why basically almost 00:00:03.399 --> 00:00:06.019 every tank you've ever seen has the exact same 00:00:06.019 --> 00:00:08.640 basic shape? Right, like whether it's in a blockbuster 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:11.519 movie or... Or just on the evening news, or sitting 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:13.619 quietly in a military museum somewhere. It's 00:00:13.619 --> 00:00:15.539 always the same. You've got the tracks running 00:00:15.539 --> 00:00:17.440 along the sides, the driver sitting low in the 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:20.320 front, the engine tucked safely away in the back, 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:23.460 and the main gun mounted in this rotating turret 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:25.579 right on top. It just feels like an obvious, 00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:28.760 almost inevitable design now. Exactly, but somebody 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:31.920 actually had to invent it. And that is our mission 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.429 for this deep dive. Today, we are looking at 00:00:34.429 --> 00:00:37.090 a stack of sources, primarily Wikipedia article 00:00:37.090 --> 00:00:39.929 excerpts, that are focused entirely on this one 00:00:39.929 --> 00:00:42.829 machine called the Renault FT. And it is a truly 00:00:42.829 --> 00:00:44.810 fascinating piece of machinery. It really is. 00:00:45.030 --> 00:00:47.850 Our goal today is to unpack how a tiny, I mean, 00:00:47.869 --> 00:00:50.649 we're talking a seven ton French machine designed 00:00:50.649 --> 00:00:53.350 in 1916, right in the thick of the First World 00:00:53.350 --> 00:00:56.390 War, completely revolutionized armored warfare. 00:00:56.590 --> 00:00:59.149 It's an engineering survival story, unlike almost 00:00:59.149 --> 00:01:01.590 anything else we see in military history. Yeah, 00:01:01.630 --> 00:01:04.250 we're going to see how it set the permanent blueprint 00:01:04.250 --> 00:01:07.370 for modern tanks and how it stubbornly survived 00:01:07.370 --> 00:01:10.049 on active battlefields all the way into the 21st 00:01:10.049 --> 00:01:12.430 century. Which goes far beyond just a timeline 00:01:12.430 --> 00:01:15.189 of battles. What we're really dissecting today 00:01:15.189 --> 00:01:19.890 is a master class in how a single piece of brilliant, 00:01:20.250 --> 00:01:22.849 pragmatic engineering can outlive its intended 00:01:22.849 --> 00:01:25.750 purpose by decades. That's a well way. When you 00:01:25.750 --> 00:01:28.269 look at the Renault FT, You aren't just looking 00:01:28.269 --> 00:01:30.489 at an old tank. You are looking at the Genesis 00:01:30.489 --> 00:01:34.430 point for an entire category of technology. So 00:01:34.430 --> 00:01:36.930 let's set the stage for that Genesis point. The 00:01:36.930 --> 00:01:40.829 year is 1915, bleeding into 1916. The First World 00:01:40.829 --> 00:01:43.730 War is locked in this horrific, static trench 00:01:43.730 --> 00:01:46.500 warfare. The stalemate. Right. And a French artillery 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:48.799 officer, Colonel G .B .E. Estienne, has this 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:50.900 vision. He wants a tracked armored vehicle to 00:01:50.900 --> 00:01:53.040 cross no man's land and just break the stalemate. 00:01:53.219 --> 00:01:55.599 So he goes to Louis Renault. A name most people 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:57.659 probably know. Yeah. Even if you don't know military 00:01:57.659 --> 00:01:59.859 history, you definitely know that name from the 00:01:59.859 --> 00:02:02.000 automotive world. So Estienne basically asks 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.120 Renault to build him a tank and Renault flat 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:08.099 out refuses. Just says no. Just says no. He tells 00:02:08.099 --> 00:02:10.699 the Colonel his company is already at maximum 00:02:10.699 --> 00:02:13.020 capacity producing munitions and engines for 00:02:13.020 --> 00:02:16.000 the war effort. And maybe more importantly, he 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:18.860 says he has absolutely zero experience designing 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:21.139 tracked vehicles. Which, you know, if you look 00:02:21.139 --> 00:02:23.479 at it from an industrialist perspective during 00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:26.500 a total war economy, is a perfectly rational 00:02:26.500 --> 00:02:28.800 response. Oh, absolutely. You can't just afford 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:31.539 to halt an active production line that's producing 00:02:31.539 --> 00:02:34.439 vital artillery shells. Right, you can't just 00:02:34.439 --> 00:02:36.840 pivot to experimental military hardware you've 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:38.819 never built before. But Colonel Estienne was 00:02:38.819 --> 00:02:41.659 incredibly persistent. The sources say he actually 00:02:41.659 --> 00:02:43.979 found out that a rival company, Schneider, was 00:02:43.979 --> 00:02:46.419 already developing France's first operational 00:02:46.419 --> 00:02:48.860 tank. So he uses that leverage. Yeah, he keeps 00:02:48.860 --> 00:02:51.659 pushing Renault. Finally, during a chance meeting 00:02:51.659 --> 00:02:54.919 in July of 1916, Estienne asks him to reconsider. 00:02:55.500 --> 00:02:57.620 And for reasons the historical record doesn't 00:02:57.620 --> 00:02:59.919 fully detail, this time Renault actually agrees 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:02.780 to take on the project. And the design that Renault 00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:05.840 and his lead industrial designer, Rodolphe Ernst 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:08.800 Metzmeier, came up with fundamentally changed 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:10.979 the world. It really did. What's fascinating 00:03:10.979 --> 00:03:13.780 here is the monumental shift in the design paradigm. 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:17.800 Let's look at the context of 1916. The early 00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:20.659 British tanks or the French Schneider were essentially 00:03:20.659 --> 00:03:25.280 massive, awkward. metal boxes. Huge iron bricks. 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:27.879 Basically. The tracks wrapped entirely around 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:30.139 the outer hull and the guns were sticking out 00:03:30.139 --> 00:03:32.259 of the sides in Sponsons. And for anyone who 00:03:32.259 --> 00:03:35.199 isn't familiar with naval or early armor terminology, 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:38.599 Sponsons are basically these fixed side mounted 00:03:38.599 --> 00:03:42.080 blisters. The guns couldn't rotate freely. Right. 00:03:42.259 --> 00:03:44.300 So meaning if you wanted to aim at something 00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:46.719 in front of you or behind you, you often had 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:50.000 to literally turn the entire massive tank. Precisely. 00:03:50.199 --> 00:03:52.639 They were incredibly difficult to steer, prone 00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:54.960 to getting completely bogged down, and suffered 00:03:54.960 --> 00:03:57.699 from massive blind spots. Renault and Ernst Metzmeier 00:03:57.699 --> 00:03:59.800 threw that entire rule book out the window. Thank 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:01.800 goodness. They separated the tank into distinct 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:04.199 functional zones. They isolated the crew compartment 00:04:04.199 --> 00:04:06.439 in the front, partitioned the hot, noisy engine 00:04:06.439 --> 00:04:09.080 compartment in the back, and introduced the absolute 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:11.840 key innovation. The turret. Yes. They placed 00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:13.819 the main armament in a fully rotating turret 00:04:13.819 --> 00:04:16.180 on the roof. I always think of it as the equivalent 00:04:16.180 --> 00:04:18.680 of someone finally figuring out exactly where 00:04:18.680 --> 00:04:21.120 the steering wheel and the gas pedal belong in 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:23.600 an automobile and just permanently setting the 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:25.579 standard. That's a great way to put it. Because 00:04:25.579 --> 00:04:28.279 before the FT, engineers were just guessing at 00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:31.459 what a tank should be. The FT answered the question 00:04:31.459 --> 00:04:34.899 so definitively that the core layout has never 00:04:34.899 --> 00:04:37.639 fundamentally changed. It did set the standard, 00:04:37.639 --> 00:04:40.620 but it's really crucial to understand that they 00:04:40.620 --> 00:04:42.920 didn't arrive at that layout just because it 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:45.160 looked Elegant. Right. It wasn't an aesthetic 00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:47.480 choice. Not at all. It was born from severe, 00:04:48.019 --> 00:04:50.959 uncompromising engineering constraints. Louis 00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:53.839 Renault was a pragmatist. He looked at the internal 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:57.199 combustion engines available in 1916 and realized 00:04:57.199 --> 00:04:59.920 they simply couldn't effectively power the 30 00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:02.420 or 40 ton behemoths the military was dreaming 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:04.860 of. They just didn't have the horsepower. Exactly. 00:05:05.339 --> 00:05:08.240 So he imposed a strict weight limit on his own 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:12.040 project. Seven tons. Which, just to put in perspective 00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:15.329 for you, An American M1 Abrams today weighs around 00:05:15.329 --> 00:05:18.370 70 tons, so 7 tons is almost nothing for an armored 00:05:18.370 --> 00:05:21.629 vehicle. But that weight limit forced some brilliant 00:05:21.629 --> 00:05:24.709 workarounds. Like to deal with the cratered terrain 00:05:24.709 --> 00:05:26.970 of the Western Front, they designed tracks that 00:05:26.970 --> 00:05:29.329 were automatically kept under tension. Because 00:05:29.329 --> 00:05:31.610 early tanks were constantly throwing their tracks. 00:05:31.870 --> 00:05:34.870 Basically derailing in the mud, yeah. The FT's 00:05:34.870 --> 00:05:37.370 self -tensioning system mitigated that. They 00:05:37.370 --> 00:05:41.069 also bolted this really prominent rounded metal 00:05:41.069 --> 00:05:43.519 tailpiece to the back of the hull. It looks a 00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:45.939 bit strange on the back. It does. It looks weird, 00:05:46.180 --> 00:05:49.480 but it allowed this tiny vehicle to cross wide 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:53.199 trenches without falling in backwards. The engineering 00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:55.660 elegance really shines in the internal systems 00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:58.620 too, specifically the cooling. They needed to 00:05:58.620 --> 00:06:00.920 keep the engine from overheating, but they also 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:02.740 had a severe problem with the human element. 00:06:02.879 --> 00:06:05.240 Right, keeping the two -man crew from suffocating. 00:06:05.379 --> 00:06:08.060 Yes, suffocating on engine exhaust and the cordite 00:06:08.060 --> 00:06:11.050 fumes from firing the gun. So they solved both 00:06:11.050 --> 00:06:14.170 issues simultaneously. The engine's radiator 00:06:14.170 --> 00:06:16.730 fan was actually designed to suck fresh air through 00:06:16.730 --> 00:06:19.009 the front crew compartment. Oh. Yeah, pulling 00:06:19.009 --> 00:06:21.269 it over the driver and the commander and then 00:06:21.269 --> 00:06:23.610 forcing it out through the rear engine compartment. 00:06:24.649 --> 00:06:27.430 It provided internal ventilation and engine cooling 00:06:27.430 --> 00:06:31.129 in a single lightweight mechanism. That is just 00:06:31.129 --> 00:06:33.610 brilliant. But here's where it gets really interesting, 00:06:33.750 --> 00:06:35.709 though. We need to talk about what this machine 00:06:35.709 --> 00:06:39.170 is actually called. Ah, the naming myth. Yeah. 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:43.800 If you consume any media about World War I, like 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:46.639 history books, documentaries, video games, you 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:48.600 have almost certainly heard this tank referred 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:52.000 to as the FT -17. Almost everywhere. And you'll 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.259 often hear commentators confidently explain that 00:06:54.259 --> 00:06:57.959 FT stands for faible tonnage, meaning lightweight 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:01.459 in French, or maybe francissus de tranché, meaning 00:07:01.459 --> 00:07:03.980 trench -crosser. Yes, it's one of those historical 00:07:03.980 --> 00:07:06.519 myths that sounds so perfectly plausible that 00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:08.759 it just became accepted fact. But the source 00:07:08.759 --> 00:07:11.680 material is definitive here. None of that is 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:13.759 true. None of it. The letters XT did not stand 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:15.379 for anything descriptive at all. It was simply 00:07:15.379 --> 00:07:17.860 a two letter internal production code used by 00:07:17.860 --> 00:07:19.639 the Renault factory for all their new commercial 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:21.860 and military projects. Literally just a filing 00:07:21.860 --> 00:07:24.100 system. It just happened to be the next available 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:26.660 letter combination in their administrative filing 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:29.860 cabinet. Wait, so if FT is literally just a random 00:07:29.860 --> 00:07:33.000 factory code, where did the 17 come from? Because 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:35.180 every reference I've ever seen adds that number. 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:37.800 The number is entirely an invention of postwar 00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:40.819 historians. The Renault company never once referred 00:07:40.819 --> 00:07:43.439 to it as the FT -17 during the conflict. Really? 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.420 Yeah. Historians likely appended the 17 long 00:07:46.420 --> 00:07:49.480 after the war to denote 1917, which was the year 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:52.060 it was ordered in large numbers. Originally, 00:07:52.180 --> 00:07:54.720 the prototype was burdened with a highly literal 00:07:54.939 --> 00:07:58.060 just incredibly clunky designation. Oh, right, 00:07:58.240 --> 00:08:01.339 the automatrieuse schnee. Exactly. Which translates 00:08:01.339 --> 00:08:04.480 to motorized machine gun with tracks. I can totally 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:06.319 see why that didn't catch on with the truths 00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:08.500 in the mud. It definitely didn't. It was our 00:08:08.500 --> 00:08:11.240 persistent Colonel Estienne who successfully 00:08:11.240 --> 00:08:14.160 advocated for a simpler terminology. He pushed 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:17.000 the military to adopt the word char. Which is 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:19.259 the French word for a cart or a wagon. Right. 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:21.220 It's the standard term for a tank. Those that 00:08:21.220 --> 00:08:24.199 officially became the char FT. It's wild how 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:26.899 history will collectively rename an object and 00:08:26.899 --> 00:08:30.019 invent a whole retroactive mythology for a simple 00:08:30.019 --> 00:08:32.259 factory code. It happens more often than you'd 00:08:32.259 --> 00:08:35.210 think. I bet. But getting back to the physical 00:08:35.210 --> 00:08:38.730 design, the sources detail how that iconic turret 00:08:38.730 --> 00:08:41.149 on top wasn't just a one -and -done invention. 00:08:41.649 --> 00:08:44.250 It went through a really fascinating trial and 00:08:44.250 --> 00:08:46.809 error process. Well, the turret is the defining 00:08:46.809 --> 00:08:49.690 feature, but manufacturing it was a massive headache. 00:08:50.250 --> 00:08:52.830 The very first iteration was a circular turret 00:08:52.830 --> 00:08:55.919 cast from solid steel. Okay. The major limitation 00:08:55.919 --> 00:08:58.379 there was that it could only accommodate an 8mm 00:08:58.379 --> 00:09:01.240 Hotchkiss machine gun. Which is devastating against 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:04.120 infantry in a trench, sure, but SDN realized 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:07.000 that, tactically, a machine gun can't blow up 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.820 a reinforced concrete bunker. Exactly. They needed 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:12.139 a variant of the tank that could carry an actual 00:09:12.139 --> 00:09:15.179 cannon. You wanted to mount a 37mm Puto cannon. 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:18.360 The problem was metallurgical. The early attempts 00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:20.919 to cast a steel carrot large enough to hold that 00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:23.019 cannon just kept failing. Like breaking apart. 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:26.179 The steel would crack or deform as it cooled. 00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:28.840 It was actually another heavy industry company 00:09:28.840 --> 00:09:31.279 brought into the project, Berliat, that solved 00:09:31.279 --> 00:09:33.860 it. They completely abandoned casting. It went 00:09:33.860 --> 00:09:36.360 to plates. Right. They designed a polygonal turret 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:39.639 made of flat riveted steel plates. They call 00:09:39.639 --> 00:09:42.440 it the omnibus turret. It was a universal design 00:09:42.440 --> 00:09:44.879 that could be adapted right on the assembly line 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:48.179 to mount either the Hotchkiss machine gun or 00:09:48.179 --> 00:09:50.879 the 37 millimeter cannon. It's almost like the 00:09:50.879 --> 00:09:54.419 USB port of early tank design. You have a universal 00:09:54.419 --> 00:09:56.720 interface, and you just plug in whichever weapon 00:09:56.720 --> 00:09:58.860 system the mission requires. That's a very clean 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:00.539 way to look at it, though. I highly doubt the 00:10:00.539 --> 00:10:04.139 mechanics wrestling a heavy 37 -millimeter cannon 00:10:04.139 --> 00:10:07.100 into place in a muddy field felt it was quite 00:10:07.100 --> 00:10:09.559 plug and play. Fair point, yeah. But tactically, 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:12.480 it gave the French command unprecedented flexibility. 00:10:12.700 --> 00:10:15.120 They could mix and match their armor formations 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:17.519 based on the specific defenses they were facing. 00:10:17.659 --> 00:10:19.399 And the way the French actually deployed these 00:10:19.399 --> 00:10:21.740 FTs was a radical departure from the military 00:10:21.740 --> 00:10:24.320 doctrine of the time. The sources note the French 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:26.379 high command was completely obsessed with the 00:10:26.379 --> 00:10:28.879 idea of land battleships. The super heavy tanks. 00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:31.159 Yeah, they were pouring massive amounts of money 00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:33.580 into developing this monstrous tank called the 00:10:33.580 --> 00:10:36.139 Char 2C. Because the prevailing thought was that 00:10:36.139 --> 00:10:39.240 a tank needed to be an unstoppable, heavily armored 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:43.240 fortress. But Colonel Estienne envisioned a totally 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:45.340 different application of armor. He saw it differently. 00:10:45.539 --> 00:10:47.799 He saw the FT acting like a mechanical cavalry. 00:10:48.659 --> 00:10:52.220 He didn't want three or four slow lumbering targets 00:10:52.220 --> 00:10:54.559 that enemy artillery could easily zero in on. 00:10:55.019 --> 00:10:58.200 He wanted to overwhelm the German defenses. with 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:01.620 a swarm of these small, agile NFTs. To execute 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:04.440 a swarm doctrine, you need massive numbers. And 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:06.679 the sheer scale of the manufacturing output here 00:11:06.679 --> 00:11:10.159 is staggering for the 1910s. Over 3 ,000 of these 00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:12.879 tanks were built by France, mostly in 1918 alone. 00:11:13.059 --> 00:11:15.299 An incredible industrial feat. And the only way 00:11:15.299 --> 00:11:17.080 they achieved that was because Louis Renault 00:11:17.080 --> 00:11:19.779 made a highly unusual business decision. He waived 00:11:19.779 --> 00:11:21.940 his royalties for the design. He gave it away. 00:11:22.019 --> 00:11:24.299 Yeah, he allowed other heavy industry competitors 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:27.220 like Berliet and Sumiway to just mass produce 00:11:27.220 --> 00:11:30.100 his tank. It effectively became the world's first 00:11:30.100 --> 00:11:33.279 open source military hardware. Renault understood 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:35.519 that defeating the central powers required the 00:11:35.519 --> 00:11:37.980 total mobilization of French industry. Keeping 00:11:37.980 --> 00:11:40.379 the design proprietary would have been a massive 00:11:40.379 --> 00:11:44.039 bottleneck. Exactly. By distributing the blueprints, 00:11:44.350 --> 00:11:47.649 They achieved the production volume SDN's swarm 00:11:47.649 --> 00:11:50.029 doctrine demanded. And that swarm made its big 00:11:50.029 --> 00:11:54.009 debut on May 31st, 1918 during the Third Battle 00:11:54.009 --> 00:11:57.529 of the Aisne. A force of 30 FTs successfully 00:11:57.529 --> 00:12:00.549 engaged and broke up a German infantry advance. 00:12:00.850 --> 00:12:02.190 Now they eventually had to pull back because 00:12:02.190 --> 00:12:04.230 they outpaced their own infantry support. Right, 00:12:04.350 --> 00:12:06.610 went a little too fast. But the proof of concept 00:12:06.610 --> 00:12:08.889 was absolutely there. They were highly mobile, 00:12:09.250 --> 00:12:10.889 their small silhouette made them really hard 00:12:10.889 --> 00:12:13.620 to hit, and they were terrifying in a pack. It 00:12:13.620 --> 00:12:15.840 became so beloved by the troops that it earned 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:18.519 the nickname the Victory Tank. But there's a 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:20.840 highly ironic footnote in the sources regarding 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:23.139 the Victory Tank and the United States. Yes, 00:12:23.139 --> 00:12:25.500 the technological exchange between the Allies. 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:28.700 When the U .S. entered the war in 1917, their 00:12:28.700 --> 00:12:31.100 armored corps was basically nonexistent. They 00:12:31.100 --> 00:12:33.960 had nothing. They saw the FT's success and essentially 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:37.220 said, we need thousands of those. Right. They 00:12:37.220 --> 00:12:40.059 placed an order to build 4 ,400 modified versions 00:12:40.059 --> 00:12:44.139 domestically, calling it the M1917. On paper, 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:46.460 it's a great plan. French factories are pushed 00:12:46.460 --> 00:12:49.519 to the absolute limit, so let's utilize untouchable 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:52.350 American manufacturing power. Makes perfect sense 00:12:52.350 --> 00:12:54.529 on paper. But the friction of transferring that 00:12:54.529 --> 00:12:56.929 technology was immense. The sources show that 00:12:56.929 --> 00:12:59.789 the delays in converting metric French blueprints 00:12:59.789 --> 00:13:02.070 to American imperial measurements and tooling 00:13:02.070 --> 00:13:05.570 up the factories were just catastrophic. So catastrophic 00:13:05.570 --> 00:13:08.669 that not a single American -built M1917 made 00:13:08.669 --> 00:13:10.809 it to Europe before the armistice in November 00:13:10.809 --> 00:13:13.970 1918. Not one. The French actually had to lend 00:13:13.970 --> 00:13:17.250 the American Expeditionary Forces 144 of their 00:13:17.250 --> 00:13:20.289 own Renault NFTs just so the U .S. had tanks 00:13:20.289 --> 00:13:22.539 to train and fight with. It's a stark reminder 00:13:22.539 --> 00:13:24.419 that having a blueprint is very different from 00:13:24.419 --> 00:13:27.399 having an operational assembly line. But while 00:13:27.399 --> 00:13:29.299 the U .S. production arrived too late for the 00:13:29.299 --> 00:13:31.980 First World War, the post -war life of the FT 00:13:31.980 --> 00:13:34.460 is where the story broadens massively. Okay, 00:13:34.460 --> 00:13:36.840 let's unpack this. Because once the ink dries 00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:39.159 on the armistice, the Renault FT doesn't just 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:41.419 get retired to a museum. It basically goes on 00:13:41.419 --> 00:13:44.460 a geopolitical world tour. Everywhere. It becomes 00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:46.559 the foundational tank for almost every nation 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:49.450 on earth looking to build an armored force. The 00:13:49.450 --> 00:13:51.590 sources list deployments in the Russian Civil 00:13:51.590 --> 00:13:54.789 War, the Chinese warlord era, and in South America, 00:13:55.070 --> 00:13:57.710 where Brazil used imported NFTs to crush domestic 00:13:57.710 --> 00:14:00.750 revolts throughout the 1920s. It became the ubiquitous 00:14:00.750 --> 00:14:03.789 tool of state power in the interwar period, and 00:14:03.789 --> 00:14:06.070 its deployment during this time included major 00:14:06.070 --> 00:14:09.149 tactical milestones. During the Rift War in North 00:14:09.149 --> 00:14:12.909 Africa, Spanish forces utilized NFTs at the Alhusemas 00:14:12.909 --> 00:14:16.179 Landing in 1925. This is a wild detail to me. 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:18.659 This is the first amphibious tank assault in 00:14:18.659 --> 00:14:20.879 recorded history. Exactly. Just imagine the shock 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:23.360 of that operation. Tanks rolling off specially 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:26.019 modified landing barges directly onto a hostile 00:14:26.019 --> 00:14:28.860 beach. Unbelievable for 1925. The amphibious 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:31.000 armor tactics that would later define the Pacific 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:32.879 Theater and the D -Day landings in the Second 00:14:32.879 --> 00:14:35.740 World War were pioneered on the coast of Morocco 00:14:35.740 --> 00:14:38.480 using the Renault FT. And it wasn't just the 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:40.639 physical French built tanks spreading across 00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:43.480 the globe. The design itself was heavily copied. 00:14:44.190 --> 00:14:47.029 Italy took the core FT layout and built their 00:14:47.029 --> 00:14:50.129 own standard tank, the Fiat 3000. And the Soviet 00:14:50.129 --> 00:14:52.549 Union's origin story with armor is even more 00:14:52.549 --> 00:14:55.190 direct. Oh, yeah, the reverse engineering. The 00:14:55.190 --> 00:14:59.110 Red Army captured 14 burnt out derelict NFTs 00:14:59.110 --> 00:15:01.889 from white Russian forces during their civil 00:15:01.889 --> 00:15:05.529 war. They hauled them back to a factory, painstakingly 00:15:05.529 --> 00:15:08.309 reverse engineered them and built an exact copy 00:15:08.309 --> 00:15:11.649 they dubbed the Rusky Reno. The Russian Renault. 00:15:11.929 --> 00:15:14.049 Right. And that reverse engineering process provided 00:15:14.049 --> 00:15:16.529 the baseline industrial education for the Soviet 00:15:16.529 --> 00:15:18.649 tank program, directly leading to their first 00:15:18.649 --> 00:15:21.509 domestic design, the T -18. So because Renault 00:15:21.509 --> 00:15:23.350 had waived those royalties and allowed so many 00:15:23.350 --> 00:15:26.049 factories to build the FT, the engineering DNA 00:15:26.049 --> 00:15:28.289 of this little tank just permeated the global 00:15:28.289 --> 00:15:30.570 arms industry. Which leads to some truly bizarre 00:15:30.570 --> 00:15:33.250 spinoffs. The sources highlight a Polish modification 00:15:33.250 --> 00:15:36.809 tested in 1926. They took an FT, completely removed 00:15:36.809 --> 00:15:39.610 that iconic rotating turret, and instead mounted 00:15:39.610 --> 00:15:41.990 twin gas cylinders on the roof. Gas cylinders? 00:15:42.350 --> 00:15:44.429 Yeah, the idea was to drive this chassis across 00:15:44.429 --> 00:15:46.690 the battlefield to generate massive smoke screens 00:15:46.690 --> 00:15:49.330 or potentially deploy chemical weapons. Wow. 00:15:49.970 --> 00:15:52.850 It proves how adaptable that 1916 chassis really 00:15:52.850 --> 00:15:57.200 was. But adaptability only goes so far. Let's 00:15:57.200 --> 00:15:59.059 fast forward to the outbreak of World War II 00:15:59.059 --> 00:16:03.399 in 1939. By 1939 armored technology has evolved 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:06.600 exponentially. The FT, despite its revolutionary 00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:09.480 layout, is hopelessly outclassed. Yeah, let's 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:11.440 just look at the specs. We mentioned that seven 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:14.240 -ton weight limit. By World War II, its maximum 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:16.639 speed was seven kilometers per hour. Walking 00:16:16.639 --> 00:16:19.399 pace. Literally a walking pace. It wasn't designed 00:16:19.399 --> 00:16:21.440 to exploit rapid breakthroughs like a German 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:23.919 panzer. It was designed specifically to advance 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:26.480 slowly so it wouldn't outrun the infantry crossing 00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:29.100 a trench. But the biggest liability was that 00:16:29.100 --> 00:16:31.700 one -man turret. The cognitive overload on the 00:16:31.700 --> 00:16:34.409 crew in an FT was staggering. It's just a two 00:16:34.409 --> 00:16:36.750 -man crew. You have a driver in the hall and 00:16:36.750 --> 00:16:38.470 the commander in the turret. That's it. That 00:16:38.470 --> 00:16:40.129 means the single man in the turret had to observe 00:16:40.129 --> 00:16:42.830 the battlefield, locate targets, load the weapon, 00:16:43.129 --> 00:16:45.649 aim the weapon, fire the weapon, and kick the 00:16:45.649 --> 00:16:47.350 driver in the back to tell him which way to turn. 00:16:47.570 --> 00:16:50.169 All at the exact same time. All simultaneously 00:16:50.169 --> 00:16:54.129 inside a sweltering, deafening metal box. Against 00:16:54.129 --> 00:16:56.389 multi -crew tanks where those tabs were divided 00:16:56.389 --> 00:16:58.850 among three or four guys, it was a death trap. 00:16:58.950 --> 00:17:00.950 And if we connect this to the bigger picture... 00:17:01.070 --> 00:17:04.329 The sheer number of these obsolete NFTs still 00:17:04.329 --> 00:17:07.450 in the French arsenal in 1940 is the source of 00:17:07.450 --> 00:17:10.529 a massive, tragic historical myth. The myth of 00:17:10.529 --> 00:17:12.990 French inferiority. Right. Because there is so 00:17:12.990 --> 00:17:15.670 much archival footage of French troops deploying 00:17:15.670 --> 00:17:18.549 these slow World War I relics against the German 00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:21.529 Blitzkrieg, a popular narrative took hold that 00:17:21.529 --> 00:17:24.230 France was defeated because they just had no 00:17:24.230 --> 00:17:26.759 modern equipment. It's a fundamental misunderstanding 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:28.759 of the fall of France. The source material is 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.000 very clear here. The French military actually 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:34.220 possessed modern tanks in 1940 that were, in 00:17:34.220 --> 00:17:36.279 many respects, superior to the German armor. 00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:39.460 Really? Oh, yeah. Vehicles like the Char B1 and 00:17:39.460 --> 00:17:42.400 the Somui S35 were heavily armored and heavily 00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:44.480 armed. So why were they using NFTs on camera? 00:17:44.819 --> 00:17:47.480 It came down to catastrophic strategic deployment. 00:17:47.849 --> 00:17:50.990 The French high command spread their modern tanks 00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:53.769 too thinly across the front line, penny -packeting 00:17:53.769 --> 00:17:56.230 them, while the Germans concentrated their armor 00:17:56.230 --> 00:17:59.650 into massive spearheads. When the French lines 00:17:59.650 --> 00:18:02.670 broke out of pure desperation, they pulled hundreds 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:05.650 of obsolete NFTs out of storage depots and threw 00:18:05.650 --> 00:18:08.589 them into the fight. The visual of so many of 00:18:08.589 --> 00:18:11.190 these antique tanks burning by the roadside painted 00:18:11.190 --> 00:18:14.650 a very grim, highly misleading picture of French 00:18:14.650 --> 00:18:17.299 technological inferiority. And the thousands 00:18:17.299 --> 00:18:19.920 of NFTs that were captured lead us to the surprising 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:23.000 second lives of this tank. The German Wehrmacht 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:26.140 captured over 1700 of them. Now, they obviously 00:18:26.140 --> 00:18:27.680 weren't sending them to the front lines against 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.380 Soviet T -34s. No, that would be suicide. They 00:18:30.380 --> 00:18:33.220 found uses for them. They deployed hundreds for 00:18:33.220 --> 00:18:35.799 airfield defense and internal security in occupied 00:18:35.799 --> 00:18:38.680 territories. The sources even document German 00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:40.920 forces using Renault NFTs for street fighting 00:18:40.920 --> 00:18:44.819 in Paris during the 1944 liberation. It's a surreal 00:18:44.819 --> 00:18:47.309 historical overlap. fighting in the streets of 00:18:47.309 --> 00:18:49.690 Paris during World War II with a tank designed 00:18:49.690 --> 00:18:52.109 in Paris during World War I. Just crazy. And 00:18:52.109 --> 00:18:55.089 the geopolitical chaos of the era meant the FT 00:18:55.089 --> 00:18:57.549 kept popping up on opposite sides of the conflict. 00:18:58.309 --> 00:19:00.910 In North Africa, during Operation Torch, the 00:19:00.910 --> 00:19:03.470 armed forces of Vichy, France actually deployed 00:19:03.470 --> 00:19:06.029 NFTs against the allied invasion forces. That 00:19:06.029 --> 00:19:08.869 means there were actual combat engagements where 00:19:08.869 --> 00:19:11.789 French forces in Renault NFTs were actively trying 00:19:11.789 --> 00:19:15.089 to fight against newly arrived American M4 Sherman 00:19:15.089 --> 00:19:17.700 tanks. The technological mismatch there is almost 00:19:17.700 --> 00:19:19.940 hard to comprehend. It is. But incredibly, World 00:19:19.940 --> 00:19:22.339 War II wasn't even the end of the line. Let's 00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:24.519 fast forward through the entire Cold War. You'd 00:19:24.519 --> 00:19:27.119 think a 1916 tank is safely retired to museums 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:30.559 by now. But then we hit the 1980s. This is perhaps 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.039 the most astounding detail in the entire historical 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:35.700 record of the FT. During the Soviet -Afghan War 00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:38.619 in the 1980s, combatants in Afghanistan were 00:19:38.619 --> 00:19:41.180 still using these ancient NFTs as stationary 00:19:41.180 --> 00:19:43.799 pillboxes and roadblocks. And it gets even crazier. 00:19:44.029 --> 00:19:46.829 In 2003, during the U .S. occupation of Afghanistan, 00:19:47.289 --> 00:19:49.269 American forces literally discovered derelict 00:19:49.269 --> 00:19:51.809 Afghan military Renault NFTs sitting in scrap 00:19:51.809 --> 00:19:54.970 yards in Kabul. Just let that image sink in for 00:19:54.970 --> 00:19:59.269 a moment. A tank designed in 1916, an era when 00:19:59.269 --> 00:20:01.849 airplanes were still made of wood and canvas, 00:20:02.349 --> 00:20:05.390 sitting in a 21st century war zone where GPS 00:20:05.390 --> 00:20:08.170 -guided munitions and drones are operating overhead. 00:20:08.609 --> 00:20:11.529 It is absolutely mind -bending. It really closes 00:20:11.529 --> 00:20:14.789 a historical loop that spans nearly nine decades. 00:20:15.410 --> 00:20:17.890 From muddy trenches of the Western Front, to 00:20:17.890 --> 00:20:20.430 the beaches of Morocco, to the streets of Paris, 00:20:20.710 --> 00:20:22.950 and finally to the mountains of Afghanistan. 00:20:23.130 --> 00:20:26.750 The FT bore witness to the entire evolution of 00:20:26.750 --> 00:20:29.650 mechanized warfare. So what does this all mean 00:20:29.650 --> 00:20:31.990 for you? Think about the technology you interact 00:20:31.990 --> 00:20:34.369 with every single day. Your smartphone, your 00:20:34.369 --> 00:20:36.589 laptop, maybe your car. It probably feels obsolete 00:20:36.589 --> 00:20:38.109 after three or four years. We're conditioned 00:20:38.109 --> 00:20:40.470 for it. We are completely conditioned to a rapid 00:20:40.470 --> 00:20:43.049 cycle of technological replacement. Now imagine 00:20:43.049 --> 00:20:45.369 a machine engineered at a time when horse -drawn 00:20:45.369 --> 00:20:47.390 carriages were still sharing the roads with cars 00:20:47.390 --> 00:20:49.849 that completely dictated the permanent layout 00:20:49.849 --> 00:20:52.630 of all modern armor and physically remained in 00:20:52.630 --> 00:20:55.109 active combat zones for over 85 years. What a 00:20:55.109 --> 00:20:57.880 stunning legacy. The Renault FT is the ultimate 00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:00.119 testament to getting a design right the first 00:21:00.119 --> 00:21:02.180 time. It wasn't the biggest, it certainly wasn't 00:21:02.180 --> 00:21:04.480 the fastest, but its layout was so perfectly 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:07.019 conceived that it could not be fundamentally 00:21:07.019 --> 00:21:09.900 improved upon, only upgraded. And that leads 00:21:09.900 --> 00:21:13.490 to a really fascinating thread to pull on. The 00:21:13.490 --> 00:21:16.609 Renault FT's iconic shape, the turd on top, the 00:21:16.609 --> 00:21:18.930 crew in the front, the engine in the back, wasn't 00:21:18.930 --> 00:21:21.589 necessarily born purely from a stroke of theoretical 00:21:21.589 --> 00:21:25.089 genius. Right. As we discussed, that layout was 00:21:25.089 --> 00:21:27.869 heavily forced upon its designers by the strict 00:21:27.869 --> 00:21:30.470 weight limitations and the severe weakness of 00:21:30.470 --> 00:21:32.970 early 20th century engines. They had to organize 00:21:32.970 --> 00:21:35.529 it that way just to make the machine move. That's 00:21:35.529 --> 00:21:37.589 true. It raises an important question for you 00:21:37.589 --> 00:21:40.240 to explore on your own. What other foundational 00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:42.920 technologies in our modern world have been permanently 00:21:42.920 --> 00:21:45.380 locked into their current shapes? Not because 00:21:45.380 --> 00:21:47.740 it's the absolute best way to do it, but simply 00:21:47.740 --> 00:21:50.039 because of the temporary technological limitations 00:21:50.039 --> 00:21:52.539 of the specific era in which they were born. 00:21:53.539 --> 00:21:55.500 How much of the modern world we take for granted 00:21:55.500 --> 00:21:58.079 is just the legacy of an old workaround? That 00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:00.480 is a brilliant question to leave off on. Next 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:02.740 time you see a tank in a movie or on the news, 00:22:02.980 --> 00:22:04.940 you'll know exactly why it looks the way it does, 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:07.799 and you'll know the name Louis Renault. Thank 00:22:07.799 --> 00:22:10.079 you so much for joining us on this deep dive 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:12.619 into the little French tank that conquered the 00:22:12.619 --> 00:22:14.220 world. We'll catch you on the next one.