Peugeot Char 1918 37mm tank/SPG

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Hello everyone,

Everyone knows about the success of the Renault FT-17 tank. It was the first tank ever to use the “classic” turret configuration we see on practically all tanks of today and it started the long development of these war machines, that hasn’t ended yet and is constantly evolving. Every modern tank today owes to its existence to this little fellow.

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However, Renault was not the only French company, developing armor in WW1. In parallel with the development of the FT-17, other companies made their attempts as well. Notably, Peugeot came with its own tank project and the vehicle photographed above is the result of this undertaking. The vehicle development was initiated by Captain Oemichen, an engineer (developer), serving with the Special Artillery branch of the French military (l’Artillerie Spéciale). He proposed a vehicle, that was roughly similiar to the FT-17, but lacked a turret. On the other hand, the suspension of the vehicle was simplified.

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The suspension consisted of four roadwheels, paired via two bogeys with coil spring suspension, frontal leading wheel, rear drive sprocket and five small support rollers. The exposed parts of the suspension were protected by and armored plate. The hull was riveted and had the advantage of a roomy superstructure. In the back of the superstructure and on the sides were the crew doors, used also for loading of the ammunition into the vehicle. The main gun was the 37mm SA-18 (some sources incorrectly claim it the vehicle also carried the 75mm Blockhaus Schneider gun, but the photos seem to show only the 37mm variant), mounted in a ball mount in the frontal part of the superstructure, while being shifted a bit to the left from the axis of the vehicle. Alternatively, 8mm Hotchkiss MG could be mounted instead. The driver was sitting on the right side from the gun.

The vehicle weighed 8 tons and had a crew of two. Neither the parameters of the armor nor of its engine are currently known.

A single prototype was made by the end of 1918, when the defeat of Germany was already only a matter of months. The vehicle was trialled and compared to the FT-17, but regardless of its uniqueness, it was judged as being on part with the (already produced) FT-17, having no clear advantage over it. Under the circumstances, with the war almost over, the project was considered as superfluous and it was cancelled.

In World of Tanks, if the armor was discovered (original French books?), it could serve as a nice lowtier premium or even regular tank destroyer vehicle.

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Sources:
shushpanzer-ru.livejournal.com/1904275.html
shushpanzer-ru.livejournal.com/53479.html
www.chars-francais.net/new/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75&Itemid=3
mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/france/France-Other.html

31 thoughts on “Peugeot Char 1918 37mm tank/SPG”

      • Actually it would probably be quite different from the FT AC, assuming the rumors of it having the option of mounting a Blockhaus Schneider 75 mm gun are true, at which point it would be a really, really slow T18.

    • If it ends up as a premium, then it would work well as a gift tank(New Years, Godlen Joystick, Serbday, etc). We’ve not had a French gift tank so far.

  6. Looks like it has about the same size as the FT-17, but has more weight – so my guess is that it had a maximum ~30 mm armor

    • I doubt such a small tank would have 30mm of armour. By WWI standards, that was huge. The Mark tanks had max 12mm, the A7V had between 12 and 30mm. The only tank that had such a thick armor was the FCM A1 (with 35 mm front, 20mm sides). But it came too late and the project was cancelled, IIRC.

  7. “It was the first tank ever to use the “classic” turret configuration we see on practically all tanks of today”

    Wasn’t the Motorgeschütz the first tank with a turret? Or am I just confusing something? Of course, it never went even as far as a model but the design itself had it in 1911.

    • None knew or knows the Motorgeschutz, while the FT-17 was produced and exported all over the world. It would be like saying the first tank was Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing. It makes no sense.

  8. SS, do you take hall of fame shots?
    I just ran into an elitist racist that is using his “bot”account (44%) but is otherwise a 60+ player :D and insuling people as barbarians (Polish, rfor some reason… damn sad :D)

      • http://tinypic.com/r/2eun97o/8
        Rasism. Hm, you mean these illiterate animals calling you camper when you kill them literally from their own base and then spamming your hangar chat with polish swearing involving “fucking your mum”?

        Why dont you mock this trash SS? Is alright when these fucks abuse people? Why do you suck only polish dicks SS? Why these retards are not in hall of shame? Why are you such a cunt that envies to good players, good clans and WG? How small is your dick? Is that because you suck in this game like these retards?

        Please honest answers or ban.Thanks

  10. Quite weird that Peugeot decided to improve on the (knowingly shitty) FT-17′s suspensions, but still went for a turret-less design. I guess the advantage of turreted tanks wasn’t that obvious in 1918.

    In any case, would make a cool tier 2 premium, or serves as a starting point for the second TD branch. I wish they added the FCM A1 too. That was a killing beast by WWI standards (35mm armor, 75mm gun, with 105 mm planed).

  12. Hey,
    Well, there is some mistakes there :

    1-) “The main gun was the 37mm SA-18 (some sources incorrectly claim it the vehicle also carried the 75mm Blockhaus Schneider gun, but the photos seem to show only the 37mm variant)”.
    The main gun of the “char d’accompagnement amélioré à canon de 75S Peugeot” (the real name) is the 75mm BS (Blockhaus Schneider). The name just prove this and official document can prove it also. Moreover, I think you never saw the 37mm Puteaux SA18, because it don’t look like the gun on these photos at all! I don’t know who tell you it was the 37mm Puteaux SA18 but he is of course wrong.

    2-) “The vehicle weighed 8 tons”
    No, it weighed 9 tons

    3-) “Neither the parameters of the armor nor of its engine are currently known.”
    Concerning the armor, it’ around 30mm in the front and 16mm on the other side. However, there is no data to prove it.
    Concerning the engine, it was either the “Renault 4 cylindres” (35 HP) or the “Peugeot 4 cylindres” (40-45 HP). It might also be a new unknown engine.

    4-) “The vehicle was trialled and compared to the FT-17, but regardless of its uniqueness, it was judged as being on part with the (already produced) FT-17, having no clear advantage over it”
    Not really, the vehicle was not produce because the Renault FT 75 BS was already produced! Moreover, because the war was over, there was no reason to produce it in addition of the FT 75 BS.

    That all :P

    Furthermore, about it : “In World of Tanks, if the armor was discovered (original French books?), it could serve as a nice lowtier premium or even regular tank destroyer vehicle.”. In the topic the french community made about the perfect french tech tree, the Peugeot 75 BS is a regular tier II SPG (a TD with the 75 BS would be really hard to play).

    At last, but not at least, the info you can find on the website “chars-francais.net” are not all right, be careful! Besides, the webside “mailer.fsu.edu is worst, nearly half of the info are wrong. Finely, I don’t speak russian, so I can’t check if this website “shushpanzer-ru” has got good info or not.

    Best regards :)

    • “Concerning the armor, it’ around 30mm in the front and 16mm on the other side. However, there is no data to prove it.”

      …if there’s no data available to prove it, then how do you know? Extrapolation from available photos and information about other armor of the time?

      • It’s a study from photos and document :
        As you can see, the Peugeot 75 BS weighed 1,8 tons more than the FT 75 BS (7,2 tons). Even if it is bigger than the FT 75 BS, it is not bigger enough to explain why he is heavier than the FT 75 BS. Nevertheless, we can say that the 75mm BS is heavier than the 37mm APX SA18, but it only weighed few more tens of kilo. Moreover, suspensions were not only simplified about the mecanic but also about the weighed. As a consequence, the Peugeot’s suspensions were lighter than the FT’s suspensions. As a result, we have :
        -> a weight gain about the size (around 1,5 tons maybe)
        -> a weight gain about the gun (around 0,2 tons)
        -> a weight loss about the suspension (around 0,5 tons)
        -> a weight gain about armor and other things (1,8+0,5-0,2-1,5 = around 0,6 tons)
        And the upgrade from 22 mm to 30 mm in the front can weighed 0,6 tons.
        However, there is no data, so it may be wrong. As you said, it’s only speculation and extrapolation from photos and document. :)