Cíochbhratach tankette
The Type 27 FTA, nicknamed the 'Cíochbhratach' (Aenglish/Burg: Cuirassier), was a light tank or in its original classification a 'heavy tankette' or cavalry tank produced by Faneria from 1929-1942. Its long production history hinged on its numerous variants, including prime mover, command, and medevac variants, as well as its original form and an up-armored and refined version produced beginning in 1942. It was extensive service in the Second Great War by Faneria and to a much smaller extent by Dericanian forces, and was designed as a direct fire support vehicle.
| Cíochbhratach Type 1927 FTA | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | FTA Light Tank/Tankette |
| Place of origin | Faneria |
| Service history | |
| Wars | Second Great War |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Cantwell Tram Co. |
| Designed | 1923-1927 |
| Produced | 1929-1942 |
| No. built | 3,431 (all variants) |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 6.5 tons as designed; 7.4 tons (1941) |
| Length | 12'6" |
| Width | 5'9" (1927), 5'11" (1941) |
| Height | 6'2" (1927), 6'3" (1941) |
| Crew | 2 (Commander/Driver, Gunner) |
| Armor | up to 0.5" (1927), 1" (1936) 1.5" (1941) |
| Maximum speed | 36 mph (1927), 34 mph (1941) |
History
Design and Trials
The performance of the Type 27 on trials went well, and the prototype was contracted both to Cantwell Tram Co.'s new subsidiary company, Cantwell Motors, as well as the National Armor Plant.
Performance
Design
The Type 27 was variably equipped with a 1" cannon or a .5" machine gun, and in rare cases the original armament was removed to fit a handheld flamethrower to the vehicle with mixed success. The tankette was lightly armored, intended to stop small arms fire with its .5" plate armor; later variations added up to an inch of additional armor as well as skirts or bars for mounting sandbags to increase protection from machine gun and anti-tank rifle fire. The tankette was unable to compete with other armored vehicles and was not intended to fight medium tanks, instead operating as a stand-in for locally-allocated artillery; as a result, its engine, which was capable of a maximum speed of 36 miles per hour, was one of the only components to not be refitted or remodeled in the standard design plans by 1940, by which point the top speed had dropped to 21 miles per hour, making it slower than newer armor capable of disabling the Type 27 easily. Predictably, production of the Type 27 slowed drastically throughout the war in favor of heavier tanks, with a low end of 23 new systems produced in the last year of the conflict.
Variants
A number of planned and improvised alterations to Type 27s in service saw a range of support vehicles created from the Type 27 chassis. An unarmed communications variant with long-range radio equipment and a stripped-down, open-topped towing vehicle were constructed under the respective aliases of the T27-A and T27-B, while assault units often rigged their tankettes with pintle-mounted machine guns for an additional crewman riding on the exterior to use when available. As mentioned above, several T27s were modified to fit flamethrowers in an urban assault role, but doing so was dangerous and risked immolating the crew, and the practice was heavily discouraged.