Other Forces

Soviet-built T-26 tanks at Brunete.

Spanish Republican (Government) orderlies evacuate wounded in the course of the Republicans' Brunete offensive, July, 1937. The Soviets supplied the Republicans with some 300 Model 1933 T-36 light tanks, some 100 of which fought at Brunete. As Model 1933s, all of these vehicles would have had single turrets (pre-1933 versions included a dual-turret version), all-rivetted armour, and one of a range of guns of 37mm, 45mm or 47mm. The Soviet 45mm L/46 was pretty standard at the time. The T-26 was yet another "offspring" of the British Vickers 6-ton "commercial" tank, a vehicle that never fought itself, but that proved very influential on subsequent tank design. The T-26 appears to have been the best tank involved in the Spanish Civil War. German appraisals indicated that the PzKpfw I's 7.92mm machine-guns, firing steel-cored armour-piercing bullets, could penetrate their armour at reasonable range. However, since all 1933 Model T-26 machines carried a (for the time) effective antitank cannon as main armament, it was merely necessary for the T-26 to stand off the PzKpfw I a bit further, allowing it to destroy the Mark I at will without any significant threat to itself from the latter's inadequate armament. The T-26, in improved versions, continued to serve (albeit in a diminishing capacity) with the Soviet Red Army through WW2 to the very end; at the beginning of the war, the bulk of the Soviet tank force was in fact composed of improved T-26 types, principally the T-26S with heavier, welded armour and a standardised 45mm gun. Light though it was, this was an important tank for the Soviet Union, sometimes overlooked in the shadow of the KV-1 and T-34. Best regards, JR.