At one time, land mines of various classes were widely used, designed to exclude the advancement of enemy troops or equipment. The logical response to this was the emergence of special equipment or devices capable of making passages in mine-explosive obstacles. A significant part of such developments suited the military and went into series, while other projects did not even leave the drawings. A striking representative of the latter is the Char de Déminage Renault demining vehicle, created by French specialists.
Progress in the field of mine weapons and tactics of their use, observed during the twenties and thirties of the last century, led to obvious conclusions. The leading armies of Europe began to develop special equipment capable of demining. In addition, additional devices were created for installation on existing combat vehicles. Several projects of additional equipment and special vehicles were proposed by the French company Renault. One of them implied the creation of armored vehicles of an unusual appearance, using rather bold methods of defusing explosive devices.
Side view of the machine
Unfortunately, the promising project did not even reach the stage of assembling mock-ups, not to mention the construction and testing of full-fledged prototypes. As a result, a significant part of the information about him has not survived. Moreover, due to the rather early rejection of the project, the designers could not have time to determine some of the nuances of the technical appearance of the machine. As a result, the most interesting development has reached our days only in the form of a single scheme and not too voluminous description.
According to reports, a promising project for an armored demining vehicle was proposed in the last months of 1939. Probably, the appearance of such a proposal was directly related to the recent attack by Nazi Germany on Poland. The successful Polish campaign of the Wehrmacht clearly demonstrated the importance of a variety of armored vehicles and modern techniques for their use. One of the results of these events was the intensification of work on the creation of new projects of combat and auxiliary vehicles in a number of European countries.
The new project of the Renault company received a rather simple name, reflecting both the purpose of the armored vehicle and indicating its developer - Char de Déminage Renault (Renault mine clearance tank). It is under this name that an interesting specimen remained in history. Often, for simplicity, the full name of an engineering machine is abbreviated to CDR.
As follows from the surviving information, the Char de Déminage Renault / CDR project had curious features that made it difficult to accurately classify it. The main task of the proposed technique was to make passages in the enemy's minefields. As a result, it could be attributed to the class of armored demining vehicles. At the same time, the project proposed the use of sufficiently powerful armor and weapons, similar to those used on some tanks of that time. Thus, the CDR could just as well be considered a medium or even heavy tank. As a result, a universal machine was obtained, capable of going into battle, attacking the enemy with artillery and machine-gun fire, as well as making a passage for other military equipment and infantry.
By the end of the thirties, various means of mine clearance had already been proposed and tested at landfills, but Renault specialists decided to use a different principle in their new project. According to their idea, the mine trawl should be combined with the chassis. The destruction of explosive devices was to be carried out using the tracks of an armored vehicle and an additional roller. Probably, due to this, it was planned to somewhat simplify the project by abandoning separate attachments. At the same time, an unusual proposal led to the need for a specific design of the hull and chassis.
From the proposal of the engineers, it followed that for the most effective making of the passages, the demining armored vehicle needs the widest possible tracks, between which the body of the minimum width will be located. To create a similar chassis, some of the existing developments could be used. In particular, in order to obtain an optimal layout, the track had to cover the side of the hull. Such layout solutions have already been used in some projects of French tanks and, in general, have not been subjected to much criticism.
According to the surviving scheme, the CDR demining tank was supposed to receive a relatively large hull of a complex polygonal design. The known diagrams depict a structure consisting of even parts of different shapes, mated to each other at different angles. As the project developed, the hull design could be changed in one way or another. At the same time, the main ideas of the project, apparently, should not have undergone significant changes.
The available drawings show that the Char de Déminage Renault tank was supposed to receive a hull that occupies almost the entire overall width of the vehicle. At the same time, most of it was covered by caterpillars. The contours of the main body were determined by the shape of the tracks. In the center of the hull, a superstructure was provided, which was necessary to accommodate some devices and units. Apparently, the body was not planned to be divided into separate volumes, as traditional layouts suggest. In the central part of the hull, a power plant was supposed to be located, a transmission could be located behind it, and other volumes were given for weapons and crew jobs.
The main unit of the hull, the sides of which were considered as a support for the undercarriage, by its shape made us recall the early tanks of the period of the First World War. An armored box of the required width with a vertical outer side was located inside the tracks. Its frontal part had an inclined upper part. Provided for a vertical front cut of the side, turning into an inclined plane. Under the protection of this part of the side were the elements of the undercarriage. The hull was to receive a horizontal roof and bottom. The feed of the onboard units was formed by a large inclined top sheet and a bevel of the side. It was also planned to display the drive wheel there.
View from above
The front parts of the hull, covered by a caterpillar, protruded slightly forward relative to the central unit. The latter, in general, repeated their shape in the lateral projection, but was equipped with a superstructure raised above their roof. To accommodate the required devices between the tracks along the entire length of the armored vehicle, a superstructure of a rectangular cross-section passed. At the stern, it had a reduced height, for which it was equipped with a sloping roof. The aft part of the superstructure protruded noticeably above the inclined roof of the onboard units. A small turret was to be located in the center of the superstructure.
Probably, a promising demining armored vehicle should have been equipped with a relatively powerful carburetor engine. Judging by the ventilation grilles shown in the diagram, the motor was placed in the center of the case. With the help of a mechanical transmission, the torque was to be delivered to the aft drive wheels. The undercarriage of the car was based on older developments. Large guide wheels and drive wheels were placed in front and behind, and a large number of small road wheels had to be mounted on the bottom of the on-board units. The type of suspension planned for use is unknown.
One of the main ideas of the CDR project was to use large-width tracks, assembled from fairly thick and large tracks. It was with the help of tracks that the combat vehicle was supposed to destroy mines. There is no detailed information about the design parameters of the tracks and other similar features of the project. In the matter of mine clearance, the tracks were supposed to be assisted by an additional roller. It should have been placed in front of the hull bottom, between the tracks. Thus, the tracks had to make a rut passage, and the roller made it solid.
Despite its engineering purpose, the Char de Déminage Renault vehicle could receive sufficiently advanced weapons for self-defense and enemy attacks. In the frontal unit of the superstructure, it was possible to place a gun mount with a cannon up to 75 mm in caliber. In the front of the sides and the aft superstructure, it was planned to mount ball mounts for rifle caliber machine guns. Thus, the crew could fire at targets in almost any direction, with the exception of small dead zones. At the same time, objects in a large sector of the front hemisphere were included in the responsibility zone of the 75-mm gun.
The composition of the crew is unknown. It can be assumed that under the conical turret on the superstructure there was a control post with a driver's workplace. The presence of the gun required at least two more tankers to be added to the crew. Machine gun control could be assigned to two or three shooters. Thus, as the project developed, the crew could include at least 5-6 people. Their jobs, like the tanks of the First World War, were distributed over all the free volumes of the hull.
The dimensions and weight of the proposed vehicle are unknown. According to some reports, the total length should have slightly exceeded 4 m. In this case, the width and height of the tank turned out to be at the level of 1, 2-1, 5 m. The combat weight could be no more than 10-12 tons, thanks to which the tank had some chances to show high speed on the highway or rough terrain. Nevertheless, such a compact machine would hardly have been able to take on board all the desired weapons. In addition, the limited transverse dimensions negatively affected the width of the passage to be made. To obtain a passage with a width of 2.5-3 m, it would be necessary to proportionally increase the body with understandable consequences for weight characteristics and mobility indicators.
A preliminary version of the Char de Déminage Renault project was developed in 1939, reviewed by specialists and immediately put aside. Despite the mass of original ideas and the alleged potential, the real future of the proposed design looked, to put it mildly, doubtful. From the point of view of practical application, the unusual tank-machine for demining had a lot of the most serious shortcomings, which did not allow to fully solve the main tasks. Any processing in order to obtain acceptable characteristics also did not seem possible, and did not seem advisable.
It can be argued that all the main problems of the project were associated with not the most successful proposal underlying it. As conceived by the creators, the CDR armored vehicle was supposed to use "multifunctional" tracks: they were both a mover and a means of neutralizing explosive devices. It is easy to guess that the implementation of such principles does not look easy even with the use of current materials and technologies. By the standards of the late thirties, such ideas generally turned out to be beyond the realm of the possible. To fulfill the existing plans, it was necessary to create a caterpillar with especially strong tracks and protected hinges, capable of continuing to work even after a series of explosions. Otherwise, the destruction of the caterpillar instantly turned the car into a stationary target for enemy artillery.
Nevertheless, the likelihood of a mine being detonated under the track of a mine-clearing vehicle might not be too high. The increase in the width and, as a consequence, the area of the caterpillar should have led to a decrease in the specific pressure on the ground. Thus, not too much weight would be transferred to the mine. This could protect the tank from detonation, but it hardly led to the destruction of the ammunition. In other words, a mine-clearing machine could not solve its main task.
The creation of the required pressure on the ground and the mines hidden in it would also not allow combat work with acceptable results. If the information about the length of the vehicle a little more than 4 m corresponds to reality, then even to make a track suitable for the passage of other equipment, the work of at least two armored vehicles would be required. In other words, even in this case, it would not be possible to obtain the desired results.
Front view
The developed armament complex in the form of a cannon and three machine guns could hardly show high firepower and combat effectiveness. The cannon could fire only within a small part of the front hemisphere, and machine guns were intended for firing sideways and backwards. In a real battle, this would seriously limit the ability of an armored vehicle to defend itself or attack enemy targets.
The defense was no better. Even with the use of thick armor of the hull, the survivability of the tank left much to be desired. When firing from the front hemisphere, there was a high probability of hitting large caterpillars. Damage to the track in the form of a broken track or pivot could have fatal consequences.
Already at the preliminary design stage, the unusual Char de Déminage armored mine clearance vehicle from Renault proved to be ineffective. The tank had no real advantages, but at the same time it was distinguished by a number of problems and negative features. In addition, it turned out to be too complex to manufacture and operate. As a consequence, the original proposal was rejected immediately after the preliminary draft was prepared.
As far as is known, a full-fledged project of the CDR demining armored vehicle was not developed or offered to the French military. Naturally, it did not come to the construction and testing of a prototype. It should be noted that even after receiving approval from the leaders of the developer company, the CDR project could hardly come to real results. Just months after the work stopped, France was involved in World War II and was soon occupied. These events, most likely, would lead to a complete halt of already begun work.
The Char de Déminage Renault project did not leave the stage of forming the general appearance and preliminary study. Nevertheless, and with an early end, he gave some real results. Having studied an unusual proposal, French engineers were able to establish that such an appearance of engineering technology has no real prospects, and should not be developed further. Later, after the liberation, France no longer used such ideas, although it tried to create armored mine clearance vehicles of an unusual type.
