Tankettes

Tankette is a term used for small, lightly armored tracked combat vehicles designed in the interwar period for reconnaissance, infantry support, and training. Typically crewed by one to three personnel, tankettes were cheaper and simpler than main battle tanks and often had limited firepower and armor. Many designs were essentially armored tractors with a fixed gun or light armament and no fully rotating turret.

Design characteristics varied, but most tankettes were compact and lightly protected, with thin armor and modest speeds. They commonly relied on machine guns, sometimes supported by a light cannon or anti-tank weapon. Suspension was simple, and many models had no turret or a small turret, making endurance and cross-country performance their main strengths and weaknesses.

Interwar manufacturers and armies used tankettes to explore mechanized doctrine. The British Carden-Loyd tankette family and the Italian L3/33 and L3/35 are among the best-known examples; other countries experimented with similar vehicles. They were widely produced in the 1920s and 1930s and exported to several colonial and allied forces.

Operationally, tankettes served in limited roles during the late 1930s and early years of World War II. They proved vulnerable to anti-tank weapons, artillery, and more capable armored vehicles, and most were withdrawn from front-line service by the mid-war period. In some forces they survived in secondary roles or as training aids.

Legacy: Tankettes influenced early light armored reconnaissance and doctrine debates but demonstrated the limits of tiny, lightly armed platforms. They contributed to the shift toward more capable light tanks and armored car concepts that balanced firepower, protection, and mobility.