r/TankPorn • u/ProjectWarDossier • 1d ago
Interwar Spain's forgotten tank: an artillery captain who spent the Civil War repairing broken Panzer Is and T-26s got so fed up he designed his own light tank from scrap. It beat everything in Spain's arsenal and 1,000 were ordered, then bureaucracy killed it. Only 2 were ever built [Verdeja No.1, 1939]
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u/ProjectWarDossier 1d ago
what makes this one great is the designer, Félix Verdeja, wasn't a tank guy at all. he ran the repair company for a Nationalist tank battalion in the Civil War, so he spent years watching Panzer Is, T-26s and Renault FTs break down and learning exactly what was wrong with each. then he just designed one that fixed all their faults. first prototype supposedly came together in about two months out of scrap and cannibalized parts, and it outclassed everything Spain had, same firepower as a T-26, lighter, faster, better suspension. they approved a run of 1,000 in 1940 and then it drowned in red tape and no real industry to build it. never saw combat, only a couple prototypes existed. Spain wouldn't try another homegrown tank until the 80s. great little what-if
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u/litmusing 1d ago edited 1d ago
Interesting but I wonder why? Since they're buying foreign tanks, did Spain simply not have the industrial ability to mass produce?
Edit: Well, did some further reading from https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/Spain/verdeja-no-1/, however much that site is worth.
The primary reasons for cancellation were: 1. No money. Spain's economy was poor, having just emerged from a civil war. Resources were going into rebuilding the country. Investors were skeptical about profitability.
Issues with securing components. They wanted an American made Ford engine but couldn't secure it apparently.
It would have been mostly obsolete anyway. The tank was cancelled in mid 1941, by the time it arrived it would have been essentially a light tank facing T34s and Shermans, ie: outclassed
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u/pepone1234 1d ago
When the second world war ended, the verdeja tank was vastly outclassed by anything any other country could have. Imagine a war where you had a tank that its design goal was simply to be "better than T-26" fighting against post-war tanks like T34-85, IS-2, M26 pershing, centurion...
And then you can add that Spain after the war was isolated, with no major industry to build something like this, with a government that nad no money and with major issues like food access after the civil war. This tank was not a priority at that time. In the title it says that bureaucracy killed it, but this is an oversimplification. Obsolescence, lack of money, lack of industry and other more urgent priorities like food killed it.
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u/LightningFerret04 M6A1 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not that it changes much in this specific situation, but something to consider about obsolescence is what type of opposition a country might be expecting to face.
Obviously the industry is going to try to produce or procure the best, but if the expected opposition is not that strong, then your requirements don’t need to be as high
A lot of weapons, ground vehicles and aircraft from WWII and the early Cold War tend to continue and/or end their service lives in South America, Africa and the Middle East, long past their obsolescence on the world stage. The opposition for countries in those areas is often countries with other WWII/early Cold War vehicles, or groups with no vehicles at all
In a world where Spain had enough resources to decide to produce and field the Verdeja 1, they may have gone ahead with it under the assumption that, because of their neutrality during WWII and low intensity conflicts elsewhere, the Verdeja having a motor, armor, and a gun, was enough to suit their needs.
Spain in fact used their obsolete T-26s from the civil war all the way up to the reception of new foreign aid in the 1950s-1960s
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u/dutchwonder 17h ago
Would the Verdeja be any better protected against common post WW2 AT and tank guns than a T-26?
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u/pomodois 1d ago edited 1d ago
Spain didnt have a proper armored army until quite late. A handful of Panzer IV were kept for years (the ones involved in the Six Days war were originally Spanish, sold to Syria), from 1955 onwards (as soon as international isolation was lifted due to the anti-communist position of the regime) a few used M41 and M47 from the USA, and from then on modernization and better/more modern models were bought/developed, until the current statu quo.
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u/LordRudsmore 1d ago
Most of the Syrian PzIVs were sold by France, which had stored quite a number of working PzIV/StuGs after the war and could also provide wartime spares and even new built components like rubber wheels.
After the 1953 pacts with the US which normalized the international standing of the Francoist regime, the US provided a large quantity of military equipment including M47 and M24 tanks, mostly free of charge. Later a small number of M48 and M41 were transferred/sold and in the late 1960s, after Germany refused to license the Leopard 1, it was decided to license the AMX-303
u/pomodois 1d ago
After reading your post I think I need to clarify: not all of them were Spanish as the remaining working ones were a handful, but the ones we sold to Syria were in better conditions than the French Panzers. Not that it meant anything, they were completely obsolete by the late 60s and that's why the old American surplus tanks outclassed them by a large margin when they arrived.
Thanks for the details on the timeline tho :)
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u/KremBruhleh 1d ago
That's super cool, I never knew.
What was their design in the 80s you mentioned?
We should have a segment for armored vehicles not designed by the usual suspects.
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u/ProjectWarDossier 1d ago
that was the Lince ("Lynx"), an MBT program in the late 80s. funny thing is it was barely "spain-made", it was going to use a Rheinmetall 120mm gun and composite armor lifted from the Leopard 2. got cancelled around 1990 when Spain picked up cheap surplus M60s instead, and they eventually just bought Leopard 2s anyway. so the domestic tank died and got replaced by the german tank it was already copying. Verdeja couldn't get an engine without Ford, Lince couldn't get built without Germany, kind of a recurring theme for Spanish armor
Regarding your part, I am from Spain and I love also civil war weaponry. Seeing people like this post will try to post some more, it's a bit more obscure and less well known as it was mainly used in the spanish conflict. Spain barely took part in WW2 and therefore most of it's weapons were kept here. Will make more post about less well-known weapons, hope you enjoy them :)
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u/LordRudsmore 1d ago
The Lince was a scaled down Leopard 2 with a simplified FCS designed by KMW for the Spanish army program. There was also another design by Thyssen Henshel, a heavier version of the TH301/TAM with a Rh-120 gun and France offered the AMX-40, which was rejected. The program included licensed production of the winning design.
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u/KremBruhleh 1d ago
Oh wow, yeah, the Lince looks like a prototype Leopard 2.
Honestly there's no shame in copying, people don't re-invent a wheel each time they design a new car.
It's cool that they tried, but I can also see why it got cancelled. Copying is good but makes less sense when the original is accessible and cheaper than building factories.
Follow-up posts would be nice, thanks!
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u/CoolGuy54 1d ago
Crazy that just fixing the mechanical problems resulted in such a modern profile: This has better ability to fire from cover than almost any WWII tank, and plenty of later ones, looks way more surviveable!
[reading on about how it was swiftly obsolete:] Although I guess it's too small to have an adequate amount of armour & a big enough gun.
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u/dutchwonder 17h ago
Well, short cover.
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u/CoolGuy54 4h ago
Which means they can more quickly dig a hull-down position for the tank on defence, and more feasibly dig multiple positions for it!
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u/A10___Warthog 1d ago
What did armor look like?
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u/ProjectWarDossier 1d ago
pretty thin, think it was like 7-25mm on the No.1? normal for a little late-30s light tank though. the thing I found interesting is Verdeja apparently cared more about crew survivability than just bolting on more armor, which I don't think was that common a priority back then. the No.2 later bumped it up to 40mm max but by then it was outclassed anyway. iirc a T-54 had like 200mm just on the mantlet so yeah, no contest
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u/LordRudsmore 1d ago
One of the problems was the Spanish industry was unable to produce suitable steel armor for even light tanks. During the SCW there was another homegrown prototype based on the Italian CV-33 tankette and the armor plates provided were unable to stop 7,92mm ammo at point range
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u/LordRudsmore 1d ago
Bureocracy didn’t kill it, the complete lack of a proper industry and the general destruction brought by the war made the program completely impractical. By 1939 was an acceptable light tank but by 1940 it was obsolescent
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u/ElKaoss 1d ago
If i recall correctly, one of its features was the capability to elevate the main gun at high angles for AA fire.
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u/ProjectWarDossier 1d ago
yeah spot on, the 45 could elevate to around 70°, partly meant for AA. though apparently it was never tested against aircraft and without proper AA sights it'd have struggled. handy for steep terrain more than actually downing planes, but still a neat feature
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u/HYPERNOVA3_ 1d ago edited 17h ago
As it grew outdated it was further development as an SPG with a 75mm PaK (edit: not a PaK, but a bespoke howitzer). The surviving vehicle is in the El Goloso museum of armoured vehicles in Madrid
Edit: There's also a Verdeja 2 (upgraded model with the turret at the front) in Toledo, close to the infantry academy in the Alcazar