Romania Poland Turkey Israel Kingdom of Yugoslavia Nazi Germany Italy Bulgaria Hungary Switzerland Australia Syria The Renault R35, an abbreviation of Char léger Modèle 1935 R or R 35, was a French light infantry tank of the Second World War.

To this end it was relatively well-armoured but slow and lacking a good antitank capacity, fitted with a short 37 mm gun.

At the outbreak of the war, the antitank role was more emphasized leading to the development and eventual production from April 1940 of a subtype with a more powerful longer gun, the Renault R40.

It was planned to shift new production capacity to the manufacture of other, faster, types, but due to the defeat of France, the R35/40 remained the most numerous French tank of the war, with about 1685 vehicles having been produced by June 1940.

The development plan of 1926 foresaw the introduction of a char d'accompagnement, a cheap mass-produced light tank to replace the Renault FT of World War I vintage, to make it possible for the standard infantry divisions to execute combined arms infiltration tactics, seen as the only viable method of modern offensive warfare left for non-motorised units.

Fourteen companies responded (among which Delaunay-Belleville) and five submitted a prototype: Hotchkiss itself, the Compagnie Général de Construction des Locomotives, APX, FCM and of course France's prime tank producer: Renault.

Fearing that his rival Hotchkiss might well replace him as such, Louis Renault hurried to finish a vehicle; construction was soon in such an advanced stage that the changes in specification issued on 21 June 1934, to increase armour thickness from 30 to 40 mm, could not be implemented.

In the spring of 1935 this vehicle was refitted with heavier armour and a standard APX turret, attached by the Atelier de Rueil between 18 and 25 April.

The cast APX hexagonal turret had a 30 mm thick domed rotatable cupola with vertical vision slits (the highest point of 2.13 m) and had to be either hand cranked or moved about by the weight of the commander, the only other crew member.

Afterwards the APX turret with the same cannon but the improved L739 sight and the standard Châtellerault 7.5 mm MAC31 Reibel machine gun was used because of delivery delays of the original weapon.

It was intended to fit the R 40 with the welded FCM turret in the second half of 1940, while refitting all existing R 35s with the longer SA 38 gun and bringing R 40 production levels up to 120 per month for the duration of the war.

From January 1940, the vehicles of light tank unit commanders were gradually uparmed with the longer gun; but as absolute priority was given to tanks serving in armoured divisions, which were of the Hotchkiss type, of the 273 platoon, company and battalion commanders eligible in Renault units, only a few if any received this "R 39".

The only official possible exception to the rule that Hotchkiss tanks had to be modified first was made on 12 February 1940 when it was ordered to replace the turrets of 24 Infantry tanks, without specifying the type, present in depot or driver schools in order to obtain older turrets to be fitted on R 35 export vehicles.

[4] In the same period a crash programme was executed to produce 200,000 armour piercing rounds per month for the shorter gun, as there had been only minimal stocks of this ammunition type.

On 1 September 1939, at the outbreak of war, 975 vehicles had been delivered out of 1070 produced; 765 were fielded by tank battalions in France, 49 used for drive training, 33 were in depot and 45 present in the colonies.

[citation needed] As the threat of war became apparent and the production rate of Polish 7TP tank was insufficient, it was decided to buy vehicles abroad.

After a series of tests it was found that the design was disappointing: the engine was overheating, the suspension was tough, and armament insufficient.

The first shipment of fifty (other sources lower the number to 49) arrived in Poland in July 1939, along with three Hotchkiss H35 tanks bought for testing.

Six tanks were attached to the 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade in Stanisławów (today Ivano-Frankivsk); they forced their way through Kolomyia and three vehicles crossed the Hungarian border.

The remaining tanks - four R35s and three H35s - were put into service with the improvised Dubno Operational Group and took part in the battles of Krasne on 19 September (with the Soviets) and Kamionka Strumiłowa (with the Germans), during which all were destroyed.

[8] As part of a rearmament program of the late 1930s, Romania sought to obtain a license for the local manufacture of two hundred French Renault R35 infantry tanks.

The Soviet gun was attached to the French turret with the help of an extension which contained the recoil mechanism of the 45 mm piece.

They were refurbished at the Army Arsenal in Târgoviște while the new gun mounts containing the recoil mechanism were made at the Concordia Works in Ploiești.

In addition the 1st and 2nd Tank Battalion of the Polish 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade, at first training with Renault FTs, were equipped with 17 R35s and about 24 R40s in late May; in June the R40s had been given back but replaced by 28 new ones.

The tanks in Syria would fight during the allied invasion of that mandate territory in 1941 and then partly be taken over by the Free French 1e CCC, those in North Africa during Operation Torch in November 1942.

A considerable number, 174 according to some sources,[12] were converted into a 47 mm tank destroyer to replace the Panzerjäger I: the 4,7 cm PaK(t) auf Panzerkampfwagen 35R(f) ohne Turm.

[citation needed] The Royal Italian Army received 124 R35s with which the 4th Tank Infantry Regiment formed two battalions.

There, the regiment's CII Tank Battalion R35 was assigned to the XII Army Corps defending the island's West, while the regimental command and CI Tank Battalion R35 were assigned to the XVI Army Corps defending the island's East.

It had been long thought that the defenders had incapacitated it with the help of a 20 mm anti-tank gun and Molotov cocktails;[21] however, a 1991 IDF probe proved that this R35 had been knocked out by a PIAT round.

Some of the Lebanese vehicles had been rebuilt with a British 40 mm Ordnance QF 2-pounder gun, seeing action in the 1958 Lebanon crisis.