AAC-1937

AAC-1937 (Auto Ametralladora blindado medio Chevrolet-1937)
A ACC-1937 drawing, with a 37mm Puteaux cannon
Type Armored car
Place of origin  Catalonia
Service history
Used by Catalonia
Second Spanish Republic
Francoist Spain
French Third Republic
Nazi Germany
Wars Spanish Civil War
World War II
Production history
Designer War Industry Commission in Catalonia
Designed 1937
Manufacturer Hispano-Suiza
Produced 1937–1938
No. built 60-90
Specifications
Weight 4,354 t[1]
Length 4.4 m
Width 2.25 m
Height 2.4 m
Crew 4 (gunner, driver, machine gunner and commandant)
Armor 8 mm
Main
armament
 1x37mm Puteaux SA 18 cannon, a T-26B or BA-6 turret, a HMG
Secondary
armament
 1×7.92 hull machine gun
Engine Chevrolet OHV 216.5-ci (gasoline motor of 6 cylinder)
78 hp at 3,200 revolutions per minute
Suspension wheeled 6x4
Operational
range
 250 km in road
Speed 62 km/h

The AAC-1937, which means Auto Ametralladora blindado medio Chevrolet-1937, also known as Chevrolet 1937, was an armored car developed and built in Catalonia. After the dismantling of the War Industry Commission of Catalonia, the Sub secretary of Weapons and Ammunitions of Spain got Soviet engineers to build a new armoured vehicle. They took the BA-6 like a basis for the new vehicle, and they built a very similar vehicle, the AAC-1937 in the Hispano-Suiza factory in Barcelona, using a chassis of the General Motors Peninsular.[1]

With a total building of between 60 and 90 units, the AAC-1937 fought in the Spanish Civil War in the east: in the Aragon offensive and in the Catalonia offensive. With different kinds of weaponry, but with a good production, it was the best armoured vehicle produced during the fights in Catalonia.

After the fall of Catalonia (also known as La retirada), the AAC-1937 went to the armies of France or Spain. And with the start of WW2 these vehicles saw use in the Battle of France and the Germans captured some of them. Later they used them in the Eastern Front, where they were destroyed by the Soviets during the first months of the conflict.[2]

Antecedents

After the First World War, Spain acquired 12 Renault FT-17 and 6 Schneider CA1 to France. In 1921, those tanks were sent to Morocco, where they received their fire baptism in 17 March 1922 with bad results: they advanced the infantry and they were surrounded and isolated, some had the machine guns encased, and suffered heavy losses. After that bad start, they gave punctual support in the Rif War, with a great success in the Alhucemas landing, a decisive victory that led to their return to Spain.[3]

The Moroccan campaign demonstrated the importance of these new weapons and encouraged the acquisition of more tanks, some Fiat 3000 to the Kingdom of Italy in 1924, and the production of a national tank in 1925: the Trubia A4. The Sanjuanada of 1926, a coup d'état, made that the tanks, usually associated to the artillery officers that participated, lost the favour of the administration and cancelled the projects of national production.[4]

The tanks that were operative before the Spanish Civil War were joined in 2 units: the Regimiento Ligero de Carros de Combate (LCC) número 1, stationed near Madrid, and the Regimiento LCC número 2, near Saragossa.[4]

Startings

In Catalonia, after the July 1936 military uprising in Barcelona, the workers decided to help the war effort producing weapons, including tanks.

Starting from zero, and after the initial chaos, the War Industry Commission in Catalonia was in charge of managing the production. During that period they built a lot of experimental vehicles with a wide variety of uses and performances.

After the May Days, the Republican Government took all the charges of the weapons and ammunition industries of all the Republican territory, including the Catalan one.[5] Also the Italian and German navy controlled a lot of the naval routes to the Iberian peninsula, and because of that, the Soviet Union wasn't able to send resources via sea. Because all of that, the Second Spanish Republic became interested in building a national tank or armoured vehicle.

The Spanish sub secretary of weapons, with the help of soviet engineers, started to develop a new heavy armored vehicle in April 1937, taking the BA-6 as a reference. The most famous vehicle was the AAC-1937, which was based on the chassis of the Chevrolet SD 1937 truck, from General Motors Peninsular, produced in Barcelona.

The problem was that the Chevy SD 1937 only had 2 axles, and the extra weight added because of the armour made it too unstable. To fix it, they added axles of the soviet GAZ trucks, that were copies of the American designs. The outcome was that the AAC-1937 was very similar to the BA-6, but was more agile because of a motor 10 hp more powerful.[1]

Design

The armour of the chassis was made in the blast furnace of Sagunt, in Valencia (where also was produced the UNL-35, another armoured car of good performances, similar to the BA-20). The protection of the vehicle were welded steel sheets, similar to the Soviet vehicles of the time. The biggest differences were the doors to access to the motor, the wheels and the mudguard.

The AAC-1937 usually had a crew of 4 operators: driver, commander, gunner and driver helper, who used the hull machine gun. They were a lot of variations in the weaponry and the turret configuration:

  1. One machine gun equipped with his own turret: Maxim machine gun, DT machine gun, MG 13.
  2. Recovered turret form T-26, BT-5 and BA-6 tanks.
  3. One cannon Puteaux SA 18 of 37 mm, used from the Renault FT-17 tanks, with a coaxial machine gun.[6]

The weapons were diverse, because of the availability and started getting out of the factory in April 1937. The production was of 4 tanks a month until March 1938, when the nationalist forces split the Republican territory in 2, isolating Catalonia from their vital steel supply for the production of tanks. In total there were between 60 and 90 AAC-1937 built.[1]

In combat

The AAC-1937 fought in the Spanish Civil War and in the Second World at War. Also they served in the Spanish Army in the Francoist Spain to the decade of 1950 in cavalry units.

Spanish Civil War

The first battle of the AAC-1937 was in the May Days, with some UNL-35 armored cars. Later they fought with the 1st Armoured Division (in Catalonia) and the 2nd Armoured Division (in the South-Centre). During the war, at least 30 of these vehicles were captured by the nationalist forces, changing its weapons for MG 13 machine guns.

After the Battle of the Ebro , where the Franco forces destroyed 17 AAC-1937 and capture 18,[7] all the others AAC-1937 that still in Catalonia, started retreating to the French border, where they were given to the French border forces.[1]

Second World War

The French used the AAC-1937, and during the Battle of France they were used, with low casualties, and a lot of them (20 of them) were captured by troops of the Nazi Germany. Those vehicles used their original weapons, or use new German weapons. Those changes were: changing the Puteaux SA 18 37 mm cannon for a MG 34, using an MG 42 and using the vehicle such as a transport of troops, and using the vehicle like a Self-propelled anti-aircraft weapon using 2 MG 34 or MG 42 with a AA mount.[8]

Once in German hands, the AAC-1937 were used in Operation Barbarossa. The photographic references say that they were even used in the Battle of Moscow, and a lot of them were destroyed by the Red Army.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Template:Citar ref
  2. ↑ Manrique & Molina 2006, p. 303.
  3. ↑ Zaloga 2010, p. 10.
  4. 1 2 Zaloga 2010, p. 11.
  5. ↑ Martínez, Lluís (30 December 2013). "La guerra recluta les indústries" (in català). El Punt Avui. Retrieved 2014-11-15.
  6. ↑ Zaloga 2010, p. 38.
  7. ↑ Zaloga 2010, p. 39.
  8. ↑ http://beutepanzer.ru/Beutepanzer/hispan/hispan.htm

See also

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