The T-13 was a tank destroyer in use with the Belgian armed forces before World War II and during the Battle of Belgium. It was designed by Vickers-Armstrong, and produced by Vickers, Miesse and and outfitted with armament from Herstal. The earlier T-13s were based on imported Vickers tracked vehicles that were outfitted with armament and armor in Belgium by the Miesse company; later versions, from the B3 version on, were fully license-produced in Belgium by the Familleheureux factory. Total production numbers are unclear and have been underestimated for political reasons, both before and after World War II, but are generally estimated at 300 vehicles, although not all were available or fully outfitted on 10 May 1940, the start of the Battle of Belgium. Nazi Germany used the vehicles after the occupation of Belgium, but to what extent remains unclear.
History In general - keeping a close watch on German political and military developments - the need for armored tracked vehicles or tanks was widely accepted by the Belgian military establishment. The political view on the matter however was slightly more complex. Bearing in mind how the country had been a battlefield and occupied by Germany during the First World War, the Belgian government tried to keep Belgium a neutral country from 1936 onwards and therefore out of any European conflict. Politicians from the right wing political parties wanted Belgium to abstain from buying offensive weapons such as tanks and bombers, so as not to provoke Germany into starting a new war; politicians from left wing parties rejected such armament on an ideological basis.
From this point of view the T-13 tank destroyer could be described as the result of Belgium's neutrality doctrine: the vehicle had to be light, and therefore lightly armored, and was built without a fully enclosed fighting compartment, much like the German Panzerjäger designs, thus resulting in a tank destroyer class vehicle, rather than a true tank. Also, as with the T-15 light tank units, the descriptive words "tank" or "armored/mechanized unit" were never to be used in official unit designations, with the euphemisms "armored/tracked motorcar" and the historical "cavalry" being favored.
Vickers Carden Loyd 1934 artillery tractor
Since the Belgian armed forces realized the need for further mechanization of the army in the 1930s, a number of foreign platforms were looked at. In 1934, the Belgian Army signed a contract for 21 or 23 Vickers Carden Loyd 1934 artillery tractors with the British firm Vickers. These were meant as artillery tractors for the Chasseurs Ardennais mountain troops, to tow the recently acquired Bofors 75 mm Model 1934 mountain gun. Impressed with the vehicle's performance on both hilly and flat terrain, the Belgian Armed Forces decided to take the concept a little further and experimentally outfitted the tractor with the F.R.C. built 47 mm anti-tank gun, much along the lines of the earlier but ultimately unsuccessful SA F.R.C. 47mm experiment. Not much is known about the basic model Vickers 1934 artillery tractor, apart from the fact that the Belgian Army seems to have been the sole user of the type. In its basic configuration, the Vickers 1934 artillery tractor was unarmored and could generally be described as an open, tracked light truck. It was outfitted with a 51 hp 5 cylinder 3.3 litre Meadows gasoline engine and had an empty weight of 2 tons. Apart from the Chasseurs Ardennais, no other Belgian armed units were outfitted with the type, the Belgian armed forces instead preferring the smaller and far less expensive Vickers/Familleureux utility tractor as their main tracked transporter later on. However, given its successful use with the Chasseurs Ardennais mountain troops, the Belgian Armed Forces decided to order another 32 vehicles, which became the basis for the T-13 B1.
T-13 B1/B2 design
Pleased with the performance of the Vickers 1934 artillery truck, the Belgian Army started to equip the 32 new vehicles with the FRC Herstal built 47 mm Model 1931 anti-tank gun. Since this was a fairly heavy piece of equipment, and because of the general lay-out of the Vickers artillery tractor, the decision was taken to simply install the gun and its turret backwards on the vehicle, so as to keep enough space for crew and ammunition.
The general layout of the vehicle mimicked that of the Vickers vehicle it was based on. The suspension was Horstmann suspension resting on bogies with two rubber-lined wheel sets per bogie. This design, exclusively used on lightweight vehicles, was also used on the Light Tank Mk VI of the British Army. Apart from being relatively easy to build, compact and lightweight, it had the advantage of having a long travel, and of being easy to replace when damaged in the field. The drive sprocket was in the front, but there were no idlers or return rollers. Motive power was a Meadows 5-cylinder gasoline engine, producing , coupled to a five speed preselector gearbox. Steering was a combination of declutching the drive to one track and braking to increase the turn. The traverse of the turret was manual by the three man crew. The T-13s were not equipped with a radio.
Armor protection was limited, but still better than that of the under-armored T-15 light tank. The frontal bulkhead and front of turret were both of hardened steel. Side armor on the vehicle and turret was restricted to of steel, to minimize the weight, costs and political impact of the vehicle. This meant that the T-13 crew was only fully protected against indirect blast and splinter damage, adequately protected against small arms fire from the frontal aspect but not from the sides, and most importantly was not protected at all against most light anti-tank rounds, such as the .50 BMG, the 0.55 inch Boys anti-tank rifle or the German 13.2 mm TuF. Also, the side armor shields had to be folded down to permit the full 360° traverse of the turret, further exposing the crew to enemy rifle fire. If the (lightly) armored side shields were left upwards, traverse of the turret was limited to 120° to the front.
Armament was fairly heavy for this lightweight vehicle, giving the T-13 tank destroyer a good anti-tank capability. The 47 mm Model 1931 anti-tank gun fired armor-piercing shells and could penetrate 47 mm of armor plating from a distance of 300 m, for its time an impressive performance. The maximum firing range of the gun was , and, as both armor-piercing and high-explosive rounds were available, the gun had a useful anti-infantry capability as well. The secondary armament consisted of a single turret-mounted, FN-built M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, in 7.65x53mm "Belgian Mauser" calibre instead of the American .30. This light machine gun could fire 500–650 rounds per minute.Bishop, Chris: The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II, p. 239. Sterling Publishing, 2000
Production After the prototype T-13 B1 passed all the tests of the Belgian Army, production was authorized to proceed in 1935: the Miesse company near Buizingen (close to Brussels) delivered 32 T-13 B1s, all based on imported British built Vickers 1934 artillery tractors. The T-13 B2 model was a further development of the B1, but differs only slightly from the B1 model: most importantly the turret was redesigned to give the vehicle a somewhat lower frontal silhouette. All 21 (23 according to some sources) T-13 B2s were apparently converted from the earlier Vickers artillery tractors of the Chasseurs Ardennais mountain troops, tracked transport of the M34 75mm Bofors mountain gun now passed on to the smaller but more economical Vickers/Familleureux utility tractor. B2 assembly ended by 1937.
T-13 B3 design
Although the Belgian armed forces were generally very pleased with the capabilities of the existing T-13 B1 and B2s, there were obvious issues with both models of the tank destroyer. Since the original Vickers artillery tractor was not designed to carry a gun, it was faced with a common vehicle design problem called 'weight creep', which in essence is the gradual accumulation of weight every time a new feature or capability is added to the design. This led to the first model T-13s being underpowered, somewhat unstable as a gunnery platform, and prone to mechanical malfunctions because of overloading and wear and tear. Full weight was 4,5 tons for a 51 hp gasoline engine. Much more important however was the vulnerability of the three man crew. Exporting fully assembled designs was too expensive a solution to field a tank destroyer in adequate numbers, especially with the Belgian economy performing rather poorly because of the worldwide Great Depression and the resulting drop in foreign demand for industrial products.
In 1936 a new vehicle was imported from Vickers; an export version of the Vickers-Carden-Loyd Light Dragon Mk. IIB artillery tractor, equipped with an 88 hp Meadows 6 cylinder gasoline engine and a "crash" type gearbox. The general design of the vehicle was almost identical to the T-15 Light tank - another Vickers design based on the Light Tank Mk III - already in service with the Belgian armed forces. The suspension was Horstmann suspension resting on bogies with two rubber-lined wheel sets per bogie. The drive sprocket was in the front, the idlers were placed in the rear, with three return rollers. Steering was again a combination of declutching the drive to one track and braking to increase the turn.
The bigger track area, the inclusion of return rollers and the bigger and more powerful engine convinced the Belgian armed forces that this platform would be superior in the tank destroyer role. Also, since the Familleheureux factory, a vehicle and tractor company, was already producing the license built Vickers utility tractor, the decision was taken to buy a license for production at this company instead of directly acquiring all vehicles from the UK. This would allow for a larger and more economical production run compared to the T-13 B1/B2 version.
The definitive T-13 B3 was structurally very different from the earlier B1 and B2 versions, with the B3 suffix chosen to play down the fact that a new tank destroyer was being produced rather than a variant of the older systems. The chassis of the T-13 B3 was bigger, with, apart from the redesigned turret, a box-on-box like appearance. The gun was no longer pointed rearwards as in the first two versions. Armor was only slightly upgraded to 13 mm armored steel on the frontal surfaces and 7 mm steel on the sides, still insufficient to cope with anything but small arms fire and blast and shrapnel damage. However, the chassis was big enough to accommodate the four man crew without the need for the side armor panels, which also allowed the gun to traverse 360° without lowering the (still very low) level of armor protection for the crew in the process of gun laying. The rear remained open, since the vehicle was still meant to be a light tank destroyer.
The most important and obvious difference was the bigger and more powerful engine, which allowed for greatly reduced wear and tear and a rather more stable gun laying platform, and above all for better manoeuvrability in the field. Top speed for the T-13 B3 was increased to 56 km per hour or even 65–70 km per hour, a speed reached by commander A. Modera in 1940.Belgian Tank Museum, Fonds T.13 : Commandant MODERA, Campagne de 1940. Souvenirs du Commandant Adrien Modera, s.l., s.d. The armament, apart from lay out and sighting systems, was left untouched, although more ammunition could be carried. Range was increased: from 240 km for the B1-B2 versions to 400 km for the B3 version. Total weight became 5.08 tons.
Production