Renault submitted its initial proposal to the commission on 10 December 1936, soon after the nationalization of the military branch of the company and renaming of that factory to AMX. This did not stop Louis Renault from remaining very active on the field of military design and production though, using the remainder of his company and competing or cooperating with AMX as he saw fit. Quickly a wooden mock-up was finished of the Renault version of the Char G; the project had the factory designation Renault ACK1. The designation merely indicated the chronological order of Renault's military prototypes, and had no further meaning.
Renault's initial proposal was based on the Renault ZM, or Renault R35. It had a similar smooth curved cast hull to that of the light infantry tank but was much wider and had six road wheels and double tracks per side – to avoid having to design a new broad track. It had a modern torsion bar suspension and, like the originally proposed G1L, a (rather outdated) Cleveland transmission. The suspension protection plates formed an integral part with the hull's main armour.
The hull was crowned by a flat-domed cast superstructure that superficially resembled a circular conventional turret. In reality however it was at first planned to be fixed; the 47 mm gun was supposed to traverse through a horizontal slit like in a pill-box, rotating on a pivot fixed to the hull floor, a proposal made by Colonel Balland. In a second version of this design by engineer Jean Restany, the "pseudo-turret" was traversable, but simply carried along by the electrically driven gun-mount; the turret therefore would not have to be equipped with a heavy gun-mantlet and, not bearing the weight of the armament, could be much lighter. On the right side of the superstructure a vertical cylinder protruded, on top of which a small rotating commander's cupola was fitted, that was armed with dual co-axial machine guns. The superstructure, with the commander/gunner on the right and the loader on the left, had sufficient room to hold a Schneider 47 mm antitank gun that was much more powerful than the shorter 47 mm SA 35 gun equipping the standard APX1 and APX4 turrets. Expecting that this superior firepower would give his design a clear advantage leading to a quick production contract, as had so often happened in the past, Renault was unpleasantly surprised when lobbying by Poniatowski contributed to a change in specifications to the effect that a 75 mm gun had to be carried in the hull. The ACK1 hull was simply too flat for this. To save his project Renault started a strong counter-lobby. Part of this was proposing, already on 10 December 1936, that as an alternative option the turret should hold a longer (at least L/29) main 75 mm armament. It was also claimed that the weight of the projects, 24 tonnes, could be reduced to 19.6 tonnes by limiting the armament to a single gun.
The commission in 1937 was hesitant about the torsion-bar suspension, and rejected the Cleveland transmission and double-track feature. It also concluded that weight would be at least 25 tonnes. Nevertheless, an order for a prototype was made, in view of the innovative armament mounting.
On 10 September 1939 the Char G1R was the only one of the projects that was to be further developed, probably because the Renault company was exceptional in having reserve production capacity left.
The file contains the unit and pcx files. Model is not my own creation. Wyrmshadow helped with the animation files. I merely put the pieces together and cleaned up the model for CivIII and added some what if pieces. A big thanks to everyone that helped out!
Renault's initial proposal was based on the Renault ZM, or Renault R35. It had a similar smooth curved cast hull to that of the light infantry tank but was much wider and had six road wheels and double tracks per side – to avoid having to design a new broad track. It had a modern torsion bar suspension and, like the originally proposed G1L, a (rather outdated) Cleveland transmission. The suspension protection plates formed an integral part with the hull's main armour.
The hull was crowned by a flat-domed cast superstructure that superficially resembled a circular conventional turret. In reality however it was at first planned to be fixed; the 47 mm gun was supposed to traverse through a horizontal slit like in a pill-box, rotating on a pivot fixed to the hull floor, a proposal made by Colonel Balland. In a second version of this design by engineer Jean Restany, the "pseudo-turret" was traversable, but simply carried along by the electrically driven gun-mount; the turret therefore would not have to be equipped with a heavy gun-mantlet and, not bearing the weight of the armament, could be much lighter. On the right side of the superstructure a vertical cylinder protruded, on top of which a small rotating commander's cupola was fitted, that was armed with dual co-axial machine guns. The superstructure, with the commander/gunner on the right and the loader on the left, had sufficient room to hold a Schneider 47 mm antitank gun that was much more powerful than the shorter 47 mm SA 35 gun equipping the standard APX1 and APX4 turrets. Expecting that this superior firepower would give his design a clear advantage leading to a quick production contract, as had so often happened in the past, Renault was unpleasantly surprised when lobbying by Poniatowski contributed to a change in specifications to the effect that a 75 mm gun had to be carried in the hull. The ACK1 hull was simply too flat for this. To save his project Renault started a strong counter-lobby. Part of this was proposing, already on 10 December 1936, that as an alternative option the turret should hold a longer (at least L/29) main 75 mm armament. It was also claimed that the weight of the projects, 24 tonnes, could be reduced to 19.6 tonnes by limiting the armament to a single gun.
The commission in 1937 was hesitant about the torsion-bar suspension, and rejected the Cleveland transmission and double-track feature. It also concluded that weight would be at least 25 tonnes. Nevertheless, an order for a prototype was made, in view of the innovative armament mounting.
On 10 September 1939 the Char G1R was the only one of the projects that was to be further developed, probably because the Renault company was exceptional in having reserve production capacity left.
The file contains the unit and pcx files. Model is not my own creation. Wyrmshadow helped with the animation files. I merely put the pieces together and cleaned up the model for CivIII and added some what if pieces. A big thanks to everyone that helped out!
