GuP BD2 Booklet

Tankette (with a crew of 1-2) races were the norm before Panzerfahren became a competition event. The tankettes were highly popular in Europe due to their agility and the sense of thrill from crisscrossing almost any region.

A craze among European ladies to become drivers started from the fact that the wife of Karl Frredrich Benz, the founder of Mercedes-Benz made history by being the first female driver in cross-country movement. These ladies used the easy to drive, highly compact yet fully capable tankettes as their personal car.

Rallying, originally reserved for Feudal knights going from their realm to a predetermined waypoint, came to be its modern form as a competition where one jostle for position from the starting point, goes through checkpoints until finally reaching the endpoint, at Monte Carlo in 1911.

Although The Monte Carlo Rally came to a stop due to the onset of the Great War, rally came back by 1924; a pair of noblewomen participating in a Renault FT-17 and performed in spades had managed to captivate the world press and earn accolade for the sport.

In an attempt to raise the speed and dampen the noise on the obsolete French FTs, the Renaults were equipped with all new suspension and rubber tracks, while receiving the upgraded M24/25 experimental engines, which gave it a speed of 16km/h. The FT was crewed by Belgium noblewomen, who received French Army support.

Most participants to such rally events came from Europe. The rally had participants from Paris, Berliin, Wien, Brussels, Geneve, and Roma, and even from Tunisia, some 3900km away from the starting point.

In order to address the differences in range for the different waypoints, checkpoints, with a speed cap of 25km/h during crossing, that awarded points were established along the competition route, so as to ensure that the rally was not a competition in speed.

As gala were usually hosted after the tournament, and that the participants bear the name of noble houses across Europe, the rally came to be seen a a social event for the elite and the nobility.

Even though that tanks were slower to race cars, and were prone to breakdowns, adventurous female drivers kept competing, being comforted by operating armor-clad vehicles. As as the number ofparticipants rise, the armored vehicle division moved its own competition from January to June, then change the name of the event to that of the "Monte Carlo Tank Rally".

During the time, tankette development continued on its own across the Dover Strait. In 1925, British Army Major Giffard Le Quesne Martel had created the Morris-Martel Tankette for his daughter, out ofspare automobile parts in his own garage.

As Martel's tankette crewed only one, and it was cumbersome for the sole driver to operate the hull machine-gun, a two-manned version was developed in the following year of 1926, since Martel had intended to ride with his daughter.

Having heard of this development, the owners of Carden-Loyd Tractors Ltd followed suit and came to create a miniature tankette also his own daughter. Several variants were made, including a double-seater, made for the same rationale as that of the Martel Tankette.

Martel and Carden-Loyd would eventually create the Carden-Loyd Mark VI 1928, which were licensed worldwide, yielding derivatives such as the Italian CV.33, the Russian T-27, the Polish TK3 and French UE Chenillette and so forth.

These tankettes were not sold only to the military, but also to some member of the nobility, just as the number of female tank racers increase in number.

Due to the increase in the number of vehicles participating in the sport, other events outside Monte Carlo took shape, and various forms of competition, such as speed races and gunnery skill competitions.

French Renault FT variant would show exceptional reliability in the 1925 and 1926 24 Heures du Mans (Le Mans, started in 1923). Having seen this development, other countries aside from Great Britain and France would enter into all sorts of racing competitions so as to showcase their tanks.

A British noblewoman did enter the Monte Carlos with a Mark I, but the tank fell below the 10km/h minimum average speed requirements, so it had to be withdrawn. However, the same lady had managed to qualify and complete the course in a Mark A Whippet by the following year.

The tankette craze got a further shot in the arm when the Germans, who ordered 580 LK II and only to lose to war before half way through production, liquidated the tanks piecemeal at bargain-bin prices while the country's in turmoil.

These tanks opened up a whole new target audience, who previously could not afford tanks of their own.

Modifications went rampant as these tanks were released to the market while incomplete, so instead of using the Daimler-Benz V4, LK II may have had more powerful engine, removal of turret and additional fuel tanks to improve endurance, modified armor shape and a host of other personalized customizations.

Restrictions on vehicle modifications came about when this customization went overboard, leading to cases of tanks without any armor and sporting a V12, where it no longer bear any resemblance to the stock vehicle.

It was during this time that opposition movement had separated themselves to setup new racing organizations, where any tracked vehicles that were initially made as tanks would be admitted to their competition. Such competitions came to be known as the Unlimited Class.

As this class became well received in America, the root organization moved to America as well, and the racing event came to be a support race in the Indianapolis 500 mile race.

Although LKII made vehicles more affordable, the target audience that rather not tinker with parts tend to adopt cheaper and mechanically less complex tankettes, such as the Cardne-Loyd Mark VI, as mentioned above. These designs which were licensed across the world and led to many mass produced derivatives in the 1930s.

Britain, who pioneered the Light Tanks, in following design trends, introduced the turreted Vickers 6-ton tank Mk. E.

Although they were not adopted by the British Army, the tanks were widely exported and licensed. This tank was produced as the T-26 in the USSR and the 7TP in Poland. It would pave the way for the enlargement of miniature tankettes as they become light tanks.

As the light tanks trickle down in number, the tankettes became increasingly adopted in racing events. Dummy shot competitions were also starting to take place as these tankettes were armed. It is difficult to achieve team cohesion with tankettes as one person drives as the other shoots.

The British-born tankette committee had attempted to solicit competitors with good teamwork potential, but they had little avail, save a figure skater that competed in pair figure skating events, who was wounded in the leg.

Skating developed into a recreational sport in the Netherlands, thanks to its advanced canal networks. Although the peasantry raced, the nobility went the way of competing in graceful maneuvers, which formed the basic framework of figure skating by the 17th century.

Members of the House of Stuart, who returned to England following the Restoration from their exile in the Netherlands would introduce figure skating to United Kingdom. Pair figure skating came into being as the British involved themselves with even more graceful forms as social dancing norms were merged with the sport.

The birth of a new sport came about as the tankette, crewed by the female figure skater danced about the fields in refined movements, captivated the hearts and minds of the spectators with gunnery ofpinpoint precision.

The British nobility, having seen this sort of composed action, came to a revolutionize the Equestrian competition event. The British Tankette Style, which combined elements of the British Equestrian with these tankettes thus came into being.

The British Tankette Style is essentially that of obstacle course and show jumping. The first day of the competition would be about disassembly and the repair of vehicles, the second being that of cross-country and the third devoted combined training, jumps and maintenance.

As the combined training suited Army training, and that the adolescents of the nobility class found tankettes to be adorable and easier to control, the event became popular in Great Britain.

Sporting events being developed around the tankettes would gave rise in taking these competition formats to other tank categories. The French were the most ambitious, creating team events that featured crew of more than 3, which tankette with a crew of two cannot perform.

Team competition, such as the 24 Heure de Mann and a host of others that were hosted in France, had to dictate that a crew of three and above were mandatory as competition rules, thus ruling tankette out of competition.

Anglo and French based tank competition rulesets spread across Europe gradually, and calls to standardize the games grew.

America, on the other hand, had little tank development due to the fact that Unlimited Class events centered around modifications, and that they had little interest in drafting tournament rules.

This led to European ruleset forming the basis of modern Panzerfahren rules.