Carden Loyd tankette The Carden Loyd tankettes were a series of British pre - World War II tankette s , the most successful of which was the Mark VI , the only version built in significant numbers . It became a classic tankette design worldwide , was licence - built by several countries and became the basis of several designs produced in several different countries . Development . The Carden Loyd tankette came about from an idea started , as a private project , by the British military engineer and tank strategist Major Giffard LeQuesne Martel . He built a one - man tank in his garage from various parts and showed it to the War Office in the mid - 1920s . With the publication of the idea , other companies produced their own interpretations of the idea . One of these was " Carden - Loyd Tractors Ltd " , a firm founded by Sir John Carden and Vivian Loyd and later purchased by Vickers - Armstrongs . Besides one - man vehicles they also proposed two - man vehicles which turned out to be a more effective and popular idea . Vickers - Armstrongs manufactured and marketed vehicles of the latter type worldwide . Considered a reconnaissance vehicle and a mobile machine gun position , the Mark VI was the final stage of development of the Carden - Loyd series of tankettes . The Carden Loyd tankette was the prototype for the Universal Carrier . Production . Production started in 1927 and lasted until 1935 . From 1933 to 1935 production was by the Royal Ordnance Factories . Some 450 were made in all . The British Army used at least 325 Mark VI tankettes ( a value of 348 is also given in several variants , mostly as machine gun carriers , but also as light gun tractor s , mortar carriers or smoke projector vehicles . Service history . In 1929 , Poland bought 10 or 11 Mark VI tankettes with a licence and used them for development of their own TK tankette series , which was followed by the Polish TKS tankette . Czechoslovakia also bought three Mark VI tankettes in 1930 with a licence , and then improved the design , producing 74 Tančík vz . 33 tankettes in the ČKD ( Praga ) works : the original British construction was evaluated as unusable in modern warfare . The Soviet Union bought 20 Mark VI tankettes , which they designated K - 25 , as well as a licence . However , the final project was significantly modernised and the license was dropped . Instead , the Bolshevik Factory in Leningrad started the production of the T - 27 tankette , a modernised and enlarged variant of the British design . A total of 3 , 228 T - 27 tankettes were built between 1931 and 1933 . Bolivia purchased between two to five tankettes in 1931 . They saw action in the Chaco War , where they proved to be ill - suited for the bushy environment . Japan also bought six Mark VIb tankettes , and later developed its own Type 94 Te Ke design based on them . Italy bought a number of Carden Loyd Mark VIs , built a few licence copies designated CV - 29 , and then developed this design further into the L3 / 35 tankette . Carden Loyd tankettes operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Land Forces were designated Type 88 . The Canadian Army acquired 12 in two batches of six in 1930 - 31 . After being evaluated by Princess Patricia ' s Canadian Light Infantry and the Royal Canadian Regiment , the Canadian Army used them in a training role at Canadian Armoured Fighting Vehicle School pending the arrival of newer , larger tanks . Eventually , they were supplemented with the Vickers VI B light tank in 1938 . Until then , they had been the only armoured equipment in the Canadian Army apart from some armoured cars . At no time were they used in a combat role by Canada . In addition , the Carden Loyd tankettes were also supplied in small numbers to France , India , Italy , the Netherlands ( 5 ) , and Siam . The five Dutch tankettes were involved in fighting German parachute troops during the May 1940 invasion of the Netherlands . The French unarmed Renault UE carrier was based on the Carden Loyd design . A small number were acquired by Greece prior to 1935 . Thailand had about 60 in the French - Thai War . Carden Loyd tankettes were also used by Chile , the Republic of China , Finland ( Mk . IVs and Model 33s ) and Portugal The design of the German Panzer I light tank was influenced by the Carden Loyd tankette , due to the German military cooperation with the Soviet Union . SA F . R . C . 47mm . Since the Belgian Armed Forces were looking to upgrade their anti - tank capability in the early 1930s , and due to the popularity of the tankette concept , the Carden - Loyd Mk VI tankette was chosen as the basis for a first attempt to developing a fully mechanized anti - tank capability . After experimenting with a rather straightforward tractor concept for the Belgian 47 mm Model 1931 anti - tank gun in 1931 , a more integrated approach was chosen , resulting in what has probably been the heaviest armed version of the Carden - Loyd Mk VI tankette . In 1931 , after acquiring six Carden - Loyd Mk VI tankettes , two prototype vehicles were modified . One to carry the F . R . C . Herstal 47 mm Model 1931 anti - tank gun and one the Canon de 76 FRC , a low velocity 76 mm infantry gun , in a fixed , forward - facing structure . The results of the pre - production tests were not convincing : the 76 mm equipped version experienced a tremendous amount of recoil when firing the gun , resulting in a high pitch movement after firing and a completely unstable gun - laying platform . As a result , the 76 mm prototype was rebuilt into the 47 mm equipped tank destroyer version . However , the tank destroyer tankette was not deemed satisfactory either : recoil forces from firing the 47 mm anti - tank gun were - albeit less than with the 76 mm version - still too heavy for the 3 - ton vehicle , manning the gun with a two man team was considered too labor - intensive , the ammo storage was too small and apart from the thin armoured frontal shield , the crew was completely exposed . The added weight of the gun also overtaxed the small engine , and wear and tear on the whole vehicle were deemed too high . Nevertheless , the experiment provided some valuable experience for the Belgian army , culminating in the successful T - 13 tank destroyer production starting in 1935 . The six prototype tank destroyer vehicles were also used operationally . After being fielded by the elite Chasseurs Ardennais mountain division , the vehicles were deemed next to useless in a mountainous area and quickly passed on to the " Cyclistes Frontière / Grenswielrijders " a border guard regiment . They were still in use when the Battle of Belgium started in May 1940 , albeit from fixed , ambushed positions on the west - bank of the river Meuse ( Maas ) between Vivegnis and Lixhe . They are known to have fired some rounds on the morning of 10 May 1940 , the day of the German invasion .