The Spanish subsecretary of weapons, with the help of soviet engineers, started development of a new heavy armored vehicle in April 1937, taking the BA-6 as a reference. These reasons pushed the Second Spanish Republic into building a national tank or armored vehicle.
Also, the Italian and German navies controlled most of the naval routes to the Iberian peninsula and because of that, the Soviet Union wasn't able to send resources via sea. During that period they built several experimental vehicles with a wide variety of uses and performances.Īfter the May Days, the Republican Government took charge of the weapons and ammunition industries of all the Republican territories, including Catalan. In Catalonia, after the July 1936 military uprising in Barcelona, the workers decided to help the war effort by producing weapons, including tanks.Īfter the initial chaos and starting from scratch, the War Industry Commission in Catalonia was in charge of managing the production of the new armored vehicle. The tanks that were still operative before the start of the Spanish Civil War were assigned to two units: the Regimiento Ligero de Carros de Combate (LCC) número 1, stationed near Madrid, and the Regimiento LCC número 2, near Saragossa. The Sanjuanada of 1926 meant that tanks, usually associated to the artillery officers that participated in the coup d'état, lost the favour of the administration and the projects for national production of armored vehicles were cancelled. The Moroccan campaign demonstrated the importance of these new weapons and encouraged the acquisition of more tanks, like the Fiat 3000 from the Kingdom of Italy in 1924, and the production of a national tank in 1925, the Trubia A4. After that bad start, they gave support in the Rif War, with great success during the Alhucemas landing, a decisive victory that led to their return to Spain. As they advanced ahead of the infantry they were surrounded and isolated and after some of their machine guns blocked, they suffered heavy losses. In 1921, those tanks were sent to Morocco, where they participated in their first battle on 17 March 1922 with bad results. Antecedents Īfter the First World War, Spain acquired 12 Renault FT-17 and 6 Schneider CA1 from France. Later they used them in the Eastern Front, where they were destroyed by the Soviets during the first months of the conflict. With the start of WW2 these vehicles saw use in the Battle of France and the Germans captured some of them.
With different kinds of weaponry and high quality construction, it was the best armored vehicle produced during the conflict in Catalonia.Īfter the fall of Catalonia (also known as La retirada), the AAC-1937 went to the armies of France and Spain. With a total run 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.
They took the BA-6 as a basis for the new vehicle, and built a very similar vehicle, the AAC-1937 in the Hispano-Suiza factory in Barcelona, using a chassis from General Motors Peninsular. After the dismantling of the War Industry Commission of Catalonia, the Subsecretary of Weapons and Ammunitions of Spain contracted Soviet engineers to build a new armored vehicle. The AAC-1937, which means Autoametralladora-cañón Chevrolet modelo 1937, also known as Chevrolet 1937, was an armored car developed and built by loyalist forces during the Spanish Civil War in Catalonia.
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