Renault TSF – Archive Breakthrough - Antenna Assembly - Part 1 - Inside Track | Renault TSF Tank Kent

We began our Renault TSF project knowing nothing about the interior of the vehicle, save for a basic loading plan schematic found in one of the manuals. The discovery of a second turret gave a us more insight into the interior detail. It contained the remains of the antenna reel base and it's mount, the insulator for the antenna wire, a fixing hook for the TSF trenching skid cable and more detail for the upper cupola base. The problem is without original images of the interior these rusty relics provided nothing more than a glimpse into how the turret might have been laid out. The key unknown elements were; the antenna reel and handle dimensions, how the antenna reel was locked in position once wound up, the dynamo convertisseur (just off the floor) and the pulley and guard on top of the antenna mast. Last of all was the question of how the E10 ter radio, controleur d’ondes (wave regulator) and batteries were secured at the front of the blockhaus?. The reel and antenna mast top including the pulley were measured and built based on original photographs and the loading plan image. A copy of this with a magnified view of the reel is attached to the article. There are also some pre-restoration pictures of the blockhaus interior, including the antenna reel and its mount, to illustrate what we had to work with. Whilst not perfect we felt we had come up with a satisfactory approximation. As so often happens in our projects, once the restoration was finished new information came to light. We received a series of original blueprints and archive documents from April and May 1918. These described exactly how the antenna reel, it's mount and stay mechanism and the antenna mast top and pulley were designed. These documents and drawings were provided by a friend of the Foundation. This contribution is critical as it allows us to move the components from the ‘satisfactory’ to ‘accurate’ list, once the corrective work is done. We will publish images once we have completed this work. It is quite incredible that when we started the interior of the TSF turret was a complete unknown with no internal photographs and only two simple schematics to work with. We now have a much shorter of unknowns - the original dynamo and the stays for the work station radio kit – batteries, radio, controleur d'ondes. .

Membership

Corporate Membership available on application.

Affiliate Member