Copyright 2011 by Brandon Cope 

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Marmon-Harrington CTLS-4TA light tank

Starting in 1935 Marmon-Harrington began building light tanks, primarily for the export market. A few of their early designs (turretless vehicles armed with one to three light machine guns) were bought by the US Army and Marines, but were generally only manufactured in small numbers. The first series of tanks they built in any significant numbers was the CTLS-4TA, a two-man design ordered by the Netherlands for use in the Dutch East Indies. Marmon-Harrington was not really capable of mass-producing tanks quickly and thus only 25 were delivered to Java prior to the Japanese invasion, with at least seven known to see combat. Those that survived were taken over by the Japanese and used until 1945..After the Dutch surrender on Java, another 149 (some sources say only 52) enroute to Java were diverted to Australia, where they were mainly used as training tanks; although about a third would have been deployed in combat if required, none of the Australian tanks saw combat. An unspecified number were lost in transports sunk by the Japanese Navy. The Dutch West Indies received 39 tanks: 26 for Suriname (important to the Allies because of bauxite deposits), 7 for Curacao and 6 for Aruba). Another 240 were ordered by the US for export to China, but the US ended up with most of them, using the tanks in Alaska and some coastal areas in California; none of these saw combat, either. It is unlikely any reached China.

The CTLS-4TA was built in two versions, the -4TAY (with the driver on the right and the turret offset to the left) and the -4TAC (with the driver on the left and the turret offset to the right). The US Army designated the -4TAY as the T-16 and the -4TAC as the T-14. The CTLS-4TA tanks were intended to work in pairs, with one of each type. Turret rotation was restricted by the driver's fixed cupola, which blocked the base of the turret if it rotated too far towards the driver's side. The commander exited the turret via a two-piece folding hatch that opened forward. The driver's hatch was a one-piece square that also opened forward.

The CTLS-4TA has a crew of two. The driver sits in the body and fires the hull MGs. The commander, who operates the turret LMG, is in the turret and body. The commander manually traverses the turret at 6 degrees per second. It uses 4.2 gallons per hour at routine usage.

Subassemblies: Very Small Tank chassis +3, full rotation Medium Weapon turret [Body:T] +2, tracks +2.
Powertrain: 92.5-kW gas engine w/92.5-kW tracked drive train and 10.5 gallons fuel in standard fuel tank [body]; 4,000-kWs batteries.
Occupancy: 1 CS Body, 1 CS Tur Cargo: 0.5 Body. 2 Turret 

Armor

Body: FRL 4/100, B 4/30, TU 4/30

Turret: F 4/100, RLB 4/50, T 4/30

Tracks: 4/35

Weaponry
2xGround LMG/Browning M-1919A4 [Body:F] (500 each).
Ground LMG/Browning M-1919A4 [Tur:F] (2,000).

Statistics

HT: 10
HP: 800 [Body], 75 [Turret], 270 [Each Track]

Design Notes
Design speed was 33 mph. Design weight was increased by 6.6% to match historical. The turret was designed with full rotation although it was limited to 240 degrees (some sources list 270 degrees). Some sources list maximum armor as 12mm (rather than 25mm); I chose 25mm since it resulted in a weight closer to the historical value.

Armor is riveted (p.W:MP12).

Some had one of the hull-mounted Brownings removed. Those in American service often mounted a Browning on an AA mount on the rear of the turret.

The turret could not fire to the side opposite the one it was mounted on.