The two-man tracked machine-gun carrier from which the British carrier family descends: 2.5 m long, about 1.5 long tons, a Ford Model T engine of 22.5 bhp and 6–9 mm of armour, built from 1928. About 450 Carden-Loyd tankettes of all marks were made between 1927 and 1935, more than 300 of them Mark VIs for the British Army.
MODEL LINECarden-LoydBUILT BYVickers-Armstrongs, Carden-Loyd Tractors, ChertseyPRODUCED1928–35OPERATED INUnited Kingdom, Poland, Czech RepublicPRODUCTIONAbout 450 Carden-Loyd tankettes of all marks, 1927LAYOUT4 wheels
The record
Carden-Loyd Tractors of Chertsey, the firm of Sir John Carden and Vivian Loyd, developed a series of small tracked vehicles from 1925, and Vickers-Armstrongs bought the company in March 1928, the year the Mark VI went into full production. The British Army used it as a machine-gun carrier, a 3-inch mortar carrier, a smoke producer and a light gun tractor; Tank Encyclopedia counts at least 287 built for British service.
The Mark VI was sold or licensed abroad more widely than any other design of its class. Poland bought ten or eleven and developed its TK tankettes from them; Czechoslovakia bought three and a licence in 1930; the Soviet Union bought twenty and a licence the same year; Japan bought six; Italy licence-built it as the CV-29; Belgium trialled two with 47 mm and 76 mm guns. Its layout and running gear led through the Vickers-Armstrongs VA D50 of 1934 to the Bren and Universal carriers.
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.
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