Anarchist Barcelona Improvised Armoured Personnel Carrier, 1936
Anarchist Barcelona armoured infantry transport vehicle, armed with a machinegun and rifle slits. It was used in 1936-1937 during the early Spanish Civil War and operated by the FAI CNT- Federación Anarquista Internacional - Confederación Nacional de Trabajadores anarchist group during the uprising. The reason for the rounded shape is that it was constructed in a shipyard using existing rounded metal plates from naval boilers welded or riveted together.
This is one the later models, as the earliest example was completed on August 29th 1936 and was presented to the press. The following day, it was presented to locals, with FAI painted on the front. There to greet it was Lluís Companys, the President of Catalonia. The main differences between this prototype and ‘serial production vehicles’ are the rear facing crew ventilation tubes and the lack of the turret. This first vehicle saw service with the Columna Ford, made up of members of the UGT and CNT-FAI, on the Aragonese front. It featured nine portholes and could carry eight soldiers, plus a driver. The vehicle in the picture is a later improved one, sporting additional armour on the wheels and the addition of a turret- the most popular armament were Vickers machineguns. It weighed an estimated 5000 kg and was powered by a Chevrolet 6-cylinder engine.(1)
All the Constructora Field improvised APC's generally had the same 8MM sloped boiler plates used for armour instead of flat plates to increase the chance of ricochets and while there is a small hatch on the front of the vehicle it did not open enough to allow access to most of the engine and the vehicles all had problems with overheating due to all the additional stress placed on them from the added armour, compounded further by the fact most of the vehicles were used during the summer and if the engines did overheat the armour insulated it, meaning the vehicle would take longer to recover from breakdowns. (2)
Due to it's armour and low ground clearance it was mostly used for urban combat, as it was unable to travel offroad or over rough ground. The vehicle pictured above is No. 2 Armoured Car of the Columna Ascaso, knocked out on the Aragonese front. This vehicle was captured by Spanish Nationalists forces. (3)
“Carros de Combatante y Vehículos Blindados de la Guerra 1936-1939” by F.C. Albert
“Las Armas de la Guerra Civil: El Primer Estudio Global y Sistematico del Armamento Empleado por Ambos Contendientes” by José María Manrique García and Lucas Molina Franco
“Spanish Civil War Tanks: The Proving Ground for Blitzkrieg” by Steven J. Zaloga