Mexico's Forgotten Tank: TNCA Salinas

The Mexican Revolution, that time we liked war so much that even though the guy we revolted against left after just one year we just keep fighting for another decade.

Afaik Mexico was also the first country to adopt a semi-auto rifle for it's army, with the Mandragon 1908, tho production issues stalled delivery, then ww1 happened and SiG had more uses for those rifles than shipping them to Mexico...

Viva Mexico

Hey Stakuyi, as a Mexican I'd love to watch you make a video on the history of the Mexican Revolution. I know it can be a big mess or people and a lot of rolling R's. Let me know if you'd like some support, proof reading or pronunciation from a native speaker while producing it.

It's like an IRL Grot tank, and I could not be more prouder. It's a box of metal you can slap what ever gun you wanted "in" it.

The door placement actually makes a lot of sense. The sponson machine gun is covering the opening. Anyone in a position to shoot into the opening, is also in the firing line of the sponson machine gun. The door itself would help to shield you from fire coming from in front of the tank. While the sponson helps shield you from fire coming from behind the tank. There’s really no good place to have a door in a tank. All you can do is position it in such a way that offers those entering or exiting as much protection as possible. They seem to have positioned it in such a way as to offer the maximum amount of protection possible. Hate to have to disagree with you but that’s just the way it is.

I start off by saying this is entirely speculation and me looking at the guns and their placement. it is entirely possible that the initial purpose of this tank may have been crowd dispersal, which kinda puts it well ahead of its time but given that Mexico's recurring problem in its wars were groups of angry people just overwhelming the military in number, it is an entirely valid concern. Making this as a shock and awe weapon to scare the masses kinda floats with how tanks were thought of later in history (and part of the reason why many civilian forces started using them in the latter part of the 20th century). Again mostly just speculation.

Some of my family has a history in which they got caught up into Pancho Villa's revolution and were nearly killed for their wealth. However all of them, and their servants were educated (read, write, do math, etc.). The details aren't clear, but somehow everyone took a chance and escaped. They tried to go to the Federals but they assumed then to be part of Pancho Villa's group. So the only option they had was to run away to America. They ran to the far north and the rest is history

If I remember correctly from a podcast called 'Revolutions' Carranza actually implemented trench warfare once in one battle at the end of the war to counter Pancho Villa's dependence on a mounted fighting force.

Early tanks are among the most fascinating creations in modern history. There's no established design philosophy, there's just "Fuck it, why not?" and it's a truly beautiful thing.

Now let's petition World of Tanks to add one to the tech tree 😅

If I had to think of some reason how would this be used I think it would have been used in the north as a defensive, heavy support vehicle. In the Northern fighting consisted of a lot of cavalry and maneuver warfare but it also included war trains. Pancho villa had trains heavily armed and armored and use them to get close to towns to fight. If you had more of these tanks I could imagine putting them near major railway roads near towns, and when a war train got close, mobilize them to attack the train dirrectly

imagine its 1900s and you make a medium size tank and mount a hull mounted 30mm minigun to it

Since there was no practical use to these tanks, and the war was winding down, I would actually suggest they were simply made as a show of power because they were "New" tech. I think most likely the leadership whom commissioned these just wanted to look like a strong modern military more than they actually wanted to use it.

At a guess (and of course all we can do at this point is guess), the doors were designed that way because the designer never thought it would be necessary to enter or exit the tank during combat. He was, after all, an aviator - and most planes aren't designed to be entered during flight...

Ok that is a fascinating piece of history

"He was forced to resign in 1911, in the year of our lord John Moses Browning"

Gracias por enseñarme algo nuevo de mi pais.

My great Grandpa fought in the Army of Pancho Villa, and I would love it if you did a a full video.

Salinas is the most Warhammer 40k thing in history