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The ''Pantserwagen'' M39 or DAF ''Pantrado'' 3 was a Dutch 6×4 armoured car produced in the late thirties for the Royal Dutch Army. From 1935 the DAF automobile company designed several armoured fighting vehicles based on its innovative ''Trado'' truck suspension system. Among these was the ''Pantrado 2'', an armoured car. From 1936 the Dutch military encouraged DAF to develop this type into the ''Pantrado 3'', a design more closely meeting army specifications for a reconnaissance vehicle, in order to establish a small indigenous armoured vehicle production capacity. A prototype was built and in early 1939 twelve vehicles were ordered of the DAF M39 type, the last of which was delivered in January 1940. The vehicles were destined to equip reconnaissance platoons of four cavalry hussar regiments. For its time the DAF M39 was a modern design with an all-welded monocoque construction of the hull and extensive use of sloped armour. The turret, fitted with a relatively powerful 37 mm cannon, was produced in Sweden by Landsverk. The type was lightly armoured and relatively fast, with a good cross-country capability. It had been intended to build a second series of an improved type with 6 x 6 drive, the DAF M40, but production preparations were interrupted by the German attack during the Second World War. When the Netherlands were invaded on 10 May 1940, no operational unit had yet been equipped with the type. The crews had not finished their training yet and the vehicles themselves had not all been completed due to delays in the fitting of the armament and repairs necessary because the welded armour plates proved prone to cracking. Therefore only three DAF M39s actually participated in the fighting, in ad hoc-units, engaging German airborne troops and landed transport planes. After the Dutch defeat, German combat units would for several years employ the captured vehicles under the designation ''Panzerspähwagen DAF 201 (h)'', some of them upgraded by DAF, until gradually losing them all on the Eastern Front. After the war there were plans to restart production, building two hundred vehicles for Dutch reconnaissance units and perhaps a number for Belgium, but eventually it was decided to use light tanks for this rôle instead. ==Background== In 1937 the quickly deteriorating international situation urged the Dutch government to speed up its 1936 modernisation programme for the Dutch armed forces. In view of the limited budget available for armoured vehicles, Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Izaak H. Reijnders decided that most funds should be dedicated to the acquisition of tanks. Therefore the existing number of twelve Swedish Landsverk 181 (named M36 in Dutch service) armoured cars, equipping a single squadron, should only be expanded with a dozen more for a second squadron, two additional vehicles to function as command cars for each squadron, twelve vehicles to provide a platoon of three for the reconnaissance unit, a motorised cavalry Hussar regiment, of each of the four infantry corps and finally ten vehicles to be used as matériel reserve and for training: 36 new armoured cars in total. Fourteen Landsverk 180 (M38) vehicles were received between 16 March and 11 November 1938 to equip the second squadron and as command cars; however the Dutch in 1937 also tried to reduce their dependency on foreign manufacturers — especially Sweden, the armour industry of which country was known to have close ties with Germany — by employing their own small truck industry, the DAF company. The army had in 1935 first suggested to DAF to produce some British type under licence.〔White, B.T., 1983, ''Tanks and other Armoured Fighting Vehicles of World War II'', Peerage Books, London, p. 120〕 Although officially the Netherlands adhered to a policy of the strictest neutrality, it was hoped that by secret negotiations it could be arranged that the British would send an expeditionary force in case of a German attack and that some communality of equipment would facilitate such future cooperation. Also the army considered British armoured cars to be the best available. However it transpired that DAF had already developed an indigenous design, which it claimed to be more advanced then any British armoured car. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「M39 Pantserwagen」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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