The M22 Locust: A purpose-built tank designed to fly into battle

Wars & Conflicts · Published 9 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 1941, the British War Office realized their existing light tanks weren't fit for airborne warfare. They needed a specialized machine that could be carried by glider. The result was the M22 Locust, an American-designed tank that faced significant design delays and an obsolete status before even seeing combat.

The development of the M22 Locust began in 1941 after the British War Office sought a replacement for the Vickers-Armstrong Light Tank Mk VII Tetrarch. While the Tetrarch was intended for airborne use, it was not purpose-built for it and suffered from a limited three-person crew and a faulty cooling system. To meet the need for a specialized airmobile tank, the British requested assistance from the United States, leading the American Ordnance Department to select Marmon-Herrington to design a prototype.

The initial prototype, designated the Light Tank T9 (Airborne), was engineered with specific transport constraints in mind. It was designed to be carried underneath a Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft or inside a General Aircraft Hamilcar glider. The T9 featured a 37-millimeter main gun and a crew of three. However, the transition from prototype to production was fraught with difficulty. After several design modifications and faults, production of the T9 did not begin until April 1943, by which time the design was already considered obsolete.

Despite these setbacks, 830 units were eventually produced by February 1945. The tanks saw limited action; during Operation Varsity in March 1945, only two Locusts successfully reached their rendezvous point. The deployment was largely unsuccessful, as the tanks attracted heavy artillery fire that caused significant infantry casualties. While the M22 never saw further active service with the British Army and was classified as obsolete in 1946, it found later use with the Belgian Army as command tanks and the Egyptian Army during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

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