Rudolf Gundlach (1892–1957) was a Polish military engineer, inventor and tank designer. He headed the design division of the Armored Weapons Technical Research Bureau (Biuro Badań Technicznych Broni Pancernych). He held the military rank of major in the Corps of Engineers of the Polish Army. He was the chief designer of the Ursus wz. 29 armored car and supervised design work for the 7TP light tank and the 10TP fast tank prototype. Early life Rudolf Gundlach was born on 28 March 1892 in Wiskitki, Russian Empire (now Poland) into an Evangelical family. His father was a pastor. From 1903 to 1911, he attended a classical gymnasium in Łódź, and then entered the Riga Technical University where he studied until his conscription into the Russian Army in 1916. He graduated from a non-commissioned officers school of artillery and served in the 8th Heavy Artillery Brigade. In mid-1917, he became a member of the Union of Military Poles in Tartu. He organized an artillery unit for the Polish I Corps. Interwar Poland Gundlach enlisted into the Polish Army in November 1918. After graduating from the Automotive Officers School in Kraków in October 1919, he served as an adjutant in the Automotive Command Center in Łódź. He was appointed lieutenant in December 1919 and commanded a column of military vehicles during the Polish–Soviet War. In 1925, Gundlach finished his studies at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology, but failed to obtain the engineer's degree (he didn't take the diploma exam). In January 1930, he was promoted to the rank of captain, and in 1937 to the rank of major. In interwar Poland, he worked in the Engineering Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs, as a clerk in the Institute of Engineering Research, and from 1931, was the head of the Armored Weapons Construction Bureau in the Army Research Institute for Engineering. In December 1934, he became the head of the Design and Construction Department in the Armoured Weapons Technical Research Bureau. He remained at this position until the outbreak of World War II. He was decorated with the Silver Cross of Merit. France After the fall of Poland in 1939, Gundlach was one of hundreds of thousand Polish soldiers, technicians, scientists and engineers who escaped to France via Romania. In France he worked in the Bureau of War Industry (Biuro Wojennego Przemysłu przy Ministerstwie Przemysłu), and in