Thursday 23 February 2017

Mysterious British Tank

The Soviet Union had an extensive network of intelligence agents in Great Britain, who were able to recover a great deal of information that the British weren't willing to hand over themselves. Sometimes that information was accurate, sometimes not so much.
"Characteristics
Of a 20-ton English tank
  1. Mass: 20 tons
  2. Armour thickness: 45-60 mm
  3. Armed with a 6-pdr gun
  4. Two diesel 130 hp engines, 4 drive sprockets on tracked chassis. These sprockets can also propel the tank if the track is knocked off.
  5. Torsion bar suspension.
The turret is installed on rubberized ball bearings. The turret can be turned manually or use a hydraulic drive. The turret is turned by the lower part of the turret platform which is connected to the hull by a frame."

5 comments:

  1. Closest thing that comes to mind is the excelsior tank, the one that looks like an inbred mix of a churchill and cromwell

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...except that literally twice the weight cited here, rather more heavily armoured, and none of the versions proposed or built used torsion bars (they had either a modification of the future Cromwell's improved Christie system or the M6's HVSS)...

      Other than the suspension the specs sound the closest to some of the Valentine Marks, actually, but God knows where that bullshit drivetrain description was pulled from...

      Delete
    2. Point #4 makes me think this is supposed to be some kind of super-Tetrarch.

      Delete
    3. @Kellomies: I know the specs are off in a few places, but the same would apply to valentines, since those also dont have torsion bars but the bogie system from the Cruiser Mk I/II.
      I think the excelsior at least makes the impression of torsion bars and 20 tons weight given its purpose and general looks.

      In reality though I think its probably all of these mixed together in a weird way.

      Delete
    4. The Brits weren't into torsion bars in general so eh, but given that the Excelsior was a backup project for the Churchill and duly in the same hefty weight class garbled data on some of the smaller designs seems more likely.

      Delete