Pre-WWII forerunners of WWII tanks

For starters: The A7E3.



It never entered production, but had many features which would later be incorporated in the development of the Matilda II. The most obvious feature is the suspension.

 

The Renault R-17 I believe it was, the French Tank, was one of the first two people gunner/commander and driver tanks. Unfortunately the Germans in their Blitzkrieg had a driver, gunner and commander, making comms/firing much better, although some French Tanks (Souma, Char) were better.

Back to the start though, I the R-17 almost lead the way for ArFr tanks, which were at the start of WWII superior to Axis ones, just not good tactics, etc.

Cheers,
Tomba

 

How about the A9


and A10


fore-runners of the Valentine.
I'll try and dig up some info about their service (or lack of it!), but both have some obvious 'Valentine' features - again the most obvious is the suspension system, which was exactly the same in the Valentine.

Ok, from my trusty copy of Chamberlain & Ellis, that I went home & checked in my lunch hour...

The A9 was designed by Sir John Carden, of Vickers-Armstrong, and production started in 1937. 125 were built, and the A9 equipped some regiments of the 1st Armoured Division in France in 1940. They were also used by some regiments in the Western Desert, until 1941. The A9 had inadequate armour to be an infantry tank, and inadequate speed to be a cruiser...

The A10 was basically an upgraded A9, with bolt-on armour and the front machine-gun turrets removed. 175 were built between July 1938 and September 1940, and they had a similar service history to the A9. The A10 was designed to be an 'infantry tank', but was re-classified as a 'heavy cruiser', due to suffering essentially the same faults as the A9.

Both tanks were nothing more than stop-gaps until the A13 series of Cruiser tanks (with Christie-type suspension) were available for production.

The Valentine (A12) was basically the chassis, suspension, engine and transmission of the A10, with a new superstructure and turret.

 

Hey Skua,I just sent Panzerprofile a few pics to post.I think you'll like them.

 

For the diehards

there you go ST, thanks for sending these!








By the way I have to say I'm truly sorry I'm not here on the forums a lot. It's because of busy days at university. I shall try to be around a little more when the real busy days are over.

cheers, PP

 

I would like to know some details about this vehicle. It looks like a predecessor of the Lee series tanks, but its turret looks more like that of a Stuart.

 

Its medium tank M2. And yes, its predecessor to medium tank M3.

 

Those tracks, bogey wheels, and suspension sure are familiar!

:lol:

 

It is inded an M2.Unless I am mistaken,it was deemed obsolete when it went into production.Existing vehicles were used for training only.The M2 never saw combat.The above photos were taken at Aberdeen.

 

Believe it or not,but this tank had a crew of six.Had to be crowded.It was armed with a 37mm main gun and M1919A4 machinegun mounted co-axially.It also had four machineguns mounted at the corners of the superstructure and two mg's mounted in fixed positions in the glacis.
Combat weight was 47,040 lbs.(21,337kgs).Top speed on the road was 26mph and 17 mph cross-country.

BTW,thanks again Panzer.

 

The design the Stuart was based on was the M2 Light tank, which has its own topic:
http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3774

The M2 Medium tank, as seen in the photograph above, was the fore-runner of the M3 Lee/Grant series. Essentially, the M2 was designed in 1938, standardised in 1939 and a few were built, in a couple of improved versions. An order for 1,000 M2A1 tanks was placed on 15 August, 1940. However, it was realised that the tank was obsolete by European standards, and so it was extensively redesigned to fit a 75mm gun in the hull (fitting it into the turret would have required even more development time), and thus it became the Medium tank M3 - which of course led to the Medium tank M4.

The M2A1s that were built were all used for training purposes

 

Hi.



Prototype of the Type 94 tk special tractor developed from 1932 to 1934.

It´s horizontal sprung suspension was the basis for all following tanks until 1945




type 95 light tank Ha-Go



type 97 medium tank Chi-Ha



experimental type 5 tank Chi-Ri

Yours

tom!