T7 Combat Car – upcoming tier 2 premium tank

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Hello everyone,

today’ we’re going to have a look at the upcoming T7 Combat Car tank.

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The T7 Combat Car was based on the T1 Combat Car light tank and was made between 1937 and 1938 and theoretically, it was a pretty reasonable vehicle, that could go both with and without tracks on the road, much like the Christie designs. Its main armament (M2 .50cal machinegun) was however already obsolete for its time, despite the fact that a 45mm gun could possibly fit in the relatively large turret.

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In November 1936, the US cavalry branch (that was, strangely enough, prohibited to have regular gun tanks by the 1920 National Defense Act) finally decided to act: they needed a fully armored vehicle, capable of keeping up with the cavalry and of fulfilling regular combat duties. Of course, there was the aforementioned law (that actually was still valid throughout the war), so it couldn’t have been a regular “tank” – so the decision was taken to go for a smaller and lighter “car” class vehicle.

Since the vehicle was – just like the cavalry horses – expected to drive as much or more on the roads as in terrain, a decision was taken to go for a wheel-track design (capable of both modes), as the tyres had much greater durability than the tracks themselves (or so it was thought). Americans already had (bad) experience by that time with Christie’s all-steel roadwheels and in order to repeat that failure, they decided to add terrain tyres on all the roadwheels, filled with some sort of mesh in order not to be punctured by bullets.

The main gun of the project was traditional: one .50cal Browning heavy machinegun and three regular .30 M1919 machineguns (4 machineguns for a three man crew, I am sure George Patton would love that vehicle).

The vehicle was powered by a 7-cylinder radial engine Continental W-760, producing 250 horsepower. Since the vehicle weighted only 11 tons, it could go as fast as 56km/h on tracks and whopping 85km/h on wheels. Rear wheels were attached to bogies and the construction generally looked a lot like the one of a regular commercial 3-axle truck. From the tank point of view it was not ideal, but it was definitely simple and more promising than Christie’s suspension. Another advantage was that the external suspension components saved a lot of space inside this small vehicle. The vehicle had three big roadwheels with rubber tyres filled with mesh, that also acted as rollers, the front wheel was powered.

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The prototype T7 tests were delayed until 1939, but when they happened, they were reasonably successful, the vehicle even participated in the Plattsburg (NY) maneuvers (where the cavalrymen liked it), but in October 1939, the cavalry branch formed new requirements for their combat vehicles. One of the requirements was a regular tracked (not combined) suspension. The reason for that decision was that the tracks were already available in reasonable quantity and quality and thus there was no need for a combined suspension. Furthermore, HMG was not going to cut it anymore: war in Europe proved that in order for a vehicle to be successful, it needs a proper cannon. Thus, the T7 development was stopped despite the fact it could have been easily and without great expenses converted either into a gun tank, or at least into a good armored car.

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Characteristics:

Weight: 11 tons
Crew: 3
Suspension: coil spring-based wheel/track
Armor: 16mm
Main gun: .50cal M2 Browning
Engine: Continental W-760, 250hp
Max speed: 56 km/h (85 on wheels)

Source: http://alternathistory.org.ua/tank-t7-combat-car-ssha

80 thoughts on “T7 Combat Car – upcoming tier 2 premium tank”

  1. Is it going to be equipped with ‘point fifty’ in the game too?

    Well, we couldn’t exepct anything better after T1E6 and LTP.

      • I might just keep the darned thing.

        Damage: 8 HP
        AP: 22 mm
        RoF: 85.41-107.62 r/m
        Acc: 0.57 m
        Aim: 1.7s

        Taken from the current implementation of the .50 on the M2 light

        • The M2LT’s .50 is hilarious fun. Not very effective, but still damn funny. When I used the M2LT I used to keep the .50 on it. As it had speed an armour you could get to blind corners on most maps and dig in. Then someone would trundle round the corner totally oblivious to your presence and get a full belt of 40 odd rounds in the face, in the space of a couple of seconds.

          It didn’t do too much damage but oh boy they’d panic.

  3. I will never understend why WG keep making premium tank at the lower tiers (2-3-4). They don’t have any advantage of the higher tiers: no credics beacause of the poor damage that you can do, no traning crew because of the poor xp that you get and beacouse the tanks don’t have the mostly needed 5 crewmembers. I think that they should work like special gifts for missions and events, with a free garage slot, wich was the better part of the LTP.

    • I somehow suspect changing the powertrain from the usual drive sprocket over to the wheels (I’m guessing the front set) required a bit more time and effort than flipping a switch and maybe doing a Tranformation Montage(tm).

  8. I bet it would see Tier 2 tops. And it will be fun…imagine 2 or 3 in a platoon rushing through with great speed and rape the Tier 1′s ! …It would be a great sealclubber I guess :)

  9. It’s just a shame that (Like the Christie based tanks) you won’t be able to keep running when you’re tracked.

    Imagine…You’re running around at 56 km/h, and arty splashes next to you (or you’re hit in the track area)…Suddenly you’re accelerating to 85.

    Of course, a few seconds later your crew will slam the brakes on when they “fix” the tracks…

      • It COULD be that the only other mention of this prior to mine was approx 3 minutes before mine…About the time I was typing the commment above?

    • The Christie dual-drives took quite a bit of time and effort to switch into wheel-mode, and I sincerely doubt this thing was much different. AFAIK the point of the wheeled mode was improved endurance on “road marches” – early tracks tended not survive those very well – not tactical use, though obviously such a tank forced to go straight into combat without the opportunity to reattach the tracks could fight on its wheels too if needs must.

      • On the other hand, they could just use a Transformation Montage like you mentioned earlier and have it done much quicker.

        Really, I don’t see why none of the major powers used’em, much more efficient than “time” and “hard work”, plus add breasts and cat ears to random things OR simply giant robots and you easily reach recruiting quotas :\

        • I think the stumbling block turned out to be the necessity of a Rousing Theme Song(tm) for the shift, ghetto blasters not yet being on the market.

            • Tch…completely forgot about that. Guess war shortages would have cut down on the materials available for said ghetto blasters anyway, and there’s the lack of applicable music as you say.

              Man, someone needs to get time travel all sorted out so that we can bring these things back to them. Having to do war things without the proper equipment and beats…well, it’s just not right :\

  10. I’m looking forward to this. Sounds liek a fun Tier 2 blast to go with my T1E6, T2 Light and Tier 3 M22 Locust. That’s a lot of daily doubles to keep the Chaffee commander moving towards completing second skill.

  11. Hopefully it also comes with a cavalry sabre for hitting things at close range… It has plenty dakka but no obvious choppa.

  15. That’s a quite cute tank but at least this tank will probably be free compared to the T2 Light Tank…
    Though you’ll probably have to do an extremely hard ‘mission’ to get this.

      • Just looking at the tracks on this one is enough to make me cringe. But I didn’t mean just this. The FlaK waffentrager was of course included. And the new soviet line. It’s almost as if all that’s left to implement are the strangest of the strange.

  18. I like how toothy the tracks are, looks like they’re eating the wheels. Omnomnom.

    So basically what we have here is a T2 Light that won’t get ripped by matchmaker (22hp/t instead of ~35hp/t should save it) but a worse gun?
    Sounds alright. The gun penetration will be annoying to deal with, but in tier 2 it should be doable against most tanks. Tier 3 is going to be…interesting, though.

    -

    Since nobody else has pointed it out:
    “Americans already had (bad) experience by that time with Christie’s all-steel roadwheels and in order to repeat that failure…”
    Do you mean “in order to NOT repeat that failure” here?

      • I did. The rubber tire/track combination sounds like an excellent idea, provided the metal mesh can support the vehicle in the event of seal loss.
        The article even goes on to continue describing the tank and its suspension in a fairly positive light, with no mention of wheel/track failures in testing, soooo I’m not seeing the reason for its current wording here.

        Then again, I’m nowhere near an expert in tank design, so if I’m being really dumb and missing something obvious, by all means tell me.

  19. To be fair, the “Ma-Duce” was originally designed to kill tanks, back during World War I; of course, the armor on tanks improved and rendered it pretty much useless in that role.

  20. Here’s how I see this tank performing; note, my observations may be a little pessimistic, but the T1E6 left a bitter taste in my mouth; I was expecting a Tetrarch equivalent, but what I got was a turkey that belonged in tier 1.

    The T7 will be the fastest tier II tank in the game (probably, I forgot if the Panzer I is faster, but it’ll be 1 km/h faster than a BT-2), and will be quite agile with quick acceleration and traverse speed on both the vehicle and the turret.

    The gun will be anemic in alpha damage (the is the M2 LT’s stock gun we’re talking about here, so 8 damage per shot, officially the weakest alpha in the game), but the ROF will still make it somewhat useful against tier 1s and the lesser-armored tier 2s (so don’t try going up against a T18 with this unless you know what you’re doing).

    Lastly, it’ll likely have decent view and signal range in-tier, or something else to make up for a fairly-weak gun.

    Overall, this tank looks like it has a very steep learning curve, relegating its use to seal clubbers who play the lower tiers for fun instead of players grinding through tier 2. It has potential to be a monster when played right (like most tanks in the game), but overall, don’t expect any miracles from the T7.

    • Gobble gobble. I do agree, the T1E6 was pretty disappointing, basically the T1 with a crappy autoloader tacked on.

      As for “quick acceleration”, it works out to 22hp/t. If it turns out to have very low ground resistance than it should be fine, otherwise we’re looking at PzIII/IV mobility here…not the worst in the world, but slightly sluggish as far as light tanks go. The M2 Light has 30hp/t when upgraded, for example. Definitely better than the PzI’s 17.3hp/t and 40kph, though.

  21. “and in order to repeat that failure”
    Is there supposed to be a “not” in there somewhere? :)

  22. Just FYI – as this was an US vehicle, it used tires rather than tyres. “Tire” is the North American form, whereas “tyre” is British. :)

  24. Neat little thing, sad that it’s for Super-testers only.

    Also, never have understood all the hate for the T1E6, I love the little thing. Its now my most played light tank!

  28. Not just a gold tank, But a golden donkey tank. Should work out good for training my T-71 crew.

  29. One more thing, how is the M2 .50cal machinegun considered obsolete? It is still used on US. combat vehicles today. It will tear light armor up.

    • Different ammo, check raufoss mk. 211 rounds for the Browning M2(and anything else using .50BMG rounds really, such as the Barrett). And tbh…the M2 browning currently is rather used against technicals(y’know..trucks with MGs or guns mounted) and anti materiel work rather than anti-armor.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211

  30. Im actually looking forward to this, I like lower tier premiums.

    I also have a hunch that the British Light Tank Mk VI C is the 2013 holiday gift tank.

  32. if they use the same logic they used with the 1c, the MG on this will be devastating. I mean, if an 8mm MG can penetrate 33mm of armor, a .50 caliber (12.7mm) should do MUCH more.