EU tree Czech tier 2 arty – MU-4/I 70mm

Hello everyone,

some of you, who read the historical articles and have seen the Czechoslovak tank tree proposal, specifically artillery section, might remember that it was based on year or two old Tuccy’s proposal. The artillery branch basically went like this, but in light of the sources I had at the time, I decided to scrap Tuccy’s idea of the branch. However, that all was before the tier 10 arty was actually introduced (yes, long time ago). With the tier 10 arty requirement, there was suddenly a need for more proper tier 2 artillery vehicle for the Czechoslovak branch.

Originally, I did put the SD-76M (Czechoslovak SU-76) on that spot, but it seemed lame to me and I was wondering whether Tuccy was right after all. Well, I finally managed to get my hands on the book where Tuccy found the MU-4/I and I indeed think it would be a better tier 2 than my original proposal.

mu4

The history of this vehicle starts in 1929/1930. At that time, tankettes were the “flavour of the year” and the Czechoslovak army did not want to stay behind. Two major contestants for the tankette development were Praga and Škoda. While Praga proposed to simply license-build Carden-Loyd Mk.VI tankettes in 1929, Škoda – new to the whole armor business at that time – started to develop their own vehicle – the designation for them was “MU” (which meant “malý útočný”, or “malý útočný vůz” – small assault vehicle). By the end of 1930 a single prototype of the Škoda MU-4/I tankette was made. It was actually quite good (for its class anyway), the chassis was welded (4-5,5mm armor plates) and weighted 1,64tons, it was armed with a pair of 7,92mm machineguns and powered by a boxer 4-cylinder 2,7 liter 33hp engine (Škoda Flat Four), allowing it to go as fast as 40km/h. As a vehicle, it wasn’t bad, but the Czechoslovak army was more interested in the Praga P-I proposal (that would become the infamous Tančík vz.33). The tankette was tested in Yugoslavia (as a potential client, Škoda had very good name in there) in October 1933, but it suffered from engine breakdown and the test was a failure.

mu4-1

Well, that was the fate of the tankette itself anyway. Back when the whole tankette was developed however, Škoda thought it would actually be a good idea to offer something more than just tankette and decided to use the chassis for a gun carrier, or more like a self-propelled gun by fitting the 70mm BA-1 gun on it.

DSC_0313

70mm BA-1 is nothing else than the Škoda light infantry gun vz.28 (1928 pattern). It was developed in the early 30′s for export to Lithuania. The caliber was 70mm as mentioned before, the shell weight is not known, but it the muzzle velocity was 190m/s and the maximum range of the gun was 2500m. Škoda did propose on 17.12.1931 to put this gun with limited traverse mount and a thin gun shield on the MU chassis. It increased the vehicle weight by cca 170kg. In the end, this proposal stayed only “on paper”, a prototype was never built, but it’s interesting in the way that it was one of the first attempts to create a self-propelled gun in Czechoslovakia.

In World of Tanks

It would probably fit tier 2 really well I think. There are definitely enough vehicles to make one whole Czechoslovak artillery branch, but I am kinda curious how will Wargaming mix it. Low tier Czechoslovak arties are powerful, but extremely uncomfortable (bad traverse angles), with mid tiers being more comfortable and high tiers being total monsters (Possible tier 10: 305mm mortar on Panther chassis)

Characteristics:

Crew: 2
Weight: 1,8t
Engine: 33hp Škoda Flat Four
Maximum speed: 35-40km/h
Armor: 4-5,5mm
Gun: 70mm BA-1

Source:
Pejčoch – Obrněná technika
valka.cz

25 thoughts on “EU tree Czech tier 2 arty – MU-4/I 70mm

      • I know. I was an old arty player. Couldn’t watch my Hummel miss for the 5th time a game.

    • - small rebalance (buff) of following arties: SU-26, SU-122A, SU-8, SU-14-1, SU-14-2, Object 212A, GPz Mk.VI(e), GW TigerP, GW Tiger, M41, AMX 13 105 mle.50

      you should ;)

      • None of those are in my current plans sadly. I only have the German arty line up to T7. Not even the second gun on the GW Panther unlocked.

    • I wonder what kind of stuff the Czech’s would’ve produced if the Germans hadn’t come along. Larger med/heavy designs that is

      • Well, that depends on whether there would be a war or not. Czechoslovakia had 5 times less inhabitants than Germany, we wouldn’t be able to afford to spend so much on war industry, our army was based on mobile troops inland and heavy border fortifications.

        • So yeah, tanks similar to the Cromwell, and if there were any Heavy tanks at all they would probably designed as fast breakthrough tanks rather than the gigantic snipers the Germans built (basically I would have seen Czech heavies being similar to the IS series in function).

    • Suppose the Russians also deserve mention as well since they absolutely wrecked the Czech tank industry iirc.

  1. Question is what would be at tier 3, the hetzer based models seems to have too much armour for that spot
    but that is just my preception

    • Well, the tier 3 Hetzer has outer gun with almost no protection (you simply aim at the gun) and tier 4 Hetzer would either have lower armor, or would be significantly nerfed with mobility.

  2. love the historical articles

    Are you going to publish articles on other countries Euro tree candidates?

    It also surprises me how often Yugoslavia-Czechoslovak cooperation is mentioned.

    interesting factoid
    in the late seventies Yugoslavia bought “Vidra” (in Czech “Vydra”?) weapons station from Czechoslovak, which was supposed to be used for modernization of M-80 (M-80A1 Vidra) but everything went to sh*t in the 90s…. Fast forward to 2013 and a modified Vidra weapons station is used on new Lazar 2

    • Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia military ties were very strong pre-war, we exported there pretty much everything, from rifles and machineguns to artillery. I think there is a general bond between the ex-Yugoslav nations and Czechs even now.