British light tank summary

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Hello everyone,

a quick summary of possible British light tanks by Listy. Just so you know what is there.

In the post war period the one area of British tank design that saw a lot of development was light tanks. Being relativity cheap and easy to produce even individual companies would develop projects in the hope of finding a buyer. Some of the Designs were eccentric at best. Some were just test beds, but some made it to service. In World of Tanks the flaws of some of the odder designs (such as maintenance or crew overwork) are notreflected for ease of play, and would thus give the UK light tank tree a very interesting feel.

Two of the designs are known about as, the designers have mentioned them and I was involved with looking for the plans to them last year. These of course are the A46/FV301 (technically two separately tanks with differing Armour thickness) and the Vickers No. 45569 T. For this write up I will not focus on them as you already know of them. Nearly all of the information can be found on the World of Tanks forums, and has been researched and dug up from archives and books by several dedicated posters.

Here is a brief overview of the suggested designs, in no particular order…

1: TV-10000 Rhino

Built as a test vehicle in the early 60′s. Mostly seen as a wheel vehicle. However as this picture shows a set of tracks were fitted.

E1994.137_TV1000 Rhino with Bonmartini tracks_FVRDE Chertsey_1966_

Now some elements of it would need to be invented by Wargaming, such as the amour profile around the drivers position. However the tank is preserved at Bovington tank museum. Weapon fit for it was to have been a Saladin turret and guided missiles. The missiles would have been mounted behind the turret, limiting the traverse. Obviously as guided missiles are not in World of Tanks they can be omitted giving the turret a full 360 degree traverse.

2: FV-4401 “Prodigal”

As part of the FV-4401 project, which led to the Contentious tank destroyer, a Light tank was created. Its first issue in real life was the tiny number of crew. However drawings for it are available on line.

fv44012ou5

Of course the biggest sticking point is the weaponry. Originally it was designed to have twin 120mm WOMBAT’s with drum auto loaders. WOMBAT’s are of course recoiless rifles, which are not to be in the game. So an alternate armament fit would need to be found. But it is a design that would give the UK auto-loading high tier tanks.

3: Vickers 13 Tonner

Not much is known about this tank, apart from its configuration. From that we can very easily build the tanks stats. It was proposed by Vickers as a airmobile light tank. It was essentially a FV432 chassis with a Saladin turret on it. Both of these are commonly produced items available for research across the world.

4: AVR

KmukOQx

A Light tank project that was the forerunner to the TV-150000. A good description would be a larger AMX-ELC with a 105mm L7 instead.

5: TV-150000/CVR(T)

E1987.122_TV15000 prototype_Chertsey__7187-A1

This tank became the Scorpion, and then the Scimitar, Sabre and Scorpion 90. It is by far the easiest to work out modules and upgrades for, as a whole slew of of real changes were made. Plus it’s easily available to research as there are so many in existence. I was measuring one only last week, and talking to crew members who served on it to assist a group of players on the North American server who are gathering data for it. Some might complain about the introduction date being to late. However the following picture was taken in 1966, and is the TV-150000. Or what is basically a prototype Scorpion.

68 thoughts on “British light tank summary”

      • In AFV profile No. 38 it does make mention of the AFV carrying separately mounted swingfire missiles. It also makes a comparison to the M551 sheridan (firing both high explosive shells and anti-tank guided missiles) but not having the compromising requirement of firing both from the same gun.

        • The Sheridan fired HEAT shells and guided Shillelagh missles, not HE shells, although Im pretty sure the HEAT shells had fragmentation belts making then a viable anti-infantry weapon aswell thus essentially being a dual-purpose ammo.

  2. As always with Listy – interesting read, I really hope the British will get their high tier lights in the future, as those constructions look really peculiar and could add something new to the gameplay.

  4. It’s interesting to hear WG complain how they can’t find any suitable british tank line, when the UK probably more than any other nation has a chance of making a full scout line from tier 2 all the way up to tier 10.

    • The main problem with British light tanks isn’t the lack of material, its the lack of interest in Brit tanks from WG.

      If you want high tier Brit LT’s in the game, you will have to keep asking WG for them. Even then, don’t expect anything until 2015/16.

    • If you are referring to this current light tank article that would be retarded. Almost nothing fits the game mechanics and the rest of it is “WG needs to make up the armour model”.

    • Probably because its already ingame as an old tier 2 premium tank. It was given as a new years gift but can now be found coupled with expensive gift shop packages.

      This article seems to be focusing more on tier 5 and later tiers rather than tiers 2-3

    • Either 1) to troll the people who couldn’t get one, or 2) because this only addresses some of the higher-tiered vehicles, when the Tetrarch would be a tier 2 (maybe 3 if upgraded) at BEST.

    • This is for high tier lights.

      There are even more low tier Lights

      Tetrarch would probably be a tier 3 (imagine the premium with better weapons and better mobility)

      • i got a tetrach. but i want a british one too. i got LL matilda and LL Valentine. There is a LL Churchill too. All of them have british vehicles ingame aswell, but not the tetrach. It makes no sense

        • It’ll make more sense when WG bother to do research and make a fully functioning British light tank branch. It’s not difficult.

  7. What does the number in TV-150000 refer to? Seems an odd designation and problematic…

  8. OT regaring new german TDs: Can someone please explain me why the 128 cm K44/L55 and 128 cm PaK44 L55 have a differencene in weight of 4,3 tons? How is that even possible aren’t they almost the same cannons? I can’t imagine the breech being 4 tons heavier on the non PaK version

    • Different platform, different mounting but I’m just guessing. Schmalturm has different weights on different tanks too. Could be devs mistake.

    • Module weight is basically a balance parameter, mate. Could be any number of reasons really, for example the hull module (yes, technically hull is a module) weight being counted without the mount in one case. Sturdier recoil braces. Anything really.

  9. Nice to see a CVR(T) on FTR. Would love them in game since i served on a Scorpion myself.

  10. I still hope that someday WG decides to implement tier 10 scouts including the Sheridan for the US techtree, practicaly a chaffee with a 155 derp.

      • Well actually, the 152 wasn’t a smoothbore, but there are plenty of other reasons why it shouldn’t be added into the game.

        • WG can just leave out the ATGM’s and have it default to HEAT rounds. As for the aluminium armour, they can just give it the equivalent-to-steel thickness.

          There you go, a working Sherdican that WG doesn’t have to make any special mechanic or modifier for because they are lazy.

  11. Scorpion hun, even with HESH would not be much better then 7.5cm kwk37.
    Armor wise, it has none.
    OK, it is fast.

    How is that high tier?

    • Um, you’d be surprise to hear that the scorpion has much more armour than you might think.

      • I have seen quite good pics of one blown up. 35-40mm (vertical) and 15-20mm (sloped) thick aluminium, so ~40-50% steel resistance. Requirement was 12.7mm front, 7.62mm side protection.

        76mm HESH could take out T-55 same was 7.5cm kwk37 HEAT could, by shooting it in ass. Rule of thumb is that HEST spalls armor of own thickness+20%. So turret is no-go. Glacis, maybe but only marginal spalling possible (100mm). Sides are protected by road wheels, tracks and storage boxes, which degrade HESH seriously.

        • Listy went ahead and measured one (sabre) and while I won’t spoil his measurements for later, his measurements found the armour is a good half thicker than that.

          As for hesh, that is another ballgame entirely (they are missing the ~40-60 degress of effective normalization the shell had)

          • Re Hesh – 76mm HESH is not nearly enough to reliably KO T-54/55. While it is possible, it borders on improbable. .
            Re armor – it is still Aluminium. Even 60mm will only resist like 24-30mm of steel.
            14.5mm AP (steel one, not tungsten carbide) penetrated Scorpions frontally IRL, with ~32mm@100m pen value.

            • Edit, even 105mm HESH, which has more hen double amount of explosives 76mm has (and with HESH amount of explosive is sole factor), produced only non-critical spall when hitting T-54A turret (it could make critical spalling when hitting glacis however).
              Another thing, muzzle velocity of HESH is slow, do you want to play high tier light tank with shooting ark like 3.7″ howitzer of Cromwell.Churchill?

            • Actutually, from what I hear the 76mm has knocked out a number of tanks, including the T-62.

              In Somalia the Canadian forces Cougar (armed with the 76mm gun and HESH) destroyed caches of T-55′s with HESH. There’s a few second hand reports floating around of the 76mm rounds producing significant spalling even against the turret, described as “the size of dinner plate to half meters” and “An inch and a half thick inside slab of the turret wall, about four foot square, simply flaked off the inside of the turret

              Even with the specific aluminum allow used in the scorpion (checked for the approximate conversion value), it still winds up as being better armoured than a few upper tier lights tanks in the game at the moment.

            • You can shot rear part of turret and introduce sagnificant spalling, rear is 50something mm thick.

              Front – no fucking way.
              Armor – again, 12.7mm protection, no 14.5mm protection. Sides – 7.62mm protection.

              That is 25mm front, 15mm (very optimistic) sides.

  14. So why does WG always tell us they haven’t been able to find any British light tanks?

    • Should always take anything WG say with a pinch of salt. It may have been a half assed replay. In other words, they have not yet got the information they need from people doing the research.

  15. Out of curiosity, why no discussion of the FV301? And I must say, I like the idea of the UK getting some higher tier light tanks. A CVR(T) would be cool.

      • Aha.Well, that would do it, hey.

        Just so I don’t seem picky, I must add that this post gave me a nice wikipedia rabbit hole to fall down on a Sunday morn. Ta muchly :)

    • Because in the FTR Q&A part 2 the Devs mentioned the FV301/A46, and I was involved with the search for the plans last year. So the dev’s already know about it.

      Apologies to everyone else, I didn’t realise this was going to be published, if I had I would have credited player names where necessary.

      • Thanks. Sometimes I get the impression that games development is like having a couple of thousand mother-in-laws. It doesn’t matter what you say or do, one of them will find something to criticize. And usually more than one, and the proposed solutions to their criticisms will be mutually exclusive.