Hello everyone,
this article will partially deal with the “newly found” Czechoslovak premium candidate, the T 40 medium tank and some issues, that come with it in the Czechoslovak branch. The Czechoslovak hightier composition evolved like this:
My original concept was:
Premium: TVP Concept (the earliest proposal by the military for a medium tank from early 1946), previously I designated it “TVP Model 1946)
Tier 8: T 50 (previously T-50, but the dash is not there really), in which I included Dubánek’s Škoda proposal from late 1946 as its “stock” variant. When the project was distributed between Škoda and Praga (ČKD), the “T 50″ was a designation assigned to the Škoda project, while the Praga project was designated T 51 (it was somewhat different, for example it only had 5 roadwheels and pike nose armor, not unlike the IS-3)
At that time, the amount of data, available about both the Concept and the “T 50″ was limited to one book and thus, alternative were sought for the Czechoslovak premium slots, spawning the ideas of T-40/75 (Czech-modified Panzer IV), Cromwell (pure clone), T-34/85 or the Tiger with Škoda turret (which, while technically a heavy tank, was, as a desperate measure, considered to be allowed to train medium tank crews as well).
A short intermezzo, regarding the names of these tanks, because they surely can be confusing. The general name of the program is TVP (“tank všeobecného použití” – “tank for general use”) – so, when you say “TVP”, it doesn’t really mean one specific tank, it means the entire program, it’s like if you said “medium tank program”. Various stages of this program had various names and some did not have any names at all – the VTU proposal for example, which I then named first the “TVP Model 1946″ (after the year the drawing was proposed) or (later on), “TVP Concept”, which is in my opinion more fitting. But again, there is no official name. On the other hand, the designations T 40, T 50 and T 50/51 are historical. Please note that the numbers in this case do NOT mean weight (like they did in German VK series, althought the T 40 coincidentally weighs roughly 40 tons), nor do they mean a year. They are just numbers.
Right, back to the TVP program. The week before the meeting with Wargaming took place, Mr.Tintěra (Czech historian, that is helping Wargaming with the vehicles) found something interesting in the archives – the entire official name is “Combat Vehicle Škoda T 40″ and it’s a very early part of the TVP program (basically a reply on the initial VTU proposal from Škoda). It was looking very exciting, but I got to see it only after the meeting with WG guys, because instead of sending the large files per internet, Mr.Tintěra decided to bring it on the flash drive.
Continue reading →
