Alternative History Armoured Fighting Vehicles Part 3
- Thread starter Claymore
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That was actually the inspiration my Sov M113, I used the hull but with some alterations.
I like the contrast between the angular tank and the circular cupola on the first one. It made me think that someone left a British A10 alone with an early American Medium.Could always be that they got it through Lend Lease in this timeline? Stalin might have all these fancy tanks from the future, but it doesn't mean he might not go "these generals...have them shot" like in OTL, and end up recreating only a slightly different version of the war.
That'd certainly account for the booboo with me accidentally using the same color for both of them, but noThere's a more detailed bit of breakdown on the map over in the Map Thread if you're interested, but since this is the tank thread...have some tanks (or beetles in this timeline, but I might drop that because my writing instinct pulls towards "tanks" so much) from the same continuity as the last one, set in an ATL WW1 era that has more armoured vehicles:
First is the EsCa-1 "Hussard", the first foray into tank construction by Occitan engineers; the "EsCa" stands for Escarabatcarrus, Occitan for scarab-wagon, showing the obvious influence of the Mossavian name-scheme over that of Aquitaine's own allies, Rhenland, who named them Kürasswagens, later Kürasskampfwagens.
All things considered, the design is a...mixed bag at best. Although they had experience with the construction of armoured cars, and pretty good ones at that, they looked at the good performance of both early Rhenish and early Mossavian vehicles and thought that the optimal path lay somewhere between the two. The Hussard was an attempt to find that optimal middle ground, and it...didn't quite work out the way that its designers had expected it to. There were three big reasonings for its odd construction: a) A commander needs to be able to survey the entire battlefield from a single position, so a turret works for them, especially one with a cupola, b) gunners and loaders need space to work efficiently and in comfort, else as was the case in early Mossavian designs, the poor ergonomics would destroy crew performance and morale over time, C) putting more men into a turret doesn't seem to be necessarily optimal.
The answer the Occitanians came up with, then, was to make a tank that had both a casemate and a turret at the same time. On one side you have the main gun, on the other, the commander's turret that lets them use a small machine gun whilst observing the battlefield from a covered position. This was considered a very clever solution by its creators, but the concept ultimately turned out to have managed to incorporate the worst aspects of both concepts into a single vehicle. In the turret you have one commander who is far removed from the crew that he needs to communicate with except for the driver, who might barely hear him at all over the engine in the front of the tank, and the turret's protrusion from the hull creates a highly exposed position that is relatively lightly armoured and, by nature of being the commander's position, represents an excellent target of opportunity, and at the same time makes construction more complicated due to the need to add a turret ring.
Over in the casemate, things are not much better. Due to the need to add a turret to the one side of the tank, the casemate doesn't get to be as roomy as it might've been otherwise, and so you whilst you do get a gunner and a loader both, giving the vehicle a four man crew, the two have room to move backwards and forward but not from side to side. Because of this ergonomic issue, one of the greatest strengths of a casemate design, its ability to take a large with room for the breech, is effectively kneecapped; the cannon is 40mm, but the need for a smaller breech block means that it has a propellant length of only 150mm, giving it a muzzle velocity of just under 500m/s, and less than 30mm of penetration - sufficient to eliminate armoured cars with ease, but dangerously low for a vehicle that might have to meet other tanks...and even though you had azimuth traverse to allow you to aim the gun on a target outside the immediate front view of the casemate, the close confines of the walls would limit that ability greatly, so you'd need to turn to properly aim the tank. It also leaves little room for ammunition, except in the back of the casemate itself - a double stacked locker that the loader must reach into to load, meaning that any shot that manages to penetrate the casemate has a nearly clean line through either the gunner or the loader to the ammunition.
This was made worse by how the tank's layout made placement of armour itself a challenge, as the irregular set of casemate and turret both demanded armour placement. The front of the casemate had 25mm of armour sloped sufficiently to reach 30 millimeters of protection, the main hull compartment to its side where the driver was had the same 25mm plating, and the turret 15mm - this arrangement did not prove popular on the factory floor, which effectively had to cut and rivet together a large number of steel plates of irregular thickness at irregular angles. Making it worse was that the layout of the vehicle was outright inefficient because of these extra plates and fastenings, because whilst the tank was 1.1 meters wide, 0.5 meters tall and two and a half meters long, making it even smaller than the already cramped Mossavian B1 except in length, it weighed a full ton more.
All this meant that when Aquitaine built thirty of them and sent them out on training exercises to determine necessary improvements, they very quickly got the answer to build no more of them. The designs of their allies ran ring around them as the commander struggled to keep up and relay orders, gun performance was poor owing to the crowded casemate, and the fact that the commander's machine gun was not higher than the "hump" of the casemate meant that the vehicle had not just a deadzone on the left hand side, but a full blown blind spot that, as proven in a combat exercise, could allow an infantry team to sneak up from the side with explosives completely undetected.
Cancelling a tank project would've been a costly decision to say the least even in peacetime, but in war, that was something that was outright unacceptable, especially as all other sides of the war were increasingly fielding their own heavy armoured vehicles, and Aquitaine could not afford to be left any further behind than they already were...but in its present form, the EsCa-1 was in absolutely no state for a fight.
There was, however, one upside, which paved the way for a promising future for the design.
The hull, the main hull, was generally regarded to be quite sound. The front engine design delivered adequate power to its suspension, allowing it to get to five miles per hour on the blasted wastelands of no man's land at a cosy 900rpm, making it exceptionally reliable for the time and fuel efficient as well. Although it had an asymmetrical arrangement of front plates to account for the casemate, the armour layout was generally considered to be quite strong: 25mm of plating covered the lower transmission, angled to 35mm of plate, the upper plate was 20mm angled to 25mm, the "engine deck" was 10mm angled to such an extreme as to be practically impregnable, and the main hull itself was 25mm of plate in a single beam reinforced by three additional plates of 10mm, giving it an effective frontal armour at angle of nearly 50mm - nigh indestructible for a tank of the day. The hull cheeks were no less impressive, and consisted of 25mm of steel offset at a compound angle; angled both towards the rear of the tank and sloped vertically, their mere 25mm of steel could easily present over 50mm of protection from the front, and the driver's side even had a machine gun for them to operate if needed. The hull was even reasonably roomy in its own right, and certainly more than the casemate and turret.
And so the designers went back to their boards, scrubbed out a section, and devised a way to make the EsCa-1 work.
The answer was a dramatic surgery, which created the EsCa-1A "Lancierre".
The EsCa-1A was a complete redesign of the upper half of the vehicle: doing away with the idea of a commander's turret, they doubled down entirely on the idea of an armoured casemate...and allowed to grow to cover the upper structure, the Lancierre finally began to manifest the power of such concepts. Trading away its earlier attempts at azimuth traverse,the gun mounted in the Lancierre's armoured hulk would be one of the most powerful to be delivered to the battlefield of the day: a 75mm cannon with a propellant length of 150mm, this new weapon had been dragged from old torpedo boats, but now presented itself on land with over 40mm of penetration - enough to dispatch almost any vehicle, scarab or tank, that it encountered, and with over ninety shells stored in the vehicle, it could maintain its killing power for a great deal of time...and with a hefty load of high explosive filling, it could easily deal with fixed positions from a safe distance. This was a new approach to tank design; rather than a vehicle that might lead the charge, the Lancierre was designed as one to support it, working from behind other armoured vehicles to provide them with an advantage. In that, it was referred to more as a sort of "self propelled gun" or even "louse-hunter", but it could still support and fight infantry as well. Stuck around as remnant of the earlier commander's turret, the Lancierre still had a small machine gun turret mounted on the hull besides the primary case mate, though one that was heavily cut down and meant more to protect the vehicle itself than try and provide a strong vantage point. Instead, the hatch on the case mate would be their work for that, as the hatch would open up towards the front of the vehicle, allowing the hatch itself to be used as cover for the unbuttoned commander. This was not perfect, but it was better than nothing. In the hull, and accounting for the blindspot, the driver still maintained their offset machine gun.
In regards to armour and protection, the design had proven to be dramatically simpler than the first revision, and so benefited accordingly: the added plating on the hull was simply "baked" into the hull proper to simplify construction, the sloped upper hull was now united into one 30mm plate offset to provide 40mm of protection, and the casemate proper, the most exposed part of the vehicle, was now 40mm thick. The result was a vehicle that could not only deal out tank-killing firepower, but withstand harsh punishment in turn.
Transforming the Hussard into the Lancierre effectively "fixed" the design, albeit by dragging it away from its original conceptualization into another. What had been imagined as a first attempt at building a general B1 or Kürasswagen style vehicle had effectively mutated into a first generation tank destroyer, one that could cross the trenchline with some assistance by pioneers, but one that could also stop armoured assaults dead in their tracks unless attacked by something from the air that might otherwise be able to force them out of a fixed, defensible position. For all that, the Lancierre was now a working design, but the government of Aquitaine was not quite satisfied - although the EsCa-1 would go into production as a Lancierre pattern vehicle and all but a handful of the earlier Hussards either refitted or sent off to training grounds, there was still the appetite for something more mobile, lighter, something that could do what an armoured car could not, but which had similar mobility.
In Rhenland, however, the designers were considering a rather different concept entirely...
...but the write up on the Kürasswagen II will have to wait a little longer
The second one with the auxiliary turret in a daft position looks all too plausible as well. Nice work.
This new deign is not one of the ISOT AFV's I'm currently working on but it did start out as one.
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I was thinking what a Soviet M113 might look like and made this and I think it's very cute.
However I don't see how the Soviets would come up with this design in the ISOT scenario being used here.
If it does go similar then Barbarossa is going to be major shock for them. Not just because of Hitler's invasion but also because they'd be facing other vehicles developed from the reverse engineering of future vehicles. Though considering their earlier border conflicts with Japan it may not be the first time, only now it's far more obvious they're not the only one who received gifts.
So who are you thinking of next?
I've been wondering how long it would take everyone to realize that other countries got goodies from the future too, I think it would take a year at most.
I'm not sure which country to do next, either Japan or GB.
Wouldn't a Soviet M113 be the MT-LB?I was thinking what a Soviet M113 might look like and made this and I think it's very cute.
Have self propelled mortars ever been known to use top attack guided anti-tank missiles?
The AMOS 120mm Mortar system could use the STRIX round...
Not boxing enough in my opinion but that's just me and I'm talking about the actual shape of the APC not it's purpose.
Japan seems like the more interesting option to me.
How much do you think the United States would be able to copy from the Bradley Fighting Vehicle? Given the technology of the time and what else they've gotten from the gift.
If it's just an IFV without all the advanced electronics and high tech, it probably maybe 5 more or less, for an exact copy, 15 to 20 years but that's just a shot in the dark IMO.
The M113 would be much easier to build, in fact I might not bother with the US because I think they would probably make an M41 and M113 with no real problems within a couple of years.
I don't see the US making hybrids of old and new tech, they only country here that I think could go straight away into building post war (1945-55) AFV's in the early 1940's.
The countries I'm really struggling with are Italy and Japan, Britain I think would most likely skip over most of their pre-war and early war designs and start building some of their mid war AFV's like the later Marks of the Cromwell and Comet and then go for a Centurion.
Your thoughts?
British ISOT Hybrid AFV's of the early 1940's
Top, Modded Crusader III APC with turret from a Ferret armoured car.
Bottom Cromwell Mk.III with more powerful engine and larger turret with a 17Pdr.
I had several more ideas for the British but it turned out that Claymore had already made them all, so I hope he sees this post and and posts some of his upgraded British AFV's here.
Top, Modded Crusader III APC with turret from a Ferret armoured car.
Bottom Cromwell Mk.III with more powerful engine and larger turret with a 17Pdr.
I had several more ideas for the British but it turned out that Claymore had already made them all, so I hope he sees this post and and posts some of his upgraded British AFV's here.
USA ISOT Hybrid AFV's of the early 1940's
Top, M10 hull and chassis with M4 turret. The first AFV made by the US using ideas and tech from the ISOT.
Below, M3 IFV/APC, an old design of mine but I thought it fit in here.
The US IMO would probably build direct copies of late era WWII AFV's after experimenting with some early designs.
Next, the Axis.
Top, M10 hull and chassis with M4 turret. The first AFV made by the US using ideas and tech from the ISOT.
Below, M3 IFV/APC, an old design of mine but I thought it fit in here.
The US IMO would probably build direct copies of late era WWII AFV's after experimenting with some early designs.
Next, the Axis.
shape maybe, but copying electronics is going to be a problem. the us only mastered growing silicon crystals in the late 40s. without those, no transistors. and can forget about microchips altogether
and how long would it take to replicate the advanced alloys in the engines?
That was my point, that they could copy the basics of the AFV but not the electronics and other high tech until after years of studying what they received.
If the British got one a year or two before the beginning if the war, probably.
The engines and rotating turret are probably the main features that matter. Without a reliable powerful engine the TOG will not be going anywhere.
But what you really want for late WW1 is the A1E1 [1]. Probably use a 57mm naval gun in place of the 47mm (it's there for the HE not AP). It's much more mobile and better armoured than any existing vehicle, and the 4MG turrets will mean it can do its intended job of dominating the battlefield.
[1] actually what you really want is masses of Renault FT with a slightly better engine, and Mk IVs with better engines, ventilation and suspension as troop and supply carriers and as engineers vehicles to follow up the Renaults. So slightly faster and more reliable than OTL. But the A1E1 does look cool.
Fof me that's the 'WW2 but slightly better' pairing of the Sherman and Grant where the Sherman becomes available about a year sooner and the now-obsolete Grant hulls are used as troop carriers with a self defence/support capability as well as SPGs.
They're mostly for training purposes and to get ready for mass productions of later war designs like the Pershing or maybe they would go with the M41 Walker, a post war design but not really that more advance than late war tanks of WWII.