PC/WI: CHALLENGER 1 then 2's for US Army?

WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
Inspired by a previous thread about most pleasing to look at armoured vehicles which mentioned a possible Cheiftain 900 series tank offered to the US Army.

With a post 1970 pod, get the Challenger tank to be put in service with the US Army.

Bonus points if you then get them to order the Challenger II from the 1990's.

Regards filers
 
Inspired by a previous thread about most pleasing to look at armoured vehicles which mentioned a possible Cheiftain 900 series tank offered to the US Army.

With a post 1970 pod, get the Challenger tank to be put in service with the US Army.

Bonus points if you then get them to order the Challenger II from the 1990's.

Regards filers

Well, the 900 itself was never officially offered but collaboration in the project that created it was. The US had of course gone in on the MBT/KfPz-70 project with West Germany and, because projection is a thing, felt rather like their fingers had been burned despite the fact that most of the issues with the project had cropped up on the American side. Between Polaris and Phantoms and Chobham/Burlington there was already a good deal of practical collaboration -- my guess is that there was active sandbagging by GM and Chrysler IRT the XM1. Going in with the Brits, besides perhaps providing a base tank for the anglophone nations (well, US, UK, Canada, and in time Australia if the Liberals were in whenever the Leos first needed some work done or Labor could score a license build) and "dressed down" (no composite armo(u)r) version for export, would have gotten the US at freaking last on to a reliable 120mm gun in the L11, which they should have learned in the first damn place with MBT-70. Chieftain from at least Mk 3 on and then Leo 2 had shown the way, but then the US put 76mm on Shermans because it was convenient for Detroit and economies of scale and then promptly failed to penetrate panzer armor, you'd get much the same despite advances in 105 APFDS once the Soviets got their groove back on reactive armor.

ETA: your last bonus round is favored by inertia; rather like going Polaris to Trident, a second round of collaboration is favored by there being a first. Although who knows on naming: Challenger in early development besides Chieftain 800 (the purely experimental "aluminum Chieftain") and 900 was at first Cheviot, and I've always thought Champion was a better follow on to Chieftain (especially since it was a new model to deploy forward of the main body of Chieftains just as a chieftain's champion goes out first onto the field of battle -- did you know on one of the early guided missile systems made in the U.K. the targeting radar and receiver were called "sinner" and "confessor"? There was a well-read sense of style in those days.) rather than the more tentative "Challenger." And with Sherman, Sheridan, and Patton already taken the US version was nearly destined to be Abrams, the last great tank/"mounted" commander.

ETA: also of course Challenger as we knew it fruited from a different branch of the Chieftain "tree" than the 900. Challenger 1 was the child of the "Shir 2" (Farsi for lion IIRC), a modded and also technologically updated version of Chieftain to be built for the Shah but sidelined by the Iranian Revolution. They redesigned the turret to look as much like the generic Western M1/late-model Leo 2 style as possible (early Leo 2s were of course boxier with a more narrow turret) and otherwise it was the "Shir 2" evolution. Even CR2 came in part sideways from the failed (but well designed) Vickers Mk 7 export tank. Rather like Chrysler ended up nicking GM's turret for the finalized M1 the Vickers turret made its way in large part into the CR2.
 
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FBKampfer

Banned
Just fuck the gas turbine/power pack. Kill off a few competent engineers, slow the thing down, and let the budget bloat with time.

XM1 gets canceled around 1983, and the US is going to take whatever it can get.
 
Have President Ford completely cancel the MBT-70 program and start from scratch.The resulting vehicle is a total dog so the US military is forced to order Challengers.A hefty campaign donation by Vickers to Ronald Reagan's election campaign would insure the Leopard 2 is not chosen.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
If they do, big if, then it isn't called Challenger and is built in the US with many add-ons too. License production so quids in for Vickers but at Lima and Detroit production lines are were those tanks are coming from. Maybe a few pre-production models from the UK.
 
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