Posts:2504 Joined: July 1st, 2014, 12:20 am
Location: New Zealand
Contact:Website
I like it BB, why shouldn't Tol Galen accept the plans of the T-34 in exchange for the Lend-Lease aid provided to Russia. Get the plans some time in early 1942, and you could have them in production by the end of the year. Far and away the best Allied tank of the war, you could also look at a 3.7" version using the British AA gun equivalent to the 85mm and 88mm guns.
Posts:2743 Joined: July 27th, 2010, 9:15 am
Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom
Well. That is indeed a part of it. The first tanks would start to roll off the production line around reasonably early in 1942, which as I mentioned previously would be near enough direct clone of Soviet built machines.
The 3.7" is far too big for use as a turret gun on the T-34. It's simply too heavy and too unwieldy. That and the 17 pounder is perfectly capable of going up against most things. However the 3.7" does make an appearance on KV based assault guns towards the end of the war.
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Posts:2743 Joined: July 27th, 2010, 9:15 am
Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom
The report doesn't state why from what I can ascertain but I imagine that with the Americans being brought into the war it was just as easy to get Shermans brought over from the US allowing British industry to get on with other projects.
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If you are going to have to redesign every bit of it going from metric to imperial why not just learn from it and build a improved tank with features from the T34 you like ? (and remove the bits you don't). You also can steal from the German MK4 and the US M4 and all the British stuff.
Does just copying it save any time when you will have to build tool/jigs to make the parts anyway ? (and it uses stuff like the engine tech that is very different from anything you use/make)
Posts:2743 Joined: July 27th, 2010, 9:15 am
Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom
Considering how seriously it was taken by us in 1942 I'd say that the metric/imperial translation had either been taken into consideration or just plain ignored. We planned to start production.
Remember that it's readily available and already proven in battle, (which means other than tooling up there's little to no development work to be done) so it's a much better bet than any of the contemporary British tanks either in production or under development.
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