Category: Historical Articles

Cruiser Corner #3

~ Sebastianul
Article made by our reader, GrimmaceNA.

Greetings everyone, for my third cruiser of this series I went with Flint (CL-97). This is the Atlanta-Oakland class that most of us won’t get in game.

       Flint (CL-97) was commissioned in August 1944 and would go on to receive 4 battle stars during the war. Arriving at Ulithi for duty in December 1944, a few days later the cruiser steamed into combat when she was assigned to cover the invasion of Luzon in the Philippines adding her AA guns to defend from kamikaze attacks.
       In the last eight months of the war she continued fighting air attacks but was also able to use her main guns on shore targets on Okinawa and the Japanese home islands. Flint then went to serve as a rescue ship and homing station for transport planes bringing occupation troops to Japan.
        Deactivated in January 1946, she was placed in reserve in May 1947 and was finally stricken and scrapped in September 1965.
Source: American Cruisers of World War II by Steve Ewing

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Possible US Top Tier Light Tanks

~ Sebastianul

From Redditor Farmerman1379

RDF/LT

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j35/abegubler/13rdflt02.jpg

  • The main armament consists of a 75 mm ARES cannon mounted in the centre of the hull behind the crew. The 75 mm APFSDS-T round is designated the XM885 and has armour penetration characteristics equivalent to the 105 mm APFSDS M774 (gun used on the M60 Patton). This means that the 75mm cannon would have ~268mm of penetration if we go by the M60 in-game and should apply to all 3 of these LT’s that I have listed.
  • Weight (kg) = 14.8 tonne
  • Crew = 3
  • Cannon size = 75mm – 5 round burst
  • Engine power output = 350 horsepower
  • Power/weight ratio = 23.64
  • Max speed = 64

HTSV

http://tanknutdave.com/images/intro_pictures_5/hstvl.jpg

  • It used the same 75mm main gun and autoloader as the HIMAG (this is the next tank I’ll provide info on) in a very low profile turret. The vehicle used an improved version of the older M551 Sheridan Light Tank running gear (tracks and road wheels) and was powered by a gas-turbine engine. The vehicle did not enter service but was further developed in to the RDF/LT (See above). It used a conventional tank hull, which was fitted with a new hydro pneumatic suspension. (What I interpret this as is pretty much the same suspension system that the S-Tank uses, correct me if I’m wrong)
  • Weight = 20.45 tonne
  • Crew = 3
  • Cannon size = 75mm high velocity autoloader from the HIMAG (See below)
  • Engine power output = 650 horsepower
  • Power/weight ratio = 31.78
  • Max speed = 83 km/h

Continue reading “Possible US Top Tier Light Tanks” →

Cruiser Corner #2

~ Sebastianul

GrimmaceNA wrote another post for us:
Greetings everyone, today’s Cruiser Corner is another short article and it is about CL-98 named Tucson. Tucson was part of the Atlanta-Oakland class of light AA cruisers. Commissioned on 3 February 1945.

     Tucson received only one battle star during the war and that was for protecting the carriers while launching the final air attacks against the Japanese home islands. She stayed with the occupation forces after the war till the end of October 1945.
      Since Tucson was fairly new she went to serve on as an AA gunnery training ship till August 1946. Overhauled she served as a command ship for destroyers and cruised the Far East until decommissioned in June 1949.
     With only 4 years of active service she was used as a hulk and finally scrapped in 1971.
Source: American Cruisers of WWII by Steve Ewing 
Pic from navsource.org

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The Panzer 74 Project (VZ 67, VZ 71)

~ Sebastianul

The article below is written by Mizutayio –  the best Swiss Tank historian. Most sincere thanks go to him for letting us share it.

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After a long time I finally went to the archives again to find more about that mysterious tank that would very likely become the Tier 9 and 10 Swiss heavy tanks.
First of all this was a project by the Swiss military in order to replace the faulty Panzer 68. Development on the Panzer 74 project began in 1969 and the concept was known as the VZ 67 which stands for Versuchsfahrzeug 67. A later version is called the VZ 71 (1971) and is the VZ 67s hull and the Panzer 68s turret (this version is likely to be the Tier 9’s stock configuration) and would be armed with a licence built RO L7 105 mm gun.
There were multiple guns initially planned to be equiped on this tank, the German smoothbore 105 mm and 120 mm guns. The British 110mm rifled gun, the famous British L11 120mm gun, a French 140mm gun and the American XM150 152 mm gun.
Continue reading “The Panzer 74 Project (VZ 67, VZ 71)” →

A Victory that Wasn’t – Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

~ Sebastianul

Article provided by indiandefensenews.in, tribuneindia.com

A tough war for both India and Pakistan, it was inconclusive with neither side gaining a decisive military advantage. 

http://images.tribuneindia.com/cms/gall_content/2015/8/2015_8$largeimg27_Aug_2015_191641253.jpg

Reality Check: The Indian Army had used only 14 per cent of its front line ammunition and still possessed twice the number of tanks as compared to Pakistan
by Dinesh Kumar
The August-September 1965 India-Pakistan War will go down as one of the country’s most significant wars. The war, which occurred at a critical juncture in India’s military history, took place less than three years after India’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese (October-November 1962).
Furthermore, Pakistan had begun cosying up to China and had only less than two years earlier in 1963 illegally ceded an occupied portion of the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to Beijing. Then again, just 10 months earlier, China had flexed its nuclear muscle by exploding an atomic bomb in October 1964. On the eastern front, an assertive Indonesia was laying claims to the Great Nicobar Island, seeking renaming of the Indian Ocean to Indonesian Ocean.
Two Clear Armour-Piercing Shots on the turret of a Pakistani Sherman tank at the Hodson’s gunnery in Thakurdwara
Pakistan, member of both the US-led SEATO (South East Asian Treaty) and Baghdad Pact renamed CENTO (Central Treaty Organisation), had meanwhile been equipped with modern US weaponry comprising the far superior F-104 Star Fighter and F-86 Sabre jets, many of the latter equipped with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles; the latest Patton tanks and modern artillery guns among other equipment.

Continue reading “A Victory that Wasn’t – Indo-Pakistani War of 1965” →

Centenary of Tanks: Crompton’s and Macfie’s Vehicles

~ Sebastianul

Article from ASIA WoT portal.
http://static-ptl-sg.gcdn.co/dcont/fb/image/crompton_mcfie_1.jpg
In February 1915, a group of British engineers and naval officers worked on the development of a new and highly experimental combat vehicle, which eventually became the wonder weapon of World War I. They formed the Landships Committee at the Royal Admiralty. There, many inventions were explored and prototyped, but were ultimately deemed unusable. They were incredible on paper, but impractical to use in combat.
Amongst the many experimental ideas, several projects got “stuck” on the very verge of success. Examples of such projects include those by experienced inventor Colonel Rookes Crompton and Lieutenant Robert Macfie, a young and talented officer in the Royal Naval Air Service.
Their vehicles actually resembled tanks of the future. Unfortunately, their inventions were not meant to be. Crompton was simply unlucky, whereas Macfie’s vehicle became the subject of a scandal.

Crompton’s Workshop

The chairman of the Landships Committee, Eustace d’Eyncourt, did not mince words when evaluating Crompton’s engineering work. He once said of Crompton: “He has never presented finished projects that would work.” However, this was only a half-truth that made Crompton look bad. Crompton was actually one of the most talented engineers of his time. This is what he created over five months.
Continue reading “Centenary of Tanks: Crompton’s and Macfie’s Vehicles” →