The Best That Never Was 2 (Prototypes)

[Raellus]

This could also fit in the Franken-AFV thread but since, AFAIK, it never entered production/service, this is probably the right place for it.

M41 Walker Bulldog / Cadillac-Gage Stingray Hybrid

From FIGHTING-VEHICLES.com:

"Another hybrid by Cadillac Gage, this time a Cadillac Gage Stingray turret married to the M41 hull. This offered less affluent countries operating the M41 the opportunity to up-gun and improve the vehicle."

https://fighting-vehicles.com/tanks/stingray-light-tank/

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[Vespers War]

Cadillac Gage was trying to sell the Stingray turret as an upgrade for a number of older tanks, including the M47 and M551 in addition to the M41. I could see any or all of those being plausible upgrades in a Twilight War scenario, trying to make old vehicles more relevant by giving them a 105mm L7 to replace the 76mm/90mm/152mm of the original turrets.

[Vespers War]

Perun's video on rocket artillery mentioned something I wasn't previously familiar with, the XM70 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM70E2) developed in the late 1950/early 1960s. It straddles the line between being a rocket launcher and an artillery piece, apparently using a very small charge to get the projectile down a rifled barrel, at which point the rocket ignites. The ammunition is more of a traditional rocket than a RAP, and the whole thing's pretty lightweight at 3100 pounds for a 115mm launcher.

It carried 6 rounds in a pair of contrarotating 3-round revolver cylinders, and could fire all 6 in 2.5 seconds. Range was supposed to be 10 miles.

One thing I noticed while reading up on it is that while 115mm never caught on as an explosive round, it was used for rockets with payloads of VX and sarin. Those rockets were around 57 pounds each including a 10 pound payload and a 3 pound bursting charge, with a range of around 6 miles (lacking the gun boost to their initial velocity). The chemical rockets were the M55, and the XM-54 was the HE version, with firing tests of the XM-54 "gun boosted rocket" from the XM-70 occurring in 1959.

They don't really fit into any of the existing Twilight War scenarios, but they're still a bit of an interesting what-if.

[Tegyrius]

One thing I noticed while reading up on it is that while 115mm never caught on as an explosive round, it was used for rockets with payloads of VX and sarin. Those rockets were around 57 pounds each including a 10 pound payload and a 3 pound bursting charge, with a range of around 6 miles (lacking the gun boost to their initial velocity). The chemical rockets were the M55, and the XM-54 was the HE version, with firing tests of the XM-54 "gun boosted rocket" from the XM-70 occurring in 1959.

About a decade ago, I was peripherally involved with the emergency protective program around one of the Army's chemical weapons stockpiles. M55s containing both VX and GB may have been out of service by the time of the Twilight War, but they were very much a going concern in storage until only a couple of years ago. There might be interesting plots around the disposition of those stockpiles after the TDM.

- C.

[Vespers War]

About a decade ago, I was peripherally involved with the emergency protective program around one of the Army's chemical weapons stockpiles. M55s containing both VX and GB may have been out of service by the time of the Twilight War, but they were very much a going concern in storage until only a couple of years ago. There might be interesting plots around the disposition of those stockpiles after the TDM.

- C.

Up until last year if one wants to be somewhat loose with the definition of "going concern" - the last M55 GB was destroyed on July 7, 2023 (the VX were destroyed first, the last of those on April 19, 2022). They were officially obsoleted in 1981, but in 2012 there were still over 69,000 in storage at Blue Grass, so plenty of opportunity for them to be recalled or go walkabout.

[Vespers War]

One possible entry into a Twilight War scenario would have been India's Karna tank (also known as Tank EX). Developed as a private endeavor late in the development cycle for the Arjun, which was in development from 1986 until the early 2000s, it took the Arjun's turret and fitted it onto India's existing T-72M1 Ajeya hulls. It was developed in 2002 as an attempt to find more use for the Ajeya, and eight prototypes were built. No work on them was done after a six month testing period, and they were officially rejected in the same 2008 announcement that ended Arjun production. In the Twilight War, they may enter limited production if more Arjun turrets than hulls can be produced, in order to have tanks with more modern optics

[Vespers War]

For a weird and wacky weapon that (amazingly) I don't think Paul has on his site, the Croatian Kresimir Hand Grenade Launcher (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzsBTUEupKs). No, "Hand Grenade Launcher" is not a typo.

Developed during the breakup of Yugoslavia, it launches Yugoslavian M50 hand grenades, which are percussion-primed high explosive fragmentation grenades. They're propelled by blank AK rounds. Both magazines (grenade and blank) hold 5 rounds.

The system has a two-striker system where the first striker hits the percussion fuze on the grenade, starting a 5-second burn, and the second sets off the blank to launch the grenade. Hopefully. There have been no reports of failure to launch. Ahem. It sure seems from the demonstration that it would be possible to delay pulling the trigger far enough for the second striker to activate if you wanted to use up some of the time on the fuze before launching the grenade. If you're bold. Or desperate. Or nuts.

Details on the M50 are sparse, but the related M52 grenade is claimed to have a 15 meter effective radius. The sights are marked to 500 meters, but I have no idea how optimistic that might be.

This is both the right time frame and the right kind of crazy for a T2K campaign.

[Ursus Maior]

Interesting. Sounds very much like the IDF's Achzarit heavy APC (also based on the T-54/55). It first entered service in 1988, so perhaps the Achzarit was an inspiration for the USSR's BMP-55.



Given that most of the T2k timelines eliminate or tone down the Peace Dividend drawdowns, BMP-55 seems a likely candidate for at least partial-scale production and, therefore, would have made an appearance on the battlefields of the Twilight War. Dang, it's kind of a looker.

Damn, that's a sweet looking IFV. At first, I thought "what kind of weird Marder variant is that? It looks so huge and got no turret." Then my gaze hit the suspension and roadwheeles and I was like "What abomination is that?" :D

[Ursus Maior]

990.65 kilograms is the mass of just the barrel and breech added together and ignores things like the muzzle brake and recoil system. On the Gvozdika, the recoiling mass of the 122mm howitzer is 1,440 kilograms, and this excludes the stationary components like the gun cradle, loading assistance device (which could be eliminated), and recoil guard.

The Jaguar with 122 mm howitzer is a nice concept, but weight will very likely be an issue. Both models of the Jaguar tank-destroyers derived ultimately from the Kanonenjagdpanzer. Though the Jaguar 2 with its TOW ATGM was derived from the Kanonenjagdpanzer directly, the Jaguar 1 with its HOT ATGM was derived from the Raketenjagdpanzer 2, which in turn was based on the Kanonenjagdpanzer, but not a rebuilt.

Both baseline vehicles were uparmored as part of the Jaguar designs, which partially outweighed the loss of the 90 mm cannon in the front. Similarly the Beobachtungspanzer artillery spotter built from the Kanonenjagdpanzer had a weight installed and the gun mantlet remaining in place. Otherwise the vehicle would've become very aft-heavy.

Installing the 122 mm D-30 howitzer might lead to the opposite problem though. It's at least 2 tons (3.21 t with all bells and whistles, the gun itself is less). But that could be remedied by adding weight aft, e. g. ballast or ammo. The new vehicle wouldn't be able to elevate the gun to full 70°, though, due to its low profile. The Kanonenjagdpanzer achieved only 15°, which would likelyreduce range to under 10 km, less than a T-54/T-55 laying indirect fire. That's still nice to have for a battalion, especially since the armor penetration is probably in excess of 600 mm with Soviet HEAT ammunition.

The general problem remains though that these tanks have no gunnery sights and no range finders installed. Belgian Kanonenjagdpanzer (yes, they had 80 pieces in service until the early 1990s) were upgraded with laser range finders and digital gunnery computers from SABCA, but unless the Bundeswehr bought all Belgian stock once tensions rose in your timeline (which they did in mine), those are gone or used to guard French barracks in the Rhineland. :D

I presume, the L7 makes a better fit for a revamped gunbased tank-destroyer. It would still have the same problems though.