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Old 02-09-2019, 06:18 PM
Vespers War Vespers War is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 502
Default The worst that ever was...

In a similar vein to "The best that never was," how about a thread for the flawed, the poorly executed, or just the badly designed weapons and vehicles of the past?

My first contribution is the World War II era A38 Valiant. Intended as an assault tank for use by British forces in Asia, it was intended to combine minimum weight with maximum armor. Equipped with a 6-pdr gun (with 55 rounds), a pair of Besa machineguns, and a 210 horsepower 2-stroke diesel, the 27 ton vehicle was slow, lumbering, and had vicious flaws that possibly could have been worked out, but weren't worth the effort. Excessively heavy clutches wore out the driver in an hour, the gear lever had a tendency to whip when downshifting, the turret was bolted, and the ground clearance was too low. Its top speed of 12 miles per hour on pavement was lethargic

A38 Valiant
Crew 3
Tr Mov 29/14
Com Mov 6/3
Fuel Cap 238
Fuel Cons 119
Maint 14
HF 23 HS 20 HR 15
TF 23 TS 20 TR 7

QF 6pdr (57mm) L/50
Rng 380
HE C3, B13, Pen 2C
KE Dam 13, Pen 10-9-7-5

If this had been developed five years earlier and the flaws worked out, it might have been useful as a colonial tank, given Japanese armored doctrine. It would have still been slow and short-legged, but nearly invulnerable to Japanese tank guns and with a gun powerful enough to be effective against any Japanese tank.
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