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Your Ideal Tank Contest

Дата: 14.03.2010 20:24:58
MrVic: US/UK RT-40
Nickname “Pappy’s Peashooter”
Posted Image
Origins
Henry “Pappy” Henderson was a US army grease monkey “retired” . He had served in WWI and with
the looming shadow of another war in Europe he traveled to Britain to lend a hand in beating
back the Germans should the need arise. “Pappy” sent a letter to the War Office requesting a
civilian posting to best help their needs. The war office placed him with the design assessment
division as maintenance personal for prototypes in testing and in construction. Pappy went along
is daily routine of oiling, fixing and doing his duties to maintain and repair captured equip
and newly built equip in the ordnance hangar until he overheard his supervisor arguing with a
“older chap” about the delays in a Recon tank development project they were supposed to review
in 3 days and no prototype had been delivered for a shakedown test. That night “Pappy” went back
into the hangar and went to work. He took a stripped down Tetrarch they had sitting in the back
lot and start his grand plan. By morning when the rest of the crew came into the hangar they
found “Pappy” finishing up some wields on his toy. When asked what he was doing his response was
“You wanted a recon tank? Well here ya go.” He had taken one of the recently duplicated
7.5cm Pak 40’s the ordnance division had in the hangar for testing and mounted it on a cut out
Tetrarch chassis. With the rest of the hangar crew still was staring blankly at his creation.
“Pappy” went on to explain his other features. The addition of a pedestal mounted a
M2 .50 cal for AA and anti personal defense. Some light armor improvements. The most
exciting part for “Pappy” was his “sneaky” improvements. He added a improved muffler/baffle
package to keep the engine noise to almost nothing. He even added a oil tank and a oiling system
to the track road wheels so when you were creeping about the tanks track links would have a
slow constant oiling and reducing interlink screeching present in all tracked vehicles. As
he wrapped up his speech the Supervisor was impressed enough to take this to the head office
as a possible alternative. When he returned the crew was pulling a new set of tracks onto
the tank with rubber bushing pushed between the linkage assemblies to reduce noise while on the
move even more. The supervisor asked if he was going to make any more changes because the Approval
board was going to review it tomorrow. “Pappy” Informed him he had only one more change
to make but needed the help of some experts. His plans were to redesign the muzzle of the gun
to sound more similar to the 2pdr and 25pdr the British were using. His idea was in a recon role
once a forward element was located if it was mobile the recon tank could setup in hiding and strike
a lead vehicle and flee quietly or reposition. This hopefully would cause the German convoy/column
to believe they were facing dug in AT positions setup in ambush ahead. For this to be convincing
the noise from the recon tanks and the sound of the gun could work against them pulling off this ruse.
Another added feature was a combination of the muffler and oiling system. The recon tank could run
the oiling feed to spray oil into the heated mufflers and produce a instant huge smoke screen covering
their escape and causing general confusion. The RT-40 was reviewed and accepted instantly, with plans
to be used to slow the Germans advancing towards France.
General Data
Formal Designation..........RT-40 (Recon Tank/Harasser)
Production Quantity........22 (100 Orderded)
Production Period............Nov. 1939-1941
Type.................................Light Recon
Length hull/overall.........(m)4.31
Width..............................(m)2.31
Combat Weight (kg)...........7000
Production Period............Nov. 1939-?
Crew..................................3
Barrel Overhang..............0.533m (1.75')
Height.............................(m)2.12
Radio Equipment..................No.18
Armament
Primary Armament..............7.5cm Pak 40
Traverse (degrees)............45L/45R
Ammunition Carried............45
Secondary Armament.............M2 .50 Cal
Ammunition Carried............2025
Engine Make & Model............Meadows, MAT
Type & Displacement..............H12
Horsepower (max.).............165hp@2700rpm
Power/Weight Ratio............66.5 hp/t
Gearbox ...................... forward, 2 reverse
Range on/off road (km)..........225
Mileage (liters/100km)..........91 on road
Fuel Capacity (liters)...........205
Speed on/off road...............64/45 km/h
Ground Pressure.................7.9 psi
Turning Radius (m)................26.5
Fording (m)...........................0.91
Trench Crossing (m)..................1.52
Armor
Front 10mm
Side 10mm
Rear 6mm
Top/Bottom 6mm
Designer Notes:
I started out wanting a light tank with the idea of forward recon elements combined with
a harasser role. The biggest complication is fooling enemy units it would ambush. The noise
created by any tracked vehicle be it the tracks screeching to the engine, muffler, exhaust giving
away your position. A enemy attacked by a recon tank such as this is aware its probably just a single unit.
But if you could convince them it was a dug in platoon ahead with AT weapons a convoy or armored column has
a huge obstacle to consider. usually involving pulling back and sending scouts ahead to assess the threat.
This takes a lot of time which grants huge delays to a rapidly advancing force. So the trick is striking unseen
and evading detection afterwards. The smoke screen was a last min addition that really can help in both roles to
great effect. The hard part was a fast quiet tank with a large enough AT gun to knock out a single enemy tank in
the first shot. I mean its not nearly as scary when the first shot bounces off your target at range, now is it?

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