FV301 Light Tank

FV301 Light Tank

The FV300 project was created in 1946 as one of three families of universal chassis for future British armored vehicles - FV100 including vehicles around 75-100 British tons, FV200 including medium or main battle tanks and FV300 for light tanks. The FV100 group was defined most loosely, perhaps based on the chassis of the attack tank Tortoise, in any case it was soon forgotten. FV200 gave birth to a "universal tank" FV201, and a derivative derived from it FV214 Conqueror and FV221 Caernarvon. The FV300 family considered a light tank FV301, command vehicle FV302, self-propelled guns FV303 (20 pounds), FV304 (25 pounds) and FV305 (5.5 in/140 mm), light rescue vehicle FV306, radar vehicle FV307, artillery tractor FV ammunition vehicle FV309, light armored personnel carrier FV310 and truck FV311.

Not much is known about the whole range, and little that is known is mixed with information about the A46 light tank project, which the FV301 followed, and the more or less co-developed Vickers Medium Cruiser Tank. Last but not least, World of Tanks Blitz and similar games, which freely confuse one type with another, have contributed to this. In any case, the FV301 was to use the Meteor engine, a TN10 gearbox also developed for the FV4201 Chieftain, both mounted on a common frame for easy removal. Instead of the Christie chassis, which the A46 inherited from the ants Tetrarch and Harry Hopkins, torsion bar suspension was to be used. As a complete novelty in the construction of British tanks (if I dare a little exaggeration) was the use of sloping frontal armor. The tower was to have a cast front with the rest welded from a slightly box-shaped rolled armor. The cannon, similar to the one used on the Comet, was to receive a supply of 80 pieces of ammunition.

In 1950, however, doubts about the usability of a similarly lightly armored vehicle on a modern European battlefield and the impossibility of transporting it by air led to the termination of the project. Only one or two chassis were built and work perhaps continued for a while on the projects of self-propelled howitzers, mainly FV304. Similarly, the FV301-associated Vickers Medium Cruiser Tank, Vickers 'private initiative for an "unnamed francophone country" that was not directly derived from the FV300, but used Vickers' experience (and perhaps a little government money) from this project. Lickers later used the experience of both projects to design the much more successful Vickers MBT.

Please use the term "coupled machine gun" in the Czech column of the table, not the literal translation "coaxial machine gun".

Hmmmmm ... I wonder how I found out .. Mea culpa.