British A46-FV300 serie (Post War)
Not for sale
Click on the Pictures.
The masters of these models were built by HenkofHolland with additional
work from Henry Klom, after intensive research by Kees van Meel and David
Fletcher from The Tank Museum, Bovington. There are no original examples
of these tanks anymore. Also the most of the documentation i.e. photographs
and drawings in the British Military Archives are lost.
---This models are not in my collection, The masters and moulds
are damaged and lost.---
FV301 with 77mm gun
FV303 with 20 pounder SPG
British FV304 with 25 pounder SPG
FV302 GPO/CPO or FV310 Light APC or test chassis from the FV300 series
A46 Prototype
The British A46 started in 1943 when the Tank Board called for a British
Light Tank to be in production by 1945 to replace the USA's Stuart, and later
Chaffe, in British service. A contract was place with Vickers for a tank
of 14 to 16 tons mounting a 77mm (as subsequently in Comet). This was the
first time that a machine of this category was to have armament suitable
for the task it would have to carry out, which was in reconnaissance troops
of tank regiments.
Transmission and suspension were kept as simple as possible to reduce power
loss at the sprokets, and the tank owed a good deal to the experience which
had been hained from Harry Hopkins and Tetrarch. A46 was intended to be air-portable
in unladen form, and the possibility of carrying the turret, gun and even
tracks separately in another aircraft was seriously considered. Even then,
it would have been necessary to lift a 10-ton load, and thereby to accept
much reduced strategic range in any transport aircraft available at that
date. The air-portability requirement was therefore dropped, and as the order
was only for 80 production tanks, progress was extremely slow. The wooden
mock up led to many modifications, among them being the substitution of a
Meteorite V-8 350 h.p. engine in place of the 210 h.p. GMC6-71 motor originally
proposed. The engine and gearbox were moved to the right front of the hull,
leaving the final drive at the back, to bring the gun layout into line with
that selected for the SP's and other variants.
1946 saw a revived interest in the project, and it was brought into new series
as FV301. By 1947 further changes had been made. The Meteoric 2 peterol-injection
500 h.p. engine coupled to a TN10 gearbox in place of the earlier Spicer
box was to be used, on a sub-frame for easy removal as a unit. Torsion bar
suspension was used, in preference to the Christie type, The turret was composite-built,
with a front casting and rolled plates for the rest. The 77mm gun had a new
concentric recoil system, promising even better accuracy, and it was mounted
well forward in the turret to provide room for the crew. An equilibrator
was used to compensate for the out-of-balance. Eighty rounds could be stowed
in the hull, a considerable design feat, considering the size of the ammunition.
But frontal armour was reduced to 2"actual thickness, the all up weight of
the machine having risen to 21 tons.
However in 1950, doubts arose about the value of such lighly armoured vehicles
on the modern battlefield. In parenthesis, one may be permitted to wonder
why these doubts had not been properly evaluated earlier; but the result
of the later vieuws led to the cancellation of the entire FV300 series by
1953.
FV303 under construction
Proposed variants
E-mail to Henk Timmerman / HenkofHolland
