Happy valentine day!!

[petercooman]

[paulr]

 

[FierceKitty]

Chuckle.

[sunjester]

Nice one! 

[fsn]

 

Nicely played, Sir, nicely played.

[Techno]

Am I to assume the tank is a 'Valentine' ?
Never heard of it....But I just looked it up. 

Cheers - Phil.

[fsn]

Never heard of a Valentine?

Gosh!

I suppose there's no reason you should have.

Yup it's an Infantry Mk III Valentine. It came between the Matilda II and the Churchill in the British Infantry Tank line.

Called a Valentine because a) It was commissioned on Valentine's day b) The wife of the designer was called Valentine c) it was an acronym which I can't remember but started "Vickers" and ended "North East".

Most manufactured British tank of WWII.

[Techno]

Most manufactured British tank of WWII.

Well....That's something I've learnt today......Ta, Nobby. 

Cheers - Phil.

[d_Guy]

OK - I had to look it up also.
My excuse is I pretty much don't live in the modern world these days.
What particularly confused me was the "V for Victory" symbols plus "Stalin" and the the sign that read "Berlin or Bust" except it was in English
(As was Stalin for that matter). Was off on a merry chase then noticed Peter said "Valentine" not "Valentine's"! Now with the proper search words - I was quickly able to compare pictures. Wargaming requires a vast breadth of knowledge.
Good one, Peter 

Sorry about the stream of consciousness - slept in and having first coffee.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

It's probably on it's way to Russia as a lend-lease!
Canadian production was mainly at CPR Angus Shops in Montreal and 1,420 were produced in Canada of which most were sent to the Soviet-Union, with 2,394 exported from Britain. They formed the main Commonwealth export to the Soviet Union under lend-lease.

[toxicpixie]

We sent shed loads of them to the Russians as Lend-Lease, as Will says - they were very highly regarded as sturdy, reliable, mobile and acceptably armed light-ish tanks, although IIRC they complained at the two man turret versions for obvious reasons. Extensively used in the Desert to replace the rather awkward and expensive to build & run Matilida.

It's very often a foot note wierdly, as it was a major piece of kit for two pretty major armies!

[Raider4]

. . . although IIRC they complained at the two man turret versions for obvious reasons.

Yes, because they'd only built about 35,000 of the T-34 with exactly the same . . .

Cheers, Martyn
--

[Ithoriel]

They didn't complain that much! The Valentine remained in production and in service until the end of the war at Russian insistence. It's low profile, good armour and mechanical reliability seem to have made up for the cramped conditions and lightweight armament!

The Russians even opted for more Valentines rather than a batch of Cromwells.

[petercooman]

Didn't they find a well preserved valentine X in a lake somewhere in Russia recently?

[toxicpixie]

Yes, because they'd only built about 35,000 of the T-34 with exactly the same . . .

Cheers, Martyn
--

Yes, but to be fair, they'd identified the issue pre-war and the next set of production would have had a three man turret as standard. Unfortunately they got a bit attacked, and rarer than reduce production capacity in an already massively under threat environment, just kept churning out the original until they got some breathing space.

I can't remember the exact breakdown for models within the T-34 series but iirc three man turret marks are in the majority overall.

And as Ithorial says, the Valentine was good enough in the role they used it for them to keep requesting it until the end!

Although interestingly, they rated the Sherman astonishingly highly - better guns than comparable T-34 models (US 75mm Better than Soviet 76mm, US 76mm better than Soviet 85mm), superb reliability, mobility, and good survivability. Only thing they didn't like was the deep snow crossing ability, so they got round that by using them in the central and southern fronts instead of Leningrad