Profiles to come: SOMUA/Atelier de Construction de Rueil SARL-42

[dy031101]

This is originally a by-product of my attempt to scrap together fictional tank mental notes.  Uh, what the heck, might as well see what fun I can have here.

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The bakcstory is simple- Nazi Germany was able to achieve more success during their Operation: Watch on the Rhine (a.k.a. Battle of the Bulge).  The Western Allies, while still not about to sign any peace treaty, were left to watch the Germans concentrating on the Soviets in the East while barely holding the line against even the reduced German presence in the immediate future.  This caused Britain, in interest of making good their losses inflicted by the Germans, not only to step up on their indigenous tank development but also to go back to their old tricks of seizing all US- and Commonwealth-made materiels not destined for the Americans themselves.  One of the results of this act was that Sherman tank recepients that are not American or British would not be getting more of the tanks for a while.

Enter France.  Having been recently liberated, the French were eager to show the rest of the world as soon as possible that they can once again play a contributing role for the war efforts.  Since the Nazis were no longer breathing down their necks, they brought to light the clandestine tank development inherited from the Vichy military.  Progress was very slow as there was a lack of resources as well as much damage suffered by the infrastructure in the Paris region, but two developments were launched in parallel- a heavy tank design that would be committed to the future resumption of offensive against Nazi Germany itself, and a medium tank design that could be procured as more or less of an alternative to the Shermans.  Taking into account their isolation from engineering developments in the rest of the world before the liberation, the French would base both designs on types they already knew well: the heavy tank development would eventually lead to the ARL-44; the medium tank development would be a completion of the SARL-42 project, itself a development of the SOMUA S35.......

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Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

[Taiidantomcat]

Very neat looking turret 

[dy031101]

I found some model pictures here....... something to illustrate the turret in 3-dimention.  The circle thing on the mental note is an optical rangefinder according to Wikipedia.

Its main armament was set to be initially a 75mm/L32 and then 75mm/L44.  I wonder how the L44 compares to at least the American 76mm M1...... or if any export customers would outright specify a variant armed with the US 76mm......