In the Works VI
Today we’re taking a brief trip back to the land of award winning fjørds, then on to wurst and bier.
Like everyone else, the Swedes used a variety of light trucks for various jobs. One such was the Volvo C303. Militarized for passenger discomfort, with a soft top to mount weapons in the cargo bed and given a rather nifty foldable roll cage and windshield, the 4x4 C303 was the Swedish jeep. They were used as light cargo trucks, scouts and as anti-tank vehicles with a Swedish made 90mm recoilless rifle. They could have been armed with ATGMs as well, but a certain game company notwithstanding that doesn’t seem to have happened. We’re going to offer the C303 as a 90mm recoilless carrier with roll cage up or folded down and as a TOW carrier with the roll cage folded down.
Recoilless carrier with roll cage up
TOW carrier with roll cage down
A similar, more comfortable answer to the same problem was the Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen, often called the g-wagen. Used in an even broader variety of roles (even as a motorcade escort vehicle) all over the world, the g-wagen can also be used as a weapons carrier or light scout. We’re going to offer a basic g-wagen utility vehicle as well as versions with TOW, MG3 and the M-2 .50 cal.
It’s German so it’s better!
From the 50s one of the big questions Western armies worried over was, whither the tank? The war had made it clear that tanks were decisive, but in the post war era the Bomb, vast improvements in HEAT warheads and the rise of the anti-tank guided missile caused tankers and tank designers alike to wonder if it was physically possible to have tanks that could carry enough armor to stop HEAT rounds and still move. The Americans and British tried to have it both ways, with a mix of medium and heavy tanks that led to the universal or main battle tank whose armor could theoretically handle most threats and relied on positioning and tactical cleverness to avoid missiles. The French and Germans decided to give up on heavy armor altogether and emphasize mobility and firepower. The Europanzer project inevitably fell apart as, to no-one’s surprise, the frogs and sauerkrauts couldn’t agree on much of anything. The eventual French answer was the AMX-30, which we’ll talk about another time. The Germans wound up with the Leopard series of kampfpanzer. Very lightly armored, with excellent mobility and operational range for the era and solid firepower provided by the Royal Ordnance L7A3 105mm rifle, Leopards were also relatively cheap. Constant improvements added optical and later laser rangefinders, image intensification and later thermal imaging night vision, thermal cladding for the gun, better ammunition and fire control. Leopard was also formed the basis of the Gepard SPAA tank and several recovery and bridgelayer variants.
That combination also proved a winner for the export market, with thousands of Leopards exported or produced under license in all their variants.
We’re going to offer the original production Leopard 1A1, 1A3, 1A4 and 1A5 as well as eventual bridgelayer, recovery and engineer vehicles, the Biber, Bergepanzer and Dachs respectively. The tanks go on sale this weekend as part of our Scandinavian release.
Leo 1A1 with coincidence rangefinder bumps on the turret sides
Leo 1A5 with appliqué turret armor
Leo 1A4 with the distinctive angular welded turret
Next week will be a wurst fest as we show off our August Bundeswehr releases.