- Yes, as a Tech Tree vehicle
- Yes, as an event vehicle
- Yes, as a squadron vehicle
- Yes, as a premium vehicle
- No i do not want to see it in the game
Background
The E.N.T was an unfinished, 3 crew prototype that started to be designed and developed in 1989, a few years after the Challenger 1 entered service, because the british MoD wanted a tank that will replace the Chieftain and to be better in every way compared with the Challenger 1 while also being at the same size and weight. It was planned to be able to destroy future soviet tank designs (for example the FST-3), and to be able to do that, the team making it, the Royal Armament Research & Development Establishment (RARDE) had to focus on giving it strong, heavy armour, good mobility, and a huge 140mm high powered cannon. The requirement of the E.N.T started in 1986 with its study as a request from the Fighting Vehicles Establishment (FVE) with the project name 7308, where the tank was meant to be evolutionary, so it was allowed to use parts of the older Chieftains and Challengers. It got a lot of inspiration of older proposed vehicles like the 1982 Future Tank Project (F.T.P), the ST4004 and the Future Main Battle Tank (F.M.B.T). The planned production of the vehicle back then was planned on the year 2000, although in the end that never happened due to the collapse of the soviet union, leading it to be a unfinished prototype with some parts of the vehicle still remaining.
Cannon
A very important part about the E.N.T was the firepower it is supposed to wield, so to fulfill the demands of the MoD, a 140mm cannon was chosen, however there were 2 types of 140mm cannons, a high powered rifled cannon and a low pressure smoothbore cannon. Out of the two guns, the smoothbore one was chosen.
Ammunition
Thanks to its massive 140mm cannon, it could also fire massive shells. It can fire APFSDS shells almost twice the size of the 120mm shells at the time, and might also have the capability to fire HEAT rounds and ATGMs thanks to its increased bore. The long APFSDS rounds gave it an estimated penetration of around 700 - 800mm’s Although it also came with disadvantages, since the tank is meant to have a crew of 3, the shells were too big for a manual loader, which was tested with the mockup wielding the 140mm cannon, so there was a plan to give it an autoloader, a carousel autoloader was chosen because the bustle autoloader could only carry 16 rounds due to the size of the rounds and because it made the bustle look bigger, meanwhile the carousel autoloader could carry 40 rounds of ammunition, the autoloader had 15 ready rounds, meanwhile the rest of the 25 rounds were stored somewhere else inside the tank.
ENT Mockup without the autoloader mentioned in the Ammunition section
ENT carousel autoloader
Secondary Armament
7.62mm coaxial chain gun
7.62mm machine gun mounted on the pintle
Planned 25mm autocannon on the side of the bustle although will remove armour packs
Planned Version that is the exact same as the E.N.T, but adds extra missile launchers that can carry H.V.M and TRIGAT fire and forget missiles
Fire Control System
Gunner sight: Day-Night sights
Commander sights: 10x magnification, PAN TILI (panoramic thermal imager with laser integrated sight with 12x magnification)
ATDT (Automatic Target Detection & Tracking System), used to find targets faster than the crew by looking for movement, which also tells the crew where the movement was spotted
Mobility
Perkins CV8 Diesel Engine with a two stage variable geometry turbocharger with a TN55 Gearbox (8 forward gears, 4 reverse), which gave it 1000 BHP, which in the end gave the E.N.T a 60kmp/h max speed.
14 road wheels, 7 per side
Hydro-Pneumatic suspension
Armour and Protection
The E.N.T compared with the Challenger 1 has massive protection differences, with an estimated 46% higher increase with kinetic projectiles and a 75% higher increase with shaped charged projectiles. This was achieved thanks to the turret having Chobham and ERA in its turret, giving the turret 700mm of armour from the front against kinetic projectiles in a 60 degree area of attack, meanwhile for HEAT projectiles it gives 1100mm at an 80 degree frontal arc. The turret sides also had Chobham and could also mount ERA, giving it 460mm of protection at 90 degrees.
The hull armour has 700mm protection against kinetic projectiles and 1300mm against HEAT projectiles if shot on the upper glacis. However like the Challenger 1, it still has the lower plate weakspot, as it wasn’t armoured like the other parts of the tank. The roof was armoured at some areas too, where it has up to 225mm of armour, high enough to survive small projectiles like bomblets and artillery, the bustle part wasn’t armoured.
I hope you all liked my very first suggestion, if there is any info that can be added here that is missing, please do let me know, since there isn’t a lot of information available on this tank, and is mostly hard to find.
Sources:
- https://youtu.be/RvlfWqCcMdk (Video containing lots of information about the vehicle)
- Chobham Armour Book (Overall Info about the vehicle)
- Challenger 2 ATDU - Fighting-Vehicles.com (Cannon Images)
- x.com (Autoloader Images)