GKN/Alvis Simba Fire Support Vehicle

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                           GKN/Alvis Simba Fire Support Vehicle

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vehicle design and service history:

The Simba 4x4 family of Light combat vehicles were designed as a private venture by GKN, as a complimentary vehicle family to the Saxon primarily aimed at the export market. The idea was to create a family of wheeled vehicles capable of local manufacture, along with a modularity allowing for a variety of armament packages to be installed in order to meet the different operational requirements a client might expect to encounter.

The hull of the Simba is of all welded construction, and composed entirely of steel armour, providing the occupants with complete protection from 7.62 mm ball small arms fire and shell splinters. Additional thermal installation was installed within the roof, and forced air circulation came fitted as standard. This would then be supplemented with either an optional heater or full air conditioning depending on the climate of the country in which it would be deployed.

In terms of internal layout, the driver sits at the front of the vehicle, on the left in a cab with bulletproof windows, and a single piece hatch that opens to the rear. The vehicle is powered by a Perkins Engines Company diesel engine situated to the right of the driver, which is aerated by louvres at the lower front of the glacis, and the outlet on the upper side of the glacis. This engine is mated to a Clark combined gearbox, which transmits power to both the front and rear axles. Behind the driver is a rather large troop compartment, which had numerous vision blocks on each side of the troop compartment, with firing ports allowing infantry to engage outside threats. These troops can enter and leave the Simba via a single large rear door, or a door on the left side of the hull. These doors also possess vision blocks and rifle ports.

The basic Simba would be used as an APC and would be fitted with a one-man turret armed with a .50 (12.7 mm) M2 HB machine gun and two banks of four electrically operated smoke grenade dischargers. Aside from this, a wide range of armament installations can be fitted to the Simba based on need, and one vehicle was demonstrated with a 2-man turret mounting a Cockerill Mk III 90mm gun, for Fire support roles. This cannon was paired with a coaxial 7.62 mm MG, along with a second pintle-mounted machine gun.

Vehicle specification:

Mass 11.9 tons

Length 5.35 m (17 ft 7 in)

Width 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in)

Height 2.50 m

Crew 3 + up to 8 infantry

Armor 8 mm steel armor

Main armament 1 x Cockerill Mk III 90mm gun

Secondary armament 2 x 7.62 mm MG (Coaxial/ pintle)

Engine Perkins 210 Ti diesel turbo charged intercooler engine 210 bhp

Power/weight 18.75 bhp/ton

Operational range 660 km (410 mi)

Maximum speed 100 km/h (62 mph)

Additional pictures:

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Sources:

4 Likes
2

+1

3

Provides something interesting for the UK. +1

4

This thing looks interesting, but has no stabilizer or thermal, so it might be a worse version of Eland 90

Actually I want the AA version and the AIFV more, since British SPAA line has a huge gap between skink to Falcon, and British do not have any good autocannon carriers besides of SPAA.

Being said, having more vehicles is always a good thing. It would be good to have all three (or even four including the ATGM version) GKN Simba in game at the same time.

5

How is it worse then the eland, it has better armour and more importantly because its from 1993 the cockril gun has access to dart
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the other Cockril 90mm vehicles we have in-game are early 80s at the youngest, so miss out on the option of APFSDS. There were also provisions for night vision and thermals, but they were up to the orderer’s discretion. The Philippines never asked for that, so that is why most online sources list them as lacking night vision.

6

I know the Cockerill mk3 gun well and I am fully aware of their APFSDS.

The problem is, again, no stabilizer, no thermal, etc.

APFSDS is good, but it is just 100mm pen at 60 degree. Is it that good, in a br which composite armor and ERA are quite rare, compare to the HEAT on Eland, which had 320mm pen or 160mm pen at 60 degree? I don’t think so.

There are tons of heavy tank around 7.3-8.3 you would find trouble to fight against and I would rather to have 60% more pen.

7

your making the mistake of assuming it would have 100mm of pen at 60 degrees in game, they don’t use real life penetration to calculate it, case and point that recent type 63 china got where a horrible apfsds shell in reall life is its prefered round. just based on the muzzle velocity your looking at something around 250mm of pen on the flat and 140 ish at 60 degrees, though depending on weight of the dart it could be higher.

Personally i think 90mm heat is one of the worst rounds in that br bracket, seeing as until you get to about 7.7 the meta is entirely dominated by aphe, which nessessitates first hit kills, especially for light tanks, along with other issues that generally make it just flat out worse then APHE shells of lesser penetration. You would carry the heat if you run into a maus or something of that nature, otherwise your dart is just going to be zooming through everything, whilst also not being affected by fences and other terrain issues, whilst also securing things like gun breaches which have a nasty habit of not going red when the gunner soaks an entire heat shell, or my old enemy the track.

8

your making the mistake of assuming it would have 100mm of pen at 60 degrees in game, they don’t use real life penetration to calculate it, case and point that recent type 63 china got where a horrible apfsds shell in reall life is its prefered round. just based on the muzzle velocity your looking at something around 250mm of pen on the flat and 140 ish at 60 degrees, though depending on weight of the dart it could be higher.

In that case, maybe it would be good. But would Gaijin buff British vehicles by that much? I do not have as much confidence as you man.

To end this discussion, I just want to say that I fully support with having more vehicles in game especially in British TT since I main British. Having new vehicles, especially unique, non copy paste ones are always a good thing. However, I doubt if Simba 105 would have good performance in game without unrealistic buffs you expected and I just want Simba 20/25 more. It is my personal opinion, you dont have to agree with me, but it is what it is.

9

Its not a confidence they will buff it, more the fact that is what will come out when they put it in the equation, as to calculate shell pen its just muzzle velocity and projectile weight, with a few random buffs applied like BC for example.

honestly when it comes to 20 and 25mm equipt ifv’s for the british there are quite alot, many i would consider better, like the Scarab or ferret 80 that was also approved.

10

I mean if you really want to have a vehicle that using cockerill mk3 90mm gun, you may want to check with the scorpion 90. It is using the same gun, but it is a mass produced version, with stabilizer, thermal and hunter-killer capability, which is probably better than Simba 90.

While I love to have ferret 80 and scarab, the simba 25 has a 25mm gun which can shoot APFSDS so I guess thats something better. But again, my opinion has always been the more vehicles we have the better. Won’t hurt to have them all.

11

The scorpion 90 is in a different ball park then the simba, hence me not mentioning in, as it is an 8.0 tank any day of the week.

regarding british ifv’s with 25mm guns i have quite a few on the to do list, there is a stormer with basically every export turret you can think of, so quite a few have 20mm and 25mm bushmasters

1 Like
12

there is a stormer with basically every export turret you can think of

Neat. I actually want many stormers especially the one with 30mm GBU and stingers. British really can use something to fill the gap between Chieftain Marksman/ZA-35 to Stormer HVM.

13

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1 Like
14

I have the fox suggestions pending, they are cool, going to do the cv21 today i think ;)

15

+ 1 for GB, a 90mm domestic light vehicle would be fantastic.

16

I have two more based on the valkyr gestating

17

Dug up some more photos of the Simba 90, I’ll put em here:

Simba_90

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3 Likes
18

aye that bottom one is off the old sales brochure i have, i am curious about the AA variant, but have never dug anything up, so it just seems like a concept idea unfortunately ;(

19

This is all the info I have on it (from Janes armour and artillery), it may well have been built but I’ve never found a photo of it

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20

Found another pic of the Simba 90 -

Simba90