Lohr VP 90 AF (HS820), sneaky 20mm at the ground level.

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caid’s suggestion #210

i would like to suggest an interesting vehicle for France, the Lohr VP 90 AF with HS 820


the VP 90 is an extremely small and lightweight tank that is designed to provide support to infantry patrol and reconnaissance as well as support for anti-tank operations. design in 1952, the VP 90 was initially developed by Fouga with the concept of offering the smallest vehicles possible that would be easily deployable. the license was bought by Hotchkiss who built some prototypes in the 70s and then Lohr Industries who bought back the license and built some more prototypes for the export. Lohr improved the concept a lot by offering new armament and variants to the vehicles. they also made the concept evolve into the Lohr VPX 110 and VPX 110M. while the vehicle. the vehicle was marketed actively and were considered by France and Switzerland seriously. but was ultimately not adopted by any of them. In France, the VP 90 competed with the Even ELC and AMX ELC. it turned out to be AMX who won the competition but never went to production. the vehicle was remove from the market in the late 70s in favor of other concept from Lohr.

this variant is the VP 90 AF which stands for Appuie-Feu or Fire-support. it features a 20mm HS 820 (also called 20mm KAD but in France, it was registered as HS820) in this picture but can also feature a mortar or a 25mm gun. As I got the 20mm version here, I will focus on this variant in this suggestion.

Firepower
the armament of this tankette is a single 20mm HS 820. this weapon was renamed KAD when hispano-suiza was taken over by Oerlikon in the 70s. the HS820 and KAD are the same gun with different names. the auto-cannon is here placed on a support on the right side of the vehicle and could be moved. in the normal position, the gun can’t normally fire below the horizon but the chassis has a controlled suspension that can compensate for the depression of the gun. the elevation and depression are unknown, but it is easy to assume it has a large arc of fire. the ammunition carried is also unknown.

Mobility
the weight of this vehicle is extremely light about 2.9 tonnes. this makes it one of the lightest vehicle of the game. the engine providing 120 hp is very strong for its weight. that gives the vehicle a power/weight ratio going over 40 hp/ton which makes it extremely fast to accelerate. the transmission offers 4 forward speeds and 1 reverse will allow it to reach 85 km/h. for a tracked vehicle this speed is very high. this small tank is a real race car that can easily speedrun the capzone and make vehicle like the R3 T20 FA-HS or the M18 Hellcat been lagging. but the weight has been extremely light making it suffer a lot when it comes to breaking through walls or pushing down trees. the vehicle will be plagued as soon it needs to break some obstacles and lose a lot of its speed. the suspension is also adjustable offering the possibility to raise the back by 4° and the front by 9°.

Protection
this vehicle has almost no protection. the chassis offers very minimal protection against small arms. the small size is what makes it survive. the vehicle is so small the crew can’t sit in it. the driver is lying down on his belly to drive the vehicle. it can easily hide on the battlefield. the chassis only reaches 1.15 m (which is a bit less than 4 feet tall) it does not have a roof or smoke. it just has its small size and high mobility to make it survive. for this specific version, the gunner is sitting by the missile launcher which makes him exposed to the LMG fire. the crew of 2 men does not give the vehicle a lot of chance to survive a volley of bullets.

sources

Satory VI (1977)

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