I would like to suggest an interesting armored car for the mid-rank, the M38 wolfhound with an M24 turret
If you like the M24 Chaffee, you will love this armored car. this is a super armored car from WW2
the M38 Wolfhound was a development of Chevrolet of 1944 and was intended to enter production in March 1945. the purpose of this armored car was to replace the M8 Greyhound. the M8 has been a well-used armored car for scout duty but had serial flaws due to its weight and mobility. the M38 had improved those weaknesses by lightening the armor and reducing the thickness while keeping the same protection with a higher slope, a better weight distribution on the wheels, and independent suspension on each wheel, and the vehicle now has a trench crossing ability of 1.27 m and can climb on 0.6 m tall step which is something that the M8 could as it had about no crossing ability and not capable to clinging on tall obstacles. but WW2 coming to an end, it was obvious that there was already enough M8 Greyhound in service and there was no need for more vehicles in the US army. The production was canceled and only a handful of M38 was built.
the original M38 was built with an open-top turret armed with a 37mm M6 gun. this was a bit weak and unfit to fight tanks, but it was enough to provide protection. the prototype was still in trial when the evaluation for an improvement of the M38 that was aiming to up-gun the armored car was tested. the modification was simple and even somehow standardized the turret as it was mounting the turret from an M24 Chaffee. this turret, while being light, mounts a 75mm M6 gun which shares the same characteristic of the M3 found in the M4 Medium tank (the Sherman). this was a good idea as not only it was a cheap and effective improvement, but it also implied maintenance and supply as the M24 light tank was been produced in large numbers.
the experimentation led to no production or acceptation in the US Army., most likely due to the cancellation of the Production of the M38 as it was not going to continue much longer. the US already had about 3 times the vehicles it truly needed for their army and the production needed to be shut down. the Greyhound was not replaced in the US army by an armored car, they were slowly given away and replaced by the M24 Chaffee and later by the M41 Walkerbuldog.
Firepower
this armored car will not lack firepower. it could even fit in the mid-rank vehicles and work amounts the late WW2 tanks. the main armament was a 75mm M6 gun. this gun is well known to be used in the M24 chaffee and shares the same characteristics with the 75mm M3. it would give this armored car the capacity to fight most of the WW2 tanks. tanks to his stabilizer, it would be pretty effective in offensive and with good mobility, it would be very dangerous. the gun has an elevation of -10°/+15° which is alright for almost any situation except shooting down planes. for this, the vehicle can count on the 12.7mm M2HB on the rooftop. this heavy machine gun wasn’t mounted in the picture but the pintle is there at the rear of the turret which makes it clear it was just not mounted but intended to be there. a Coaxial 7.62mm M1919A4 is placed at the left of the gun. the turret has a rotation of 24° which is alright for most situations. 50 rounds for the 75mm, 420 rounds for the 12.7 mm, and 1750 rounds for the 7.62 mm are carried.
Mobility
the vehicle mobility is pretty good. I believe it can be compared to the EBR 1951 except for the reverse speed. the original M38 was lighter but the version with the M24 turret weight 7.265 kg which can be rounded up to 7.3 tons. this is not the best improvement over the M8 greyhound as it was 7.4 tons but keep in mind the original was 400 kg lighter which improved the ground pressure. The engine is a Cadilac 42 V-8 providing 148 hp at 3200 rpm. the engine was paired with a Detroit Transmission Hydra-Matic transmission, giving 4 forward and 1 backward gear and a torque converter. this makes this vehicle accelerate quickly and it feels like it flies. the top speed reaches 97 km/h (or 60 mph) forward. the power weight is 20.27 hp/ton. This is a quite good mobility stats for a WW2 vehicle and would make the vehicle quite mobile to a point where the enemy would find it annoying.
Protection
this vehicle is not highly protected. the turret has much of his armor with 38mm at the front and 25 on the side and rear. it will be enough to protect it from small caliber auto-cannon but a little more. the chassis however is weakly armored. it has 9mm on every side and 6mm on the top. it would only provide protection against LMG and nothing else. the crew is of 4 men of which 3 are placed in the turret. a smoke mortar is placed in the turret and allows the vehicle to cover its maneuver in need. in overall, this vehicle does not have great protection. at the rank it should fall, 75mm guns would be the most encountered, easily destroying this vehicle with a single hit on the front or side.
The modification was simple because the turret is non-functional, it can’t rotate, and this is because the turret ring is actually far too large for the M38 chassis. It was only meant to test if the M38 chassis could withstand the force of a 75 mm cannon, so, with that, they just bolted the Chaffee turret in place. If they needed to test another turret orientation, they unbolted the turret, picked it up with a crane, rotated it, and then bolted it back to the orientation they wanted.
In short, it’s not a functional prototype (sadly).
I was pointing out the irony which never stopped Gaijin before. Not only could the Radkampfwagen 90 not turn the turret, but it could also not fire. As far as I know, the turret wasn’t even attached to the chassis.
but if your goal is to not have a nice vehicle for USA that could fill the gap between the M24 and M18, you are doing a pretty good job.
Not to say that the Radkampfwagen is valid or that Gaijin would never add the M38/M24 hybrid, but there is another WW2 U.S. armored car with a 75mm gun that would also fit the gap you are talking about while also being (to my knowledge) completely functional.
yeah, this tank would be interesting, but would not fill the gap.
the turret is up top which makes it a lot more vulnerable for the aircraft and artillery and the gun is unstabilized. which makes it a lot less effective in the offensive, has a lot less armor to a point LMG might penetrate and the mobility would barely be better than the M24 due to the engine and transmission not being so powerful and because it’s wheeled.
all together makes me doubt it would get at a BR above the M24
the only tank that might close the gap is the T49 tank destroyer which is doubted it ever had a real turret (the turret seems to be made of wood) or the T88 tank destroyer which is an M18 with a Derpy 105 mm M4 gun
Here is the T88 which could be fun to have
and here is the T49 which the turret has no sight or optic making me think it’s a mockup
I do agree that the T66 would likely be worse than a wheeled Chaffee, but I think there are enough other prototypes and such that could go before and after said M38/M24 in the gap we currently have, the T88 and/or T49 included, even if not at the exact same BR.
I just don’t have all too much interest in seeing unfunctional testbeds in-game that were never intended to be functional, unlike incomplete prototypes that would work in their desired end state. Similarly to the Ho-Ri Production and other paper vehicles, I don’t think their current existance in War Thunder is a reason to justify more.
This has my +1, honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal if the turret never worked irl, I mean the concept existed, and at the end of the day we do have similar vehicles in the game. That said with that in mind, I could see this as a future event premium
on this, I agree. it’s not because some vehicles were added with “flexible” rules that justify more vehicles to be added.
I let people know what is possible to add and I also have some other suggestions coming up.
i just really liked this one as I think it would have been a near equivalent to the EBR 1951
+1 regardless of its turret functionality. To be completely honest, I’d almost prefer it to come without the ability to traverse the turret since that would make its gameplay more unique. Would make for a funny meme vehicle for a throwaway event. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if they added it with functional traverse.
As for a something to go between the M24 and M18, I think that can be pretty easily achieved by one or two of the many US recoilless rifle armed vehicles. Hell, the M551 with the 105mm howitzer would probably work just fine at 4.7 if you remove HEATFS from its ammunition pool. I honestly find limiting the ammo pool of the M551(105) to be much more likely than giving a vehicle functionality it never had when it comes to Gaijin’s additions. Especially since the M551(76) already has a limited ammunition pool, removing its access to HEATFS. Then again, we do have the Rad 90 when the TH400 was a perfectly valid alternative.
There are also more reasonable alternatives like the T24E1, T86, and original T67. The T24E1 is just a faster Chaffee, the T86 is a bigger and slower M18, and the original T67 was armed with a 75mm M3. Unfortunately, no pictures of this configuration are known to exist, however, R.P. Hunnicutt confirms its existence and testing.
If we want to get really wacky, we could also go with the M4A2E1, which is a M4A3 (weird, I know) fitted with a 600hp engine. There’s also the M4E3 with a 580hp engine. You could also get even wackier by adding the M41 Sheridan Turret Testbed, which only fired HE and HEAT since the systems for firing and guiding ATGMs were not installed in it.
This is all to say that the US isn’t hurting enough for gap-fillers that an unhistorical addition is necessary.
Purely for a gap-filler between the M24 and M18, the obvious choice seems like the T24E1. Since that’s simply a Chaffee except faster (using the same engine as the M18).
Personally I don’t really care too much if it was functional or not.
But fact is it is stated nowhere in your suggestion. You’re not laying out all the relevant facts about this tank (in fact you just stated something that isn’t true, saying that the prototype standardized the turret) and for a lot of people what I’ve shown is a deal breaker.
Besides, as people have already pointed out there are plenty other sollutions to fix that gap, including just an upgraded M24.
