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caid’s suggestion #164
I would like to suggest a rather unique tank, the Swiss Mowag Tornado GBD B20
The Mowag Tornado was a Swiss-made IFV that was created to offer the Swiss army a replacement to the M113
The adoption of the M113 by the Swiss army in 1963 as an infantry vehicle was a huge disappointment. the Swiss preferred the cheaper American tank over the better-performing swiss IFV from Saurer and Mowag. but the Swiss company was promised to have another chance later. during the following decade, Mowag refined their knowledge by participating in the development of the German Marder IFV by creating the Pirat 1M3 which was part of the 3rd stage of the prototype of the Marder and the last in which the Swiss had participated. knowing that soon or late the Swiss army would give them a new chance to get orders to equip motorized infantry, Mowag went further in their development and created the Tornado. the Tornado was based on the Pirate 18 which was also renamed Tornado 1 in his later life and the Taifun was a export vehicle that was sold to Italy (but they never successfully produced it)
the Tornado was offering all that the Swiss mechanized infantry could need. one of the main features improved protection, improved mobility, and improved firepower over the M113 which was not even comparable in its form when it was in Swiss services. the Tornado was built in 1974 and was a Swiss version of the Marder. By then, the M113 had 10 years of service and the Swiss army was considering a potential replacement already. The Tornado was a very innovative tank. to save space, the engine, transmission, and gearbox were built in a single part instant of 3 separated parts. this has the advantage of lowering the initial production cost, making the overall engine compartment smaller but have the flaw of being harder to maintain or repair. the tank also features NBC capacity, automatic fire detection and extinguishing and surprisingly the IFV included a hidden missile launcher ramp.
The GBD B20 turret appears to be mounting an upgraded version of the IFV. featuring a more powerful 25mm, this vehicles also feature a more advanced look which is closer to the Marder 1.
Firepower
the main armament been a 25mm oerlikon KBA. this auto-cannon is featuring a very high rate of fire for his size. it also packs quit firepower and can engage enemy tanks in flanking manoeuvres when used well. this gun can even penetrate the early MBT. On the downside, this turret is not stabilized or includes night-vision or thermal images. the turret is operated by the crew member who is sitting below the gun. the ammo load is unknown but the ready belt includes 150 rounds for the 25mm. the elevation is -12° to + 52°which is pretty well adapted for the Alpine terrain. the tank also includes a pair of 7.5mm MG 51 in the remotely controlled turret in the rear. that turret can have an elevation of +60° which allows it to engage air targets. additionally, the tank can carry Bantam-guided missiles which can be launched from a retractable ram on the hull’s roof (just at the right of the turret). this make this IFV capable to engage and destroy tanks.
Mobility
The tank was powered by a MOWAG diesel engine with turbocharging and inter-cooling, water-cooled offering 430 hp, and had a Mowag transmission that offered 6 forward speeds and 2 backward (not 6f/6r like many websites reported) this allowed the tank to have pretty good acceleration and be very reactive. the first gear is known to be reaching 3 km/h which means the tank is reacting pretty slow on the start and would reach a pretty fast acceleration after the 3rd gear. the tank weighs 20 tonnes but I believe this includes the passenger of 11 men (3 crew, 8 passengers) on which 1200 kg are allowed in the chart. this means without those men, the tank would be 18.8 tonnes, but let’s give those awesome remote turrets an operator which normally would be two of the passengers, which led to 19.3 tonnes. this means the tank had a power-weight in its full combat capacity of 22.3 hp/tonnes. this is a pretty good ratio which allows the tank to accelerate pretty fast.
Protection
The exact armor of the tank is unknown, but due to the weight and size, it is expected to be around 30-35mm on the front and 20mm on the side. this should allow the tank to have a fairly good resistance against HMG and some auto-cannon but not in a way to be immuned to them. for sure compared to its main competitors, the AMX 10P, BMP-1, and Marder, this tank has fairly good protection but it remains an IFV. the did receive a smoke grenade launcher in the late stage of his test which allows the tank to fire 2x smoke at a time to cover his movement, the crew normally includes a driver, a gunner, and a commander, but we should also give it 2x passenger who are normally operating the LMG turret (they was on the disposal of the embarked infantry)
Sources
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Armament
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