- Yes
- No
caid’s suggestion #163
I will suggest here an interesting IFV for Switzerland, the Mowag tornado.
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 an export vehicles 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 was improved protection, 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 them, 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 20mm version was probably intended mainly to be an IFV. similar to the BMP-1, it could engage the enemy tanks while carrying the mounted infantry. the ATGM wasn’t very efficient, it had a low rand and was quite slow. but the fact it was intended to engage the armored units indicates a more active combat role than the 25mm version without Bantam launchers.
Firepower
The main armament of this tank is the 20mm HS 820. an auto-cannon created by the French branch of Hispano-Suiza and based on the HS.404 which was a WW2 auto-cannon. this auto-cannon is rather powerful and can use a wide selection of ammunition, including APCR, and has around 50mm of penetration at short range. while not perfectly good against tanks, it is still capable of penetrating WW2 medium tanks such as the T-34-76 by shooting at some weak spot on the front or just by shooting on the side. this gun is identical to the Oerlikon KAD but with different ammunition available in Switzerland. the tank carries around 800 rounds in a 100-round belt. the elevation of the gun is important. with -7° of depression and + 60° of elevation, the tank would not be the best to use in uneven ground but still capable of doing it and also capable of engaging planes but the turret rotation is not fast enough to track them properly. while Gaijin may be tempted to make it a SPAA, this tank is definitively a light tank to me as there is SPAA more fit in this rank and no proper tank for Switzerland at this BR. 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 a 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 competitor, the AMX 10P, BMP-1, and Marder, this tank have fairly good protection but it remains a IFV. the did receive a smoke grenade launcher in the late stage of its test which allowed the tank to fire 2x smoke at the time to cover his movement, the crew normally include a driver, a gunner, 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
Spoiler
Armament
- Hispano-Suiza HS.820 - Wikipedia
- 20mm APFSDS-T Help - #7 by Hasag - General Ammunition Discussion - International Ammunition Association Web Forum
- https://dokumen.tips/documents/ammunition-20-x-139-mm-general-mmpdfammunition-20-x-139-mm-general-the-ammunition.html
- https://www.quarryhs.co.uk/an_introduction_to_collecting_20.htm
- Bantam (missile) - Wikipedia
The Switzerland supporter discord is open to everyone
If you like to see some wacky tanks if you want to see unique aircraft, if you want to see something about a new nation that could make it to the game. Switzerland is for you
the Swiss Discord is dedicated to researching Swiss military material and support. no qualification is needed. if you want to help or have a look around, follow this link and we would be happy to welcome you
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