Up-armoured 17pdr SP M10 Achilles IIC - Britain's Applique Kit

Looks pretty sweet, applique that isn’t just tracks is nice

1 Like

…you rang?

+1 very much for this suggestion, a small personal connection as my great-grandfather was attached to 15th (Scottish) Div. Would be quite a survivability buff for only a ton of additional weight.

Good event, Premium, or even TT vehicle, preferably added with 17pdr APDS!

3 Likes

Perhaps it can additionally get APDS and be 4.7

1 Like

Merely possessing 17pdr APDS isn’t enough to send it up to 4.7, the M10 as a platform isn’t mobile enough to justify it and the armour soon wouldn’t matter. Crap traverse and open-topped, much better to add to the 4.0 or 4.3 if possible so it can be an active TD.

2 Likes

meh probably not. APCBC and APDS go clean through both sides of all tanks until 6.3 so firepower doesnt functionally change much at all.

the mobility of the M10 is still bloody awful and that turret is more like a casemate in practicality.

with the boost in armour and APDS 4.0 would still be stretching it tbh

1 Like

4.7 is generous. Even at max uptiers the heaviest of heavy tanks would be lolpenned. In addition to a 25-50% increase in armour.
As for the M10 being an “active TD” it isn’t and shouldn’t be. With its turret traverse if you’re trying to brawl with it it doesn’t matter how low a BR you throw it at, you’re going to have a bad time. But used as a sniper like it’s supposed to be the M10 and especially this variant would be incredibly effective.

Let’s be very clear; 17pdr Mk8 is the best round that gun has.

Achilles is 3.3, and would be very easy to push up to 3.7 with zero changes. 14 mm extra armour (presumably 9/16" so 14.3 mm) plus the corresponding (minor) loss of acceleration, and a 1st Generation APDS round that’s only useful under limited circumstances is not, in my opinion, enough to warrant 4.7. Avenger (which is a TD, Gaijin!) is considerably more mobile, survivable, and therefore useful than Achilles.

For now I won’t mention the actual gun depression limits but let me assure you it would change the behaviour significantly, because they are not correct.

2 Likes

I mean, that’s what the bolts were for. It was designed that way.

1 Like

Well I think I’ve finally found another picture of an M10 with applique armour. It’s only present on the front of the hull, despite this one having the capacity for the full set. Perhaps they wanted to save weight and thought they’d only need the frontal piece?

100800
The wreckage of British and German AFVs destroyed in the battles around Caen, Villons-Les-Buissons, 1944 - NAM. 1975-03-63-18-197

1 Like

IWM (B 8604)
An M10 and other vehicles on the Vassy road, 4 August 1944. - IWM (B 8604)

A 3-inch SP with applique on the front and seemingly the hull sides too. Impossible to tell on the turret but I’d be surprised if it didn’t have the full set. It’s much easier to see on the IWM website but it gives a good indication of how difficult it is to tell whether or not an M10 has it fitted when they’re all camo’d up and covered in the crew’s kit.

Comparing all of the photos, it seems like the headlight’s brush guards needed to be removed in order to fit the frontal plate.

Chelsea and the wrecked one at the collection point both have the normal full-size frontal plates and are missing their brush guards (Chelsea is even missing its lights) but the others with the brush guards still in place have had segments cut out of the frontal plate.

100800 - full plate
IWM (B 14769) - cut plate

+1 foldered with the current Achilles

1 Like

I think it’s on the sides too.

image
image
Looks like it has the seems between the plates.

5 Likes

I’m not entirely convinced because it doesn’t look like the studs are flush to the surface. I wouldn’t be surprised though if it maybe did have them at some point and that’s what caused the marks because they do seem to line up with where the seams would be.

A long time ago a user of the other game measured the armour plates of a surviving unit on display in France, the plates were 18mm thick with 17mm spacing.

3 Likes


https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205206479

I want roof Achilles. I also assume it has extra armour cause it’s pretty stud-less?

3 Likes

Interesting, thanks for this. Given how the design of the kit is much more refined compared to Berg’s original concept, it’s not hard to imagine that they could’ve upped the thickness too but I still need to try finding a definitive answer on whether the kits that saw use were actually American or British.

Just a later-production vehicle built after they stopped applying the side studs unfortunately, but they still had them on the front so they do occasionally have the frontal applique plate as seen on Chelsea. It’s just another part of what makes it so difficult to find examples of the kit either fully or partially fitted.

The roof armour is the modification I mentioned to Spr4yz further up the thread. As far as I can work out it was done by 86th Anti-Tank Regiment, attached to XII Corps, and shows up a few times.

IWM (BU 2396)

IWM (BU 2853)

I’ve got the plans for it somewhere.




There’s more in the Canadian Microfilms but I seem to have misplaced the link to those pages. If I find them I’ll post them here.

Also:


4 Likes