News for all things related to Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles
Here are a few photos we took this past weekend while in Nokesville VA. You really have to see one of these Valentine tanks in person to appreciate just how small they are. The small size of this vehicle was accentuated by the fact that it was displayed next to a M3 Grant tank.
The POTD comes from a new photo gallery “walkaround” posted on the website for The Armor Journal. This is the Valentine tank on display at the National Army Museum in Waiouru, New Zealand.
A new addition to the Osprey Publishing New Vanguard line titled Valentine Infantry Tank 1938-1945 is slated to be released on April 21. Authored by Bruce Newsome, this is a soft cover book of 48 pages with color illustrations.
Publishers description:
The Valentine was the most produced and most widely used British tank of the Second World War. The Valentine first saw combat during Operation Compass in November 1941 and remained one of the main medium tanks in British service into 1943. As the Churchill became more prevalent the Valentine was relegated to specialist and tank-destroyer variants, which would remain in service in the Far East to the end of the war.
This book describes the evolution of the Valentine design and weighs up its impact on the battlefield. Although widely regarded today as one of the weaker tanks to be fielded during the war, it was exceptionally numerous, with more Valentines produced than any other British tank.
We believe this photo comes from the Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles. It shows quite well the difference in size between the British Valentine tank and the M3 Grant.
For the Record has an interesting post translating information on the Valentine infantry tank in Soviet service provided by Russian researcher Yuri Pasholok. The post relates the results of Soviet testing at Kubinka in March of 1943 of a Valentine IX tank. The IX variant was equipped with a larger turret and 57mm 6 pounder gun as compared to earlier versions of the vehicle which had the 2 pounder gun. The report concludes that the Soviets were less than enthusiastic about this varient of the tank due to the lack of an HE round for the main gun and lack of coaxial machine gun. The test results can be viewed at the Archive Awareness website.
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