MISSION STATEMENT

This website is to serve as a catalog of historical information for various tanks, across various stages of development, created for use by the United States from Pre-WWII through to the 1970s. However, the primary purpose for this website is to illustrate a proposal for what an "endgame" could look like for the US tech tree in the game, World Of Tanks, and to show that there's still plenty of life left to breathed into this game.

My aim is to see as many tanks in the game about tanks as possible, and I hope to show that in a way that respects both the historicity of the tanks shown and the balance of the game overall. As such, I will not be going into great detail on individual statistics. Rather, I will only be showing the possible modules for each tank, changes that could be made to make it more historically authentic, a historical overview, and how the tank's playstyle may be represented in-game. I will also attempt to future-proof this by including alternate hulls, half-tracks, and wheeled vehicles.

This is certainly not perfect and everything is subject to change. This is still a work in progress, and updates are frequent if not daily. This is a fan project and a labor of love. Do enjoy.

Monday, May 21, 2018

T99


During WWII, most of the self-propelled mounts used by the US Army utilized field artillery pieces. In January 1946, it was decided that in the postwar era, such vehicles should use specially designed weapons. It was also required that new vehicles have overhead protection. Several concepts were designed to comply with these new specifications based upon the new T37/T41 chassis that was also then under development, but only two were selected for further development. These were the T98 and T99 155 mm howitzer motor carriages.



Although they were developed in parallel, the T99 was the first to be officially authorized in Spetmeber 1947. Two pilots were constructed by Detroit Arsenal and they were armed with the 155 mm Howitzer T97. This weapon had a traverse of 30 degrees to the right and left, and with an elevation range of -5 to +65 degrees.

The onset of the Korean War in 1950 caused a "crash development" program which greatly accelerated the development and production of several vehicles during this time. As was common during this period, numerous problems were encountered in trying to rush the development. With hindsight, it's easy to conclude a slower and systematic program would have been preferable. However, new weapons were required as soon as possible during this time period, resulting in imperfect designs and projects.

Up until this point, the T99 used the T41 chassis. But as the T41 was being improved into the T41E1, and this tank was being rushed into production, the T99 was redesigned as the T99E1 to try and retain commonality between the designs. The T99E1 itself would soon be redesigned as the T194, and then standardized as the M44.

The T99 is basically just a premium version of the M44 using the stock hull. Nothing too special about it, except it might see some worse soft stats because of the circumstances surrounding its development.



Guns: 155 mm Howitzer T97

EnginesContinental AOS-895-3 (500 hp)

Suspensions/Alternate Hulls, Total Weight (metric tons): T99 TBS (27.22)

Hull Armor (mm): 13/13/13

Top Speed: 56 km/h

Crew: 5 (Driver; Gunner; Loader; Commander; Radio)




See Also: M44, Exp. SPH

Sources:
Hunnicutt, R. P. Sheridan. 2015. 

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