The third Questionmark conference was held at Detroit in June 1954 and several new concepts for improved heavy gun tanks were presented. Six of these were proposed as potential replacements for the T43E1 (M103). Four of the concepts were considered to be fairly short-term proposals requiring about two years of development time. One of these, the TS-5, was equipped with the 105 mm T120 smoothbore gun in a limited traverse gimbal-type mount, and had an estimated weight of 50 tons.
The TS-5 should be thought of as a direct replacement for the old T110E3 (at Tier X). While the TS-5's armament is a smoothbore gun, I don't consider this an issue since we're going to replace it with a 155 mm weapon anyways to carry over from the T95 GMC.
Given the drawings available, it seems that the TS-5 should be heavily armored in front, and that armor should also be heavily angled. In fact the whole front appears rather bullet-shaped. While factors like the vehicle's mobility and actual armor thickness aren't known to me, it shouldn't be much of an issue to ensure this vehicle's effectiveness is very similar if not exactly the same as the old T110E3.
Again, this should be a direct replacement of that old tank in my opinion. The model might change a bit, but the tank should fundamentally be the same. In fact, with its relatively low profile, the TS-5 should be more visually similar to the T95 GMC than the T110E3 ever was. We can also give the TS-5 a four-member crew to match the rest of this branch.
Guns: 155 mm Gun T7
Engines: Continental AOI-1490-1 (700 hp)
Suspensions/Alternate Hulls, Total Weight (metric tons): TS-5 (45.53)
Hull Armor (mm): ??/??/??
Top Speed: ?? km/h
Crew: (Driver; Gunner; Loader; Commander/Radio)
Parent: T95 GMC
Sources:
Hunnicutt, R. P. Firepower, 2017
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