What is this ‘Valentine’ tank?
This is one of the most mass-produced tanks in history. This tank was mainly and mostly used by the British armies and it was during the second world war period. This tank has served in so many important wars and battles in history.
Cool fact about this tank
The design of this tank was presented on Valentine’s Day, which means the 14th of February in 1940. That is how this tank got its name. And some say that the middle name of the designer of the predecessors of this tank was Valentine. So, they named this tank on his behalf of him.
Origin
The place of origin of this tank was the United Kingdom. They built this tank as an infantry tank. These tanks were built as support to the infantryman on the field when they attack.
History
The history of this tank can be divided into two parts. The production history and the service history. Let us look at them one by one.
The production history
The first tank of the Valentine tanks was produced in 1940. And they kept producing them for four constant years. The demand for this tank was so high that they had to produce 8 275 of them. Even though this belonged to the United Kingdom, 1 420 from those 8 275 were built in Canada.
Designer & Manufacturer
The designer of this special tank was a conglomerate of engineers named ‘Vickers – Armstrongs’. They designed this tank in the year 1938. And the manufacturer of this tank was also the company of Vickers – Armstrongs, and others.
Variants
There were so many variants for this tank. Let us take the list.
- Valentine l, II, III
- Valentine IIICS
- Valentine IV, V, VI, VII
- Valentine VIIA
- Valentine VIII, IX, X, XI
- Valentine DD
- Valentine OP/command
- Valentine CDL
- Valentine Scorpion II
- Valentine AMRA Mk lb…
There are many more other variants are available.
The service history
This tank has a very fruitful and memorable service history. This tank was in service for whole two decades. They used these from 1940 to 1960. And these were not only used by a specific army. These were used by the British army, the Red Army, and the New Zealand army.
Wars
This was used mainly in the second world war. But rather than that, this was also used in two other important wars. They are the 1948 Arab – Israeli war and were also used in the Cyprus crisis of 1963 – 64.
Operators
There were several operating countries and armies for this Valentine tank. They are Canada, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Iran, Nazi Germany, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Soviet Union, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
General information
Now let us look into the general information about the tank Valentine. There are so many areas to talk and let us take them one by one.
Dimensions
When we take the length of this tank, it was 17 ft and 9 inches long. And the width of the body was 8 ft and 7.5 inches. The height of this Valentine was 7 ft and 5.5 inches, or 2.273 m. finally, the mass of this tank was around 16 tons.
Crew
As this was an infantry tank, there was no need to have so many crew members. So, they designed this to only have three crew members. They were the commander, the gunner, and the driver. But the Mk III version of this tank had 4 crew members. They included a loader to that variant.
Other facts about this tank
There are several other things we can talk about this tank and its variants. Especially some details about the post-war period. Let us take a look.
Survived tanks
After all the wars, few tanks have left from the destruction. And some are still in running condition. If you are interested, you can search or visit the Bovington Tank Museum. There are around forty of them in that museum.
Remained chassis
After the war, there were so many Valentine chassis were left and saved. So, they used them to build vehicles. They were built under three categories.
- 1st category’s vehicles – SP 17 pounder, Valentine, Mk I, Archer
- 2nd category – Carrier, Valentine, 25-pounder gun Mk I, Bishop
- 3rd category – Tank, infantry, Valiant (A38)
Building faults of Valentine
There was only one fail in this tank. And this problem was not unique to this. This was a common fault of many other tanks during that period. Especially in the British tanks. It is the explosive capacity of the gun of the tank. It was not enough to face the opponent tanks.
Was that the only fault of that tank?
No, it was not. That gun was not enough at all. Even though they fixed the firepower, there were so many other faults with that gun. Because of that, the gun of Valentine became outdated very quickly.
General information of Valentine Mk. II
Now let us see the specification of the tank Valentine. There are several things to talk about it. let us take them one by one.
Dimensions
The total length of the tank with the forward gun was around 17 ft and 9 inches. And the width of the tank was 8 ft and 7 inches. And the height of this tank was 7 ft and 5 inches. As this was an infantry tank, it was not that big. This tank weighed about 16 tons and the measurements were taken as long tons.
Crew
As this was an infantry tank, there were not so many crew members. There were only three of them. They were the commander, the driver, and the gunner.
if you want to know more cool facts about other war tanks, please visit our site. You are warmly welcome to our site, ‘War Tankers’.
