The Tank Medium No. 2 Experimental Vehicle FV4202 also known as the 40-ton Centurion was a technology
test bed developed by British company
Leyland Motors
Leyland Motors Limited (later known as the Leyland Motor Corporation) was a British vehicle manufacturer of lorries, buses and trolleybuses. The company diversified into car manufacturing with its acquisitions of Triumph and Rover in 1960 and ...
between 1955 and 1956. It was used to develop various concepts later used in the
Chieftain
A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom.
Tribe
The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia.
Tribal societies are sometimes categorized a ...
main battle tank.
History
The FV4202 was built by Leyland Motors as a research vehicle for the
FVRDE to test the conceptual layout of the proposed
FV4201 Chieftain main battle tank.
Three vehicles were built between 1955 and 1956. The weight of FV4202 was nearer 42 tons as the cast turrets were usually too heavy due to the fact that the manufacturers of the turret castings were paid by weight rather than per item.
One vehicle is preserved at the Bovington
Tank Museum and another one has been
employed as a recovery training aid at
SEME Bordon.
Design
The FV4202 test bed was built from readily available
Centurion parts, such as the suspensions, smoke grenade dischargers, armament, hatches, cupola, sights and turret drive.
It featured a reclined driver position, allowing the use of a well-sloped glacis plate and the "mantletless" cast turret was built, with an internal gun mantlet.
Having a shorter hull than the Centurion, the FV4202 only had five road wheels per side. The FV4202 was also lower than the Centurion due to the use of 28 inches-diameter road wheels (31 inches for the Centurion). The tracks were a narrower variant of the ones used on the early Centurion marks.
The FV4202 is powered by the
Rolls-Royce Meteorite
The Rolls-Royce Meteorite was a British V8 petrol or diesel engine of capacity, and was derived from the Rolls-Royce Meteor, which was itself based on the Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine. The Meteorite was, in essence, two-thirds of a V12 ...
V8 petrol engine which was, in essence, two-thirds of a V12
Rolls-Royce Meteor
The Rolls-Royce Meteor later renamed the Rover Meteor is a British tank engine that was developed during the Second World War. It was used in British tanks up to 1964. It was a result of co-operation between Leyland Motors and Rolls-Royce who bet ...
.
The Meteorite has a 18.01 litres (1,099 cu in) capacity and deliver 520 bhp (393 kW) at 2,700 rpm.
The engine was coupled to a
Merritt-Brown V52
gearbox
Propulsion transmission is the mode of transmitting and controlling propulsion power of a machine. The term ''transmission'' properly refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft (for rear-wheel drive vehicles), differe ...
originally developed for the Vickers Medium Cruiser Tank Mk. I.
Appearance in video games
The FV4202 appears in
World of Tanks
''World of Tanks'' (''WoT'') is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Belarusian company Wargaming, featuring 20th century (1910s–1970s) era combat vehicles. It is built upon a freemium business model where the game is free-to ...
,
World Of Tanks Blitz
''World of Tanks'' (''WoT'') is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Belarusian company Wargaming, featuring 20th century (1910s–1970s) era combat vehicles. It is built upon a freemium business model where the game is free-to- ...
,
War Thunder
''War Thunder'' is a free-to-play vehicular combat multiplayer video game developed and published by Gaijin Entertainment. Announced in 2011, it was first released in November 2012 as an open beta with a worldwide release in January 2013; it had ...
video games
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedbac ...
,
See also
*
FV4201 Chieftain
*
Centurion (tank)
The Centurion was the primary British Army main battle tank of the post-World War II period. Introduced in 1945, it is widely considered to be one of the most successful post-war tank designs, remaining in production into the 1960s, and seeing ...
*
Conqueror (tank)
The FV 214 Conqueror, also known as "Tank, Heavy No. 1, 120 mm Gun, Conqueror" was a British heavy tank of the post-World War II era. It was developed as a response to the Soviet IS-3 heavy tank. The Conqueror's main armament, an L1 120 ...
References
External links
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{{ModernUKAFVsNav
Main battle tanks of the United Kingdom
Cold War tanks of the United Kingdom
Main battle tanks of the Cold War