Valiant Tank - Variants

Variants

A Valiant II was mentioned in late 1943, but little more was heard of it. In February 1944 there was more detailed discussion of a Heavy Valiant, which may have been the same and has been reported as such in some sources.

The Heavy Valiant was a substantially different vehicle, only using the turret and driver's compartment of the Valiant on a hull derived from the A33 Excelsior and its T1 suspension. This gave armour of 9 (hull front) and 10 inches (turret) thickness. Weight was now estimated at 42 tons, which is comparable with the original Excelsior despite almost doubling the armour thickness, and so this must have been a much smaller tank. Power was doubled to cope with the weight, using the new and compact 400 bhp Rolls Royce Meteorite engine (a cut-down V8 Meteor) and an improved transmission. The mistake of the Valentine was to be repeated, where the turret was up-gunned to the 95mm howitzer of the Centaur IV at the cost of forcing the commander to take over the loader's task in a two-man turret. There is a record of a prototype having gone to the ranges at Lulworth Cove for trials in January 1945, but no other record of what it looked like.