ground vehicles Second Generation AMX 50 120 : the AMX 50 Surblindé

[Shepard_FR 545]

Hi,

 

Here we are for another potential French vehicle that could be added into War Thunder. We will follow the adventures of the AMX 50 developpment again, with this time a variant of the 120mm armed beast, the AMX 50 Surblindé, also known as the AMX 70t.

 

Quick history :

 

French engineers experimented a lot during the AMX 50 program. First with the M4 that saw a lot of redesigns to become the base of what all build AMX 50s would look like. Most prototypes were playing with the armament of the machine : the 90mm armed AMX M4 chassis was simply upgunned with a 100mm gun (that's the ingame AMX 50), then it was upgunned AGAIN with a 120 mm without any modification of the hull design. The turret designs only saw minor modifications to fit the new guns. In the end, that 120mm armed turret on the AMX M4 chasis became the 1st generation AMX 50 120.

 

(First generation AMX 50 120)

 

Then, AMX decided to play with the hull design and buff the armor of their machine. The second generation AMX 50 would see a major armor improvement : the side armor was pretty much doubled and the front of the tank was designed with a "piked nose", a design copied from the Soviet IS-3 tank, to improve the effective thickness without adding an insane amount of steel. The top of the tank was also flattened, there is no height difference in height between the crew compartement and the engine compartment. The turret was improved as well : a tiny bit lower, and a lot of armor improvement. This armor addition bumped the weight to 64 metric tonnes and that caused malfunctions on the tank. Indeed, the suspensions, motorisation and transmission were not changed compared to the 1st generation AMX 50 120, and especially the old suspensions were struggling to handle the added weight, causing malfunctions.

 

So a 3rd genration AMX 50 120 was designed with a smaller silouette to reduce weight without throwing armor completely out of the window. The turret was also massively redesigned to hold a massive 19 shots autoloader. That is the AMX 50 Surbaissé.

 

The machine :

 

AMX 50 Surblindé (AMX 70t)

 

 

Armament : 120mm SA46 cannon with a 6 shot revolver type autoloader (7 if you count the round already loaded like the Lorraine 40t), one coaxial 7.5mm MAC 31 machine gun

Weight : 64 metric tonnes

Engine power : 1000hp

Crew : 4 - driver, gunner, loader, commander

Hull armor layout :

- 130mm on the main upper front plate ("picked-nose" part)

- 50mm arround the driver's optics (the sort-of triangular roof above the driver's seat, above the "picked-nose")

- 100mm on the lower front plate

- 80mm on the front cheeks

- 80mm on the sides above the tracks

- 60mm on the sides behind the tracks

- 60mm on the rear

- 30mm on the roof

- 20mm on the floor

I tried to deduce some of those values from the blueprints, there might be some errors. If you spot some, say it on this topic and I'll correct them.

 

Turret armor layout :

The turret design of the Surblindé has the same overall shape as previous AMX 50s. However the armor was buffed and the layout looks like this :

- 90mm on the front (lower and upper part)

- 60mm on the sides

- 40mm on the rear

- 30mm on the roof

- 20mm on the floor

 

Only one of those was built.

 

 

In War Thunder :

 

In the current French "heavy tank" line, there is a huge gap between the 6.7 BR AMX 50 and the 7.7 BR AMX 50 Surbaissé. The AMX 50 Surblindé would fill that gap at a BR of 7.0 or 7.3, where it would "benefit" from its better armor. It wouldn't break the balance though, the tank is heavier and slower than other AMX 50s, has a bigger profile that is easier to spot/shoot at and has a much smaller autoloader magazine. At such a BR, it would be at Rank V.

As it differs quite a bit from both the AMX 50 and the Surbaissé, I would exclusively see the Surblindé as a regular tech tree tank. Some of you might complain that it is "only a prototype that was built once" so it has to be premium, you're right, but the entire AMX 50 family of tanks is a bunch of prototypes that were built once or twice, so... Yeah...

In a nutshell, it's not a gimmick vehicle and I still think it is different enough from other AMX 50s that we have ingame for now to earn its place in the regular tech tree.

 

So, what do you guys think ?

 

Thank you.

 

Sources :

 

https://tankarchives.blogspot.fr/2016/03/amx-50-120-long-road-to-dead-end.html

http://tanknutdave.com/french-amx50-tank/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX-50

https://gaulwot.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/amx-50/ (In French)

https://www.chars-francais.net/2015/index.php/engins-blindes/chars?task=view&id=682 (In French)

Edited February 26, 2018 by Shepard_FR
Armor values corrected

[Radom 4,245]

Open for discussion. 

[Tantor57 10,318]

Absolutely yes. Btw where did you get the armor thickness of the tank ? I was never able to find it before.

 

 

[Tasty95215 2,099]

 

You can also include the gun depression and elevation from this plan for the TOA 120 turret - according to this it had 6 degrees of gun depression and 13 degrees of gun elevation.

 

26 minutes ago, Tantor57 said:

Absolutely yes. Btw where did you get the armor thickness of the tank ? I was never able to find it before.

 

 

 

He mentioned in the OP that he was guessing the values from the blueprints. I’ll try and see if there’s anything more concrete out there.

[Slipslime 660]

+1 This would be a good tech tree tank. If Gaijin added a premium French heavy it should be the Somua SM, not an AMX

[Tantor57 10,318]

13 hours ago, Tasty95215 said:

 

You can also include the gun depression and elevation from this plan for the TOA 120 turret - according to this it had 6 degrees of gun depression and 13 degrees of gun elevation.

 

 

He mentioned in the OP that he was guessing the values from the blueprints. I’ll try and see if there’s anything more concrete out there.

Alright, but the armor values seems quite underrated since the vehicle gained 15 tons in weight, a new gun + an enlarged turret does not cut it for such a weight increase... Plus the name of the prototype "Surblindé" comes from the french vern "Blinder" which means to armor something and the prefix "sur" means adding even more armor, in english that would translate in AMX 50 overarmored, or, more exactly, up armored. All in all it means they added more armor and did not simply redesign the thing to obtain more effective armor. So my guess is that the vehicle actually had more armor thickness than the previous AMX 50 prototypes, but we'd need to obtain official docs to be sure...

 

Okay so quickly using paint and thickness of a 20 mm plate as reference with a line thickness that matches more or less the thickness of the plate minus 2-3 mm, i can fill the thickness of the frontal pike nose with a bit less than 11 lines, that means given the inaccuracy of paint and the accuracy of my work, I'll safely assume that the frontal plate is AT LEAST 150 mm thick.

 

However with a software like Autocad, someone could very quickly tell us the real thickness value of the plate, what is sure is that OP should be updated according to what i was able to estimate pretty inacurately but this still gives an idea of how thick the hull armor on this thing was.

 

Edited February 26, 2018 by Tantor57

[Shepard_FR 545]

I indeed done some more measures on the blueprints and found values closer to 130mm for the piked-nose and 100mm for the lower glacis, it's corrected in my post now.

[Tantor57 10,318]

bump

[Jan_Gustl_WT 1,746]

i love french tank designs +1

[Nell_Lucifer 927]

The AMX 65t would be more interesting but sure. +1 for both.

[Shepard_FR 545]

7 hours ago, Nell_Lucifer said:

The AMX 65t would be more interesting but sure. +1 for both.

 

The AMX 65t doesn't exist. This is Wargamming making tanks up.

 

In WoT, the AMX 65t is a "Surblindé" chassis with a turret that was planned for testing, but never built. Also, that turret was supposed to be put on the AMX M4 chassis, not the "Surblindé" one.

[Nell_Lucifer 927]

1 hour ago, Shepard_FR said:

 

The AMX 65t doesn't exist. This is Wargamming making tanks up.

 

In WoT, the AMX 65t is a "Surblindé" chassis with a turret that was planned for testing, but never built. Also, that turret was supposed to be put on the AMX M4 chassis, not the "Surblindé" one.

it's a parrallel development of the AMX M4

it was sharing a lot of commom feature, the hull was nearly the same. same engine, samme suspenssion, same transmission

it was just a design with more fire power to fill the role of heavy tank

It does exist, well at least in blueprints, it was not made up by Wargaming. 

Even if it was still not build I still want it, it's just too good looking, being a IS-3 competitor, of a 7.3 br.

Spoiler

 

 

[TheFuzzieOne 3,355]

17 hours ago, Nell_Lucifer said:

It does exist, well at least in blueprints,

 

 

In other words, it doesn't exist :p

 

The one in the topic here though, the 70t/Surblinder, looks like a good call.If it physically existed, then I'm all down for it.

[Shepard_FR 545]

13 minutes ago, TheFuzzieOne said:

 

In other words, it doesn't exist :p

 

The one in the topic here though, the 70t/Surblinder, looks like a good call.If it physically existed, then I'm all down for it.

 

It was built only once as a prototype, so yes : it physically existed.

[TheFuzzieOne 3,355]

1 hour ago, Shepard_FR said:

 

It was built only once as a prototype, so yes : it physically existed.

 

AMX 65t was never built, as far as I have seen. Do you have proof of it having a prototype?

[Shepard_FR 545]

I was talking about the Surblindé

[KapitanRedDead 462]

I'm not really sure why I've waited so long to comment on this after looking back on it a few times but I guess I'd just have to say it would be another nice Chile to have at higher BR's before you hit the Terminators.

[Panzer68 31]

YES !!!! Someone did this suggestion ! I love it !!!

[KontaKT 1,824]

Yes but the BR in the poll are weird.

The surbaissé is 7.7, this one shouldn't be lower. I selected 7.7 because it's the BR it deserves.

[SkySoNy 46]

On 25/02/2018 at 17:32, Shepard_FR said:

Hull armor layout :

- 130mm on the main upper front plate ("picked-nose" part)

- 50mm arround the driver's optics (the sort-of triangular roof above the driver's seat, above the "picked-nose")

- 100mm on the lower front plate

- 80mm on the front cheeks

- 80mm on the sides above the tracks

- 60mm on the sides behind the tracks

- 60mm on the rear

- 30mm on the roof

- 20mm on the floor

I tried to deduce some of those values from the blueprints, there might be some errors. If you spot some, say it on this topic and I'll correct them.

 

Turret armor layout :

The turret design of the Surblindé has the same overall shape as previous AMX 50s. However the armor was buffed and the layout looks like this :

- 90mm on the front (lower and upper part)

- 60mm on the sides

- 40mm on the rear

- 30mm on the roof

- 20mm on the floor

the armor of the AMX 50 Surblindé and 220 mm if my memory is good

I do not know if it's the Hull or the turret where the two (I don't know if it's the effective armouring)

http://engins-blindes.leforum.eu/t1952-AMX-70T.htm (FR) (By Tyrexdunet)

Its shielding was estimated at around 200 mm thick thanks to only two known plans

In the photo he is armed with the oscillating turret of 120 similar to the AMX 50 of the previous years

Note, however, that the pivoting part of the turret has a different shape and looks more armored than the conventional AMX 50
But the AMX 70T was later to be equipped with a classic turret with 120mm gun

 

D.1203 (120 mm 100% french)

Picture n°1 - 
In 1949, this paper is showing a general scheme of performance for a unit that I believe is the AMX-65T (a project that never saw a prototype).
It's showing performances of a gun saying "1000m/s" of initial velocity with a 120mm shell (probably standard "obus de rupture" so a solid shot, AP) & a second one at 1250m/s for an APDS (the projectil doing a 75mm).
You can see yourself the performances on an obstacle at 90°.
+ the existence of an HE.

To make a little comparison with what we have in the Era 5 (with a 120mm high-velocity gun) :
M103 = 281mm (AP) / 380mm (HEAT-FS) - Conqueror: 362mm (APDS)
=> so this french 120mm is better than the M103 when using his basic ammo ~~

Picture n°2-
Not much to tell about this document. It is said that the british bring information about the IS-3 and following the conclusion, it is still highly recommanded for the french engineers to continue their works on the 90mm, 100mm but also the 120mm with 1000m/s of velocity.
The document was founded in the boxcard talking mainly about the 120mm and on this page we see that the gun from 1949 is probably still used later (probably early 1950: so 51 or 52). But the most interesting part is the name: D.1203.

D.1203 looks very likely to be the name of our 120mm with this 1km/s of velocity !

 

Picture n°3-
Well, that's an incredible one... This one, my dear: it's the presentation of the AMX-50 using the "T.O.B 120" turret. It's the AMX-50 that we can see still today in the Museum of Saumur !

And in the name of the turret, plus the description, we can understand that this tank is using:
1- a 120mm
2- with an initial velocity of 1070m/s ...

This is very very most likely / probably / possibly the D.1203 ! So by using different official documents, maybe we found the true penetration value used by this strangely unknown gun of 120mm which was said to be "a copy of the US 120mm" which is in fact: incorrect. This gun, my dear, is 100% french & the AMX-50 was intended to become the 1st MBT of the Western Bloc in Europe, considered by the U.S.A as better than the M103 and even the Conqueror ~~

source: https://live.warthunder.com/post/443050/en/?comment=1829952 (By Umbriellan)

Edited May 26, 2018 by SkySoNy

[SkySoNy 46]

in short, the AMX 70T has an estimated Hull armor of about 200 mm thanks to the known plans

In the photo he is armed with the oscillating turret of 120 similar to the AMX 50 of previous years

Note, however, that the pivoting part of the turret has a different shape and looks more armored than the classic AMX 50

But the AMX 70T was later to be equipped with a conventional turret with gun 120mm (Warning according to world of tank therefore to check) (250 \ 80 \ 60)Armor (18,000)Weight

This Surblindé version of the AMX 50 120 uses the same armament as the AMX 50 120 but with a new oscillating turret (more armored ?)(had to be equipped with a conventional turret) lower.

(the oversized version (AMX 50 120), (It should be noted however that this version is very poorly represented, indeed, the real tank being shielded from 200 to 255 mm according to the sources and the shape of the tank at stake is totally different from the real one. tank) source:https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX-50)

AMX 70T

Turret: (250 \ 80 \ 60)mm(Warning world of tank value)

Hull armor: 200mm(estimated)

Weight: 70T

Main armament:120mm high-velocity gun D.1203                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   0 meters / 1000 meters / 2000 meters

gun of 120 with vo / 1000 perforating 320mm / 265mm / 250mm
gun of 120 with vo / 1250 perforating 350mm / 290mm / 235mm
(in sub-calibrated 75)
unit pressure: 850 gr / cm².

Engine: 1000 HP. maybe 1250 hp (for the AMX 65T engine) Top speed (km / h) 40? + 5T 35 or 30?(Warning world of tank value)

 

from the little information we can say that it's a kind of mous French

according to me it should be in 8.3 or 8.7

Edited May 29, 2018 by SkySoNy

[SkySoNy 46]

On 25/02/2018 at 17:32, Shepard_FR said:

Hi,

 

Here we are for another potential French vehicle that could be added into War Thunder. We will follow the adventures of the AMX 50 developpment again, with this time a variant of the 120mm armed beast, the AMX 50 Surblindé, also known as the AMX 70t.

 

Quick history :

 

French engineers experimented a lot during the AMX 50 program. First with the M4 that saw a lot of redesigns to become the base of what all build AMX 50s would look like. Most prototypes were playing with the armament of the machine : the 90mm armed AMX M4 chassis was simply upgunned with a 100mm gun (that's the ingame AMX 50), then it was upgunned AGAIN with a 120 mm without any modification of the hull design. The turret designs only saw minor modifications to fit the new guns. In the end, that 120mm armed turret on the AMX M4 chasis became the 1st generation AMX 50 120.

 

(First generation AMX 50 120) <-The oscillating heavy turret 120 (of which a prototype has been built) is probably the one carried by this AMX 50.

 

Then, AMX decided to play with the hull design and buff the armor of their machine. The second generation AMX 50 would see a major armor improvement : the side armor was pretty much doubled and the front of the tank was designed with a "piked nose", a design copied from the Soviet IS-3 tank, to improve the effective thickness without adding an insane amount of steel. The top of the tank was also flattened, there is no height difference in height between the crew compartement and the engine compartment. The turret was improved as well : a tiny bit lower, and a lot of armor improvement. This armor addition bumped the weight to 64 metric tonnes and that caused malfunctions on the tank. Indeed, the suspensions, motorisation and transmission were not changed compared to the 1st generation AMX 50 120, and especially the old suspensions were struggling to handle the added weight, causing malfunctions.

 

So probably a first throw of the Low loader with the famous turret Low already existing there too. And that before the 1958 version

 

I must admit that I can not understand this document. There are indeed several black spots that I can not elucidate.

First of all, according to this document, there would be 7 AMX 50s built (but I only know 5 personally):

• The prototype # 1 and the prototype # 2 are implied. Who are they?
• The prototype # 3 which is the first of the pre-series. Is celui-ci?
• 2 normal tanks completing the pre-production. Is ceux-ci?
• 2 lowered tanks. One of the two being celui-ci. But who is the other?

Moreover, where is l'AMX 70T which is normally part of the AMX 50 family? Is it considered a "normal" tank or a "surbaissé" tank?

Then, concerning the turrets:

• The tourelle 120 R oscillante is normally celle-ci.
• The tourelle 120 lourde oscillante (of which a prototype was built) is probably the one that transports cet AMX 50.
• The tourelle 120 classique (Loire) is probably that of l'AMX 65T.
• The tourelle surbaissée being that of l'AMX 50 TOB.

But what about the tourelle 120 A oscillante? Is this another name of the 120 heavyweight oscillating turret?

Moreover, what about the turret of the AMX 70T which seems to me (may be wrong) different turrets already mentioned?

 

So if you have any ideas for interpretation, I'm interested.

source:http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/579975-critique-des-chars-francais-20/  (BY Teckyota)(FR)

 

[WindowsXPisBest@psn 1,595]

I feel like the AMX-50 *Super Bias* should be moved back down to 7.7 & the AMX-50 Surblinde be at 8.0.

[Gaillard82 0]

Slt a quand cette version de l'amx 50 70t,pour la prochaine mise a jour?ce serait bien d'ailleurs de rajouter la 20mm d'origine a l'amx 50 surbaisse parce que mettre juste la 7.5mm je considere que cest du vol.

 

[STEEL_GUNNER 231]

J'ai trouvé un "amx 75" dans les archives de chatelleraut

Le 75 est sûrement en rapport avec le tonnage du véhicule

Est-ce que quelqu'un sait à quel tank cela fait référence ?

 

http://www.servicehistorique.sga.defense.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/SHDAA_REP_3H1_NO_343_1932_1974.pdf

 

Edited October 29, 2018 by STEEL_GUNNER