[WWII] T18E2 Boarhound Armored Car (USA)

[copeab]

T18E2 Boarhound Armored Car
copyright 2009 by Brandon Cope

The British were impressed with the performance of the SdKfz 231 8-Rad (p.W:IC76) German armored car in North Africa in 1940-41 and requested US assistance in creating an equivalent. In early 1942, the T18 (eight wheels) and T18E1 (six wheels) were created, both using the turret of the M-3 light tank (p.W:DF78), armed with a 37mm gun. This was felt to be inadequate and in late 1942 work started on a large eight-wheeled car with a 57mm (6-pdr) gun. Shortly after it entered production, the US decided it had no use for such a heavy armored car and canceled the project. Thirty already started were completed and sent to the British in 1943, who named it the Boarhound. However, by this time the desert campaign was over and the mission of the T18 no longer existed. The Boarhound was used for testing but never saw combat.

The Boarhound had a crew of five: commander, main gunner, loader, driver and assistant driver/bow gunner. The turret has a powered traverse of 21 degrees per second and 2 degrees per second manually. It burned 3.5 gallons per hour at normal usage.

Subassemblies: Heavy Standard Wheeled Chassis +3, Small AFV full rotation Turret +2, eight Wheels +1
P&P: 2x72.5-kW gasoline engines with 145-kW all-wheel drivetrain, 8,000 kWs lead-acid battery, 54 gallon standard fuel tank
Occ: 2 CS Body, 3 Both Cargo: 9 Body, 1 Turret

Armor
Body: F 4/140, RL 4/50, B 4/35, TU 4/25
Turret: F 4/140, RL 4/60, B 4/40, T 4/25
Wheels: 3/5

Armament
57mm Medium TG/M-1 [Tur: F] (70 rounds)
Ground LMG/M-1919A4 [Tur: F] (2,000).
Ground LMG/M-1919A4 [Body: F] (1,000) .

Equipment
Body: Medium range radio receiver and transmitter, fire extinguisher, 2-kW traversing gear, 2x4 VSP storage bins (DR 10), 2x1 VSP storage bins (DR 10).

Statistics
Size: 21'x10'x9'
Payload: 1 ton
Lwt: 26.5 tons
Volume: 69
Maint.: 83 hours
Price: $5,800

HT: 7.
HP: 660 [body], 150 [turret], 55 [each wheel]

gSpeed: 50
gAccel: 2
gDecel: 10
gMR: 0.75
gSR: 4
GP: Ext High (1/8)

Design Notes
The Boarhound was simply far heavier than the design system can compensate for. Rather than use complicated tweaks that would only slightly improve design weight, the loaded weight was just increased by 123%.

Design gSpeed was 37 mph; the historical speed was used. For simplicity, the external storage bins used available internal empty space.

Some sources list a crew of only four (no dedicated loader).