To Russia with Love

Hello and welcome back to another Forgotten Hope 2 update.

Today we are showing off a couple of renders of some old friends in new clothes. As part of the program of Lend-Lease, the UK and the US provided the Soviet Union with thousands of tonnes of supplies - everything from rubber to trucks. Amongst this essential supplies were also provided many hundreds of armoured fighting vehicles.

The Soviets first learned of the M10 in March 1943, though they were not seemingly enamoured with the concept, taking several months to order just two for evaluation. One of these was used to measure mobility and reliability, which was determined to be good. Certainly as good as the domestic equivalents and very similar to the M4A2 tanks. The only real objection was to the open top. Gunnery trials were delayed into 1944 by a lack of ammunition, and while the gun was liked, the crew ergonomics were not.

Only 50 M10s were ordered, and they finished arriving about the same time as the gunnery trials completed. They were delivered critically short of spares and other equipment, and training proceeded with a lack of manuals with crews who had not any previous tank destroyer experience. In the end, 44 of these vehicles were split up between the 1223rd and 1239th Self Propelled Artillery Regiments, who used them in Belarus and Poland respectively. No more M10s were requested, instead the M4A2(76)W would take its place. Our Soviet M10 was modified from the original by Agus by Matt Baker.

The Valentine was perhaps the most liked of the various tanks received by the Soviets from the British. Small, reasonably well armoured and with good reliability, they could be found on the front lines all the way from Moscow in the winter of 1941 through to the end of the war. Replaced in British service by the Churchill by mid 1943, it remained in production through to 1945 almost exclusively to equip the Red Army.

The tank went through several different designs, and was produced in both the UK and Canada. The Mk VII variant was a Canadian built version of the Mk II with a new US made transmission and GMC 6004 engine. More parts were made by castings, and the BESA coaxial machinegun was replaced with a M1919A4. In total, the Canadians would make 1420 Valentines, with all but a handful being sent to the Soviets. Ours was modified from Montoya's Mk II by Matt Baker.

That's all for this week, but be sure to come back next time for another update. Until then, feel free to visit our Discord, our public forums, and/or our Twitter and Facebook pages to discuss this update and other news.