Width 2.6 meter
Height 2.2 meter
Weight 16-17 tons
Suspension Coil sprung three wheel bogies
Speed 15 mph km/h road
8 mph km/h off-road
Range 90 km (road)
Primary armament 2pdr to 6 pdr
Secondary armament 1 x .303 machine gun
Armour 8 x 65mm
Power Plant 130 to 165 hp
Crew 3 to 4 Commander, Gunner, Driver (Loader)
The Valentine chassis was the basis for several variants.
With the development of the 17 Pounder gun, the need arose for it to be mounted on a combat vehicle. The Valentine chassis was soon chosen for this role, as it was in production but rapidly becoming obsolete as a tank. It was also one of the few chassis that could accommodate the large gun.
The Valentine had a relatively small hull and it was not possible to use a turret. Instead a simple armoured open-top box surrounded the gun. The gun was mounted facing over the rear of the hull which kept the overall vehicle length short.
The rear mounting at first seemed like a liability, but it was soon made into an advantage. Combined with its low silhouette, the Archer made an excellent ambush weapon, allowing its crew to fire off a few shots, then drive away without wasting time turning around.
The Bishop was a British self-propelled artillery vehicle based on the Valentine II chassis.
A fixed metal box with large rear doors replaced the turret on top of a Valantine hull. Into this the 25 pounder gun was fitted. As a limitation of the 25 pounders mounting the resulting vehicle had a very high silhouette. At the same time the maximum elevation for the gun was limited, lowering the range considerably to about 6,400 yards (about half that of the gun on its wheeled carriage). In order to compensate, its crews would often build large ramps out of the earth - running the Bishop onto these tilted the whole vehicle back effectively gaining extra elevation.
Due to these factors, compounding the Valentine's characteristic slow speed and thin armor, the Bishop was poorly received almost universally and soon replaced by the M7 Priest and Sexton. Only around 140 of these vehicles were produced. It first saw action during the Second Battle of El Alamein in North Africa and continued to serve during the early part of the Italian Campaign.
The A38 Valiant was a British tank design of the Second World War, based upon the Valentine tank but only reached the prototype stage.
It was intended as a improvment on the Valentine using as many elements of the original. The design, A38, was first suggested by Vickers in 1943 but the pilot (built by Ruston Hornsby) was not ready until the middle of 1944 and the design was dropped as the end of the war approached.
The major changes from the Valentine were a larger turret that could take the OQF 75 mm gun, as used on the Churchill and Cromwell, and thicker armour. The prototype was fitted with the 6 pounder (57 mm) gun. The project was cancelled. The Valiant II, equipped with a Meteorite engine (a half size Meteor engine) and improved transmission was suggested but nothing came of it.
For more information see...
(http://www.answers.com/topic/valentine-tank)
(http://www.junobeach.org/e/4/can-tac-arm-can-e.htm)
(http://kiwisinarmour.hobbyvista.com/valentin.htm)
