Unboxing: Bolt Action Valentine II Infantry Tank
March 17, 2015 by dignity
Justin and John get romanced by the Valentine II Infantry Tank from Warlord Games for their Bolt Action games.
The Valentine Mk II appeared in 1941 and was used by the British forces extensively in the North African Campaign. Soviet Army players are in for a treat too because it was also used by your troops! Various marks of the Valentine were sent to Russia under the lend-lease agreement.
Which army best utilises the Valentine II?
My Ares’ RX-Railguns will make short work of that- oh wait, wrong game =p
The valentine was an experiment that became a stop gap, and they tried to make the best of it, one variant was given thicker armour and a 6 pound gun. The school of Design decided to keep it as an example. Of how not to build a tank, and the sole valiant now lives in Bovington tank museum. Other experiments included removing the turret and literally bolting field guns on in its place.
Another Variant of these things that actually saw service was the Bishop, were Basically someone built a shed on top for a 25 pounder…
Later versions of the valentine would get a bigger turret so they could fit a loader, HE rounds, Welded seams to stop the rivets being a problem would be introduced in the valentine x (yes thats 10, it took 8 more variants for them to work that out, though a couple are really just Canadian built versions of the British original) and eventually a 75mm gun, and the DD sherman crews trained on converted valentines.
As the war progressed the Valentine and its generation of mostly obsolete tanks were modified for bridge laying, towing and recovery etc so they could save on production of utility vehicles.
One has to bear in mind that the British armed forces fought tooth and nail with one another for funding between the wars, with the Royal Navy winning the lion’s share as it was perceived as the senior service and always the first line of defence. The Air Force and Army were very much the poor relations, and also bear in mind that Britain’s economy was not in the best of shape in the 1930’s. Another aspect to remember was that Army strategy and tactics were governed very much by people whose views on how the next war would be conducted were rather stuck in the trenches of WW1. Hobart and other tactical innovators were shunned by their compatriots, but their ideas were read with great interest in Germany and the USSR (and by a certain George Patton). In other words, the only people with a clue about what tanks should have been used for were outcasts, crying in the wilderness while committees of idiots came up with ludicrous concepts (cruiser tanks mimicking cavalry charges – yeah, that went well against the Pak’s and Flak’s in North Africa).
Having said all that, Valentine is ugly cute. Lots of visual interest.
My uncle Sid had not one but two of these things blown out from under him and escaped from Dunkirk. My uncle Peter the other side of my family hid behind one of them blown up on the road to Dunkirk from a Stuka that just would not leave them alone. And then my uncle Geoff used a tank that had been abandoned with his artillery piece by first setting it alight as the smoke covered a large section for the retreating British forces. All three of these escaped at Dunkirk. All my family including other uncles etc who were too young originally landed day one D Day. Sid had a Sherman brew up on him but the panzer that hit them was abandoned by its crew after being strafed by a plane type un-known, Sid and the crew turned the gun on two other panzers that were taken rather by surprise before they had to leg it as a Typhoon bore down on them, exit one german tank. Sorry None of these folk are around today to say what type of panzer it was, All I can say is Uncle Sid went on to go right through to germany blowing up every church tower on route’ this was to deny any sniper a shot at any of his tank’s by now field promoted and leading several tanks. As he always put it the game was up when he found a Tiger type/mark not known, apparently he had gone looking to see if it was a real Tiger, as they had had several reported sighting all turning out to be Panzer 4. OOPs True tale and one that was repeated several times when I started to collect Airfix in the very early Sixties.
Real war stories are always the best. D.x
really interesting @chrisg, cheers for sharing!
like the tank are they bringing out the archer.
Great unboxing as usual guys. Liking the Sabaton jumper John
David Fletcher is indeed the man. His participation in the series “Tanks: Evolution of a Legend” is a big part of what makes that show great (lord knows its not the computer graphics). His dry sense of humor makes the series fun as well as informative.
The Ordnance QF 2-pounder indeed had only AP ammunition, which made them more or less useless against soft targets like infantry and antitank gun crews in the desert (I’ve never run across any history of them being used in the “Case Yellow / Red” invasion of the :Low Countries and France – are we sure these weren’t A11 Infantry Tanks s or Matilda IIs? I could be wrong). This lack of HE capability was **supposed** to be redressed with the use of “support variants like the Crusader and Matilda “CS,” with some kind of 3- or 4-inch mortar, but I don’t know if the doctrine every actually worked. This is why the British were so thrilled to receive the first M3 Lee/Grants in July 42, I think (Alam Halfa Ridge), with that 75mm HE gun. Then again, the M3 Lee/Grant had plenty of its own problems (like riveted armor). 😀
Great call mentioning the Archer. Those things fight in the Arab-Israeli Wars as late as 1956 (Sinai War) and 1967 (Jirardi Pass, Six-Day War). Never realized these things were based on Valentines, though. Thank you John and Justin! I learned something today. 😀
Should I mention that the 2-pounder was a 40mm weapon? **sigh** I don’t want to dig myself into any deeper of a hole here with Justin and the “Tank God.” Again, they’ve taught me something about the Archer in this video. 😀
Anyway, great video, and thanks again for the tip on the Archer.
I knew I got something wrong, saying 37mm sounded off to me since the Brits liked oddly measured guns
Hey, I owe someone I used to play “Arab-Israeli Wars” with an six-years-late apology for insisting Archers were based on Comets instead of Valentines. 🙁
To my knowledge the 2-pounders were 40mm, the 6-pounders were 57mm, of course the 17-pounders were 76mm, and the 20-pounders (some of the early Centurions) were 84mm. I think after that the British went to the L7 105mm rifle, along with the rest of NATO for the first half of the Cold War. 🙂
Another great unboxing guys.
The Bishop would be an interesting conversion to make. It’s a simple shape and typically towed the linber from the 25pdr. Combine this, Warlord’s 25pdr set and a bit of plastic-card and jobs a good-un.
Suggestion – can someone just get Justin and John a crate of Lucozade and a pile of kits to review please? The more of these videos the better.
@justin. He is taking us all to school. I really enjoy the unboxing videos guys. Always a pleasure, always entertaining. Thank you
Great unboxing guys, like to mention that the Germans used vast numbers of Panzer 38t and 35t which were also of riveted construction and would be a contemporary of the Valentine. I think all of the Italian tanks and self propelled guns were riveted as well.
That’s true, @ozzie. In fact, according to the aforementioned David Fletcher, some of the the Italian AFVs weren’t even riveted . . . but BOLTED together, which is even worse.
Hilarious David Fletcher moment about this in this YouTube video, at 15:48. 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLcs0d2wgC4
I just realized that what interests me most about historical wargames compared to fantasy games is that many of the units are subpar or accidental contraptions. Armies had to make do with what they could get. This makes for a very different way of building your force compared to the theory crafting and metagaming that goes on with imaginary games.
Also give a shout out to Warren as I believe that the Soviets got a bunch of these as lend lease as well. 🙂