After the end of World War II, as a victorious country, the Soviet Union and the United States and Britain and other countries in order to pursue hegemony in terms of military, economic, scientific and technological aspects quickly entered a state of competition, among them, the IS-3 heavy tank that supported the "steel torrent" of the Soviet army stood out, and the service of the advanced tank caused a strong impact on the West, known as the "IS-3 shock" incident, for this reason, the veteran military power Britain could not show weakness, and quickly opened its own new heavy tank development plan, that is, the "Conqueror" Heavy tank program.
"Conqueror" series of heavy tanks
The Conqueror was first developed in 1952, the design goal of the tank was "a perfectly balanced, versatile, enough to match the IS-3 heavy tank", after four years of experimental improvement, finally in 1956 finalized began mass production and entered service with the British Army, named "Conqueror", internally known as the FV214 heavy tank.
Tanks equipped in Germany after the war
The 65-ton "Conqueror" is driven and controlled by four members, using a fully welded steel armor structure, the tank's protective ability is very strong, the maximum armor thickness at the gun shield reaches an unprecedented 340mm, the maximum armor on the front reaches 127mm, the side reaches 51mm and is equipped with a 6mm armor plate for defending rockets, this protection data In addition to the side armor is worse than the IS-3, the rest of the part is similar to the IS-3 or even exceeds the IS-3, which can effectively resist the frontal attack of Soviet tanks.
"Conqueror" heavy tank model
First equipped with the British Panzer Regiment in Germany "Conqueror" heavy tank equipped with an L1A1 120mm 55 caliber rifled gun, the gun can fire shell piercing shells, armor shredder, the larger caliber of the gun can pose an effective threat to the Soviet army equipment IS-3, even in the face of the later Soviet main heavy tank T-10 can also play an excellent combat effectiveness, while the "Conqueror" equipped with a Rolls-Royce V-12 cylinder water-cooled fuel injection gasoline engine to form its power system, The engine can provide 810 horsepower to the conqueror of nearly 60 tons per minute at 2800 rpm, so that the vehicle can maneuver at a speed of 34 km / h, compared to the Soviet IS-3, this data is not very good, in anti-tank combat, covert counterattack on the attacking tank is a good choice.
The "Conqueror" series of heavy tanks for display
Due to the conqueror's poor maneuverability and the huge weight of the tank, which made it difficult to pass through most of the bridges in the Franco-German region, its high cost was called the noble of tanks, and its reliability was not good, so the Conqueror heavy tank produced only 180 british units and announced its retirement in 1966 after 7 years of service. At the beginning of the Cold War, the number of british "conquerors", American M103 and other heavy tanks in service was only a few hundred, compared with the Soviet army's thousands of heavy tanks, these American and British tanks are not worth mentioning, and there is no threat to the so-called "steel torrent" of the Soviet army.