Vickers planned for it to have a two-man turret to keep its size down.Īt this stage, the project showed some promise. To keep a vehicle with such thick armor at such a low weight required some compromises, and this was mostly done with the tank’s physical size. This was an advanced feature for the time and one not seen on a large scale until the Soviet IS-3 in 1945. They also proposed a pre-angled glacis, which is more commonly known as a “pike nose”. It was to be covered by thick armor all over. In these early stages Vickers drafted a vehicle that was armed with the British 6 pounder, a gun that was capable against armor and infantry. In fact, for a while, the project retained the name Vanguard for the new vehicle. Still, the Vanguard would serve as the basepoint for what would become the Valiant.

The Vanguard was a Vickers project that nearly replaced the Valentine, but due to the delays and inteferances that would have been involved with this switch, the Valentine was retained. Instead of starting completely from scratch, Vickers burrowed some features from its other vehicles, namely the Vanguard. To keep armor protection high and weight low, the Valiant had to be very small.

Bob semple tank meme battle of kursk