Valentine II Rolls Onto the Battlefield From Warlord
January 18, 2015 by stvitusdancern
As our esteemed in house tank expert , John could give us a much better and in-depth report on the British Valentine II infantry tank than I can. However, let me just say Warlord Games have been adding even more options for the WWII gamer.
This little known tank outside of armor aficionados was developed privately and approximately 700 saw service with the British Army especially during the North African campaign. Another 3,000 were sent to Russia as part of the lend-lease program.
The Valentine was known to be very dependable as far as tanks goes, but it's major drawback was the main gun, only being a QF 2-pounder. The real main advantage to this tank was it's low profile making it a more difficult target to enemy gunners.
I still think it is a beautiful model and would make an awesome addition to a North African table. I sure would like to make one, but the sand just gets everywhere in the house.
Can you see these racing across the desert just like in the old news reel films?
My planned second WW2 army is the desert rats. These will be high on the list if this project ever happpens.
Definitely one of the overlooked tank types. The Western Desert Force, XIII Corps, and eventually Eighth Army used it in Egypt and Libya in 41 and 42. Some of the Soviet tank armies used them in 41 and 43 (Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army was one of them).
The model looks great. These old riveted tanks (while terrible on the actual battlefield) present great detail for modelers and painters. 🙂
Those look nice.
Nice a very common tank with over 8000 made in the UK & Canada during the war.
I recently saw on a documentary (you know, one of the British ones you can actually trust a little) that the Valentine got its name because the plans were submitted on St. Valentine’s day. (???) I also learned @zorg that yes, the Valentine accounted for perhaps a full third of British tank production during the whole war. 🙂 Earlier I mentioned its use by 3rd Guards Tank Army. I only know this because of a PanzerBlitz game we played a few years ago where the vanguard of 3rd GTA was trying to cross the Dneipr in the early autumn of… Read more »