Nahuel D.L. 43 (WW2 era) by Arjay-the-Lionheart on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

The first domestically built tank in latin america, the Nahuel came at a time when the Argentine government was desperate to supply its army with a more up to date tank. With the American arms embargo on the country, it was decided that the only way to supply the army with armored vehicles was to build them locally. This led to a lot of interesting concepts from the country including the Nandu, which is similar to the willie's jeep, the FMA AeMB bombing aircrafts, the I.Ae.24 tactical bomber, the I.Ae. 22 DL, and the medium tank Nahuel D.L. 43.

It had 80mm of frontal armor, a 75 mm gun(Krupp 1909 model),25 mph average speed, and several fixed-forward machine guns. Looking at this you can probably see some design flaws, the Nahuel was probably not only inspired by the sherman but also earlier american tanks out of the 1930s, because by 1943(when the nahuel entered service) most people realized how useless fixed forward machine guns were.

You may be wondering how the Nahuel would have stacked up against other tanks, we're going to avoid comparing it to anything being fielded in Europe at the time and instead compare it to other tanks present in the region. You had Brazil and Chille's renault ft fleet, Peru's LT vz. 38s(better known as panzer 38t), and some vickers tankettes in Bolivia and Paraguay. The nahuel would have had a slight advantage compared to them, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. Why? because only 12 were made, and as the US began to push latin america into it's sphere of influence american surplus equipment flooded the region. All the stuarts and shermans one's heart could desire, and with these tanks available in such wide abundance the Nahuel project wasn't needed. The problem it was made to address didn't exist anymore.

It's an oddly similar story with the Bob Semple, isnt it?

lineart can be found here - www.instagram.com/p/BuSoIQRHX0…