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UT8M1 Escutcheon IV

The UT8M1 Escutcheon IV is a completely new design despite sharing the name of its predecessor vehicles. The UT8 came in to being when Khertland army determined that they needed a new tank to replace the UT7 since the UT7 had been out of production for over 2 years and spare parts were becoming difficult to procure. Restarting production was deemed too expensive.
The UT8 had nearly identical requirements as the previous tank demanding similar levels of firepower, protection, and mobility. The gun was a new design and of a slightly smaller caliber, but the performance was otherwise nearly identical. Protection was improved due to the switch from RHA to composite materials. Protection all around was improved against all types of rounds, including kinetic and chemical. The tank also eliminated the active protection system due to the high cost and relative ineffectiveness. The pintle mounted machine gun was replaced with a remote weapon station. Lastly, the army made sure to EMP harden the vehicle, making it a first for Khertland.
Development of the vehicle was protracted with the gun being developed back in April 20th 2021. However, due to economical difficulties, the first prototype turret was not showcased until July 2nd, and by July 14th, the first frontline units received the vehicles. Although they arrived to front line units, they were only reported operational on July 15th, the next day.
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With the lore out of the way, I'll go in to more detail about the build. The lore is loosely based on reality but a lot more simplified and minor changes to the details. The tank is my first non-replica tank in 2 years. The Escutcheon III was my most advanced tank previously but that was before FtD was officially released and the dev team was in a update rush which broke a lot of builds very frequently. I kind of took a break from the game and so the 2 year gap.
With all my old stuff more or less broken, or at least obsolete, I felt the need to make replacements. The specifications I was going for was identical to my previous tank. So if Escutcheon III did not get nerfed due to the updates, it would have performed relatively closely to this tank.

Some key changes however was the switch from metal to heavy armor. I also switched from a single slope to two layers of poles for HEAT protection. The heavy armor also made me realize the vulnerability my tank was to EMP so I coated the outer layer with stone, and surrounded my hull internals with stone and reinforced wood. This made the hull practically invincible against EMP, but the turret was still vulnerable in certain areas as not every location could be properly covered.
I also gave up on the active protection system due to the cost and bulk of it. It also had an effectiveness of only 50% during testing. I accepted that because I really wanted one, but in combat this would sometimes drop to as low as 30%. So overall not very worthwhile.

Some other changes included moving the turret block from the hull to the turret with its own integrated LWC. This saved space inside the hull although it caused some unexpected problems that had to be ironed out. With the addition of 4-piece ammo customizer into the game, even more space was saved. I could use that extra space to add a wireless snooper and improve armor thickness even further. The wireless snooper was intended to have a detection component inside the protection of the hull as backup. While the sensors on the turret is more accurate, it is very exposed. Indeed, the sensors presented such a notable weak spot during testing, I had to change the layout to mitigate the issue. A powerful AP round fired through the main gun sight from a slightly higher elevation can bypass most of the frontal armor. As for the rest of the turret armor, it is thinner due to the larger size of advanced cannons needed for the same performance now. But with the switch to HA, protection is still overall better. The tank is quite a bit more expensive though.

Basic specifications:

Gun:
Caliber: 304mm
Barrel Length: L/55
Projectile: Sabot head-solid-solid-base bleeder-9x casing
Rate of Fire: 15 rpm
Kinetic damage: 6200
Armor piercing: 62
Penetration: At least 1 layer of 4m HA beam

Armor:
Hull front: Stone-HA beam-HA pole-4 layers of HA beams-HA pole-HA beam
Upper glacis: 4m stone slopes-6 layers of HA beams-Metal and stone roof
Hull side: HA-Beam-HA pole-Stone beam
Hull rear: 2m of metal
Turret front: 2 layers of metal mimics-Stone-HA pole-4 layers of HA beams
Turret side: Metal or HA beam
Turret rear: Metal mimic blocks

Speed: 25 m/s
Cost: 21k

Update Compatibility: 3.5.5
-Mesh fixed