BT-7 upgrade

[codman]

August 1941, Playing as the Soviets in a long campaign. I have 6 BT-7's in my core and although I really like their mobility I think they are rapidly becoming obsolete. Any suggestions on an upgrade? I'm thinking about M3's or T-50's as I'd like to stay with something small and tracked to cause trouble on the flanks or in the enemy rear area.

Of course they only cause trouble until they run into an well hidden 50mm, 75mm or 88mm gun and then I get to watch what's left of the crew sprint towards their rear area...

Thanks in advance!

[Mobhack]

(Moved to TO&E thread)

I use the T-60 light tank as a light infantry support tank.
- It has a 20mm autocannon, and a decent ammo supply for it
- 20mm autocannon produces HE blast effect in the surrounding hexes (like 75mm guns)
So its an extremely good grunt basher, especially if those grunts are beside other ones!

Otherwise the M3 light has more MG's to produce more HE effect in the target hex, and it has marginally better AT effect.

T-50 has a very good 57mm gun for AT effect, but those things were rarer than hen's teeth.

Bt-7 actually served till the end of the war, in the Far East where they were still capable vs Japanese armour.
If you want anti-infantry effect, then you could change the BT-7 to BT7a artillery tanks, which have 76mm howitzers and a decent number of HE shots.

All of them need to be kept away from enemy ATG and tanks, of course.

[codman]

Thanks Andy! I'll check out the T-60 and I didn't know that the BT-7 served throughout the war either.

[DRG]

until 12/1945

[Griefbringer]

From a doctrinal point of view, my understanding is that the Soviet plan was to replace BT "cavalry tanks" with the T-34 tank. Of course by the time Germans started invading there was not enough T-34 tanks produced, and after that the TOEs for armoured units were radically revised several times within a relatively brief period of time.

As for T-50, that was originally designed as a replacement for T-26 infantry tank, but due to manufacturing issues was abandoned in favour of the easier to build (but lightly armed) T-60, which was then replaced by T-70. By which time the Soviets had decided that T-34 (or SU-76) would be a better choice for the infantry support role.

[Mobhack]

The T-50s really only were used against Finland - they captured a few, including up-armoured ones.

[Pibwl]

Precisely, they fought in Leningrad area, against Finns and Germans. Surprisingly, only one was captured, but it served for a long time (and was repainted several times).
Small numbers of tanks were also used in several other places, most notably Northern Caucasus.

[Griefbringer]

As for the T-50 captured by the Finnish Army, I think that it may have ended up at some point serving as a command tank for the Finnish "heavy tank company", which contained a motley mixture of captured Soviet tanks.