Sentinel

Being developed alongside the Aggressor series of HMBTs, Quantum Industries realised that there was a need for a fast moderately armoured MBT to supplement the much heavier Aggressors. Whilst this could have been fulfilled by the Gladiators, these were not designed for such a role, and as such a new MBT would be created.

Knowing that highly sloped plates were the key to defeating the MagCannons developed by QI, they would go and implement a highly sloped upper glacis plate in order to protect against any incoming rounds to the tank, whilst keeping the weight down to a minimum. The tank would also go and sacrifice a good portion of its side protection in order to achieve this goal. In order to attach this plate however, the production complexity would need to be increased, which increased the cost of production substantially…

In order to keep mobility high, QI decided to try out a new turbine engine which would allow the Sentinel to reach a top speed of 140km/h, as well as give the tank excellent turning whilst on the move… This turbine engine would be very complex to create, further increasing what was starting to become a high production cost… Now rivalling and some suspect surpassing the cost of an Aggressor, despite the tank requiring much less resources to produce.

Finally, the tank would be one of the first tanks equipped with a radar system, alongside the Aggressors… This would allow for much easier target acquisition and worked by scanning the area using all the different wavelengths of light. This would mean that nothing is invisible to the radar, and the crew would be able to see tanks that are using advanced stealth techniques.

In the end, the production costs of the Sentinel just made it far too expensive for what it provided, and whilst it was very good at being a fast support MBT, it was ultimately deemed unworthwhile and would be replaced with the Gunslinger Mk. I series of MBTs.

M1V1AT
The Sentinel was built around the design of a Universal tank. The Gladiator MBTs had shown that the role of a HMBT was very limited and could be replaced by a vehicle that was much faster with sufficient armour and equivalent/improved firepower.

The first change of the Sentinel would be the suspension. The Sentinel would feature a much less complicated suspension design which allowed the height of the tank to be reduced massively. The new suspension style would also allow the tank’s hull to be much closer to the ground, reducing the chances of an explosive device being placed beneath it.

The Sentinel would also feature a new hull design that was much more conventional of the western battle tanks featured in the early 21st century. This allowed the hull to feature much sharper angles and as such increase the chance of a ricochet.

The last major change was the firepower of the vehicle. Whilst the vehicle used the 155mm main armament that had become accustomed on Quantum Industries tanks, the tank also featured 2 hull mounted gatling gimbles and a heavy gatling turret on the roof. The hope was to make the tank much more effective in fighting infantry in front and engaging low flying aircraft.

M1V2
The V2 version of the Sentinel is much like the V1 but this version has the 155mm main gun replaced by the kwk 15a 120mm cannon. This was done as the chance of coming into another tank was considered to be too little to warrant the expensive production of a 155mm cannon. As such the cannon was replaced with a 120mm version that had improved gun handling and less recoil compared to the older 128mm main gun.

M1V3
The V3 version of the Sentinel featured many improvements over the V1 Sentinel MBT. The tank featured the kwk 15a 120mm main cannon of the V2 Sentinel which gave much improved gun handling and was much easier to mount compared to the 155mm main gun of the V1.

The tank also featured two other main improvements. The first was the addition of a 400mm rocket launcher on the side of the tank. This rocket launcher had fixed elevation but could be moved into and out of a firing position. As well as this the V3 Sentinel featured numerous improvements to the suspension to give the V3 improved acceleration over all terrain.

M1V4
Currently all records on the M1V4 have been lost. It is believed that the tank is somewhere of an intermediate step between the V3 and V5, or a completely different prototype based on the Sentinel chasis

M1V5
The V5 sentinel featured several different improvements over the M1V3 Sentinel. This was mainly in the turret where the gun mantle was reduced in size to improve the turret strength. This then allowed them to add a fixed turret viewport to assist the gunner if the gun sight was taken out. The sight also allowed the gunner to get a wider better view without having to look through the gun sights or the periscope. Finally, the suspension was improved once more to give even better mobility to the tank.