Today we’ll be taking a look at the Stingray, an American-designed light tank that was exported to Thailand.
Stingray: A Light Tank for the USA & Japan (Thai variant) at Rank VI |
At a glance:
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Vehicle History
The Stingray light tank was designed by U.S. company Textron Marine & Land Systems (previously Cadillac Gage) as a private venture in 1983, with the goal to export it to other countries. The tank was revealed in 1984 with Thailand showing interest at the time. 106 Stingray tanks were purchased by the Royal Thai Army in 1987 and have been in service since 1990. Thailand utilized the Stingray in 2011 during conflicts with Cambodia, however it did not see any actual active combat.
Despite other countries showing interest and even testing the Stingray on home soil to see how it performed, no further exports for the Stingray occurred. This leaves Thailand as the only operator, where it is still in service with them today.
Introducing the Stingray!
In the next major update, the Stingray light tank is joining Japan’s rank VI, helping to add in some capability that was previously lacking. The Stingray is also joining the US ground forces tree, since the designer and manufacturer is American company Textron Marine & Land Systems. Let’s dive into the details of this interesting light tank!
The Stingray may look oddly familiar, and that’s because it is similar in nature to the British VFM5 light tank, already in the game. It features a similar turret with a fully-stabilized LRF 105 gun that can fire HEATFS, HESH and two APFSDS rounds, all backed up by a laser rangefinder. Supplemented is a 7.62 coaxial machine gun and a .50 cal on the turret roof, allowing you to shoot down trees that get in the way, bushes and low-flying helicopters!
Interesting: The Stingray was tested by a few countries, mainly Malaysia, Ecuador and Chile. However, these countries did not opt to purchase the vehicle, leaving Thailand as the only operator.
Classed as a light tank, the Stingray can zoom around the map at a max speed of 67 km/h. This allows you to position the Stingray in advantageous positions before the enemy get there, flank and hunker down thanks to the -10 degrees of gun depression.
There’s four crew members in the Stingray, however they’re not protected by very thick armor. Since the Stingray is a light tank, you shouldn’t be expecting to survive many shots once you’re hit. The armor is at best able to protect against machine gun fire and that’s about it. Bare this in mind and keep your armor hidden where possible!
As mentioned in the first paragraph, the Stingray is coming for both the Japanese ground forces tree as a Thai vehicle and also the USA tree. The Stingray will certainly help Japan, providing some tracked firepower and another vehicle for lineups at and around rank VI. Let’s welcome tanks from Thailand to the game!
That’s it for this one! The Stingray is coming soon and so are a few more Thai ground vehicles. We’ll be checking another one of them coming soon in a future dev blog, so stay tuned for that. Happy battles ahead!
Please note that this vehicle’s characteristics may be changed before it is added to the game.
You can greatly speed up the research of the Stingray in the US tree with this pack: