There's lots of room in a Lee/Grant; was up close & personal earlier this year at Puckapunyl.
And in the early 70s, was inside that beast (the museum at the time being a paddock, and access was untrammelled.) So if you can fit a 17-lbr in a Sherman turret (the bustle on the back is stuffed with wireless, IIRC), and four 6' plus late teens into a Lee, you can fit a 17-lbr into a Lee sponson ;)
The muzzle brake - can't help but wonder if it's an improvised field repair, after that tank dug the barrel into a ditch.
And given I have a friend who will 3D print for me, I see several variant Hetzers carrying UAC-10s in my future.
Was doing some unrelated research recently; T-14 Armata implications, if it even *half works*. Western 14cm-class gun tank development...and I had the World of Tanks forum open.
Yet more complaining about the russian bias.
Which is real and exists for a reason.
And then it hit me.
I glanced over and thought to myself; "Duh; of course russian tanks in WWII were better than they had any right to be; their rail gauge is/was 5ft. Ours was mainly 4.855ft. All over the world tank design was dictated by what could be easily moved by rail. No one builds a tunnel or even a transport plane any bigger than they have to, silly. Why just look at the Sherman; could the Americans have made a better tank? Sure! Hell. They put the M7 into production, then stopped it and tore down the factory. if the Russians can move tank production to the other side of the Urals; then the Americans could have made a better tank. They didn't because the damn transports were only so big; even a slightly larger tank would have taken up more than 2 Sherman's worth of space. Wouldn't have mattered. Size directly correlates to turret rings, track width and sloping armour. The Maus looks like that for a reason, ditto the Sherman; the Russians can build a wider tank from day one and never have to make them ship by sea...unless WWII goes REALLY well.
After WWII; they go to smaller tanks to save resources, get around better on narrower-gauge Pact-Track and maximize the manpower advantage they think they will have forever. They go away from heavy tanks.
Then I glance over at the 140mm and 135mm tanks...That's not many rounds. And that's the biggest turret-ring we can get without making the tank that much higher, which cubes the weight of armour and 50-70 tons is already a lot...We can't wake wider tanks and still have turrets. Looks at Armata...if even *half* of that works...HOW ARE THE LASERS COMING? THE RAIL GUNS?