Momo and Mei stand in a garage after Momo bribed Mei with the promise of rare metals.
"Mei, here's the plan: we need to get as much firepower as possible onto this frame." Momo says.
"You have ten prototype hulls, so five each?" Mei asks.
"Deal." Momo replies and the two get to work.
A few weeks later.
It was clear that they had chosen different design philosophies as Momo's tanks still had turrets while Mei had gotten creative to say the least.
"I started with a simple 105 mm howitzer. It is standard with the M4 but I felt it was a good start." Momo says. "I then put the 17 pdr in, which makes the second a Sherman Firefly.
"How did that even fit?" Tsu asks, wondering why she was watching this bizarre engineering experiment.
"It's in sideways." Momo explains, "I also cut out the back of the turret so the radio can fit."
"That seems like it would be bad for the crew." Tsu comments.
"I'll just have Izuku drive it." Momo says, "Anyway, I then tried to fit the long barreled 105 mm F1 to make a Super Sherman. It actually fit better and only needed a counterweight."
"Anything new?" Tsu asks.
"Of course, I tried a go big or go home approach and tried to fit the 152 mm M-10 from the KV-2." Momo says, pointing at a rather sad looking tank. It had most of its turret roof cut away to make room for a fat barrel that obviously couldn't be elevated or depressed. Its weight caused the whole tant to droop in the direction the gun pointed.
"It seems to have failed." Tsu says.
"Sadly yes, I think if I fired it the turret would come off." Momo says sadly.
"And that brings us to that monstrosity." Tsu says with a sigh, looking at a tank with two barrels that had a much taller turret. It looks like a Soviet double barrel tank with a french articulating turret all built as if it was to fit on a TOG.
"Oh yes, I decided that the normal Sherman turret was simply too small so I took inspiration from how the British up-gunned their cruiser tanks. I figured one 17 pdr wasn't enough so I had two, but then the elevation wouldn't work so I found a french design that just elevated part of the entire turret instead." Momo says, practically glowing with excitement.
"It's nice." Tsu says neutrally.
"I know I should have chosen a bigger gun, but the 17 pdr is underappreciated and I think anything bigger and a double shot would knock the turret off." Momo explains in a sort of panic.
"Anyway, I came to the turret conclusion right away." Mei interrupts. "As you can see I started by adding rockets."
"As usual." Tsu stage whispers to Momo.
"I put them all in a big box that rotates with the existing turret. The original gun can still fire for extra explosions!" Mei explains.
"So you made a Calliope or a Whizbang." Momo comments.
"Hey, I didn't comment about your historical copies." Mei argues.
"I admitted it openly." Momo counters.
"Let's just move on, I want to go see what Izuku and Ochako are up to." Tsu says.
"Ok, the rocket thing is fine, but it's not really a gun, so I decided to cut the top off the tank and mount a gun on the walls. I used a 105 mm howitzer for this one, it's inspired by the M7 HMC or Priest." Mei says. "But I didn't bother with the weird machine gun tower so it's really a Sexton with the Priest's gun."
"Why didn't I think of artillery?" Momo nearly cries.
"You got stuck on the term tank and didn't improvise." Tsu says bluntly.
"She did!" Mei shouts. "I wanted a much bigger gun, so mounting on the walls was no longer strong enough." She begins as she moves on to the next 'tank.'
"I mounted the gun directly to the chassis, and used the biggest gun I could: 250 mm! It's actually inspired by a prototype of the M40/43 type gun carriages but with an even bigger gun." Mei finishes.
"If regular designs are this crazy." Tsu mutters.
"Indeed! A true challenge for an inventor! I went to look for bigger guns, but almost everything bigger was only used on ships. So I focused on velocity instead, I mounted the 183 mm L4 with the open turret directly on the center of a Sherman hull." Mei says.
"That gun was too big and unstable for a Centurion hull, let alone a Sherman!" Tsu shouts in a rare moment of emotional outburst.
"That's what the spades on all sides are for. Simply dig it in before firing." Mei explains as if that would actually solve the problem of Newton's third law.
"And obviously this last thing is the improvement." Momo says after providing Tsu with a bean bag chair to collapse into.
"Yes, I couldn't think of anything better than to put the rocket system from my first tank onto the last and improve the stability by adding collapsible walls like the Pz. Sfl. IVc. to lower the center of gravity." Mei says as Momo and a semi-conscious Tsu stare at this tribute to firepower.
If Izuku had seen it, he would have sent this amalgamation of German AA tank Pz. Sfl. IVc., British tank destroyer FV4005 stage 1 and Sherman hull with Whizbang launchers to the deepest pits of hell.
Meanwhile, on a pleasant lake some distance away Izuku and Ochko were helping Eri terrorize the couples trying to have a romantic boat ride by floating about in their own modified Sherman tank: the Sherman Duplex Drive, or Swimming Sherman. They plodded along making a racket with the tanks engine and occasional smoke bomb. The couples that did try to get them to go away failed when Eri's pouting face greeted them, all to the barely suppressed giggles of her two caretakers.
AN: While the Sherman may be boring, its variants are not. So why not make even more interesting varieties with a design competition/experiment between she who loves cannons, Momo and the crazy inventor, Mei. You'll have to use your imaginations a bit with this one since not all the variants are real, but they are all inspired by real designs. At least I didn't have them create the KV-2-2-2-II, the triple stacked turret double barreled Soviet God of firepower.
So, in more serious news, I've been struggling a bit with plot's for the tanks I think of. I have a queue of tanks but not much to do with them. I may repeat a few events, and I still have some plot left over. Though I really need to catch up with the story one of these days, even if I don't really like where it goes. That's the main reason for delays, and length. But even if this descends into an Eri has fun in tanks series, it will continue.