We used to build things in this country #148, Ram tank

A Canadian Ram tank at Borden Military Museum. The museum lighting, though improved in the past year is still an odd colour and the camera still doesn't deal with it very well.  

At the beginning of WW2, after building almost 2000 Valentine tanks, the Montreal Locomotive Works got a contract to build a new tank based on the American M3 (Lee/ Grant) tanks.  The first 300 and possibly additional tanks would be identical in design with the M3 vehicle being made by the American Locomotive Company at its Schenectady shops.  During the first week of January 1941, Canadian and United Kingdom representatives inspected the M3 tank hull and decided the vehicle would not be satisfactory to the United Kingdom and Canada. As a result it was decided to develop, and produce in Canada a tank utilizing the mechanical components of the M3, modified with a turret and armament features of Canadian design. It was proposed to develop a cast upper hull designed to permit the driver to take a lower position in the vehicle and to allow a considerable reduction in overall height.

On June 30 of the same year a pilot model of the Ram tank came off the assembly line. The U.S. War Department had expressed keen interest in the Canadian-built tank and requested that one be loaned for study. Canada agreed to send the pilot model to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, to undergo trials and the tank was shipped 18 days later. After undergoing tests it was returned to Montreal in October, 1941. In the meantime in the U.S. work was progressing on the redesign of the M3 chassis for the next generation of medium tank and on April 18 1941, the U.S. Armored Force Board had chosen the simplest of five designs. Utilizing a newly designed turret with the same 75 mm gun on the M3 chassis, it became the M4 Sherman tank. 
After nearly 2000 Rams were built, production was cancelled in July 1943 and in an effort to standardize Allied tank production the line changed to building Shermans.
 The Ram never saw combat as a tank and was mainly used for training purposes although various other versions of the vehicle did see use in northern Europe. http://www.ramtank.ca/

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