Editing VFM Mk. 5 (section)

==History==
Class: Light Tank (Prototype)</br>
Developed: 1984-1986</br>
Service: N/A</br>
Vehicles Built: 1</br>
Operators: N/A

For many years, Vickers has been a major armor producing company, having developed a number of successful export tank designs, including the Vijayanta or the Vickers Mk.3 MBT. The VFM Mk.5 Light Tank was one of the company's later designs. The philosophy behind the design was quite unusual. It was created as a response to increasing demand for a light vehicle with excellent firepower to form part of the newly formed rapid-response units that were starting to appear all over the world at the time.

The VFM Mk.5 Light Tank was a private venture design that was always intended for export. It was designed in the 1980s in cooperation with the American FMC Corp and the first prototype was ready in 1986. The vehicle officially completed firing and mobility trials in 1987. The design itself is actually quite interesting. For one, it's not originally British but based on the FMC Close Combat Vehicle - Light (CCV-L), a contender in the U.S. Armored Gun System (AGS) program. In this sense, the Mk.5 is actually related to the American M8, but the main drawback of the CCV-L was that it was extremely expensive, something most potential clients for the VFM could not afford.

While a solid design in its own right, unfortunately, the VFM Mk.5 came at the wrong time. Just two years after the completion of all the required trials, the Soviet Union started collapsing and thousands of cheap armored vehicles flooded world markets. The VFM Mk.5 never found its intended buyer and the entire project remained at the prototype stage.