"Englander Sturmgeschutz"
World War Two tech timeline
World War Two tech timeline
[thread=165066]Here is the original discussion thread.[/thread]
For the first part of the North Africa Campaign in World War II, Great Britain lost countless tanks in valiant but foolhardy charges against emplaced German 50mm and 88mm anti-tank guns. Their generally unreliable cruiser tanks, although fast, were poorly armored and, worst of all, their 2-pdr guns could not fire high-explosive ammunition. The British armored formations nearly bled to death in the vast desert wastes ridden with quicksand, mines, and emplaced German anti-tank guns always ready to wreak havoc among the British Army.
The arrival of the M3 Grant tank, with its good 75mm gun, would eventually go some way towards solving the problem of tackling enemy defensive positions, but it was not well armored enough to withstand enemy fire, and had an elephantine silhouette. The first British attempt at a self-propelled gun, the Bishop (which mounted a 25pdr howitzer on a Valentine tank chassis), would be a failure on many levels. And the Allies' troubles would not be over for some time. German factories were churning out a new massive tank called Tiger that would terrify the Allies.
In Tank v. Tank, Kenneth Macksey wrote, "When it came to fitting the 57mm gun in British tanks it was realised that the hulls of existing machines (unlike those of the Germans) were too narrow to mount a turret ring of sufficient diameter.... British rail gauge was narrower then the German. Vehicle width was restricted because nobody tried to find a way round the problem. This mean that Cruisers Mark I to Mark V and Infantry tanks Mark I and Mark II [the Matildas] were unable to accept the bigger gun, while Cruiser Mark VI [Crusader] and Infantry tank Mark III [Valentine] proved unsatisfactory with the large gun mounted in a very cramped turret and with reduced ammunition capacity.
"These shortcomings would not at once be serious for Britain and could have been overcome if, by 1942, a reliable tank to the specifications laid down after Dunkirk had been produced. What was needed was one with 80 mm armor and a good 57 mm gun, with the capability of being fitted with a 75 or 76 mm gun when the time was ripe."
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Guy J. Clark was born in Bath, England. He attended the Sandhurst Class of 1935 and by the summer of 1942 he had been promoted to a colonel in the Eighth Armoured Brigade, Tenth Armoured Division of the British Eighth Army. On June 16, 1942, he got a chance to inspect a knocked-out example of the newest version of German Stug III Ausf. F assault gun. This is what he wrote in his journal:
"The assault gun, known among the Germans as Sturmgeschutz, was based on the chassis of a Mark III tank. It had a very low silhouette, with the main gun mounted in a limited-traverse position in the front of the superstructure. It had a main gun of 75 millimeters and a barrel about 43 calibers long, which had proved capable of knocking out most of our tanks from any realistic range and angle. The frontal armor was fifty millimeters thick. There were multiple gouges on the front armor plating indicating places where 2-pounder rounds had ricocheted off the armour plating before it was eventually knocked out by a 6-pounder gun firing from the side."[1]
On June 29, Clark achieved the audience of Major-General A. H. Gatehouse, who was the current commander of the 10th Armoured Division. Clark asked Gatehouse if he thought the idea of a self-propelled gun mounted on the Crusader tank chassis was a good idea. He presented to Gatehouse technical sketches he had made, and they conversed on the matter for some time. Clark originally wanted two versions: one mounting a 25-pounder howitzer, and a more heavily armored one with a 6-pounder gun. Gatehouse was not very enthusiastic on the idea and he was reluctant to personally work on bringing the designs to fruition. However, he gave Clark the ability to take several disabled Crusader tanks, a 6-pounder gun, and a 25-pounder howitzer, to try to build a few prototypes. When the First Battle of El Alamein began, the components of the new self-propelled gun were left mostly alone, until the end of the battle just before August, when assembled several mechanics and engineers and supervised the construction of two prototypes.
The first completed model had a 25-pounder gun with a coaxial Besa machine-gun. There was capacity for 80 main gun rounds and 6000 7.92mm bullets for the machine gun. The main gun could aim at minus 15 degrees or plus 30 degrees. Front armor was 63mm, well sloped, and side armor was 39mm. Max road speed fell to 26mph (from 28), ground pressure went from 14 to 17 psi, and weight rose from 19 tons to around 23.
By August 15, Clark and his men had completed the prototype tank, named "Walrus." In early September, it went into action during the Battle of Alam el Halfa under Clark's command, in conjunction with infantry and Crusader tanks.
Clark soon sent detailed letters to the War Ministry and Nuffield (the maker of the Crusader) detailing his ideas and the actions of the Walrus during the Battle of Alam el Halfa.
"First, the 'Walrus' remained in a static hull-down position in which it knocked out several enemy tanks, until September 5, when it participated in a local counter-attack against the Germans.
"[Walrus] was attached to a platoon of three Crusaders, commanded by one Lieutenant Thornton, who were operating on a forward slope against German armour that had made its appearance at a distance of approximately half a mile. Two German tanks, probably Mark IIIs, began firing from hull-down positions. Their accuracy was erratic for a while but when the tanks closed to a distance of about five hundred yards the lead Crusader was hit and knocked out. Then enemy rounds began hitting the Walrus's front armour plating but bounced off harmlessly. Our tanks returned fire, and the Crusaders scored hits on the enemy Mark III's turret, but they did no damage. However, Walrus began firing back, and soon destroyed one of the enemy tanks with a direct hit through the mantle. The second Mark III withdrew.
"I am sure that this vehicle is better than the M3 Grant, which has a much higher silhouette, a less powerful main gun, and thinner armor."[2]
Nuffield was willing to build Walrus, but of course, the British war staff was reluctant to divert funds to build Walrus for a number of reasons: problems of establishing new assembly lines, the fact that Bishop and Priest would enter service soon, the limited-traverse of the main gun would be a liability in combat, and the SP gun would be slower than other cruiser tanks and might not keep in combat. It took the passionate pleas of Clark as well as other British Army officers, including Gatehouse, to budge the senior officials into tentatively ordering prototypes by the end of September.
Meanwhile, field commanders took Crusader tanks and 25-pounder guns and mated them into various slightly different designs of Walrus. Combat reports of them in action are scarce because these conversions were not really authorized by any sort of higher authority, but we can assume that they did quite well, or at least they did when they were not out of action due to persistent mechanical troubles.
By October 8, the first Nuffield prototype Walrus was built, with front hull armor of 76mm thickness, and side armor of 51mm thickness. The main difference, however, was that this version had a 3-inch gun as its armament, modified slightly from the QF 20cwt AA gun. When fitted with armor-piercing ammunition, this gun would be able penetrate the frontal armor of a Tiger I at a range of 500 yards. More importantly, however, was its ability to fire an effective 16lb high-explosive round for direct infantry support. The new vehicle, known as Walrus Mark II (Mark I would refer to field conversions with the 25-pounder), was ordered into production on October 15.
The first models reached the 18th Army Group in February 1943. When the sun dawned on the 19th, there were about twenty of the new Mark IIs ready for action. How well they would perform in battle was to be seen as Rommel prepared to assault Allied lines around a place called Kasserine Pass.
When Rommel launched his offensive, he shattered American forces along the front. It was only the last-minute arrival of mixed British and American reinforcements that stopped the breakthrough. On February 22, components of the piecemeal Allied formation known as "Nickforce" counter-attacked against a German-held ridge near Thala. The commander of the combined forces, Major Jack "Indy" Sumner, described the action in his journal:
"My command was made up of a mix of British and American forces. I had an M3 Lee medium tank and an M7 Priest self-propelled howitzer, and some 105mm howitzers to back us up, as well as a platoon of infantry. The British had a company of soldiers reinforced by mortars and anti-tank guns, three M3 Stuart light tanks, and three "Walrus" self-propelled guns. The Germans had just taken positions on a strategic scrub-covered ridge a few miles southeast of Thala. We had estimated that at least a company of infantry and 6-12 armored vehicles were in the area. Our forces were positioned along a series of hills in covered positions about seven hundred yards from the ridge. We had to stop the German advance, and take the ridge if possible.
"At approximately 0900 hours on February 22, I gave the order for the the SP guns and medium tanks to advance forward into the open ground separating our the front lines, as two British 6-pounder guns were being pushed into position at the top of a hill. I was commanding the Lee as the commander had taken sick. Immediately the M7 to my left was hit and set afire. German tanks had occupied hull-down positions on the ridge and were firing down at us from six hundred yards away. I ordered the driver to reverse back to a turret-down position, knowing that my tank would be ineffective in this engagement, and radioed the SP guns to continue the engagement.
"With binoculars I could see that the Germans had a pair of medium tanks and an assault gun. The Walruses opened fire, and for a few seconds no one got a hit. Then one of the Walruses was hit, but the round did not penetrate. Next an German medium tank was knocked out, then another, and finally the third, although in the confusion of battle it was hard to tell whether it was the 6-pounders or the Walruses that scored each hit. After that a German tank destroyer appeared to the right, but was destroyed by a round from a 6-pounder gun.
"I radioed the SP guns to advance past the ravine, and I decided to risk moving my tank into the open. The SP guns were by this time about a hundred yards to the left of me. We moved forward but our advance was cut short by the appearance of another German tank in the ridge to our left. It looked like a Tiger. It was pointing straight at me! I hurriedly ordered the driver to get the tank back into cover. The Tiger fired once but missed. A 6-pounder gun scored a direct hit on the Tiger's turret but bounced off harmlessly. Then one of the Walruses opened fire and knocked out the tank through the hull side. If it wasn't for that shot, I might not be alive today.
"Once the enemy's five tanks were destroyed, I felt confident enough to order the Stuart light tanks into the advance, as well as some of our infantry. Only a company of infantry, some half-tracks and a howitzer got in the way of our advance." [1]
Later reports showed that the Walrus had indeed knocked out one of the few Tigers in North Africa.
The Walrus fought in several other engagements during the Battle of Kasserine Pass, and was generally successful. Its frontal armor was strong enough that it could, with luck, resist German 75mm shell hits, and its gun was more powerful than the 75mm piece in the Sherman. As the number of units increased, it played an influential role in breaking through the Afrika Korps' last defenses in Tunisia and accelerating its surrender.
After that, Walruses fought in Sicily and Italy, although their performance was not quite as good in those campaigns. Plans were made to convert the Cromwell into a tank destroyer with a 17pdr gun in a low, fixed mounting, but these were ignored by the British leadership.
[1] Firsthand Accounts of the War in North Africa during World War Two, by Jacob T. Billings, Routledge & Kegan Paul, copyright 1956.
[2] Failings of the British War Ministry in the Second World War, by Paul W. Smith, W. W. Nortan & Company, copyright 1982.
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