I wonder just how "advanced" equipment has to be in the Malayan theatre? The Indian Pattern Carrier [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_Carrier_Wheeled_Indian_Pattern] and 3.7 Mountain Howitzer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF_3.7-inch_mountain_howitzer] were both produced in India, according to Wiki the carrier from 1940 and the 3.7 certainly in use by the Indian Army pre-war. Also, note that the Marmon Herrington Mk IV [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmon-Herrington_Armoured_Car#Variants] armoured car used an artillery mount and shoulder elevation for its 2pdr. Could a 3.7 armed wheeled carrier be a viable - and locally produced - mobile bunker buster?
Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
- Start date
Ramp-Rat
Monthly Donor
The answer is dependent on on which service you are looking at, as the requirements of all three services in the Far East/Pacific Region are very different to those in the European theatre of war. If we start with the Air Force, there is very little requirement for a large heavy bomber force, until the Allies are in range of the Japanese homeland. What is needed is sufficient advanced fighters to prevent the Japanese air forces from attacking the ground troops or the logistics of the ground forces. And sufficient ground attack and light bombers to support the ground forces and attack the Japanese logistics. Plus a large number of transport aircraft to enable the ground forces to operate beyond the existing poor logistics infrastructure. The navy needs a much stronger surface and submarine force, to counter the far stronger in comparison to the Germans, naval threat. But doesn’t need the vast number of escort vessels, that were needed in Europe as the Japanese submarine fleet wasn’t ever the threat that the German one was. In addition the need for advanced aircraft carriers, which after the elimination of the threat from the Italian Fleet, was reduced to providing cover to the home fleet in case of a breakout of the German heavy units based in Norway, once they were eliminated was negligible. There wasn’t a single carrier deployed to cover the D-Day invasion, unlike the numerous carriers required to cover the numerous amphibious invasions in the Pacific, and ITTL the Far East region. For the Army the answer is very different, the larger scale requirements for advanced mechanical units is eliminated, as the war in the region is essentially an infantry conflict. There is no need for any anti tank weapon greater than the old 2 pounder, or artillery larger than for the British the 5.5 gun. Large guns will increase the strain on the logistics train, their role is much better forefilled by tactical air support, which will have an established logistical support system. Logistics in the region require the use of mules and human porters, which outside of Greece and Italy have no use in Europe. Any truck over a five ton carrying capacity, will essentially overload the infrastructure, and require sufficient engineering support to make viable. When we come to tanks while the Matilda OOTL, remained a valuable asset up until the end of the war in the Far East, it was effectively obsolete by 1942 in Europe. Thus equipment that has become obsolete in Europe, will remain effective in the Far East and Pacific regions.
RR.
3 February 1942. Bath, England.
allanpcameron
Donor
3 February 1942. Bath, England.
Stothert and Pitt were better known for their cranes, but the company, like nearly all engineering firms, was now focussed on war work. Likewise, with so many engineering firms, the company was asked to come up with designs as well as production capacity. Along with miniature submarines for the Royal Navy, the Bath company had been handed some work on tanks too.
The design and production teams had been looking at the problem they’d been given to solve. The new 17-pdr gun being developed was a large beast, but the War Office wanted it mounted in a tank turret. Because Vickers was developing their own High Velocity gun, the turret was to be developed for the next Nuffield designed cruiser tank. Nuffield’s design team were still trying to sort out how to put a 6-pdr into a turret, so Stothert and Pitt had been given the 17-pdr work.
One of their previous forays into tank work had been to create a mantlet with a triple mounting for a 2-pdr, 3-inch howitzer and 7.92mm Besa machine-gun. Nothing had come of that, and looking at the problems facing them to fit a 17-pdr into a turret, there was a suspicion that this would be another waste of time. As there was no hull available for matching the turret to, the company had been put in touch with Sir Albert Stern’s ‘The Special Vehicle Development Committee of the Ministry of Supply’. Known to everyone else as The Old Gang (TOG), Stern had been pushing a super-heavy tank better suited for Great War battlefields. With the Churchill tank now in production it wasn’t entirely clear why Stern was still allowed to use expertise and resources that would be better utilized elsewhere.
Nonetheless, the second version of Stern’s work, universally called TOG 2 was what Stothert and Pitt had to use to test the turret. The one advantage of the size of the TOG 2 was that the turret ring could be big enough to take the large turret needed for the huge gun. The engineers had been doing some calculations on the back of an envelope and had come up with the need for a turret ring of at least 67 inches, bigger even than that of the Vickers Victor.
Even the design team could see that their proposal looked too big and too boxy. The company had been allocated an advisor from the Royal Tank Regiment. Captain Owen Jones had been burned and lost a leg in the fighting in France. Evacuated from Dieppe with the rest of 3rd Armoured Brigade, he’d been judged medically unfit for duty. He came from a family with a small engineering company. Between his military service and his engineering background, the Royal Armoured Corps had been using him as a liaison between themselves and some of the companies building tanks and their components.
When Jones had come to Bath his primary job was to help the designers to understand what the crew of a tank turret would need and where best to put things. Compared with the 2-pdr in the A10 that he was familiar with, the 17-pdr was a monster. The weight of the gun alone was a big enough problem, but the length of the recoil and the size of the ammunition made fitting it into a turret with a gunner, loader and tank commander a design nightmare. Jones agreed with the designers that the turret looked too big and too boxy, but it was the best they could do with what they had.
The task was then to fabricate the turret, fit the gun and transport it to Lincoln where the TOG 2 was at the William Foster & Co works. Once it was mated with the hull, they would be able to test the turret to see what else would need to be changed before the War Office could sign off on it.
Stothert and Pitt were better known for their cranes, but the company, like nearly all engineering firms, was now focussed on war work. Likewise, with so many engineering firms, the company was asked to come up with designs as well as production capacity. Along with miniature submarines for the Royal Navy, the Bath company had been handed some work on tanks too.
The design and production teams had been looking at the problem they’d been given to solve. The new 17-pdr gun being developed was a large beast, but the War Office wanted it mounted in a tank turret. Because Vickers was developing their own High Velocity gun, the turret was to be developed for the next Nuffield designed cruiser tank. Nuffield’s design team were still trying to sort out how to put a 6-pdr into a turret, so Stothert and Pitt had been given the 17-pdr work.
One of their previous forays into tank work had been to create a mantlet with a triple mounting for a 2-pdr, 3-inch howitzer and 7.92mm Besa machine-gun. Nothing had come of that, and looking at the problems facing them to fit a 17-pdr into a turret, there was a suspicion that this would be another waste of time. As there was no hull available for matching the turret to, the company had been put in touch with Sir Albert Stern’s ‘The Special Vehicle Development Committee of the Ministry of Supply’. Known to everyone else as The Old Gang (TOG), Stern had been pushing a super-heavy tank better suited for Great War battlefields. With the Churchill tank now in production it wasn’t entirely clear why Stern was still allowed to use expertise and resources that would be better utilized elsewhere.
Nonetheless, the second version of Stern’s work, universally called TOG 2 was what Stothert and Pitt had to use to test the turret. The one advantage of the size of the TOG 2 was that the turret ring could be big enough to take the large turret needed for the huge gun. The engineers had been doing some calculations on the back of an envelope and had come up with the need for a turret ring of at least 67 inches, bigger even than that of the Vickers Victor.
Even the design team could see that their proposal looked too big and too boxy. The company had been allocated an advisor from the Royal Tank Regiment. Captain Owen Jones had been burned and lost a leg in the fighting in France. Evacuated from Dieppe with the rest of 3rd Armoured Brigade, he’d been judged medically unfit for duty. He came from a family with a small engineering company. Between his military service and his engineering background, the Royal Armoured Corps had been using him as a liaison between themselves and some of the companies building tanks and their components.
When Jones had come to Bath his primary job was to help the designers to understand what the crew of a tank turret would need and where best to put things. Compared with the 2-pdr in the A10 that he was familiar with, the 17-pdr was a monster. The weight of the gun alone was a big enough problem, but the length of the recoil and the size of the ammunition made fitting it into a turret with a gunner, loader and tank commander a design nightmare. Jones agreed with the designers that the turret looked too big and too boxy, but it was the best they could do with what they had.
The task was then to fabricate the turret, fit the gun and transport it to Lincoln where the TOG 2 was at the William Foster & Co works. Once it was mated with the hull, they would be able to test the turret to see what else would need to be changed before the War Office could sign off on it.
allanpcameron
Donor
"Viking Tracked Personnel Carrier Loyd carrier, designed by Vivian Loyd, an expanded and better protected version of the Loyd Carrier."
Derek Pullem
Donor
"I say old chap, that TOG2 looks like a right dog's breakfast but the turret looks rather smart. This nice American chappy was showing me the plans for this M4 tank of theirs. Not a patch on the Victor but is nice and roomy for the turret. Why don't you have a go at putting your turret on the American tank - I'm sure we can get you some to try out - the Yanks are giving them away like confetti"
Cue Firefly a year earlier as a British tank destroyer.
allanpcameron
Donor
One correction (but it's understandable because that fact is very obscure): the TOG 2 actually carried the 3.7" 28 pounder gun, a gun based on the 17pdr, but rebored to use 3.7" ammo. This has been confirmed by measuring the bore diameter of the gun of the surviving prototype found at Bovington.
Sadly, the museum keeps saying it's a 17pdr as it never bothered to measure the diameter itself.
Not completely accurate, if I may draw something to your attention you may not have come across before. There were several 'escort' carriers assigned on D-Day in the original timeline as part of the anti-submarine task force in the western approaches. E.G.HMS Pursuer: https://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/ESCORT/PURSUER.htm#.ZCHhxPbMLIU
I'd guess they wanted aircraft out there on carriers in the middle of the sea ready to go as close to any submarines sighted as possible...
Of course, if they could haul the UK to within <20 miles of wherever they were invading they'd have all the air cover they could want 😋
??? The western approaches was a box, eastern edge the West coast of Great Britain , southern edge parallel to the tip of Cornwall, northern parallel to the Orkneys and the western edge 30 degrees West ( around 850 miles west of Ireland ). It did not include the channel, so the carriers supporting D-Day would probably be in the Irish sea protecting shipping from the Western ports, not operating near France.
The site I linked to says 'western approaches':
I don't have a clue whether they mean the western approaches (to the Channel) or the western approaches (which you describe). What I do know is it says that there were escort carriers out there on anti-submarine duty to try to stop u-boat attacks against the invasion shipping.
Sentinal had to come first, before Firefly was considered a possibility...
The turret was considered too big for a conventional turret race bearing, so instead they placed it on a central pivot. It worked.
The Americans might decide they need something with more grunt than a 75mm round that ultimately dates back to the 1890's.
Derek Pullem
Donor
Royal artillery wants the 17 PDR due to NIH issues with the Vickers gun. If it means they get to control TD units like they would like to control SPG so much the better
The Firefly was made to provide high-penetration capabilities to tank units that didn't otherwise have such. However, with the Victor in the works, such a stop-gap measure isn't needed, especially if 75mm HV comes equipped with a HEAT/HESH round. In addition, the lower velocity of the 75mm HV over the 17-pounder might mean that it doesn't face such issues with its sabot rounds, when those eventually come.