Covenanters had a tendency to overheat as is and had inadequate ventilation. How are you going to prevent heat stroke if the temperature inside reaches 130F+? A tank doesn't do you any good if the men inside are dead of heat stroke or dizzy from heat exhaustion.
AHC: Sanity Options to secure Malaya in WW2
- Thread starter DontBrawlWithSaul
- Start date
Sea Mines are your friend. Stuff a few warehouses in Singapore full of them and the gear to convert merchant ships into minelayers so that if a Japanese attack looks likely minefields can be laid in the appropriate locations.
Problem is that the seas of South East Asia are not friendly to seamines. Apparently the mines degrade much faster than in European waters. So mines are great in operational circumstances, especially the Japanese used them to great effect in 1941/42, but you are going to have to keep the minefields 'fresh'.
Its a crap tank
But compared to no tank its fucking amazing
And its not one currently needed anywhere outside of the UK where it exists in sufficient numbers that they are not really going to miss a few hundred of them
Valentines would be far better but prior to Dec 1941 there are many places that the are needed (North Africa, Lend Lease to Russia) more than in Malaya.
Even without sending British tanks to Malaya there's a potential answer to Japanese tanks in Australia. Send 100 of these.
Not if your crew keeps dying on you or shoots its own side because the heat turns him incoherent. Without the heat problem, sure it is better than nothing but I am not sure it is suited. Maybe British Light Mk VI. Only MGs but at least the crew isn't dying or incoherent. Bring along some towed AT (The Brits didn't make TDs, which surprised me as almost everyone else did) in case you run into an occasional Japanese tank. They never made too many of them so you don't have to worry too much about them and Malaya wasn't exactly tank country.
A tramp steamer or 2 leaving Bangkok on dec 6th (when they knew the japanese were coming), and calling at ports down the coast, could leave calling cards outside each of them. Not many, or any, metal hulled ships at Songkhla or Pattani, so magnetic mines will sit there until they arrive.
Mines off Khota Bharu could be laid by local wooden craft (non magnetic).
Shallow seas off malaya, the large amount of invasion sea traffic through a small number of ports, and no possible alternatives for landing and supplying troops would make it exceptionally deadly.
This document: https://media.defense.gov/2017/Dec/28/2001861720/-1/-1/0/T_CHILSTROM_MINES_AWAY.PDF covers the OTL aerial mining campaign against Japan
States that on average 1 ship sunk for every 20-25 mines laid, low loss rates for minelayers, and touches on japanese endemic problems with minesweeping.
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Think it's an Australian modification of a Universal Carrier with a 2 pounder.
Think it's an Australian modification of a Universal Carrier with a 2 pounder.
Nice, that would work. A 2 pounder isn't much but Japanese tanks weren't much.
The tank overheated 'more' than other British tanks of the day not the bloody crew!
They would have managed
After all how did tanks manage in the desert (where it was a lot lot hotter) without murdering their own side?
From what I read the crew interior was also a lot hotter. Only a handful of Covenanters were sent to the desert.
Bridge layers and the like IIRC were sent to NA -I don't think any gun tanks made it as part of Kingforce (the Churchill armoured unit)
As with all systems in WW2 it changed as it was developed as it was built and the cooling system did have pipes that ran from the front mounted radiator through the crew compartment and the overheating issue while very bad in the earlier versions and while never satisfactorily fixed did get better.
The overheating was noted as making the turret 'uncomfortable' - but none of the notes I have seen suggest that the crews where passing out
If it 'was' sent overseas then I suspect that some of the proposed fixes might have taken place earlier and had more effort expended on it as well as greater effort once in country.
OTL there was enough 'better' tanks that this effort was never required and the Covenanter was 'good enough' as a UK Garrison tank.
I'd far rather have the British build 300 extra Valentines and send them - but I suspect that if they had built 300 extra Valentines that would be 300 extra Valentines on their way to Mother Russia.
Good write up here
Was that "uncomfortable" in GB or NA? It is a lot cooler in GB. If not I guess it could work. Could the Brits get the US cough up some of the M2 Medium Tanks? They suck but not as bad as the Covenanter. There weren't enough of them to send the whole force but replacing at least some of them with M2 Mediums would be a good thing.
marathag
Banned
by not having the coolant pipes running thru the crew compartment to the side of the driver
The US Radials sucked air from the crew compartment for ventilation
Not so great during the wintery months in the USSR, but good in the desert
So everytime there is a invasion warning? That's going to be quite a hassle. Also because they - by their very nature - obstruct maritime traffic. Meaning they have to be swept once the invasion scare is over.
Allied forces used mines regularly during the Japanese southward offensive. See for example:
Battle of Balikpapan (1942) - Wikipedia
Battle of Tarakan (1942) - Wikipedia
They were a useful part of the Allied defense but no working wunderwaffe. Mines can stall Japanese operations for a short while until the mines are swept, which they unvariably are. Allied minelayers were doing a very dangerous job: the Prins van Oranje was lost trying to flee Tarakan after laying the minefield there.
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They are not going to North Africa!
They are going to Malaya - while hotter than the UK its not the Sahara
M2s were built in very small numbers (114 all variants) and were most useful in training the emerging early US army armoured formations
Just how much important traffic is there along the north Malaya coast in 1941? Can't GB simply declare the area closed and reroute shipping away from declared defensive mine "training" (for European war) areas? This might also make the IJN nervous about coming south if they can't know just how much is actually mined?
Even with the engine switched off (and only moved with the crew sitting on top out of action) it can still hold junctions and be used to form virtually unstoppable road blocks to slow the IJA advance each time they meet a few with a company of infantry dug in around them?