This is true, but the 1940 designs weren't awesome in the first place and turret ring size was not really solved for a long time.
And what about British tanks?
- Thread starter Riain
- Start date
This is true, but the 1940 designs weren't awesome in the first place and turret ring size was not really solved for a long time.
Ramp-Rat
Monthly Donor
Riain, you are right in that a lot of the problems the British had with tanks resulted from the loading gage on British railways. Which restricted the size and height, which British tanks could be built too; there was another consideration that factored in too. That is the availability of cranes that could lift them into shipping for transport overseas. Remember at the time there were no LST’s or Ro-Ro ships about, so tanks had to be craned into ships holds. It wasn’t until the Centurion that a decision was made that given how small Britain is, all long range tank transport would be by road and not rail, thus freeing up the designers to build what was best.
That said, Gunnarnz is partially right, Britain did start the war with what was probably the best tank in the world in combat at that time, but it wasn’t the Matilda, which was an underpowered under armed peace of crap. Now the Matilda II was a whole different ball game, still underpowered, but the best armoured and with the best AT gun in the world at the time.
What followed was a mess; multiple factors conspired to make British tank production a nightmare. Between problems with size, power units, doctrine, armament, and transport policy, you get Britain’s mid war tanks. Until right at the end and far too late to take part in the war, you get what was arguable one of the greatest tanks ever made, the Centurion. Freed of the requirement to ship by rail, and to be craned onto a ship, it was built big enough to match a powerful gun, the 17 lb, which was at the time a match for any AT gun in the world. With a hull, that was well armoured and a power plant that in spite of its one major fault, being a petrol engine not diesel, was as good as any thing other than those the Russians were using.
Had this tank come into service in 1944, now there’s a, what if for you, we would have a very different view on British tank production during WWII.
That said, Gunnarnz is partially right, Britain did start the war with what was probably the best tank in the world in combat at that time, but it wasn’t the Matilda, which was an underpowered under armed peace of crap. Now the Matilda II was a whole different ball game, still underpowered, but the best armoured and with the best AT gun in the world at the time.
What followed was a mess; multiple factors conspired to make British tank production a nightmare. Between problems with size, power units, doctrine, armament, and transport policy, you get Britain’s mid war tanks. Until right at the end and far too late to take part in the war, you get what was arguable one of the greatest tanks ever made, the Centurion. Freed of the requirement to ship by rail, and to be craned onto a ship, it was built big enough to match a powerful gun, the 17 lb, which was at the time a match for any AT gun in the world. With a hull, that was well armoured and a power plant that in spite of its one major fault, being a petrol engine not diesel, was as good as any thing other than those the Russians were using.
Had this tank come into service in 1944, now there’s a, what if for you, we would have a very different view on British tank production during WWII.
Quite possibly, It certainly sounds like it has potential. I was at first a little worried after reading that it dated back to the late teens, but the Fairey III was used right up until the early 40s, so it retained in production for long enough.
A bit on the wide side I'd have thought, but I don't know, the Meadows DAV was a flat-12, which sounds pretty wide too. 50 kg is nothing compared to an at least 33% power increase, and it'd be dwarfed by the weight of what it was powering.
Overall, well it wouldn't hurt to try it out.
Well it's possible, but it would require some serious tinkering (I doubt this is going to develop less problems than any other new engine), and as NothingNow has pointed out, the Napier Lion is already well-developed and producing enough power to be reasonably considered.Could they have gone the multibank route? Or are there drawbacks I'm unaware of? I'm thinking of a multibank based not on a Cad engine, but the big 800+ci Hall-Scott truck engines.
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NothingNow
Banned
And the Liberty's even older. Plus, they were seriously improving on it till the mid 30's. It's perfectly timed.
It's still just over a meter wide, and under 1500mm in length, considering that the Liberty-powered Cruisers were all over 2.5m wide (2.54-2.77, save the mark VII,) so a wide engine is less of a problem then you'd think. might have to get a bit creative with the fuel storage though, since saddle tanks over the engine are out of the question.
EDIT:Then with a suitable transmission, you've got no obstacle to building something competitive in the 30-ton weight class, with a turret ring big enough to be readily adapted to anything from the 2pdr on up. Hell, a 25pdr or 75mm Howitzer equipped version could be part of the initial series, as a support vehicle, and other maybe other variants as artillery prime movers. It'd certainly be more suitable then the AEC Matador in that role.
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Hoist40
Banned
One thing to remember in the 1940 Battle of France is that the British were never able to field their “Infantry/Cruiser Tank” ideas in the battle.
When the Germans invaded France there were no British Cruiser Tanks in France. And there were only 100 Infantry Tanks of which only 23 were Matilda II’s. So of the 308 British Tanks in France with the BEF only 23 had a two pounder gun and the rest only had machine guns.
The 1st Armored Division equipped with Cruiser Tanks was still in England at the start of the battle and only some units got to France before the end and they never met up with the rest of the BEF.
If the British had enough tanks to give each Infantry Division their own attached Army Armored Brigade with 50 Matilda II and if both the 1st and 2nd Armored Divsions had been in France with its Cruisers then the reputation of British tanks would probably have been much better. This would have given the British 600 plus Matilda II’s and another 600 or so Cruisers all equipped with 2 pounders instead of the 23 two pounder armed tanks that they had.
But the British had made tanks a low priority prior to the war and so they were using Light Tanks equipped with machine guns as Infantry and Cruiser Tanks
When the Germans invaded France there were no British Cruiser Tanks in France. And there were only 100 Infantry Tanks of which only 23 were Matilda II’s. So of the 308 British Tanks in France with the BEF only 23 had a two pounder gun and the rest only had machine guns.
The 1st Armored Division equipped with Cruiser Tanks was still in England at the start of the battle and only some units got to France before the end and they never met up with the rest of the BEF.
If the British had enough tanks to give each Infantry Division their own attached Army Armored Brigade with 50 Matilda II and if both the 1st and 2nd Armored Divsions had been in France with its Cruisers then the reputation of British tanks would probably have been much better. This would have given the British 600 plus Matilda II’s and another 600 or so Cruisers all equipped with 2 pounders instead of the 23 two pounder armed tanks that they had.
But the British had made tanks a low priority prior to the war and so they were using Light Tanks equipped with machine guns as Infantry and Cruiser Tanks
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The Valentine was a fairly OK tank. A good indication was that the Soviets continued to use them until late in the war.
The Valentine had a good reliability record and it's comparatively small size made it a harder target.
The Cromwell would have been a great tank if introduced into action in 1942. Apart from the Crusader most WW2 British tanks were OK. The problem was the way they were handled in battle until late 1942.
The Churchill was good at taking damage but was a slow infantry tank. No one is using infantry tanks by the middle of the war. They were good for clearing mines and using flamethrowers on pillboxes.
The Valentine had a good reliability record and it's comparatively small size made it a harder target.
The Cromwell would have been a great tank if introduced into action in 1942. Apart from the Crusader most WW2 British tanks were OK. The problem was the way they were handled in battle until late 1942.
The Churchill was good at taking damage but was a slow infantry tank. No one is using infantry tanks by the middle of the war. They were good for clearing mines and using flamethrowers on pillboxes.
You want a good pre war engine then the RR Kestrel modified as the Meteor would give you 450 hp or a V8 version would put out 300 hp or a 230 hp I6. More than enough for any tank until 1942 then you use the experience to build a diesel Meteor (base it on the 36 liter Griffon not the 27 liter Merlin engine) which would put out over 500 hp with a lot more to come if fitted with a Roots blower.
Either/or, as NothingNow points out, the Napier lion was already almost there anyway, and while it would have been larger and (very slightly) heavier, such would not have mattered for the application, especially as the Lion was outputting, in the mid 20s (700 hp in 1925 as the VII), the level of power the Kestrel was struggling with in the 30s (720 hp in 1940 as the XXX).
The 700 hp Lion Mk VII was a racing engine with an engine life just long enough to finish a race and measured in minutes. The Kestrel XXX had a life measured in the hundreds of hours. The best in service Lion in 1925 would have been the Mk V with 480 hp depending on rev limit. No service Lion ever got near 720 hp without going bang very soon afterwards.
I keep forgetting which name corresponds to which tank, but I'm on the tier 2 light that goes to the Centurion. I'm doing it in the spirit of MacCaulay.
NothingNow
Banned
And you've got more than a decade to improve it.
Hell, boring and stroking the engine, and beefing up the compression ratio ought to improve performance that much, while keeping the engine a fairly low-revving one. And producing 500-600 bhp at 2200-2600 RPM (in a marine engine no less) is a hell of a lot more useful, especially if you go for a somewhat under-square setup, at a compression ratio of say 7-8:1, which would boost low-end performance even further.
The production version of the Lion (the XI) was making 580 hp in 1928, at the same time the Kestrel was only making 510 hp. They also developed a marinised version the Sea Lion (no relation to the German Sealion) in 1933, which would have been plenty rugged enough for a tank.
I upgraded from that to the Teir 3 light A13MkII yesterday. It sucks because I'm up against tier 5 heavies with the double shot 2 pdr and light armour.
Just a word on aircraft engines in tanks. US tanks used aircraft engines but you wouldn't know it from the power figures because the army used 87 octane or lower petrol and no superchargers whereas the air force used superchargers and increasingly higher octane ratings. So to say this aircraft engine had x horsepower so the tank shold as well doesn't work out in practice.
A Lion is 3 litres bigger than a Kestrel. A production Lion damn well should be making 70 more hp than the first iteration of a smaller engine. The Lion never got better as a production engine whilst the Kestrel ended up as the 880 hp Peregrine.
That the Sea Lion produced 500 hp at 2200 rpm doesnt mean you get a similar power output for a tank engine. A marine engine with an engineer standing over it like a broody hen isnt the same as a tank engine and I imagine for reliability the Lion would need to be heavily derated. Dont know what power it would have produced but its probably going to be about 300 hp or so.
There is also the fact that the Lion with its seperate cylinders was an earlier generation of engine than the Mono block Kestrel, many of the problems with the Liberty in its tank version were caused by seperate cylinders. A tank engine gets battered much more than an aero engine and a relatively flimsy crankcase with no support from a monobloc cylinder block allows flexing when the engine is slogging.
As several posters have said British tanks of the early war were actually pretty advanced.
The major problems were with the priorities in deploying them, and the doctrine.
The tanks the Wehrmacht invaded France with were in some ways really inferior to their opponents, but superior German armoured and combined arms doctrine carried the day.
The major problems were with the priorities in deploying them, and the doctrine.
The tanks the Wehrmacht invaded France with were in some ways really inferior to their opponents, but superior German armoured and combined arms doctrine carried the day.
If it's fast, you can scout; it gets you a fair bit of xp. It might be a similar grind to that of the Pz38 NA to the Pz IV, which legitimately sucks. I think Tier IV has it the worse.
Unfortunately, the Peregrine was more than 2 1/2 inches wider, more than 5 inches taller, and more than 180 pounds heavier.
And a derated Kestrel is going to be little better, I mean they derated the Merlin back to 600 hp from more than 1000 hp, so given that, the best the Kestrel could make would be about 430 hp, for the 1940 model. Also, a Sea Lion is already half-way there, it's using marine fuels, and making anything marinised (ie, capable of dealing with salt-air) makes it tougher.
What you mean like when it's beating about in the waves?