To get a 'decent' British tank you need to do three main things from what I've read - take Lord Nuffield out back and shoot him, ramp up Rolls-Royce Merlin production massively so that you can develop it into the Meteorite and use that as the engine, give up on the idea of using the railways as the primary method of transporting them and instead use tank transporters so that you don't have to worry about the loading gauge and can build them wider. Is that vaguely right do people think?
And what about British tanks?
- Thread starter Riain
- Start date
Wouldn't do any good. After all 1930s Britain wasn't actually a corporatist dystopia in which evil industrialists could force the government to buy any rubbish they wanted at any price. Nuffield could keep churning out tanks with awful Liberty engines because the Army and War Office kept asking for them and paying for them. If the War Office had just told him 'Use a decent engine or no more orders' he'd have changed, he might have complained but ultimately the War Office was paying so he would have folded. Hell even if he hadn't folded that was free up resources for elsewhere, producing fewer but better tanks is probably a vast improvement for Britain.
So if your going to start shooting people, looking at some of the guilty men there (starting with Q Martell) would do far more good. For instance no Martell means no more obsession with the damned Christie suspension, no fetishism of speed, no sub-turret mania, some proper testing of designs, frankly it's all good.
Sior
Banned
You need to shoot all the old cavalry officers as well who tried to use tanks like horses.
90% of the tank casualties up to 2nd El Alamein were due to cavalry officers charging emplaced anti-tank guns!
Not really a design issue...
Tho is is indicative of how badly screwed up the British Army was at the time: no common doctrine between armo(u)r & infantry, not even joint training.
Hoist40
Banned
No, they were using bad cavalry doctrine, the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Good cavalry doctrine included cavalry charges when appropriate but also the use of dragoons (mounted infantry) and horse artillery to provide support. It was the original combined arms.
The problem with the British was that they divided their forces by type into separate regiments which did not work well with the other regiments that they needed to get the job done. The regiments had a strong sense of identity which meant that they did not break easily but this identity also stopped them from functioning together with other regiments of different types. So tank units fought their own battles, as did the infantry and the artillery
Sior
Banned
Not really a design issue...
Tho is is indicative of how badly screwed up the British Army was at the time: no common doctrine between armo(u)r & infantry, not even joint training.
It influenced the light, cruiser & infantry tanks, Light & cruisers were cavalry regiments, infantry tanks were under Royal Tank Regiment; can't have the cavalry plodding around with the PBI. This means they were willing to sacrifice armour for "speed".
What I don't understand about Nuffield was why the government didn't suggest that the press might just get to hear of a British industrialist insisting on selling crap because he had a contract for it.
Also, while he may have been powerful, it didn't stop Beaverbrook taking Castel Bromwich off him in a telephone call.
McKinstry, Leo (2010-10-14). Spitfire .
As Alex Henshaw put it, ‘Beaverbrook was an unpleasant bastard. But he was the right man in the right place at the right time.’ Within three days of taking up his post, he had apprised himself of the disastrous position at Castle Bromwich and was resolved to act. Miles Thomas happened to be in Nuffield’s office at Cowley in Oxfordon 17 May when a call came through from Beaverbrook at the Ministry:
They were both better in monologues than dialogues and from the Cowley end of the line it quickly became apparent that Lord Nuffield was vociferously defending his Castle Bromwich organization and making it abundantly clear that in his opinion the Minister of Aircraft Production could either have Spitfires or modifications but he could not have both. The moment of truth had arrived. Sarcastically, certain that he was putting the ace of trumps on the table, Nuffield shouted, ‘Maybe you would like me to give up control of the Spitfire factory.’ In a flash came the reply: ‘Nuffield, that’s very generous of you. I accept!’ There was a click in the earpiece – the line went dead. Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief. Nuffield’s face was ashen. For a long time he did not say anything.
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Also, while he may have been powerful, it didn't stop Beaverbrook taking Castel Bromwich off him in a telephone call.
McKinstry, Leo (2010-10-14). Spitfire .
As Alex Henshaw put it, ‘Beaverbrook was an unpleasant bastard. But he was the right man in the right place at the right time.’ Within three days of taking up his post, he had apprised himself of the disastrous position at Castle Bromwich and was resolved to act. Miles Thomas happened to be in Nuffield’s office at Cowley in Oxfordon 17 May when a call came through from Beaverbrook at the Ministry:
They were both better in monologues than dialogues and from the Cowley end of the line it quickly became apparent that Lord Nuffield was vociferously defending his Castle Bromwich organization and making it abundantly clear that in his opinion the Minister of Aircraft Production could either have Spitfires or modifications but he could not have both. The moment of truth had arrived. Sarcastically, certain that he was putting the ace of trumps on the table, Nuffield shouted, ‘Maybe you would like me to give up control of the Spitfire factory.’ In a flash came the reply: ‘Nuffield, that’s very generous of you. I accept!’ There was a click in the earpiece – the line went dead. Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief. Nuffield’s face was ashen. For a long time he did not say anything.
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Because the Army (or at least part of the Army) wanted that crap. As that example you posted showed, if the government had really wanted him to stop using awful engines they could have.
Remember Giffard Martel was head of the Royal Armoured Corps for the key years when this crap was being churned out and he was the main cheerleader about the whole Christie pattern debacle. Whenever doubts were raised he was the notional lead tank man in the Army so was ideally placed to fend off criticism and defend his obsession.
None of this absolves Nuffield of his mistakes, but ultimately he was just building what the Army was paying him to build. The ultimate blame lies with the people who asked him to build it and then kept on doing so even when the problems were apparent.
Don't blame the Christie design. The Russian BT7 used it and would have fited the british cruiser concept a lot better than the contemporary British Cruisers...
I remember reading an account of D-Day on one of the British beaches, a Sherman in one of the follow up waves had got stuck on the beach, a large group of infantry were resting nearby but actually refused point blank to assist because "it wasn't their job."
Thats an attitude that plagued British industry until the 1970's and still affects the public sector in which I work, Lines of Demarcation with no one allowed to show any initiative and do something more than you should because you'll usually get slapped down.Why not? Christie suspension was just a bad idea and the entire concept of cruiser tanks wasn't a particularly good idea either.
You could argue the BT-7 was a better implementation of a bad idea, but that doesn't in any way make it a good tank or a good idea.
In fact there's another excellent candidate to kill off instead of Nuffield; Walter Christe. Get rid of him and British tanks should keep on using proper Horstman suspension and so avoid all the problems of reliability and weight capacity that came with Christie suspension.
There are three things you have to do, preferably pre war.
1. Have Lord Nuffield fall under a truck.
2. Commision Vickers to design a decently armoured fast tank able to accept the 6pdr then in developement and be mass produced.
3. Get out of their way and let them get on with it.
Result the introduction in late 1940 / early 1941 of a larger Vallentine with enough developement potential to last through to 1944.
1. Have Lord Nuffield fall under a truck.
2. Commision Vickers to design a decently armoured fast tank able to accept the 6pdr then in developement and be mass produced.
3. Get out of their way and let them get on with it.
Result the introduction in late 1940 / early 1941 of a larger Vallentine with enough developement potential to last through to 1944.
NothingNow
Banned
One problem.
Christie suspension doesn't have any inherent reliability or weight capacity problems. Instead you've got a compact suspension system with plenty of travel, that is well suited to pretty much anything, and provides a lower profile than Torsion-bars.
If you're worried about rough terrain, or traveling over normal terrain at speed but still want a decently low profile, and low center of gravity, Christie suspension is by far the best option until you've got Hydropneumatic systems later on, and you can still easily adapt that to the Christie geometry.
As for weight limits? Christie suspension works just fine on the T-34 and Merkava. Which is of course the heaviest MBT currently in service by ~2000kg, and the fastest off road.
EDIT:IMO, the best way to go is Rehabilitating Fuller and Liddell Hart, and keeping Fuller the fuck away from Mosley, so a POD pre-1933, then offing Nuffield in an accident, and getting Fuller in a "harmless" desk job in the War Office overseeing the development and acquisition of tanks.
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