Challenge: Ram tank in combat...

Maybe they get used alongside the Grant and Sherman in North Africa?

Seems like the best option; Torch was a "come as you are" operation, and having Canadians participate is reasonable enough.

As a plus, we can imagine several Canadian tankers trying to shoot hockey pucks on the sand accidentally whacking Fredendall in the head; he is knocked unconscious and is replaced by someone competent, who cancels the building of the Concrete Palace and avoids the disaster at Kasserine Pass.

Sadly, the Canadian soldiers would probably be punished for this accident.
 

Thande

Donor
Rather than be used by the Canadians, why not have them given to some other country rather than Belgium, one which ended up in a war in OTL. Say one of the Arab states who might use them in '48 against Israel, or something.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Rather than be used by the Canadians, why not have them given to some other country rather than Belgium, one which ended up in a war in OTL. Say one of the Arab states who might use them in '48 against Israel, or something.
Syria was using Panzer IVs in the Six-day War, and someone had apparently used them in 1948, so it wouldn't be that far out there.
 
IIRC the Ram I wasn't equipped with a 6 pdr gun but rather a 2 pdr gun because the 6 pdr wasn't available at the time.

Perhaps in TTL the Canadians decide that regardless of what the British say the 2 pdr is not a viable option for their tank's main gun and so they decide to instead mount an American 75mm M2 gun on the Ram. This makes the Ram I equivalent to if not better than any UK tank available at the time in November 1941 when it begins to be produced in large numbers. Perhaps this leads to the UK placing an order to equip it's units in North Africa?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Rather than be used by the Canadians, why not have them given to some other country rather than Belgium, one which ended up in a war in OTL. Say one of the Arab states who might use them in '48 against Israel, or something.

Syria was using Panzer IVs in the Six-day War, and someone had apparently used them in 1948, so it wouldn't be that far out there.

Hmmmm...Israeli Rams? That could work. The Israelis were ravaging supply dumps in the chaos right after the war for whatever they could get. Perhaps if no other government had their eyes on them, the Israelis could get their hands on them. There were at least 40 or so that ended up in the Low Countries some where.

And if they're the Mk. IIs, then one an imagine that even two dozen or so of them in a unified unit under Israeli command could do some damage in 1948, or even in 1956 if they put them through the same upgrades they did with the Shermans.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Hmmmm...Israeli Rams? That could work. The Israelis were ravaging supply dumps in the chaos right after the war for whatever they could get. Perhaps if no other government had their eyes on them, the Israelis could get their hands on them. There were at least 40 or so that ended up in the Low Countries some where.

And if they're the Mk. IIs, then one an imagine that even two dozen or so of them in a unified unit under Israeli command could do some damage in 1948, or even in 1956 if they put them through the same upgrades they did with the Shermans.

Maybe give them 17pdrs or the QF 77mm?
Are the Turret rings on the Ram Identical to a Sherman's? If they are, the IDF might just upgrade them in lockstep with their Shermans.
 
It's a lot of tanks going to different places there. Myself, I think it probably might have been done had the retreat from Dunkirk been alot less organized and the British basically just left with the shirts on their backs and nothing else. If they'd been the ones that needed the Shermans because they couldn't fill their home built divisions up by themselves fast enough, then the Canadians could easily step up and say "We'll arm ourselves with the Ram, don't worry about it."

Well essentially that is exactly what happened. When Canada authorized formation of two armored divisions in 1940 it was obvious that the tanks required could not be supplied through British production and that tank production in the United States at that time was limited to British and American orders. Therefore Canada decided to build its own tanks and thus the Ram.

Once the Ram MkII (6 pdr) was in production it became clear that a more powerful tank was required. Rather than design a new mark and rebuild the existing Rams the army decided that the new US M4 should essentially become the Ram MkIII. It was an evolution from the same M3 series that the Ram was built from, it incorporated all of the features of the Ram and it met all the requirements. So in 1943 production of the Ram was switched over to a licensed version of the M4A1 known as the Grizzly (about 1 inch more armour than the standard M4A1). Production of the Grizzly was halted after about 200 were built when it became obvious that US factories could build all of the M4's anyone could ever want.

The logistics of the thing make it unlikely that this would change. Any redesign of the Ram would end up being very close to the Sherman so why not go with the Sherman and save the effort. You can't upgrade the Rams in England so you would be shipping a new tank overseas in any event.

I think that the only way the Canadian army would have wound up using "Canadian" tanks in combat would have been for production of the Grizzly to continue.
 
you'd think this would work only if the Canadians used their own ships to haul them over to Europe... the US logistics system was all set up for sending Shermans/American tanks and American ammo for them in massive quantities to Britain. Wouldn't hauling an oddball Canadian tank and ammo for it cause some problems?

Using British ammunition would fix one of those problems, and how hard would it be for Canadian shipyards to turn out their own Liberty ships? Lord knows they built hundreds of smaller vessels.
 
Maybe give them 17pdrs or the QF 77mm?
Are the Turret rings on the Ram Identical to a Sherman's? If they are, the IDF might just upgrade them in lockstep with their Shermans.

That would make sense if it was true. I don't know if it is, however.
 
you'd think this would work only if the Canadians used their own ships to haul them over to Europe... the US logistics system was all set up for sending Shermans/American tanks and American ammo for them in massive quantities to Britain. Wouldn't hauling an oddball Canadian tank and ammo for it cause some problems?

Why would it cause problems? Thousands of vehicles of all shapes and sizes were shipped across the Atlantic. One more, roughly the shape and size of a Sherman would make no difference. Ammo was shipped in crates. One crate of munitions is much like another crate of munitions. At the receiving end it still has to be directed to the correct unit that is equiped with the matching weapon. Plus any Canadian tank of the time would use a British or US gun so the ammo issue is a nonstarter.

Canada manufactured a lot of British munitions and shipped them to the UK exclusive of the American logistics system.
 
Using British ammunition would fix one of those problems, and how hard would it be for Canadian shipyards to turn out their own Liberty ships? Lord knows they built hundreds of smaller vessels.

Well Canada actually built something like 400 merchant vessels during the war at least 350 of which were 10000 dwt or greater which is in the Liberty ship range. I believe that a number of these were "Victory" ships which was the follow on to Liberty ships. Only a tithe of what the US built but still a useful number.
 
Well Canada actually built something like 400 merchant vessels during the war at least 350 of which were 10000 dwt or greater which is in the Liberty ship range. I believe that a number of these were "Victory" ships which was the follow on to Liberty ships. Only a tithe of what the US built but still a useful number.

I hadn't looked up Canada's Merchant Marine from WWII, truthfully. With 350 vessels bigger than 10,000 DWT, you should be able to move the vehicles fairly easily, and if they use British guns I don't see any reason why they don't use British ammunition. That's true with NATO tank guns today (why the Abrams, Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 all use 120mm, 55-caliber main guns), what would be so hard about doing it then?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Using British ammunition would fix one of those problems, and how hard would it be for Canadian shipyards to turn out their own Liberty ships? Lord knows they built hundreds of smaller vessels.

I've got a book on order about the Canadian Merchant Marine in World War II, with an emphasis on it's convoy runs to England and Russia in 1940 and '41. I know that they had an insane amount of shipping capacity, much more than folks would think they would.

And the Canadian economy could handle more: we're talking about moving goods through Halifax, here. You'd have to have more ships than I've ever seen in my life to be able to plug that port up.

...if they use British guns I don't see any reason why they don't use British ammunition.

Precisely.

Okay, so let's move beyond the "why" for the moment and go to the "what."

The Ram II was a good tank. The 6 pdr was a good gun even in 1944, but it wasn't the best. I've done some looking, and according to An Illustrated Guide to World War II Tanks and Fighting Vehicles editted by Christopher Foss, seems to show that it could handle either the 75mm or 17 pdr, though probably nothing larger than that.
As they're in 21st Army Group in Normandy, we'll assume that the Canadians arm this new "Ram Mk. III" with the 17 pdr. Knowing the Canadian military supply situation like I do, they'd still end up going in with alot of Mk. IIs, so we could assume that perhaps the Armoured Divisions are armed with the Mk. II while the Brigades of II Canadian Corps are armed with the Mk. III.

How will they fare against the weaponry they'll find? Or suppose that instead of being sent to First Canadian Army in Normandy, they're sent to I Canadian Corps in Italy. How will they fare there?

What other changes are there?
 
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