Comets instead of Shermans.
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The article you highlighted also said that the British used the Achilles as a mobile anti tank gun and not as a hunter destroyer type.
The problem at V-B and other early tank operations in Normandy wasn't the vehicles it was the pig headedness of the unit. The 7th Arm Div came into Normandy with the attitude 'we know everything there is to know about fighting German tanks we learned it in North Africa' They then proceded to find out that Northern Europe was a different war than the open desert and had their butts kicked until they got the message. It cost them dearly. Comets wouldn't have helped much if at all. Centurians might have. If you want a 'what if' that is the tank to move up a year or so to really see a difference. But there is no way British tank production can make enough tanks available to replace the mass use of Shermans. And the British aren't going to get the best Shermans.
Shermans were assigned based primarily on the engine installed. After the initial supply of 'anything available' to the 8th Army in mid '42 it setteled down to
M4A3 (Ford GAA Engine) First Choice of U.S. Army. Since the French were supplied from U.S. Army stocks they got some also. late war to the Marines also
M4 & M4A1 (Wright Cyclone Engine) Second choice of U.S. Army These were common enough that some were supplied to just about everyone if their primary type wasn't available (except the Soviets who pretty much refused any non diesel)
M4A2 (GM Diesel) Soviets, U.S. Marines initially, and Some Commonwealth in the Mediterranian
M4A4 (Chrysler Multibank) Used for U.S. Army stateside training when others were in short supply in '42-43. Many of these were then refurbed and issued to British and other Commonwealth units. They also received new production ones. This was the primary British and Canadian Sherman in Northwest Europe.
By late '44 the A4 was out of production (It was only ever considered an interim type)and other tanks were having to be used. As more A3s became available for American units 'A0' & A1s were made available to the British supply chain. Since the entire equipment fit out was different (radios etc) this was actually a middle supply chain/depot level decision and not made 'at the front' Since generally tanks intended for the Soviets were equipped with British radios, etc they could also be slid into the Commonwealth pipeline
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I bow to your superior knowledge of sherman production and I agree about the poor tactics at Villers Bocage and I think the British commander was fired shortly after. However, in that action the Cromwells that got caught still managed to hit the Tigers repeatedly but the shells simply bounced off while the German shells didn't.
A Comet hit would have done the job. Bad tactics or not I think Villers Bocage would have not been the disaster it was if Wittman had ran into Comets.
V-B would still have been a disaster, but Whittman's rampage would have probably been cut short by a 77mm APDS round at some point.
Sior
Banned
I'd have prefered being in a Black Prince with the meteor engine, 6" of armour and a full size 17pdr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Prince_(tank)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Prince_(tank)
Black princes
The Black Prince was avaiable on a similar time frame as the Centurion, and even if you could fit the Meteor on the Churchill chassis rather than the twin diesels, it would still be slow. If you could have one in 44, and if the Tiger I in front of you had only PzGr39 and not PzGr40 you would likely kill it. Even with tungsten PzGr40 the frontal armour of the Black prince would likely survive hits from over 500m away...
By 1945 everybody thought the Centurion was the greatest thing on tracks, and virtually nobody wanted the black prince.
The Black Prince was avaiable on a similar time frame as the Centurion, and even if you could fit the Meteor on the Churchill chassis rather than the twin diesels, it would still be slow. If you could have one in 44, and if the Tiger I in front of you had only PzGr39 and not PzGr40 you would likely kill it. Even with tungsten PzGr40 the frontal armour of the Black prince would likely survive hits from over 500m away...
By 1945 everybody thought the Centurion was the greatest thing on tracks, and virtually nobody wanted the black prince.
Winston Smith
Banned
The Tortoise would have been about as useful in combat as the Maus would have been.
That's just a test model
The one with the twin 25pdr was only a test model to show that the Sentinel could take the recoil energy of the 17pdr. The Australians never did put the ACIV into production. That was a shame, because the Sentinel was the first tank with a 17pdr, could have been reengined and mass produced, and even a few hundreds would have been very useful in 44/45.
About the tortoise a french magazine recently wrote an extensive article about what would have been a Tortoise vs Maus fight. The Tortoise was not as crazy as it seems. On a defensive position in a west german hill it would have been usefull for killing incoming JSIII tanks... Getting the thing there would be hard, of course...
The one with the twin 25pdr was only a test model to show that the Sentinel could take the recoil energy of the 17pdr. The Australians never did put the ACIV into production. That was a shame, because the Sentinel was the first tank with a 17pdr, could have been reengined and mass produced, and even a few hundreds would have been very useful in 44/45.
About the tortoise a french magazine recently wrote an extensive article about what would have been a Tortoise vs Maus fight. The Tortoise was not as crazy as it seems. On a defensive position in a west german hill it would have been usefull for killing incoming JSIII tanks... Getting the thing there would be hard, of course...
Alternative to comet
WW2 saw the development of tanks but also the development of the tank killer from the air. Yes Tiger 1 could devastate allied armoured formations. The Germans however lost most of their armour at Falaise and later at the Bulge from airpower. Denial of manouvre, destruction of resupply destroyed the capacity of the German armoured formations to chew up allied armour in the way it could have. A role reversal of 40 years later had Johnny Ivan invaded West Germany. Nato with superior tanks being neutralised by soviet airpower in the 1980's
WW2 saw the development of tanks but also the development of the tank killer from the air. Yes Tiger 1 could devastate allied armoured formations. The Germans however lost most of their armour at Falaise and later at the Bulge from airpower. Denial of manouvre, destruction of resupply destroyed the capacity of the German armoured formations to chew up allied armour in the way it could have. A role reversal of 40 years later had Johnny Ivan invaded West Germany. Nato with superior tanks being neutralised by soviet airpower in the 1980's
80s
The 80s were the worst possible time for soviet airpower. We had the F16 and F15, plus the Mirage 2000 and F1 and the surviving Lightnings in RAF Germany, they had the MiG21 and MiG23. Only when the MiG29 and Su27 started to be built in the late 80s, and got to service use in the late 80s early 90s, did they regain some chances. Let's face it, why do you think the russians invested heavily in Air defence Weapons and we didn't. We had the fighters...
The 80s were the worst possible time for soviet airpower. We had the F16 and F15, plus the Mirage 2000 and F1 and the surviving Lightnings in RAF Germany, they had the MiG21 and MiG23. Only when the MiG29 and Su27 started to be built in the late 80s, and got to service use in the late 80s early 90s, did they regain some chances. Let's face it, why do you think the russians invested heavily in Air defence Weapons and we didn't. We had the fighters...
Yeah. Following this tangent, I think it would have been NATO airpower reducing Soviet armor en masse.
In OTL AEG started design of the A.41 tank to be named Centurion in early '44, by then the concept of sloped armour was more well known with the evidence of the Panther. IMHO W.Allies need to encounter the Panther both a tank like the Centurion can evolve.
Whilst, the Black Prince began development as an improved versuion of the Churchill in late '43. The Churchill met the Tiger in North-Africa in late'42/early '43, so seems plausible (ATL Black Prince could arrive earlier and still look the same as OTL), and that the British could still take a twin track approach to tank design/production via Cruiser & Infantry tanks.
Germans wouldn't know which tank was confronting them - Cromwell or Comet, Churchill or Black Prince!
Popular history portrays Hobart as a visionary but most of the specialist vehicles that the 79th Armd had already existed in some form on earlier chassis, even the Light tank MkIII had a scissors bridge version prototype.
One of Hobart's suggestions pre war was warms of light tanks armed with machine guns for covering the Infantry, a suggestion which according to David Fletcher (Bovington tank museum) in his book 'Mechanised Force', we can see in the A11 Matilda 1....what a useful idea that was.