Effects of more standardized British tank for WWII.

[steamboy]

Problem with france is largely political, many politicians hated/feared the army fearing a coup, and many officers thought that the politicians were corrupt or under the sway of communists.

You'd have to go back a LOT further work in more social, political and economic changes etc.

Very good vid about the French military.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

One thing i'd also avoid doing. Buying and having the Besa. Why introduce a new machine gun and new caliber? you've got hundreds, if not thousands of .303 Vickers MGs hanging around, use them instead as the UK was sitting on mountains of .303 rounds, no need to introduce new parts or new ammo, saves money.

The BESA machine gun was a direct copy (as you know) of the Czech ZB 53

The Czech weapon came in 3 versions

• Tripod mounted MMG
• Fortress gun
• AFV mounted MMG - this was what made it attractive for the British and given Britain relationship with the company that made it having worked with them on the BREN gun. The Czechs had already designed a gun for use on their 35(T) tanks

So when the British were looking to massively expand their AFV production they needed a weapon that was reliable and useful in an AFV

The ZB 53 was a modern design and utilized modern production techniques which the Vickers did not - making it cheaper and easier to make.

Vickers production would not have been able to keep up with demand for both the tripod mounted version and equipping the many 1000s of guns required for tanks

Also while the BESA / ZB 53 is not a small gun it is smaller than the Vickers and is simpler as the BESA does not have water cooling etc.

As for the ammunition 'issue' it was not an issue - given the amount of logi an armored unit requires the effort to provide belts of 7.92 mm is negligible.

The British ended up using a smorgasbord of ammo in WW2 and yet managed.

If a given Armored units logisitcs were failing to provide 7.92 mm ammo for its MMGs then I put it to you that it has bigger issues to contend with!

A better choice in fact would be to go full on would have been to adopt 7.92 for the Bren (probably allowing for an earlier introduction!), re chamber Vickers to use the 7.92 (Her Royal Highness was very adept at being able to be modified to use different ammo) and metal belts, adopt the BESA as both a AFV and Tripod gun and introduce the No4 Lee Enfield rifle earlier in 7.92.

A better better choice would be to go .30 cal - but that would require and even better Crystal ball

 

[steamboy]

Lastly, threads concerning the British in WW2 are rather common, but does anyone know any threads about improving the French performance in WW2? Invasion of France was a close run thing, and even marginally better led French Army could see Germans fail, and thus ending war years sooner, something like what is happening in Blunt Sickle TL.

Basically the UK one is easier to do as well, to fix the French you'd need a LOT of work.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

One thing i'd also avoid doing. Buying and having the Besa. Why introduce a new machine gun and new caliber? you've got hundreds, if not thousands of .303 Vickers MGs hanging around, use them instead as the UK was sitting on mountains of .303 rounds, no need to introduce new parts or new ammo, saves money.

Ditching the water cooled Vickers gun was the right thing to do, but the Besa was unneeded when the RAF was fitting .303 Brownings to everything with wings.

 

[Alamo]

Bin the idea that Steam Locomotive works are the best place to build tanks they are not, Steam Locomotives were virtually hand built by blacksmiths in filthy Victorian sheds whereas tanks need an automotive type production line.

Baldwin, Lima, and ALCO would disagree with the assessment that locomotive manufacterers have no place building tanks. Over a third of M4 production came from locomotive and rolling stock plants that were converted to war production. They didn't build as many as the new, dedicated plants that started coming online, but their contribution was certainly important.

 

[marathag]

I am not sure about using the Lion the RAF stopped using it because it wasn't very reliable. Napier's hand built the engines and I doubt they would be able to produce the number required for tanks, during the war they made a few hundred Sealions and a few prototype Sabres. Rolls and Bristol probably made more engines in a week than Napier's made in 6 years.

But the Royal Navy found them reliable.
The metric to compare with was the Nuffield rebuilt Liberty that was also from the end of WWI.
That was not a reliable engine, even after years if trying to make it such. See the Centaur Tank.

RAF wanted to dispose of the Lion, as all they types it powered were all obsolete by 1932.
The Sea Lion stayed in production until 1943

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Ditching the water cooled Vickers gun was the right thing to do, but the Besa was unneeded when the RAF was fitting .303 Brownings to everything with wings.

The Mk 2 Browning 303 was a lightweight 'air cooled' Machine gun that was intended to fire for several 10s of seconds at most and in an environment where there was lots of 'cold fast flowing air'.

Now the M1919 would have made a good AFV MMG but at the time Britain did not have access to the design

They did have access to the BESA (which I would add was a more modern design than the M1919 which was effectively a peer of the Vickers )

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Baldwin, Lima, and ALCO would disagree with the assessment that locomotive manufacterers have no place building tanks. Over a third of M4 production came from locomotive and rolling stock plants that were converted to war production. They didn't build as many as the new, dedicated plants that started coming online, but their contribution was certainly important.

The successful Canadian and somewhat less successful Australian Tank production was also at train locomotive plants

An earlier decision on rearmament will see dedicated factories built - but this takes time.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

There's nothing wrong with Locomotive works building tanks so long as they're tanks designed by people who know what they're doing.

 

[yulzari]

Design faults in OTL British tanks were poor track materials, shoulder elevation, small hatches, no medium tank engines, poor integration of ancillaries for maintenance and ergonomics ad using riveting not welding. The guns were good to adequate, armour was mid par generally, gearboxes were adequate to good. Suspension adequate to good (Slow Motion, Horstman and Christie). The overall fault was poor rationalisation, direction and command of the process. ATL generally agree that a standard adequate early war tank and a later war tank was perfectly feasible both as mediums in terms of the period. Heavies were not needed and armoured cars better for the light tank role. Underlying it all is the motor taxation system which strangled large lorry engines like the GMC used in the later Valentines and were the only options pre war (no one is going to fund a tank engine with an annual production of tens).

Thus it was quite within the capablity of British industry to have designed workable peer tanks without invoking some wild change in OTL industry. Change nothing else than the shoulder elevation and your 6 pounder Valentine has an external mantlet and room for a 3 man turret and easily changed later to the ROF 75mm.

In the manner of the Sherman, but from 1939, I can see the Valentine/A9 maintaining developments throughout the war from a low powered petrol 2 Pounder tank to a high torque diesel HV75mm by the end and a 6 Pounder/ROF 75mm in between. A single design suited to true mass production across the industry. Allied to Archer type 17 pounder AT or SPG chassis on the same mechanics. Even an APC quasi Archer Kangeroo in time. Soviet tankers loved the tiny profile of the Valentine even into 1945.

 

[yulzari]

How about instead of a domestic design, the British instead take on a foreign design from the Commonwealth. One tank stands out - the Sentinel. It was initially armed with a 2 Pdr, as per most tanks of the period however that was quickly supplanted by the 25 Pdr, which had a more than adequate muzzle velocity and shell weight to defeat most mid-war Panzers. It was then armed with 17 Pdr gun. Indeed, the results of putting twin 25 Pdr. onto the vehicle to prove it could take the recoil from a (unavailable) 17 Pdr. was used to justify the Sherman mounting the 17 Pdr. in the Firefly.

Another vehicle which stands out is the Canadian Ram tank. Again, armed initially with a 2 Pdr gun and then a 6 Pdr gun, it went onto prove the concept of the modern APC as the Kangaroo. It was built using standard M3/M4 track suspension but built in Canada.

The biggest problem facing this is "not invented here" Syndrome and of course "too many cooks spoil the broth". There were simply too many people who thought they had the right idea about how to design a tank in Britian and they were given their heads to do so. When Tank Design board tried it's own had at designing a tank, they got it right the first time and created the Centurion one of the best, longest serving tanks in the West.

However to make something similar to the Centurion your PoD would need to be in the 1930s, not the 1940s. You would need to beat the companies around the head and have a strongly led Tank Design board which could create and keep a single design going.

The Ram (a good medium tank) relied (sensibly) upon USA components.

For the Sentinel:

 

[marathag]

Otherwise all that a better British tank achieves (apart from a larger impact on the Germans) is that more of those better thanks are abandoned when the BEF is obliged to escape.

OTL Britain only sent some 23 Matilda II tanks to France of the not quite 500 odd tanks that took part

Rommel in 7th Panzer and Eicke in 3rd SS would be having a real Brown Pants moments at Arras had the BEF had 120 of the improved Valentine tanks I proposed upthread.
Getman attacks stalls out, France doesn't fall.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Rommel in 7th Panzer and Eicke in 3rd SS would be having a real Brown Pants moments at Arras had the BEF had 120 of the improved Valentine tanks I proposed upthread.
Getman attacks stalls out, France doesn't fall.

OKW was already aging badly when it was going well.

It would be a Brown pants moment for them as well in this scenario.

Had the BEF cut off the head of the snake at Arras and beyond then it would become the sum of their fears come true.

Regardless of the situation on the ground their reaction would be the same but sustained this time as the panzer forces west/north (?) of Arras would be cut off and likely either ordered to fight their way back or lost.

 

[Driftless]

OKW was already aging badly when it was going well.

It would be a Brown pants moment for them as well in this scenario.

Had the BEF cut off the head of the snake at Arras and beyond then it would become the sum of their fears come true.

Regardless of the situation on the ground their reaction would be the same but sustained this time as the panzer forces west/north (?) of Arras would be cut off and likely either ordered to fight their way back or lost.

They were already running on fumes; so if they're cutoff, it seems likely many panzers would have to be abandoned to keep a breakout attempt fueled. (I know this is heading off the main topic)

 

[SwampTiger]

Australia and Canada learned to cast tank hulls OTL. Couldn't the British learn this technology? The Valentine, expanded slightly wider and longer, with Horstmann suspension, external mantlet and a Vickers built Lion with 350-400 HP would be a solid, reliable tank through 1943/44. Increase the turret ring 10-25 cm and you can up-gun the tank.

I never understood the decision to ditch the 3 and 6 pounders for the 2 pounder. Both early guns could have been improved to better the 2 lbr's penetration, and both could carry a useful HE load. Mistakes in doctrine cost the British heavily early in the war.

 

[riggerrob]

Keep Valentine production pretty much the same as OTL. Use more cast parts like the Valentines made at Montreal Locomotive Works. The only change needed is a bigger hatch for the driver ... easy to do with one large casting forming the forward hull. Slope the glacis plate while you are at it. Build a wide variety of Valentine variants on the basic chassis: light tank, 75mm light tank, Bishop 2 SP with a 25-pounder howitzer, Archer AT, ammo carrier, APC, bridge-layer, etc.

During the 1930s, EMF rush through various small batches of cruiser tanks. Drive them until they break, then apply "lessons learned" to the next small batch. Keep building small batches until you have a reliable chassis. Once you have a reliable medium tank chassis, build a variety of variants on the basic hull: 75mm, Firefly, howitzer, APC, bridge-layer, etc.
Once you have a reliable chassis, design a turret big enough for a RO QF 75mm gun. To get a big enough turret ring, have it overlap the tracks a big. e.g. shallow cast sponsons.

When the 17-pounder comes along, design a completely new turret for the AT gun. Sherman Firefly was purely an awkward, stop-gap chassis for 17-pounder. Sherman Firefly was far too cramped and required a specialized version of the 17-pounder gun. Far better to cast an entirely new turret that looks like a Tiger 2 from a distance.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Australia and Canada learned to cast tank hulls OTL. Couldn't the British learn this technology? The Valentine, expanded slightly wider and longer, with Horstmann suspension, external mantlet and a Vickers built Lion with 350-400 HP would be a solid, reliable tank through 1943/44. Increase the turret ring 10-25 cm and you can up-gun the tank.

I never understood the decision to ditch the 3 and 6 pounders for the 2 pounder. Both early guns could have been improved to better the 2 lbr's penetration, and both could carry a useful HE load. Mistakes in doctrine cost the British heavily early in the war.

Only later Canadian production models used Cast forward glacis.

The Matilda II tank used cast parts - it was not a case of not being able to do it - simply not able to do it enough for the number of tanks they were building back in the early part of the war.

The earlier Valentine's used riveted construction because they were leveraging the 'untapped' parts of British industry not then being used to make AFVs in order to massively increase the number of tanks they could build.

 

[marathag]

Sherman Firefly was purely an awkward, stop-gap chassis for 17-pounder. Sherman Firefly was far too cramped and required a specialized version of the 17-pounder gun.

Same turret ring as the T26/M26 Pershing.
The 90mm was almost identical in weight, size and recoil as the 17pdr.
Difference was, the 17pdr was put into M4 turrets, not the larger T23 based M4A3.
Israel made the M50 Sherman with a French 75mm with the same power as the German 75mmL70,.with the small M4 turret by extending the mantlet forward in an armored box.
The M51 used the T23 stle turret to fit the larger 105mm gun.

The problem was with the 17pdr features from when it was a towed gun.

 

[Bougnas]

Lastly, threads concerning the British in WW2 are rather common, but does anyone know any threads about improving the French performance in WW2? Invasion of France was a close run thing, and even marginally better led French Army could see Germans fail, and thus ending war years sooner, something like what is happening in Blunt Sickle TL.

Problem with france is largely political, many politicians hated/feared the army fearing a coup, and many officers thought that the politicians were corrupt or under the sway of communists.

You'd have to go back a LOT further work in more social, political and economic changes etc.

This site does propose essentially this, albeit only in French and it also tackles other subjects like pre-WW1 French military or some WW2 Wallied PODs.
http://sam40.fr/

There were plenty of options for France to perform better in WW2, better positionning before the Battle and better reactions during the Battle being rather "easy" because they don't require money or excessive time but just being somewhat smart. The vulnerability of the Ardennes was understood both by some officers as early as 1937-38 and later on by French intel services just before the attack so this could have been addressed with some preparations and better training and alert by troops here. The Breda part of the French plan was the least liked and pretty much only Gamelin supported it so it could have been scrapped, saving the best French Army to be used in reserve, ideally near the Ardennes where it originally was.

Trusting the radio a bit more and being less indecisive in general would have allowed the French to react more quickly and maybe get enough forces in the path of the Sickle to eventually stop it before things became too bad.

RE procurement and industrial build up, there were several opportunities to choose better designs and get advice/equipment from French or foreign engineers and industrials in the US and UK, which would have allowed for faster and better manufacturing methods and better fuel production and refinement methods to be used (the latter was relevant as France didn't have access to enough of the decent quality fuels the British and Americans had access later on, which limited engine performance and prevented the use of some of the better engines. This is a relatively straightforward way to get improvements without having insanely advanced engine tech). France itself had some decent base in some areas for proper radio comms and even a modest radar network.

 

[marathag]

France didn't have access to enough of the decent quality fuels the British and Americans had access later on, which limited engine performance and prevented the use of some of the better engines.

To be fair, nobody but the British and US had access to as good fuels.
Soviets got around it by using lots of displacement

The Mikulin AM-35 was 2847 cubic inches for 1350hp at 2050rpm with 95 octane, something RR or Allison could do with 60% of the displacement

The Hispano-Suiza 12Y was 2197 cubic inches for 1100hp at 2400 rpm with 100 octane, the best grade they had access to in 1940 in decent amounts.

The DB-601 in Germany was 2070 cubic inches for 1350HP, but that was spinning at 2700rpm, with 87 octane. At lower rpm levels, it was 1085hp at 2400rpm. The other thing was that the Germans used fuel injection. not as much a power adder, as a reliability adder

So what's going on?

Another thing that is overlooked, the cooling system. I believe the French could have done better with a different radiator setup,
along with a glycol-water mix .
I believe they stuck with pure 100% glycol that also limited power, more than the engines mechanical limits. They needed larger radiators to do the job than the US or British