South England. November 7th, 1943
The Guards Armoured Division start exchanging its Centaur tanks with newer Challengers, the older machines would be handled down to training units and allied formations.
The Centaur had proven the best British tank of the war so far, good enough for Britain to cease production of the rival Crusader design after 2,650 examples. A total of 14,407
vehicles had been built , 10,955 in Britain and 3,452 more in Canada. [1] But by now the design was reaching its limits as it could not be fitted with a more powerful gun than the 6 pounder introduced in the Centaur II. The Challenger, another design of Vickers Sir John Carden while based on the earlier Centaur was much heavier at 35 tons, had a 600 HP Meteor engine and had been designed from the start around Vickers 3in High Velocity gun, a derivative of the company's earlier anti-aircraft gun. The new gun while not nearly as powerful as the 17 Pounder anti-tank guns was still much better than the American 75mm and 76mm guns against tanks and just as good against infantry. As for getting a 17 pounder armed tank this would have to wait for the A41 design to complete development. Till then the 3in HV and the Challenger should suffice.
Athens, November 14th, 1943
Sunday passed quietly, or at least as quietly as possible for a country that just previous week had the anniversary of its third year in the war. The elections that normally would be taking place today had been postponed indefinitely. The decree extending the terms of both the half of the senate up for reelection and the parliament for six more months had been signed into law by president Themistoklis Sofoulis already. The Greek political class was not staying idle of course particularly within the Liberal party. George Kafandaris, the leader of the party and vice=premier was ill since late 1941 and had to be repeatedly hospitalized in the Evangelismos hospital. He still soldiered on but the party grandees were already jockeying for position with minister of foreign affairs Sophoklis Venizelos, Eleutherios son, the one most likely to succeed him in the party leadership.
London, November 15th, 1943
SHAEF was established under Dwight Eisenhower, to prepare the invasion of France. Field Marshal Richard O'Connor would be the land forces commander and closely work with Eisenhower.
Eleusis, November 16th, 1943
Konstantinos Karamanlis shook hands with Alec Isigonis for the photographer before the first Leon Mk.3 tank. Karamanlis after a successful run as minister of transport in 1941, under his watch the Greek transportation network had been restored and even expanded in the months after the German invasion. His reward for a difficult job well done had been another difficult job when he had been given the ministry of industry. With free Greece effectively in a state of siege and the Mediterranean closed to nearly all allied shipping making the utmost out of Greek industry had been imperative. Karamanlis even if his methods were not always optimal had nevertheless delivered results and his insistence of giving priority to the shipment of machine tools and farming tractors early on was bringing now dividends. The Leon tank was perhaps one of the best examples of the strengths and limitations of the Greek industry. Back before the war had start it had been planned for ELEO, the Greek automotive company created as an offshoot of Ford back in the late 1920s to build, Centaur tanks under license locally. The plan had fallen through when the war had start but Greece still desperately needed tanks in particularly after the fall of France so Isigonis, whose family had a stake in ELEO, had been brought from Britain to lead the effort. With most of ELEO's machinery being American made, courtesy of its Ford ancestry, the Greeks just like the Australians who faced the exact same problem a hemisphere apart, had based the lower hull and automotive parts of their tank on the M3 tank mating it with the upper hull derived from the Centaur and the locally made
M1931 47mm AT gun as Leon Mk.1. Then when the M1931 had been replaced with the 6 pounder in production, Leon Mk.2 with the larger gun had followed. [3] With even the 6 pounder becoming inadequate, the Greeks had taken a page from the German book and turned the Bofors 75mm anti-aircraft gun they were license producing into a tank weapon for the Leon Mk.3. Ironically enough with a muzzle velocity of 850 m/sec the convenient expedient was nearly as good as the 17 pounder...
Tarawa, November 20th, 1943
A quartet of 40 year old Japanese 8-inch coastal guns opened fire on the invasion fleet only to be destroyed by return fire from USS Colorado and USS Maryland. The largest fleet seen in the Pacific war were invading the Gilbert islands with the US 2nd Marine Division landing in Tarawa and the 27th Infantry Division in Makin. Tarawa would be taken by the 23rd and Makin the next day. But the Japanese garrison of Tarawa would fight virtually down to the last man, only 17 soldiers would be taken prisoner out of more than 3,600 Japanese on the island and they would inflict over 3,100 casualties on the marines. The 1,200 Korean laborers on the island would be also decimated with only a tenth managing to surrender to the invading Americans. The battle for Makin would prove less costly with the army losing slightly over 200 men to capture it. American casualties would further increase when a Japanese submarine managed to slip through the American destroyer screen and sink the light carrier USS Monterey.
Newcastle upon Tyne, November 22nd, 1943
HMS Lion was finally launched. The huge battleship, at an expected 49,000t full displacement, she was the largest British battleship ever built was in construction since February 1939 and based on the original timetable she should already be in service since March. But construction had been halted after the war had begun, resumed, halted again in May 1940 then resumed again in November 1941. And thus it would take till late 1944 to complete the ship. But at least she would be completed. Construction of her sister HMS Temeraine remained frozen since April 1940...
Cairo, November 22nd, 1943
The Cairo conference between president Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek begun, in anticipation of the coming conference in Tehran, in which the Chinese leader could not take part due to Stalin's refusal to meet with him. The Soviet Union was still neutral towards Japan and since she had to draw even more troops from the Far East to reinforce the Caucasus front all the more interested to avoid provoking the Japanese. Athens offered by the Greeks to host the conference instead had been rejected by both the British and the Americans. Churchill had visited Athens right before the conference for lengthy consultations with Dragoumis and Venizelos over the Balkans and Turkey but for prestige reasons wanted the conference to be held in territory under British control. Roosevelt wanted to avoid Athens in person, and with it Dragoumis and the exiled Yugoslav government before first meeting with Stalin. Instead Cordell Hull, the secretary of State had been sent over to Athens with promises of more Lend Lease, support of reasonable Greek demands, whatever that might mean, and the promise both Roosevelt and Churchill would be visiting Athens on their return from Tehran...
[1] Obviously no Valentine tank TTL and also no Ram tank for the Canadians.
[2] As in the Centaur, I would like to credit
@allanpcameron for what the Carden influenced British tank designs would look like, Challenger is closely similar to his take of the Victor tank in his
excellent TL.
[3] There will be no Ram tank but there will be Ram tank.
