Sir John Valentine Carden survives.

[steamboy]

Great stuff! Hopefully there won't be any of that silly CS tank requirement! The CS tanks always struck me as odd!

"We've got infantry support tanks! Lets build an infantry support tank support tank!"
[RAC] "Can't we just have HE and Smoke rounds for our guns?"
[RA] REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

There's nothing silly about the CS tanks and Britain wasn't the only country to use them. That's what the Panzer IV was designed to do.

 

[steamboy]

There's nothing silly about the CS tanks and Britain wasn't the only country to use them. That's what the Panzer IV was designed to do.

True but the Ordinace QF 3-inch gun was almost purely a smoke lobber with smoke rounds being its main round and a smaller number of HE round. The short barreled 75 on the Panzer IV was the other way round, it was a HE lobber but also had smoke shells.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

That's a fault in how the CS tanks were used not in the design.

 

[allanpcameron]

So this time line's A9 is actually an A10 with thinner armour?

I suppose it would be true to say that OTL the A10 was the A9 with thicker armour. But basically yes.

Nice work!

Can we perhaps have some drawings of the TTL A9 and other tanks?

Basically the A9 TTL will look pretty much like the A10 OTL, the rear will be slightly longer (19 feet rather than 18'4"). The Vickers .303 at this point, BESA hasn't happened yet.

In this TL the A11 is going to be a bit better than OTL. It's going to go a bit faster and thanks to a 40mm gun it's going to have some use against dug in machine guns and light tanks. This means that the A11 will be obsolescent instead of obsolete in 1940. Does this mean that production will last longer and more will be produced compared to OTL? The two good things about the A11 was it's heavy (for the time) armour and it's being cheap as chips. Could we see some of these tanks sent out to other secondary theatres and garrisons when better tanks become available? If so there could be some significant butterflies and the A11 could have a much more interesting and illustrious history ITTL!

The question about an improved A11 is probably only going to be answered in whether or not all the tanks are left behind when the troops are pulled off the beaches of Dunkirk. The decision OTL was whether Vickers could make the A12 (Matilda II) or put their own Infantry Mark III into production (Valentine). Vickers argued they could make more Valentines than A12s and so that went ahead. It would be unlikely to restart a line for the A11, which had finished production in September 1939.

 

[steamboy]

That's a fault in how the CS tanks were used not in the design.

Aye it was mostly a doctrinal decision. This settings tanks though have a 47mm gun as their main armament instead of the 2lber right? If the RAC can pry HE rounds out of the hissing, snarling claws of the RA then that basically will alleviate the need for a CS tank who's pretty much sole job was to lob smoke shells. Instead you could have a CS tank that operates like the Panzer IV was designed at the start, to engage bunkers and gun positions, letting the Panzer III go off and do its thing.

 

[MarcH]

Aye it was mostly a doctrinal decision. This settings tanks though have a 47mm gun as their main armament instead of the 2lber right? If the RAC can pry HE rounds out of the hissing, snarling claws of the RA then that basically will alleviate the need for a CS tank who's pretty much sole job was to lob smoke shells. Instead you could have a CS tank that operates like the Panzer IV was designed at the start, to engage bunkers and gun positions, letting the Panzer III go off and do its thing.

I'm pretty sure we're still on the 2 pdr. The main discussion has been around 57mm and 76.2mm guns as upgrades.

 

[MarcH]

I suppose it would be true to say that OTL the A10 was the A9 with thicker armour. But basically yes.


View attachment 586883

Basically the A9 TTL will look pretty much like the A10 OTL, the rear will be slightly longer (19 feet rather than 18'4"). The Vickers .303 at this point, BESA hasn't happened yet.


The question about an improved A11 is probably only going to be answered in whether or not all the tanks are left behind when the troops are pulled off the beaches of Dunkirk. The decision OTL was whether Vickers could make the A12 (Matilda II) or put their own Infantry Mark III into production (Valentine). Vickers argued they could make more Valentines than A12s and so that went ahead. It would be unlikely to restart a line for the A11, which had finished production in September 1939.

That's going to be a pretty good tank for it's day, if built in sufficient numbers could be quite effective.

The thing is if the A11 is deemed sufficient enough it may stay in production a bit longer. A lot will come down to Carden's new tank. If he can get a true universal tank designed and produced then everything else may stop sooner than OTL. That also has knock on effects on follow up tank specifications as well as tank guns.

 

[yulzari]

Ahhh! Please no. The Royal Artillery did not ever demand that the Royal Armoured Corps should not use HE, nor that HE was the Royal Artillery prerogative.

What the Royal Artillery was very sensibly concerned about was that, if artillery pieces were mounted on tracks, they still needed the skills of real Gunners to use them properly.

What the tinned soldiers threw out of their tank turrets was of no interest and the Royal Armoured Corps could, and did, use as much HE as they wanted. In many ways the 25 Pounder was the British counterpart to the PzIV in actual initial use. The "Close Support' of the CS tanks was close support to their 2 Pounder brethren, not the common soldiery, and smoke was better for that task than HE. When used for infantry close support, as with the Australians and New Zealanders in the Pacific, HE was extensively used and suited the extremely short ranges involved. Different courses, different horses.

 

[Mark1878]

Ahhh! Please no. The Royal Artillery did not ever demand that the Royal Armoured Corps should not use HE, nor that HE was the Royal Artillery prerogative.

What the Royal Artillery was very sensibly concerned about was that, if artillery pieces were mounted on tracks, they still needed the skills of real Gunners to use them properly.

What the tinned soldiers threw out of their tank turrets was of no interest and the Royal Armoured Corps could, and did, use as much HE as they wanted. In many ways the 25 Pounder was the British counterpart to the PzIV in actual initial use. The "Close Support' of the CS tanks was close support to their 2 Pounder brethren, not the common soldiery, and smoke was better for that task than HE. When used for infantry close support, as with the Australians and New Zealanders in the Pacific, HE was extensively used and suited the extremely short ranges involved. Different courses, different horses.

In that case what stopped the Birch gun from further development. Wikipedia says "political pressure was applied to prevent any plans to complete the third version of this weapon. "

 

[MarcH]

In that case what stopped the Birch gun from further development. Wikipedia says "political pressure was applied to prevent any plans to complete the third version of this weapon. "

The British Army couldn't get much new equipment between the wars. Their was a real sens that the Great War had been the "war to end all wars". This led to the10 year rule('s) so any new fancy piece of kit was going to be hard to get funding for. It was only in the mid to late 30's, over a decade after the Birch gun had first appeared and 5-7 after it was disposed of that the Army began to re-equip. Things like actual Tanks we're needed far more and whilst the EMF had shown a lot of what was possible it's lessons where too old by the late 30's.

Basically the country was skint, the politicians wouldn't fund much of anything and hard choices had to be made.

 

[MarcH]

Thought on CS tanks and the weapon they carry.

Carden is looking at a 6 pounder tank gun right now correct? This is going to be made by Vickers. Vickers has also been involved in either the design and or building of both the 3.7 inch AA gun and the 25 pounder if memory serves. Now those three guns OTL formed the basis of the 95mm howitzer. I don't see it being much of a leap for either Carden or some employee of Vickers to suggest combing parts from those three guns to get the 95mm Howitzer early.
Not only will this give the Carden's new toy an excellent CS weapon, it will also potentially point the British down the path of putting a 95mm HV gun in a tank. That is quite a while off yet though. Finally it gets one of my favourite tank weapons of WW2 in service quicker.

 

[Merrick]

I suppose it would be true to say that OTL the A10 was the A9 with thicker armour. But basically yes.

Basically the A9 TTL will look pretty much like the A10 OTL, the rear will be slightly longer (19 feet rather than 18'4"). The Vickers .303 at this point, BESA hasn't happened yet.

Thanks for the picture! That's a (mild) improvement on the OTL A9 - though with the engine limitation there's not much they can do. With luck it will end up mostly as a training tank and they've got the basic layout basically right.
I get that rebalancing the bogie positions sorted out the ride problems, but what did they do to fix the track-throwing issue? IIRC that was mostly too muck slack in the suspension compounded by poor track quality. 1000 miles without a breakdown is very good going for the 1930s.

 

[Llewwyy]

Thought on CS tanks and the weapon they carry.

Carden is looking at a 6 pounder tank gun right now correct? This is going to be made by Vickers. Vickers has also been involved in either the design and or building of both the 3.7 inch AA gun and the 25 pounder if memory serves. Now those three guns OTL formed the basis of the 95mm howitzer. I don't see it being much of a leap for either Carden or some employee of Vickers to suggest combing parts from those three guns to get the 95mm Howitzer early.
Not only will this give the Carden's new toy an excellent CS weapon, it will also potentially point the British down the path of putting a 95mm HV gun in a tank. That is quite a while off yet though. Finally it gets one of my favourite tank weapons of WW2 in service quicker.

I believe that Vickers also made a 75mm AA gun that they sold to Romania. That could be the basis for future tank gun.

 

[marathag]

1000 miles without a breakdown is very good going for the 1930s.

not bad at all, Armor in the Sandbox was getting a little better than that at times, despite being rated for much higher, but grit and high temps aren't easy on tracks

But the 1930s, the best tracks on the planet had just been developed at the Rock Island Arsenal, where track life went
from 500 miles to 1500mile, going from manganese alloy, as had been used with crawlers and bulldozers from WWI onwards, to rubber block.
British tracks thru 1942 were getting as few as a couple hundred miles before being considered worn.

That could have been improved at any time, it wasn't rocket science, just more manganese.
British had been using similar alloys with railroads gear since the 1890s.
But not tank tracks.

 

[yulzari]

Thought on CS tanks and the weapon they carry.

Carden is looking at a 6 pounder tank gun right now correct? This is going to be made by Vickers. Vickers has also been involved in either the design and or building of both the 3.7 inch AA gun and the 25 pounder if memory serves. Now those three guns OTL formed the basis of the 95mm howitzer. I don't see it being much of a leap for either Carden or some employee of Vickers to suggest combing parts from those three guns to get the 95mm Howitzer early.
Not only will this give the Carden's new toy an excellent CS weapon, it will also potentially point the British down the path of putting a 95mm HV gun in a tank. That is quite a while off yet though. Finally it gets one of my favourite tank weapons of WW2 in service quicker.

When you look at the charge and the weight of shot these are all similar and ear no relationship to the charges necessary for a HV 95mm gun. Even a HV 75mm needed careful thought to replace the existing 57/75/95mm existing set on the same breech. However some bright spark might point out that the 6 Pounder can be a base for the other two from the beginning.

 

[Mark1878]

The British Army couldn't get much new equipment between the wars. Their was a real sens that the Great War had been the "war to end all wars". This led to the10 year rule('s) so any new fancy piece of kit was going to be hard to get funding for. It was only in the mid to late 30's, over a decade after the Birch gun had first appeared and 5-7 after it was disposed of that the Army began to re-equip. Things like actual Tanks we're needed far more and whilst the EMF had shown a lot of what was possible it's lessons where too old by the late 30's.

Basically the country was skint, the politicians wouldn't fund much of anything and hard choices had to be made.

So the politics was just normal Treasury not iinfighting between branches of the Army?

 

[Bougnas]

I should make a weight analysis on the A9 changes by the way because the suspension was changed, the MG turrets were removed and the front was redesigned but I'm curious about how much weight is left for armor. .75" isn't much thicker than 15mm.

The usefulness of that particular upgrade is fairly minimal by the way, it will just improve protection against 20mm AP.

 

[MattII]

I should make a weight analysis on the A9 changes by the way because the suspension was changed, the MG turrets were removed and the front was redesigned but I'm curious about how much weight is left for armor. .75" isn't much thicker than 15mm.

Don't forget, you're also eliminating the sixth crewman, so that another 70+ kg gone.

 

[steamboy]

I'd assume that the British would start with a 75 mm gun equipped CS tank to start with before moving onto larger weapons. Other tanks like the Char 1B has a 75mm HE lobber in the hull or the Germans have the Panzer IV with its short 75 for the same kind of role. I doubt the UK would jump to the 95 right away as its probably too much gun for the tank. But putting a 75mm gun that can fire HE and is loaded primarily with HE, that can move with friendly tanks and support them and infantry formations would be a good thing and would basically give the UK its Panzer III/IV combo. Although i'd assume that future developments would lead to a larger vehicle, if the 57mm can be introduced it will be good but I think we're running out of time as its 1937 and the new tank's probably going to be approved within the year or by 38. Not enough time to develop a newer turret and the like for the 6lber gun.