Sir John Valentine Carden survives.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
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Yet they built Valentines by the thousand and sent them all over the world.
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It's how stuff was done in Europe in the 1940s a lot of the time. Remember, the Americans saw very little suffering in WW1, so they could spend the 1920s developing, while Europe was spending that time simply recovering. In addition, Europe had much more of a 'this is the way we've always done it' culture.
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marathag
Banned
True, but the US method let them send them by the Ten Thousands.
Now the UK didn't need the full three parallel assembly lines like with the Detroit Tank Arsenal, but modern methods and one line would have been very good.
That how Dagenham, Fords prewar plant was able to make so many Carriers
Modern ways of labor assist devices and tooling with an assembly line is a real bonus
Unless they would use it to make 10,000 Covenanters in place of OTLs 1700
True, but the US method let them send them by the Ten Thousands.
Now the UK didn't need the full three parallel assembly lines like with the Detroit Tank Arsenal, but modern methods and one line would have been very good.
That how Dagenham, Fords prewar plant was able to make so many Carriers
Modern ways of labor assist devices and tooling with an assembly line is a real bonus
Unless they would use it to make 10,000 Covenanters in place of OTLs 1700
Lord Nuffield used auto industry methods to churn out the oh so reliable Crusader.
Nuffield Mechanizations and Aero - Wikipedia
The Vickers Medium Mark II makes a fine show at the beginning. The narrator's received accent frequently slips to regional and WW2 lighting and H&S were minimal. There is nothing that cannot be made by a little bloke in a flat cap; managed by chaps in brimmed hats of course. Oh, and some women too I suppose......
All done with much of the labour force in services, under bombing, on rationed food and heating with 10 or 12 hour days often 7 days a week with adult men and women as directed called up labour and the products needed 'now' over 7 years with rationing not ending for 15 years. Some of these workers were also serving outside work as Home Guard soldiers, Air Raid Wardens, Fire Watchers etc. Even then conscripts for the services had to be directed to work in the mines instead to keep supplies going instead of into the armed services.
This thread moves faster than most of the tanks in it (and a lot faster than 1940s paperwork ). Racing to catch up...
Prediction: If it can be deployed in numbers in 1940-1, the Valiant will be a holy terror to Axis tank crews. Until they get the PzIIIJ/PzIVF2, they'll be reduced to trying to flank it or going for mobility kills with track shots. OTOH, it still has most of the weaknesses of the OTL infantry tanks - it's not fast, it's not 88-proof, its anti-personnel armament is a single MG. Without better doctrine, I can still see a lot of them being lost in frontal attacks on AT positions. And the cavalry will still prefer their Christie cruisers.
(That is why "small country" tanks like the Sentinel, Ram and Turan ended up as footnotes - without the experience and installed production base, once you're in position to produce the tank in quantity, either it's obsolete or the war has moved on so you no longer need it).
). Racing to catch up...That surprised me. I was expecting a "big Valentine", around 20 tons with an enlarged hull, less side armour and a big engine for 25mph speed, but Sir John has gone for a "big Matilda" with the full 70mm armour all round. Compared to the Vulcan Matilda it's the same armour and armament but 5-10mph faster and less cramped inside (and has the turret ring to take a 6-pdr without contortions, but that comes later). Its still an infantry tank, though. 25 tons at start means that the later models will be up closer to 30 so speed will be unexciting (but still better than the ~15mph max of OTL infantry tanks), which means there will still be space (in people's heads, anyway) for the 30mph+ cruisers.
Prediction: If it can be deployed in numbers in 1940-1, the Valiant will be a holy terror to Axis tank crews. Until they get the PzIIIJ/PzIVF2, they'll be reduced to trying to flank it or going for mobility kills with track shots. OTOH, it still has most of the weaknesses of the OTL infantry tanks - it's not fast, it's not 88-proof, its anti-personnel armament is a single MG. Without better doctrine, I can still see a lot of them being lost in frontal attacks on AT positions. And the cavalry will still prefer their Christie cruisers.
That's interesting, because everything I've seen about the Matilda suggests that the production bottleneck was finishing the castings. Possibly the British (who were paying UK wages and dealing with severe manpower shortages) couldn't afford to throw a mass of unskilled workers at the problem. The American solution involved huge amounts of tooling, which US industry was set up to provide. British tank/aircraft/engine production was more like the German model with its reliance on skilled workers , and had the same issues scaling up to truly large volumes.
And reality (or its TTL equivalent) reasserts itself. It's not designing the tank, it's not even building the prototype, it's getting the thing produced and deployed in numbers fast enough to matter. If Sir John is to make a difference, the British need to start thinking in terms of tanks per day rather than days per tank, and they need to do it before the balloon goes up. Otherwise they'll end up with a production chain that finally comes fully on line about 1942, to deliver 1941 tanks en masse for deployment in 1943 - at which point some spoilsport at the War Office points out that it would be quicker and cheaper just to use Lend-Lease Shermans.
(That is why "small country" tanks like the Sentinel, Ram and Turan ended up as footnotes - without the experience and installed production base, once you're in position to produce the tank in quantity, either it's obsolete or the war has moved on so you no longer need it).
1 July 1938. 10:00hrs. Newcastle-upon-Tyne. England.
allanpcameron
Donor
1 July 1938. 10:00hrs. Newcastle-upon-Tyne. England.
The letter from the War Office was disappointing. While the design, price and delivery schedule for the ‘Valiant’ alternative to the A12 specification all met with approval, the fact that the tank used an ‘experimental’ suspension system and new type of engine, they couldn’t order the tank ‘off the drawing board’ as they had done with the Vulcan Foundry A12.
Colonel Martel had visited Vickers and looked over the wooden mock-up of the Valiant, and at the drawings with Sir John Carden. He just didn’t believe that with the thickness of armour that the estimated 25 tons was achievable. The Horstmann suspension and the Ricardo diesel engine were likely to be a good combination, and Martel liked the fact that the turret was roomy enough to take a bigger gun. All in all, at his recommendation, the War Office would need to see a prototype put though its paces at Farnborough before they would be prepared to order it.
What the War Office did express a desire for, was for Vickers to produce the A12 designed by Vulcan Foundry. They were particularly keen on this especially if Vickers could increase the pace of deliveries to the army. At the current rate, it would be late in 1939 before the Army started receiving A12 tanks in any numbers. If Royal Tank Corps units to be equipped with the A12 was going to be properly trained on it, it would be well into 1940 before it would be battle ready. The A11, which Carden had given the codename ‘Matilda’ to, would start arriving in army units in the February of 1939, but it would be well on in 1939 before they were fully equipped and trained. The army Tank Brigades really needed more infantry tanks sooner rather than later. Vickers had the experience and workforce to bring production the A12 forward, and so the War Office were keen to get Vickers on board.
Sir Noel Birch, having once been the Master of Ordnance, before he joined civilian life as a director of Vickers was aware of what the War Officer were up to. The foreign orders were all very well for Vickers-Armstrong, but Vulcan Foundry’s A12 and Nuffield’s A13 were now being preferred over Vickers’ A9, A10, A11 and now the A12 Valiant. Even the A17, the new light Mark VII, didn’t look like it was going to win too many orders.
When the order to build 100 A9s had been given, it was split evenly between Vickers and Harland and Wolff. Likewise, when the War Office ordered 100 A10s, they had decided that only 10 A10s were to be built by Vickers, while the railway carriage constructors Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company and Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company got orders for 45 each. The War Office’s reason was to bring three more companies into the ‘augment the war potential’ scheme.
This scheme had got off to a start with orders for the Vickers Mark VI light tank going to Vulcan Foundry, North British Locomotive Company; and two agricultural vehicle engineers Ruston & Hornsby and John Fowler & Co. It was Vickers that had to send off teams to show them how to do it. All these companies, and now joined by London, Midland and Scottish, were in line to get orders for the A12. It wasn’t surprising that delivery of the complicated tank was going to be slow since all the orders had gone to companies had little or no experience of building a tank.
Meanwhile Vickers was meant to live off War Office orders for building just 120 A11s, 50 A9s and ten A10s. If the company gave into the War Office and took on the Vulcan A12, then there was almost point to having their own design team. It all felt as if with the help Vickers had given all these other companies that the tail would be wagging the dog.
In his response to the War Office, Sir Noel Birch reaffirmed his belief that the Valiant had a much greater potential than Vulcan’s A12. Vickers would indeed create a prototype of the Valiant, which would be ready for testing later in the year. He noted that bringing all these other companies into tank production, while completely understandable in light of the program to augment the potential for war production, raised a number of questions.
Birch noted the government’s expenditure on building new ‘shadow factories’ for aircraft production. He used the experience of Vickers-Armstrong, where the company had invested £175000 in a new tank shop and machine tools at Elswick for building the A11. While the government had reimbursed the company with 60% of that investment, with so many new firms having to create facilities to build tanks, he wondered if it wouldn’t be wise for the government to create one or more factories solely devoted to building tanks. Just as the expansion of the RAF needed an expansion of the means of production, so it would be with the army. This was particularly crucial as the heavy engineering plant and trained workers needed to build tanks would likely take longer to be ready than aircraft factories.
A couple of new factories, with workers trained specifically for the building of tanks, with the necessary machine tools, would be a simpler solution that having some ten companies each having to create a tank shop and source the machine tools and components. He suggested that there might be one factory, under Vulcan Foundry’s parentage, to build their A12. Another, under Nuffield to build the A13. The board of directors of Vickers-Armstrong were aware that if they did receive a large order for the Valiant, in addition to their current order book, then they too would need to further expand their facilities.
Sir Noel Birch noted that it was becoming clear that in the future it would be preferable that tanks be built using welding rather than riveting. If that came to pass then the government could augment the war potential by increasing funding for training in this skill. He also noted that there were already bottlenecks in the availability of armour plate, and so the expansion of steel plants and foundries was also a priority. It was also clear to him that the numbers of firms capable of producing guns for the tanks was going to be another bottleneck if the government wasn’t careful.
Should Britain find itself once more at war, Birch concluded, Vickers-Armstrong's work on shipbuilding, aircraft production and weapons manufacture would be crucial to the national effort. If the War Office really wanted the army to have enough of good tanks that were needed to counter Herr Hitlers growing armoured divisions, then Vickers, the only company with the capability and designs to provide them, really needed decisions to be made soon to allow the tanks to be produced in a timely manner.
The letter from the War Office was disappointing. While the design, price and delivery schedule for the ‘Valiant’ alternative to the A12 specification all met with approval, the fact that the tank used an ‘experimental’ suspension system and new type of engine, they couldn’t order the tank ‘off the drawing board’ as they had done with the Vulcan Foundry A12.
Colonel Martel had visited Vickers and looked over the wooden mock-up of the Valiant, and at the drawings with Sir John Carden. He just didn’t believe that with the thickness of armour that the estimated 25 tons was achievable. The Horstmann suspension and the Ricardo diesel engine were likely to be a good combination, and Martel liked the fact that the turret was roomy enough to take a bigger gun. All in all, at his recommendation, the War Office would need to see a prototype put though its paces at Farnborough before they would be prepared to order it.
What the War Office did express a desire for, was for Vickers to produce the A12 designed by Vulcan Foundry. They were particularly keen on this especially if Vickers could increase the pace of deliveries to the army. At the current rate, it would be late in 1939 before the Army started receiving A12 tanks in any numbers. If Royal Tank Corps units to be equipped with the A12 was going to be properly trained on it, it would be well into 1940 before it would be battle ready. The A11, which Carden had given the codename ‘Matilda’ to, would start arriving in army units in the February of 1939, but it would be well on in 1939 before they were fully equipped and trained. The army Tank Brigades really needed more infantry tanks sooner rather than later. Vickers had the experience and workforce to bring production the A12 forward, and so the War Office were keen to get Vickers on board.
Sir Noel Birch, having once been the Master of Ordnance, before he joined civilian life as a director of Vickers was aware of what the War Officer were up to. The foreign orders were all very well for Vickers-Armstrong, but Vulcan Foundry’s A12 and Nuffield’s A13 were now being preferred over Vickers’ A9, A10, A11 and now the A12 Valiant. Even the A17, the new light Mark VII, didn’t look like it was going to win too many orders.
When the order to build 100 A9s had been given, it was split evenly between Vickers and Harland and Wolff. Likewise, when the War Office ordered 100 A10s, they had decided that only 10 A10s were to be built by Vickers, while the railway carriage constructors Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company and Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company got orders for 45 each. The War Office’s reason was to bring three more companies into the ‘augment the war potential’ scheme.
This scheme had got off to a start with orders for the Vickers Mark VI light tank going to Vulcan Foundry, North British Locomotive Company; and two agricultural vehicle engineers Ruston & Hornsby and John Fowler & Co. It was Vickers that had to send off teams to show them how to do it. All these companies, and now joined by London, Midland and Scottish, were in line to get orders for the A12. It wasn’t surprising that delivery of the complicated tank was going to be slow since all the orders had gone to companies had little or no experience of building a tank.
Meanwhile Vickers was meant to live off War Office orders for building just 120 A11s, 50 A9s and ten A10s. If the company gave into the War Office and took on the Vulcan A12, then there was almost point to having their own design team. It all felt as if with the help Vickers had given all these other companies that the tail would be wagging the dog.
In his response to the War Office, Sir Noel Birch reaffirmed his belief that the Valiant had a much greater potential than Vulcan’s A12. Vickers would indeed create a prototype of the Valiant, which would be ready for testing later in the year. He noted that bringing all these other companies into tank production, while completely understandable in light of the program to augment the potential for war production, raised a number of questions.
Birch noted the government’s expenditure on building new ‘shadow factories’ for aircraft production. He used the experience of Vickers-Armstrong, where the company had invested £175000 in a new tank shop and machine tools at Elswick for building the A11. While the government had reimbursed the company with 60% of that investment, with so many new firms having to create facilities to build tanks, he wondered if it wouldn’t be wise for the government to create one or more factories solely devoted to building tanks. Just as the expansion of the RAF needed an expansion of the means of production, so it would be with the army. This was particularly crucial as the heavy engineering plant and trained workers needed to build tanks would likely take longer to be ready than aircraft factories.
A couple of new factories, with workers trained specifically for the building of tanks, with the necessary machine tools, would be a simpler solution that having some ten companies each having to create a tank shop and source the machine tools and components. He suggested that there might be one factory, under Vulcan Foundry’s parentage, to build their A12. Another, under Nuffield to build the A13. The board of directors of Vickers-Armstrong were aware that if they did receive a large order for the Valiant, in addition to their current order book, then they too would need to further expand their facilities.
Sir Noel Birch noted that it was becoming clear that in the future it would be preferable that tanks be built using welding rather than riveting. If that came to pass then the government could augment the war potential by increasing funding for training in this skill. He also noted that there were already bottlenecks in the availability of armour plate, and so the expansion of steel plants and foundries was also a priority. It was also clear to him that the numbers of firms capable of producing guns for the tanks was going to be another bottleneck if the government wasn’t careful.
Should Britain find itself once more at war, Birch concluded, Vickers-Armstrong's work on shipbuilding, aircraft production and weapons manufacture would be crucial to the national effort. If the War Office really wanted the army to have enough of good tanks that were needed to counter Herr Hitlers growing armoured divisions, then Vickers, the only company with the capability and designs to provide them, really needed decisions to be made soon to allow the tanks to be produced in a timely manner.
Actually, I'm not so sure it can be up-armoured, The suspension system was made for an 18-ton tank, and the Valiant is over a third heavier, so they must be running pretty close to the limits of what the suspension would be able to take. A new gun is possible, though anything beyond a 6-pounder/75mm is a stretch. More likely I think a new tank would be in the offing, with better suspension, a more powerful engine, and a larger turret ring.
Maybe, but some components might be able to be kept. Remember, the M4 suspension was in a large part, based on the suspension of the M2 Medium.
Maybe they could produce some of the components though? Drive and suspension components would need replacing every so often, and might be within those countries' ability to produce.
You're asking a bit much from a tank designed prewar, and at least on paper the Valiant should have all the longevity of the Panzer IV.
Yes again - the Valentine is not the primary tank or at least it was not meant to be - that was the Matilda II and later Churchill as well as the Crusader and they would have been built at the larger better equipped factory's for the most part
The Valentine and Covenanter were intended to be built by those parts of the British industry that had not been used for the above AFVs - secondary tanks if you will able to be built by existing small industry, boiler makers and locomotive company's without a massive investment and at the same time allowing those parts of the industry to learn AFV production.
This is why I suggested that it be built in Australia (like Canada did) rather than them over reaching with the Sentinel as the design leverages existing small industry with a proven design.
The Covenanter was a failure but the Valentine was a success, the design 'punching well above its weight' and remained in production for far longer than it might otherwise have done as the Russians really liked it and asked for it to be kept in production beyond the point where the British Commonwealth forces were using it (with a few exceptions).
True, but the US method let them send them by the Ten Thousands.
Now the UK didn't need the full three parallel assembly lines like with the Detroit Tank Arsenal, but modern methods and one line would have been very good.
That how Dagenham, Fords prewar plant was able to make so many Carriers
Modern ways of labor assist devices and tooling with an assembly line is a real bonus
Unless they would use it to make 10,000 Covenanters in place of OTLs 1700
Eventually!
By end of 1942 the USA was producing 10,000s not before
You keep mentioning the Covenanter - but during the same period the British also produced nearly 6,000 Crusaders and Cavaliers - the Covenanter remained 'in production' because it used a common turret and gun and was lower down the priority chain so many hulls had to wait for the turrets for which the Crusaders rightly had priority.
They would never had made 10,000 of them any more than the USA would have continued to have made the CTLS
marathag
Banned
The Vickers Bellcrank system on the Japanese 1939 Type 97 Chi-Ha was 16 tons,
the improved 1943 Type 3 Chi-Nu was 21 tons, and a new clean sheet all welded Type 4 Chi-To of 1944 was 30 tons with upsized bellcrank suspension
marathag
Banned
But only Marmon-Herrington
made those as a private venture, and only 240 of them in 1942 before moving on to better things
Tanks and trucks on assembly line, here the M22 Locust
Table 2: | |||||
Model | Description | Customer | Year built | Number built | Comments |
| Air Field Crash Truck, 6-wheel Drive | Royal Canadian Air Force | 1940 | | |
| All-wheel drive Ford passenger car | Unknown South American Army | 1940 | | |
HH5-4 | Earth Borer Truck | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | 1940 | | |
| All-wheel drive Air compressor truck | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | 1940 | | |
| All-wheel drive Ambulance | USMC | 1940 | | |
DSD800-6 | Mobile machine shop | Persian Army | 1940 | | |
DSD800-6 | Gun Tractor and Ammunition Carrier | Persian Army | 1940 | | |
DSD400-6 | Ammunition and Personnel Carrier | Persian Army | 1940 | At Least 40 | On the page in "10 Years before Pearl Harbor" showing the year 1940, there are 40 DSD400-6 trucks awaiting shipment. This may or may not be the entire order. |
MOT | Machine gun truck, 4x2 | The Netherlands | 1940 | | |
90-BWS-4 | Observation Balloon Winch Truck | U.S. Army Air Corps | 1940-1941 | | This is interesting. Observation balloons should have been obsolete by this time. Imagine one on the western front in 1940 with Me-109 roaming the sky. The life expectancy of the observer would be counted in minutes. |
| 1/4-ton amphibious jeep prototype | U.S. Army Quartermaster | 1941-1942 | 1 | Lost in competition to Ford Motor Company. See more information below. |
BB-2 | 4x4 COE Barrage Balloon Winch Truck | U.S. Army Air Corps | 1941 | | |
LLDMG5-4 | 4x4 Machine Gun Truck | NPC | 1941 | | |
TBS-45 | Track-laying Tractor | The Netherlands | 1941 | | |
JJ6-COE-4 | 4x4 COE Crash Trucks | U.S. Army Air Corps ? | 1941 | 56? | These trucks had American-LaFrance fire apparatus. Records show that American-LaFrance built 56 pumpers in 1941 for the U.S. Army Air Corps. There is no chassis manufacturer identified. They may well have been the Marmon-Herrington JJ6-COE-4 |
MM5-6 | 6x6 Crash Trucks | Java | 1941 | 5? | Five trucks are shown in the photo. This may be the entire production. |
TBS-5 | Prototype track-laying Tractor | | 1941 | 1 | |
TBS-30 | Two-man Light Track-laying Tractor | The Netherlands | 1941 | | These are similar to British Universal Carrier, although there appears to be no armament. They were intended as small prime movers. |
TBS-45 | Track-laying Tractor | The Netherlands East Indies | 1941 | | Same as above. |
| 4x4 long-wheel base fire truck | Kingsbury Ordnance Plant, LaPorte, IN | 1941 | 1 | |
BB-1 | Balloon Winch | U.S. Army Air Corps, then U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | 1941 | | This is the winch and drive motor only. No truck is shown or specified in the document. |
DSD600-6 | 6x6 Wrecker | Russia | 1942 | "A large fleet." | This appears to be the Marmon-Herrington Wrecker that later became the Ward-LaFrance M1 10-ton Wrecker. |
CTL-3M | 2 man tank | USMC | 1942 | | |
CTMS-1TB1 | 3-man Tank with 360 degree rotating turret | The Netherlands | 1942 | "A large group." | |
| 6x6 Searchlight and Sound Locating Truck | The Netherlands | 1942 | "A large number." | |
CTLS-4TAC | Tank with single offset turret | China | 1942 | | Order taken over by U.S. Army Ordnance |
CTL-6 | 2 man tank with no turret | USMC | 1942 | | |
CTM-3TB3 | 3-man tank with diesel engine and rubber block tracks | USMC | 1942 | | |
MTLS-1G14 | 4-man tank with turret | | 1942 | | |
| 4x4 truck | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | 1942 | | Used on the Alcan Highway and in the Canal Zone |
M22 | M22 Locust Airborne Tank | U.S. Army Ordnance | 1943-1944 | 830 | |
M426 | 5-ton 4x2 tractor heavy duty SWB 120 inch WB. (International-Harvester H-542-11) | U.S. Army Ordnance | 1944-1945 | 3,200 | These used Timken axles. IH used its own axles. |
M426 | Conversion of M425 to M426 specifications | U.S. Army Ordnance | 1945 | 1,200 | When complete, the trucks were designated as H-425-11-C for converted. H-425-11 was the IH designation for the M426. The M426 could pull heavier loads than the M425. |
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allanpcameron
Donor
Actually what I wrote was the suspension had been used in 1936 on the A6E3, which was 18 tons and was fine:
. The point of using this Horstmann suspension rather than the slow motion of the A9 and A10 is because it will be able to deal with the heavier tank, and still have room for upgrading. At this point in 1938 even thinking about putting a 57mm/75mm gun on a future tank is far more forward thinking that OTL.
That'll be the Valiant II.
Bingo! That's the point of the TL. Having a Valiant and Valiant II (57/75mm gun) in 1940-1944 that is still a capable tank is a win for the British (and possibly the Soviets). Unfortunately I can't see Carden's survival hurrying the Cromwell or Comet, never mind the Centurion, nor avoid the Covenanter unfortunately, none of these were Vickers tanks. OTOH, having a half-decent infantry tank might butterfly away the Churchill. By D-Day could there be Hobart's funnies using the Valiant as a basis as well as some armoured regiments coming ashore with something like a Valiant III (77mm HV)? Who knows?
do you have a good reference picture of the current tank or a combination to look at
marathag
Banned
If War Office isn't buying, that still gives Vickers the chance for export sales, as the Vickers Valentyne Dreadnought, a new type of tank that makes all others obsolete, and do some PR work to drum up business, by car crushing, knocking down walls, buildings and trees, etc. etc.
Vickers Armstrong Ltd ELswick NEwcastle upoN TYNe
Vickers Armstrong Ltd ELswick NEwcastle upoN TYNe
Perhaps, with a Cromwell type turret.
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