Waltzing Valentine - Australian Valentine Tanks in the South West Pacific

[Cryhavoc101]

I have been watching a couple of very good you tube video lectures by hypohystericalhistory

Specifically his videos on the Milne bay, Kokoda Track and Buna / Gona battles are very well made and I recommend them.

Anyway the Buna / Gona battles were quite horrific (by the already horrific WW2 standards) and due to the terrain in several cases it was only the use of a couple of troops of Stuart light tanks (that were relatively late to the battle) that broke the deadlock and allowed the US National Guardsmen, Australian Commandos, North African Veterans and Militia units to advance against the very cunningly built and planned interlocking Japanese log bunker complex.

The Japanese had very little in the way of anti tank weapons except at one point in the battle where a single 25mm AA cannon wrecked 4 of the 10 tanks available in short order

So it got me thinking - how do we get the allied force better armoured tanks and more of them in time for those battles instead of the M3 light tanks

Now historically Australia started on the Sentinel tank project in order to ensure that they had a heavy armoured cruiser tank without having to rely on the UK production and while what they achieved from no previous legacy of tank production to a small production run of 65 tanks was very impressive, it for various reasons did not result in any Australian built tanks ever being used in combat.

So instead of trying to design and build their own tank designs they instead do what the Canadians did and stand up production of the Valentine tank modifying it to use local engines (Twin Cadillac V8?) and weapons - 3.7 inch Howitzer (for CS Tanks) and 2 pounder AT Guns.

The 1938 Vickers-Armstrong design was intended to use existing off the shelf parts and to be able to be built by 'railway' and 'Boiler maker' type companies

If the decision to build the things is taken at about the same time as the Canadians did then is it feasible, without the time needed to be taken to design it the production could be started earlier, that the first tanks would be produced during late 1941 (Canada produced 14 in Sept 41) with serial production in early 1942 in time to provide Australian (and other Allied) units with a plentiful and secure supply of tanks during the campaigns of 1942?

I doubt we could get these tanks to units in Malaya or the barrier locations but maybe we could see units equipped with them for the Papua campaign and maybe Burma in early 42 making life marginally easier for the troops in those battles?

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

Sounds an interesting speculation. The Valentine could be regarded as a heavy cruiser tank, and would be an MBT as far as the Pacific War is concerned. I like the idea of the 3.7" howitzer for CS and 2pr for anti armour use. Not that many of the latter would be required.

When would Australia need to make the decision to build this rather than their own design? (Which might in theory be a better tank.) Would the Valentine be seen as suitable in 1939?

Edited for typo caused by predictive texts.

 

[Jellico]

Where are you going to get your gearbox? That was the killer on Sentinel.
Unlike Canada, Australia doesn't have an automotive industry pre-war. It has to buy the tools to build the tools to build the tanks. It can't ramp up as fast as the Canadians so the Valentine is a generation behind by the time it can be built. At which point Sherman's are starting to be a thing.

Honestly the Austalians are best ignoring tanks, maybe building an armored car, buying what they can and focusing on their air industry. 30 Beaufighters are worth more than 60 tanks.


edit
I am rambling a bit. I think you are coming at this backwards. Looking for a way to get Valentines fighting the Japanese when the Australians are looking for a tank to fight Germans. The Japanese will be stopped by the Royal Navy before Singapore don't ya know?
The success of Matilda IIs and Stuarts in theatre is because they were available and the Japanese were poorly prepared for fighting armor.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Where are you going to get your gearbox? That was the killer on Sentinel.
Unlike Canada, Australia doesn't have an automotive industry pre-war. It has to buy the tools to build the tools to build the tanks. It can't ramp up as fast as the Canadians so the Valentine is a generation behind by the time it can be built. At which point Sherman's are starting to be a thing.

Honestly the Austalians are best ignoring tanks, maybe building an armored car, buying what they can and focusing on their air industry. 30 Beaufighters are worth more than 60 tanks.


edit
I am rambling a bit. I think you are coming at this backwards. Looking for a way to get Valentines fighting the Japanese when the Australians are looking for a tank to fight Germans. The Japanese will be stopped by the Royal Navy before Singapore don't ya know?
The success of Matilda IIs and Stuarts in theatre is because they were available and the Japanese were poorly prepared for fighting armor.

I have no answer to the gearbox question - and I have no idea if this was something that could be overcome or not?

I note that the Sentinel was almost twice as heavy as a Valentine and ultimately they did manage to build or 'get' gear boxes for 65 Sentinels

As for why 'Valentine' - well why not - it didn't stop the Canadians from building it when it was expected to face the Germans - and granted Canadian production ended up mostly being sent to Russia as Lend Lease - but that was not known by the Canadians when they made the decision to start building it.

The ability to actually source US tanks is a total unknown in the 2nd half of 1940 and the Australians understood that the British were going to struggle to supply the British army let alone everyone else.

And while the Japanese did struggle verses tanks the Stuart (while a game changer when it arrived) proved to be vulnerable to 25mm autocannon fire as proved at Buna due to their light Armor and the 37mm gun proved to be weak verses the 'log bunkers'.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Sounds an interesting speculation. The Valentine could be regarded as a heavy cruiser tank, and would be an MBT as far as the Pacific War is concerned. I like the idea of the 3.7" howitzer for CS and 2pr for anti armour use. Not that many of the latter would be required.

When would Australia need to make the decision to build this rather than their own design? (Which might in theory be a better tank.) Would the Valentine be seen as suitable in 1939?

Edited for typo caused by predictive texts.

I would assume that the decision to build it would be taken around about the same time as the OTL decision to design and build the Sentinel.

Which I understand to be Nov 1940.

OTL in Dec 1940 they sent a team to the US to look at the M3 medium tank - instead lets have them send this team to Canada to see how the Canadians were progressing.

The Canadians had flip flopped between the Infantry Tank MK III (Valentine) and the then still under development Infantry Tank Mk.IV (Churchill), first ordering the Infantry Tank MK III (Valentine) into production only for the supporters of the Infantry Tank Mk.IV (Churchill) to manage to get it cancelled in April 1940.

It was the subsequent events in France that finally got things going with the Ministry of supply finally deciding to go with the Infantry Tank MK III (Valentine).

All this and the inexperience of the Canadian industry meant that the first serial production was not until the latter half of 1941.

I would expect the Aussies to experience the same sort of issues - more so I suspect given their smaller industrial base - but with them mirroring the Canadian efforts and learning from them as well as the British who were also building it in even greater numbers - I would expect serial production to be possible by the end of 1941.

 

[marathag]

I have no answer to the gearbox question - and I have no idea if this was something that could be overcome or not?

Transmissions and reduction gears for 200 HP is very much easier than 400.
It's the torque.
The 6-71 Detroit Diesel in the Canadian Valentine, that 200HP with around 600foot pounds of Torque
That's in the range forcommon Bulldozers, Road Construction equipment, that was dealing with torque inputs like that, but with lower revving engines. that showed less overall HP

so for starters, International Harvester opened up a new factory in Geelong before the War, with the Foundry operational in Spring 1939 that made tractor just after the war.
They probably could do something around 16 tons, which gets you up to something Valentine sized, and armored

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Transmissions and reduction gears for 200 HP is very much easier than 400.
It's the torque.
The 6-71 Detroit Diesel in the Canadian Valentine, that 200HP with around 600foot pounds of Torque
That's in the range forcommon Bulldozers, Road Construction equipment, that was dealing with torque inputs like that, but with lower revving engines. that showed less overall HP

so for starters, International Harvester opened up a new factory in Geelong before the War, with the Foundry operational in Spring 1939 that made tractor just after the war.
They probably could do something around 16 tons, which gets you up to something Valentine sized, and armored

Thanks

I envisage a paired Cadillac V8 (the Sentinel used 3) at 110 HP each as the transmission - should provide the 200 plus HP required

So it would appear then that the gearbox issue is not insurmountable, they have the engines, they had the weapons (2 pounder and 3.7" Moutain Howitzer)

The Machine gun appears to be still limited to the Vickers MMG (no BESA or Browning production) - but again not an insurmountable issue!

 

[ArtosStark]

For the Canadian Valentines a lot of the components came from the US. To quote from the Canadian Army Historical Section:
(https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/t...aryhistory/dhh/reports/ahq-reports/ahq038.pdf )

Colonel C. Mayhew, now Chief Engineer, Canadian Arsenals Ltd. who was with the Inspection Board, United Kingdom and Canada during the war, expressed his personal opinion that 40% of the material used in the production of the Valentine Tank and 80% of the material in the Ram obtained from the United States.

 

[Bougnas]

Australia simplified the M3 transmission to produce it entirely locally so this wasn't a problem IIRC. The Sentinel II was designed for 16 tons with a weaker engine and transmission available in Australia however so a modded Valentine shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Excellent

Thank you all for the responses so far - so it does appear that Australia had all the peices (Engine, Gear box etc) and a lot of the components could be made in country

So weapons

So my understanding is that 2 pounder guns were made in Australia by Holden - the first 2 guns being delivered in April 41

While the 2 pounder famously did not have an HE shell I recall reading that the Australians made their own using Bofors HE shells and marrying the HE warhead to the standard 2 pounder AP case. I have failed to find anything on that though?

The 3.7" Howitzer however does not appear to have been made in Australia - it was however made in India and South Africa during WW2 - however if they could make 2 pounder guns I assume that an older 3.7" Mountain howitzer would not prove to be difficult

Or they could order the guns from abroad?

Lastly Vickers production - Lithgow made Vickers including the MK XXI intended as an AFV MMG - so while its not the perfect AFV gun its still a Vickers!

The other alternative is Lithgow stands up BESA production? Not sure if that would be better as it was a more modern gun and easier to make than a Vickers (with modern construction techniques) - but it might not prove to be easier to make by Lithgow!

And its not in .303


And while not particularly liked in service as I understand it, early was there was a Bren gun mounting that could be fired from inside the tank by the commander and used as an AA MG.

So this could be mounted to the tank with 100 round pan mags?

 

[Rickshaw]

Australia produced it's own HE round for the 2 pdr. It was a base fused round as against the British nose fused one. Trials occurred in mid-1943 and it entered service in 1944. It was designed to penetrate bunkers and then explode whereas the British one was designed to explode on contact with materiale'. It performed quite adequately against Japanese coconut log bunkers of the type encountered in the SW Pacifc. This information came from personal correspondance with Mike Cecil who was the curator of weapons at the Australian War Memorial.

The problem with Australia producing the Valentine is that the British were reluctant to share the plans. They were happy to do so with Canada because Vickers was already established there and so they were willing to forego rights to the plans. Downunder, there were no Vickers subsidiaries, so Vickers wanted good pounds for their design.

Australia as already mentioned, had basically no automotive industry before WWII. Therefore, everything had to be build from scratch. It was unable to source motors, gearboxs, etc., from domestic supplers or from overseas ones. The result was that they were left scrambling around, trying to provide powerful enough engines and gearboxes that would support them.

The Valentine was a good design but it was decidedly starting to look dated by 1942.

 

[ArtosStark]

They were happy to do so with Canada because Vickers was already established there and so they were willing to forego rights to the plans.

Strange since Canadian Vickers had basically zero involvement in the production of the Valentine in Canada.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Australia produced it's own HE round for the 2 pdr. It was a base fused round as against the British nose fused one. Trials occurred in mid-1943 and it entered service in 1944. It was designed to penetrate bunkers and then explode whereas the British one was designed to explode on contact with materiale'. It performed quite adequately against Japanese coconut log bunkers of the type encountered in the SW Pacifc. This information came from personal correspondance with Mike Cecil who was the curator of weapons at the Australian War Memorial.

The problem with Australia producing the Valentine is that the British were reluctant to share the plans. They were happy to do so with Canada because Vickers was already established there and so they were willing to forego rights to the plans. Downunder, there were no Vickers subsidiaries, so Vickers wanted good pounds for their design.

Australia as already mentioned, had basically no automotive industry before WWII. Therefore, everything had to be build from scratch. It was unable to source motors, gearboxs, etc., from domestic supplers or from overseas ones. The result was that they were left scrambling around, trying to provide powerful enough engines and gearboxes that would support them.

The Valentine was a good design but it was decidedly starting to look dated by 1942.

Thanks for the 2 pounder information

If post June 1940 Australia had been asked to build tanks and had reached out asking for the Valentine, it being a tank designed to use existing parts and initially boiler maker infrastructure then I can see either HMG covering it and / or Australian Government offering to pay for it.

I appreciate that Australia is sprinting from a standing start but they did manage to build a more complicated design from the same point and with less help than would be the case with Valentine.

The Valentine was a good design and while it did get dated it served on the eastern front into 1945 and in the South West Pacific it would be pretty much all the tank required and without hindsight knowing that the USA would be spamming out tanks by 1943 - give the Australians the ability to provide the 2nd AEF and Militia units a secure source of tanks.

 

[yulzari]

Australia produced it's own HE round for the 2 pdr. It was a base fused round as against the British nose fused one. Trials occurred in mid-1943 and it entered service in 1944. It was designed to penetrate bunkers and then explode whereas the British one was designed to explode on contact with materiale'. It performed quite adequately against Japanese coconut log bunkers of the type encountered in the SW Pacifc. This information came from personal correspondance with Mike Cecil who was the curator of weapons at the Australian War Memorial.

The problem with Australia producing the Valentine is that the British were reluctant to share the plans. They were happy to do so with Canada because Vickers was already established there and so they were willing to forego rights to the plans. Downunder, there were no Vickers subsidiaries, so Vickers wanted good pounds for their design.

Australia as already mentioned, had basically no automotive industry before WWII. Therefore, everything had to be build from scratch. It was unable to source motors, gearboxs, etc., from domestic supplers or from overseas ones. The result was that they were left scrambling around, trying to provide powerful enough engines and gearboxes that would support them.

The Valentine was a good design but it was decidedly starting to look dated by 1942.

One might note that the British HE round was to hit AT crews and machine guns in the field, in the manner of a grenade, so a contact fuse was appropriate. Whereas the Australian need was to penetrate a prepared bunker to reach the crew inside thus their base fuse was appropriate for that task. Both were right in their own contexts. My armoured car predecessors used more 2 Pounder HE in 1944-5 than AP In Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

 

[TonyA]

With regard to the 2pdr anti-personnel issues, is there anything preventing the development of a canister round similar to that one used in the US 37mm gun? Doesn't solve the lack of an HE shell, but prevents the gun from spending so much of its life as a paperweight...

 

[Rickshaw]

With regard to the 2pdr anti-personnel issues, is there anything preventing the development of a canister round similar to that one used in the US 37mm gun? Doesn't solve the lack of an HE shell, but prevents the gun from spending so much of its life as a paperweight...

There is nothing stopping it. Indeed, there is nothing stopping adapting the 37mm to be fired from the 2 Pdr. All that would need changing would be driving bands on each round, to enable it to engage the larger bore. The problem was, no one thought of it. Canister has a limited use. It's good for clearing undergrowth and perhaps stopping a Banzai attack but not much else.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I seem to recall that the US already used 37mm cannister rounds in their earlier 37mm calibre weapon systems so it was something they had pre war

Edit: I recall early US Tanks only had a 37mm gun and no MG so were issued with cannister as an anti infantry measure.

The 2 pounder on the other hand was a new weapon system with no legacy of anything other than being a dedicated anti tank weapon.

Had an HE shell and Cannister shell been required then a suitable one could have been developed had the need been appreciated earlier but they seemed to have got on without both pretty much into 1941

Had more thought gone into an HE shell they might have done what the Russians did with their 45mm in that the HE shell 'intruded' into the case (Note the differences between the AP top and HE Bottom - with the HE case having far less propellent) allowing a much greater HE charge while allowing the ammunition to use the same ammo racks etc.

This is why I am suggesting (well perhaps alluding at this point) that ultimately this ATL Australian Valentine Production steers towards using the 3.7" Mountain gun/Howitzer in a CS config but with primarily HE rounds carried as the needs of the Australian military steer towards the south West Pacific region.

But initially these tanks would be in the minority and seen as traditional CS type support tanks - with the majority made being 2 pounder armed.

 

[TonyA]

There is nothing stopping it. Indeed, there is nothing stopping adapting the 37mm to be fired from the 2 Pdr. All that would need changing would be driving bands on each round, to enable it to engage the larger bore. The problem was, no one thought of it. Canister has a limited use. It's good for clearing undergrowth and perhaps stopping a Banzai attack but not much else.

Undergrowth clearing and "Banzai" mitigation doesn't sound all that bad to me...

 

[Cryhavoc101]

So the last bits of equipment I need to look at is optics and Radio equipment

Does Australia have the industry capable of supporting these

They obviously built aircraft etc that had radios etc but were those sourced locally or shipped in?

 

[Rickshaw]

So the last bits of equipment I need to look at is optics and Radio equipment

Does Australia have the industry capable of supporting these

They obviously built aircraft etc that had radios etc but were those sourced locally or shipped in?

They had quite an advanced electronics industry. They produced radios, radar sets, etc.