WI - Comet & B Prince available in Normandy

It may not be easy, but not impossible - but what difference would it make if:

Firstly,
- the Comet & Black Prince (with a better engine than OTL) are ready to replace/supplement the Cromwell & Churchill in the summer of 1944.
Now, not necessarily at D-Day, but say early July that follow on formations had them, and the process are re-equipping can take place.

So what effect could tanks with more capable main gun make??

Secondly,
- if the first two arrive early, then the same question with a Centurion being deployed after the capture of the Port of Antwerp - that's where it gets unloaded.
 
The Comet might be useful given its speed, but I don't think the Prince would, too slow, and only the same armament as the Comet or Firefly, either of which were actually a good match for Panthers. It might be of some use if you could fit it with the 25 pounder though.
 

sharlin

Banned
The Black Prince should be fine, its as slow as the standard Churchill and was a well armoured beasty.
 
The Black Prince should be fine, its as slow as the standard Churchill and was a well armoured beasty.

Early model Churchills had a max speed of 15.5 mph, the later ones - with the weight going up, went down to 12.5 mph.
The Black Prince weighed in at 50 tons, a big beast - frontal armour (same as the Churchill VII) 152 mm. With the extra weight and same engine (OTL) the speed went down to 11 mph (but then it was an 'Infantry' Tank).
But then I wasn't asking in relation to an OTL engine - as I did say - with a better engine.
In OTL of course Churchill tanks were out-gunned by the Germans, as was the Cromwell. True the British did have some Sherman Fireflies - - but I doubt if there were that many!

Hence the question - how much difference could 'quality' tanks have made, would Goodwood been different, would Wittman met his demise earlier???
Was the difference tactics or equipment?
 
Erm, yeah. Not that many. Just roughly 2000 were made. :rolleyes:

Oh yes, and there were available in mid 1944 in Normandy were there?

A Reference book I have by Chris Ellis said:

-Firefly tanks were available for the Normandy landings in June 1944. As there were in short supply they were allocated in small numbers to each British armoured battalion in the assault divisions. Since they offered the biggest threat to German amour they were picked off first by German tanks. The artist Rex Whistler, then with Guards armoured division, devised a painting pattern to disguise the length of the barrel and make it look at a distance like a 75 mm gun.
 
Early model Churchills had a max speed of 15.5 mph, the later ones - with the weight going up, went down to 12.5 mph.
The Black Prince weighed in at 50 tons, a big beast - frontal armour (same as the Churchill VII) 152 mm. With the extra weight and same engine (OTL) the speed went down to 11 mph (but then it was an 'Infantry' Tank).
But then I wasn't asking in relation to an OTL engine - as I did say - with a better engine.
Read up, the Prince made under 10 mph off-road with their OTL engine, and even with a better one their speed would hardly be spectacular.

Oh yes, and there were available in mid 1944 in Normandy were there?
More than 300 were ready by the end of May, not to mention a number of rearmed M10s.

-Firefly tanks were available for the Normandy landings in June 1944. As there were in short supply they were allocated in small numbers to each British armoured battalion in the assault divisions.
Rarity was one reason they were watered down like that, but the other was because the 17 pounder sucked against anything that wasn't a tank, because no HE round had been developed (and even when one was eventually developed, it was hardly brilliant). The usual numbers were one Firefly with every 3-4 regular Shermans.
 
In a hypothetical BP infantry tank Regt you could be talking 3 squadrons each with 19 tanks one with extra radios as sqdn CP, another for 2IC and a third for the OP team, possibly as many as one per troop could have mounted the 95mm CS howitzer and ALL were plumbed if not fitted with crocodile (this was a post war mod on remaining Churchills so we can presume this has also been actioned). Regarding troop structure you could go with 4 troops of 4 with say one with the CS howitzer OR have 2 CS tanks at a larger SHQ with reduced size troops (they experimented with troops of 3, 4 and 5 tanks at varying stages, although usually with 19 in the squadron as a total).

At RHQ you would have 8 light tanks, lets have this as the Hopkins or maybe an Alecto scout vehicle, plus 5 CP tanks, and all the support needed (11 scout cars, command half tracks, ambulances and all that)

The Comet regiments would be in the armoured brigades and divisions with fewer CS tanks, roughly one per squadron mainly shooting smoke shells. As for your armoured recce regiments maybe stick with the slightly faster and lighter Cromwell or are these being made available to be turned into Avengers? So how's that structure?
 
Just thinking, do you think the Black Prince could be somehow equipped with the BL 4.5 inch Medium Field Gun? A mobile version of that might be useful.
 
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