Your favorite AFVs: what the designers got wrong? (4 Viewers)

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I think my favourite would be cruiser tank comet (A-34). It was very much a compromise vehicle, but an exceelent blend and compromise of firepower, protection, mobility and range.

Its biggest drawback IMO was that it was so late to the party...

With the A34, later named Comet, the tank designers opted to correct some of the Cromwell's flaws (the track shedding and broken suspension problems) and enhance the Cromwell's main strengths, low height and high speed. Originally, it had been expected that the tank would use a new gun from Vickers: the "High Velocity 75mm". However, as designed, the gun would not fit into the turret size available. So the gun was changed to a different gun, the "77mm HV". This gun used the same calibre (76.2 mm) projectile as the 17-pounder but the shell casing was from the older QF 3 inch 20 cwt gun loaded to higher pressures. The resulting round was completely different to 17-pounder ammunition. It had a lower muzzle velocity than the 17-pounder but the ammunition was much more compact and more easily stored and handled within the tank. This made it possible to mount the gun on a smaller turret ring - the Challenger turret had been so large to allow space for two loaders - without making the hull wider. Several other improvements were made: armour protection was increased, the hull and turret were welded with a cast gun mantlet, ammunition was stored in armoured bins, the suspension was strengthened, return rollers were added and the turret was electrically traversed (a design feature taken from the Churchill tank), with a generator powered by the main engine rather than the hydraulic system of the Cromwell.

Armour on the Comet ranged from 32 mm to 74 mm on the hull, while the turret was from 57 to 102 mm.

The Comet tank's top speed was limited from the Cromwell's 40+ mph to a slower, but respectable 32 mph (51 km/h) to preserve suspension and engine components and to reduce track wear.

The mild steel prototype was ready in February 1944 and entered trials. Although concerns about the hull gunner and belly armour were put to one side (to avoid redesign), there was still sufficient delay caused by minor modifications and changes that production models did not begin to be delivered until September 1944. Intended to be in service by December 1944, crew training was delayed by the German Ardennes Offensive. By the end of the war, 1,200 had been produced.

Comet was fitted with two radio sets: a No. 19 Wireless, for communication with the regiment and the troop, and a No. 38 Wireless for communication with infantry units. Like many British tanks, it also had a telephone handset mounted on the rear so that accompanying infantry could talk to the crew.
 
It was an unfortunate design practice in the UK to mount the cannons in an 'internal mantlet' style, so much of the cannon was 'eating in' the turret space, limiting the recoil length and hence the gun size. With 'external mantlet', much more powerful cannons were able to be installed. Despite the restrictions of the turret ring.
So, 77mm HV in Cromwell Churchill, 17 pdr in Comet, but it was not meant to be. After the war, the 20 pdr (!) was installed in Cromwell-based tank destroyer, the Charioteer, that Juha posted pictures about.
 
The classic has to be the one man French turrets that ruined the operation of their tanks who were, otherwise, the best in the world in 1940.

All you have to do is direct your driver, command your troop/squadron/regiment, operate the radio, find a target, load the gun (both the co axial machine gun and the main gun) and aim and fire all at once: meanwhile, with your third hand in your copious free time..........
 
" After the war, the 20 pdr (!) was installed in Cromwell-based tank destroyer, the Charioteer, that Juha posted pictures about."

And it had roughly 1/2 the elevation and depression of the Comet ( or Centurion) In spite of the large turret. It also only held 25 rounds of ammo.


"All you have to do is direct your driver, command your troop/squadron/regiment, operate the radio,..."

Radios,....Radios...... We don't need no stinking radios...............we have signal flags :)
 
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Never said 20 pdr was fitting the Cromwell as a glove, nor suggesting the 17 pdr either. The 77mm HV was far more compact, the rounds also being smaller. Compared with 75mm, it was also featuring the muzzle brake, so the recoil was not something brutal either.
The 20 pdr was also being fitted in the internal mantlet style, no wonder the elevation depression were not it's shiny points.
 
On the Comet production 1,200 is total production afaik around 750 were built within may '45. Much less go in operation the 11th Armoured Division was the alone equipped with this tank from february '45.
 
On the Comet production 1,200 is total production afaik around 750 were built within may '45. Much less go in operation the 11th Armoured Division was the alone equipped with this tank from february '45.

Hello Vincenzo
as I wrote earlier "too late and too few"

Juha
 
My favourite is the Churchill. Its faults were initially legion because it was ordered straight off the drawing board but it became reliable and the toughest nut to crack of any western allied tank that saw action. It needed a bigger engine I wonder if the Meteor would have fitted, the extra 250 hp wouldnt have turned it into a greyhound but would probably have got it lumbering along at 20mph on the road and 15mph off road enough for the job.

2nd Favourite was the Crusader not the best tank of the war but certainly in my eyes the prettiest. Its faults were rubbish cooling and a too small gun.
 
Ihave soft spots for the tanks of all the minor nationsbecause they represent some really great ideas on what are usually severe constraints. Tanks like the Hungarian Turan, the Swedish Stridsvagn the Polish 7TP all are intesting from that point of view. The Canadians of course developed the Cruiser tank RAM, which had both a frustrating and also a useful alternative use at the end of the war

Not well known, but Australia also developed seeral tank prototypes which disappointingly was never accepted. this was not due to design shortcomings, just that cheaper options were available by the tie the tank designs were ready

With imported British help, the RAAC set about designing her first cruiser tank. Noticeably, the Australians set about designing their tank as an ANTI-TANK weapon. For their first model, the AC-I the only weapon available to Australia as an anti-tank gun was the British 2 pounder anti-tank gun, but that was to change as the Australians planned to jump to the British 17 pounder as soon as they could in their AC-IV. Perhaps revolutinary in 1941, they designed for this possibility in 1941.

The Sentinel as laid out was going to use available off-the-shelf US automotive tank components as were being used on the M-3 Lee/Grant. Unlike the Americans, though, the Australian designers used an improved transmission train. They opted for a transmission gearbox on their complex Cadillac Gage three-motor layout that would give them a low silhouette tank. They also pioneered the plug in/pull out engine pack layout for a tank.

A type was also notable for a couple of other innovations

-single cast armor hull and turret. This was cutting edge technology at the time. The Australians appear to have beaten the Canadians and the Americans to this innovation by almost half a year.

-though they followed British layout, the Australians paid attention to ammunition stowage and fire safety in their tank to an extent that the British and Americans were not to emulate until about 1944.

-turret size. The one thing Australians observed was that every time the British had to upgun a tank mto meet the German threat, the British had to go to the drawing board and design a brand new tank because their current tank was too small to take a bigger gun either from the turret size standpoint(turret ring) or the shock standpoint (weak suspension or too small chassis). The Australian designers built the AC-1 deliberately to be upgunnable. It would have in its AC-3 configuration easily have taken a 25 pounder howitzer or a 17 pounder anti-tank gun unmodified as a mantlet slide-in into the planned turret.

Pictured is the Sentinel inone of its final prooptype forms
 

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Yes and no. Both used the suspension and running gear of the US M3 Grant.

"A prototype Ram was completed in June 1941 and general production of the Ram I began in November of the same year."

"The T6 prototype was completed 2 September 1941. Unlike later M4s, the hull was cast and had a side hatch, which was eliminated from production models. The T6 was standardized as the M4 and production began in October."

Sentinel was a bit later.

Rams used US supplied engines and transmissions, at least on the early ones.

Sentinel used a "simplified" M3 transmission, sychros were left due lack of manufacturing capacity in Australia. The Hull casting for the Sentinel, however, was the largest of it's it kind in the world at the time.

According to one source the Sentinel I used a 54 in turret ring. The Sentinel III with the 25pdr had a 64 in turret ring and was under going trials in Feb 1943. By March it had been modified to take TWO 25pdrs as a test rig to assess the designs ability to stand up to recoil. The prototype with the 17pdr doesn't show up until late 1943 (same vehicle or different one?)

Fitting the 17pdr to the Sherman had been suggested in Jan 1943 as a back up to the Challenger. The Pilot conversion was ready in Nov 1943.

Both countries displayed considerable ingenuity but it seems that they were operating pretty much in parallel with the "experienced" design teams. Not having to "invent" things like suspensions and drive gear/steering systems left them free to work on upper hull/armament.
 
I'd have to agree that both countries were drawing on the experience of the major powers that were their allied partners. Just the same, even though it was more like "paint by numbers", compared to an original Renoit, getting a workable design that could be built in the industrial complexes availble in each of these countries, by using "off the shelf" technologies was still remarkable.

The axis minors showed similar ingenuity

Looking at the hugarians, they actually produced a range of differnt vehicles. Thei turan series of tanks were quite good, but were already outclassed by Soviet armour at the time of their service delivery. A really good, if somewhat complicated vehicle, was their Csaba series armoured cars.

The 39M Csaba was designed in 1939, based on the Alvis AC2 armored car. It was designed both as a combat and reconnaissance vehicle. Both armor, armament, and performance was similar to comtemporary armored cars, but the automotive design was complicated, making the vehicle difficult to maintain. About 150 39M Csaba were manufactured. Of these, 30 were 40M command vehicles, which had two radios in stead of the main gun. The vehicles served on the Eastern Front throughout the war

Technical Details: 39M Csaba

Crew: 4

Weight 5.95 t

Length 4.52 m

Width 2.1 m

Height 2.33 m

Armour (max) 9 mm

Performance

Speed (max) 65 km/h

Armament Primary weapon

Solothurn S-18/1000 (1) (a 20mm AT gun - very effective weapopn)

Secondary weapon Gebauer 34/37M


Some images
 

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One should never forget the A38 Valiant Infantry Tank. So bad it was retained as an object lesson in how not to design a tank. The testing was abandoned when it was judged too dangerous for the driver to drive it and the ground clearance would have beached it on a molehill and those were just the minor faults.
 
Yes yulzari, British tank development during WWII produced surprisng amount of duds, it was also surprising they went to produce excellent AFVs immediately after the war e.g. Centurion.

Juha
 
Does anybody know how what for the measuring rules on the turret of this Centaur are used?
800px-Centaur_front.jpg
 

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