Tanks, tanks, tanks! Bovington Tank Museum, the Chieftain and others.

[miletus12]

I love to dissect winners and losers. Nothing shows the difference more clearly than the subject of tanks. 

Losers as picked by the Bovington tank museum director. Shall we compare notes?



a. Matilda Mark I: worse than a WWI Renault FT. I agree with the assessment. It is a poorly conceived tank and quite functionally worthless.
b. Jagdtiger: cannot be transported, cannot be repaired, not enough to matter, and functionally useless to the requirement, and gobbles up resources. The Wehriboos love such junk. Agree with assessment.
c. A7V: First German tank out the gate and it is properly more comparable to a "Little Willie". So as a failure, it actually does better than the British testbed. So I do not agree with the assessment. I consider it a "qualified success" as a first attempt.        
d. Panther: weak transfer case and transmission. Not user friendly? The argument presented about drivers is cogent, but the real problem is the quality of construction which is why the German drivers were not able to rely on any forgiveness in the machine at all. You could ABUSE a Sherman and it will never fail you. The presenter does not quite get the seize up of the T-34's power train for no reason and turns into an instant immobile pillbox right either, so he does NOT understand the defects inherent in it or of the Panther as he tries to explain WHY drivers could not handle either tank.
e. Covenanter: The British cruiser tank used a complex split cooling circuit for its underpowered engine.  It actually functioned in range conditions and would with a bit of care function in the British Isles for at least one or two battles which was the original intention in the first place as it was a panic weapon. This was built during the invasion scare where any tank was better than no tank. It was poorly made by semi-skilled workers and the 1,400 copies actually not worse than the junk Crusaders sent to the North Africa theater of war, as regards reliability. So: it winds up as a training tank? Would one rather have Royal Armor Corps crews train on a lorry with a board that has the word "tank" stenciled on it? That was what the Americans were doing at this time.

Agreement here is only 40%. And what about David Fletcher's choice of the British Valiant? Any tank that tries to break the driver's feet off just in the act of moving the accelerator pedal has got to be a "prime" loser.    
   
Winners, as the director picked them.  



a. Little Willie: He gets the history wrong. The Little Willie was a proof-of-concept testbed. One cannot call it a tank.
b. Mark I tank. This is the first British tank and it was, as a concept, both a work of genius and a complete muddle.  So this is about a wash. 
c. Whippet. It was the St. Estienne designed Renault FT that was the future: not this piece of junk, which was a technology dead end.
d. Mark IV tank. First actually working British tank. This was the first tank where the British finally figure out a tracklaying system that functioned without bogging and or digging its own grave in place.
e. Mark IX tank. An armored personnel carrier. The first. He gets this exactly right and of which opinion I can agree.

40% agreement? Not too good. But then I look at these things from a different point of view. What do you think?

   
 

[miletus12]

What went wrong with the Crusader? Well...

a. The Liberty engine, used, was not a mono-block, so its bolted cylinders vibrated apart.
b. The Christie suspension is a BELL CRANK (elbowed spring type travel mount per wheel). It can be mounted to a tank's hull as a module unit; so that like a vertical or horizontal volute, the road wheel can be pulled and the elbow behind the wheel can be bolted on or off. The Russians from whom the British stole the Christie suspension, for some insane idea, had used Christie's original sandwich plate mounting without changing it. The Americans had long since put the bell crank on the outside of the hull, (As the Israelis and the British do now, with a slightly modified shock absorber variant which to avoid patent issues with the Americans, they call the Horstmann.). But Nuffield, in its wisdom, kept to the Russian design and screwed that up by not putting ride dampeners into the bell crank elbow either, causing the whole tank to bounce and sway from side to side at speed as it trundled along. One can see that "shoot while moving" was impossible?
c. The armor system was the mild steel frame with the plates bolted to it, type. This made the tank two tonnes heavier than it needed to be for the lousy protection offered. The geometry, of surface presentation to incoming projectiles, consisted of numerous trap valleys and ravines called "shot traps" and weak join spaces where plate boundaries met (Look at how the turret sits on the hull.), so that incoming shells were steered by confinement into penetration exploits.  
f. The fuel system on the tank leaked.
g. The workers at the factory, because of labor grievances, sabotaged the tanks. Same for dock workers. Gunsight's optical glass was scratched or guns mis-mounted so the recoil systems failed; and valuable parts, which could be resold as scrap, were stolen off the tank before shipment (at the docks) to render the tanks non-serviceable upon arrival.  
h. No spare parts.
i. New tank, but mechanics were not trained on it and shipped out with the tank.
k. The tank required special Nuffield unique tool kits. Guess what was not shipped out with the tank?
l. Ammunition stow was of the clip and open sleeve type. British propellant had a bad habit of being unstable. (The Royal Navy has the same exact problem.) and it tended to explode or catch fire when exposed to sparks or point ignition sources such as an incoming HOT enemy shell.
m. The ergonomics are Russian awful.
n. Shoddy tracks.
o. Two pounder and six pounder guns did have explosive shells supplied, but the HE shell bursting charges were feeble. The Royal Armor Corps adopted solid shot as their AP round of choice and at least in the 1940-1942 era until the Grants, Lees and Shermans arrived, relied on machine guns for anti-infantry work and expected (Or were told, depends on whose version of the controversy one believes.), that the Royal Artillery would handle the suppression of enemy antitank guns via fire support missions, except that it did not work, because the British tank radio net did not tie tanks into the artillery director network though the radios could cross talk, the British tank commanders were not trained as forward controllers for either artillery or air support, and the bloody interservice rivalry branch and snobbery thing was a REAL problem in the Desert Army. This is another reason why I admire Montgomery. HE put an end to that nonsense as well as fixed what he could of issues a through n, by bringing maintenance and support for his tanks to where it ought to have been originally through fixing supply, and getting the tools issued and the local mechanics trained and sending back to the UK for the training and repair manuals which had not been shipped out with the tanks either. He attended to the "housekeeping details" of his men and machines as a good general ought. Wish American generals of the era were more like him. Then Hurtgen Forest, Metz and the Bulge would not have happened.              
 

[miletus12]

David Fletcher is a world expert on tanks. The tank, he describes, is the Conqueror, an exercise in confused post WWII thinking about tanks warfare. Apparently, the British Army had not learned anything, because they decided to create this madcap exercise in illogic as the British answer to the Joseph Stalin breakthrough tanks, the JS! through JSV.









The Chieftain, Nick Moran, gives us a video walkaround of the Conqueror inside and outside, so one gets to see what a hilarious exercise in "gigantism" this tank was.

Here are the takeaways:

a. Changing suspension components on this disaster was almost impossible without an armored recovery vehicle.
b. The thing, in motion, announced its presence from miles away.
c. There are more shot traps on this thing than a Crusader.
d. The thing's gun was a US 4.7 inch AAA gun. Too bad the British did not use the autoloader that came with the gun in US service.
e. The British armored protection scheme was supposedly proof against side shots from a 122mm JSIII-DS23 gun howitzer. The British tried out a 120 mm+ L11 tank gun on it and shot holes clean through the tank.  Think about that one in context of Russian high performance guns and numbers and be worried; if one was a Conqueror crewman.
f. The loaders had to handle 80 pound shell and cartridge combos. There was not enough room to comfortably lay the rounds into the feed tray and manually ram the shell and propellant case into the breech.  There was no ram-feed assist. One gets the idea that the British designers were not required to actually "try the task out" as was the US requirement. 
g. The stereo coincidence range finder did not work as temperature changes fogged it up.
h. British radios were British radios.
i. The gunner's position is Sentinel tank awful. No room. One has to be a small person to work the station. 
k. Once the tank starts moving the gun goes out of battery. The gunner has no control over gun travel until the tank stops. 
l. Cant indicator was a simple spirit level. Getting in and out of the Conqueror fails the bail-out-the-tank-is-on-fire test. 
m. Engine maintenance and access is a nightmare. The "donkey" engine is barely accessible. The transmission hides under the cooling system. It wears down quickly. The brakes grind down all too quickly, it is a heavy tank hard and hard to stop.  
n. The periscope mount for the driver was screwed up and is a weakness in the armor. The driver is seated next to three leaky lead acid batteries. (Who designed this thing? Larry, Moe and Curley?)
o. The bilge pump never works right. If you take water aboard in this thing in the driver's position, you have a lot of problems besides double clutching or putting it in reverse by accident. See n.
p. The reason for the gun position indicator, which the Chieftain skips, is to let the driver know when the gun barrel blocks his bail-out route for when the battery electrical short sets the tank on fire. If the barrel is overhead, he is trapped and can enjoy the final moments of his life trying to squeeze past the barrel or trying to kick his way through the floor basket of the turret fighting compartment to get out that way. See n.. for what I think about this situation.
q. The Z52 and Z52R gear shift selector conundrum. See n., again for my comment on this utter needless stupidity. The Z52 R selector pattern i exactlys backwards from the Z52 setup. Infantry should not stand behind this silly tank... ever. They will be squished by an inadvertent backing maneuver as the driver confuses his gear selects as he double clutches using the steering spades.
r. They have a horn. Why? You can hear this thing clattering your way from 2 kilometers away.
s. Working the clutch from the neutral steer control is an adventure in quick timing. See n., again. 
t.  The commander position or "fire control turret" has a naval type optical rangefinder built into it. The description of the hunter killer track scan is kind of "naval".
v. This tank lasted only 10 years in service. See n., for what I think of this paperweight.    
  

[lordroel]

Plan 1919 | The Tanks of Plan 1919 | The Tank Museum

Plan 1919 was a strategy written by J.F.C. Fuller, ready for the potential continuation of Allied fighting in 1919.





Plan 1919 | What if the Armistice hadn't happened? | The Tank Museum

[miletus12]

The Germans needed a cheap effective antitank weapon of the tank destroyer class to deal with T-34s and KV-1s in 1942. They do not get one.



The Americans needed a cheap effective antitank weapon of the tank destroyer class to deal with expected German tanks in 1943 forward.

Who succeeded? Lesson from history, always bet on the army that can change its mind in the middle of a war and adapt a failed platform to a purpose for which it never was intended.

US tank destroyers were used as direct fire motorized artillery.

Of course, having Hitler as the procurement officer and doctrine writer is not as good as McNair, and we know what happened to McNair when he screwed up?

[miletus12]

Why does this?



not look like this?



The Chieftain explains the reasons.

[miletus12]

More about US tank destroyers.



The situation covered is how the US stumbled along in doctrine for most of WWII.

[miletus12]

US tank doctrine>



The US army was a complete debacle. But look at where they started in 1919.

1. The modern American armor came out of the US Infantry.
2. US cavalry remained THE cavalry, only they became mechanized as a result of experiences in 1915-1916 not related to Europe.
3. US mechanized cavalry kind of split down the middle with the "dragoons" staying with the infantry and the "cuiraissers" becoming Uhlans to scout for the "armor" (cavalry).
4. US motorized doctrine and needs was oriented on the referent enemy (Not Canada) but MEXICO.

See MAP>



One gets the idea, that the Americans were thinking of a march across this terrain or alternatively a coastline of Jungle as bad as BURMA?



If one is keeping score, the preferred route is that one which is 600 miles across a desert plateau about a MILE HIGH. The Jungle route was deemed too dangerous.

From Caen to Dusseldorf? About 400 miles. Country is reasonable sea-level with lots of friendly French and the only obstacles are some Germans. It is not like one will have trouble with the freezing dry cold, no water at all, high altitude sickness and quite fierce Mexicans.

[lordroel]

Jan 23, 2022 12:06:07 GMT miletus12 said:

US tank doctrine>



The US army was a complete debacle. But look at where they started in 1919.

1. The modern American armor came out of the US Infantry.
2. US cavalry remained THE cavalry, only they became mechanized as a result of experiences in 1915-1916 not related to Europe.
3. US mechanized cavalry kind of split down the middle with the "dragoons" staying with the infantry and the "cuiraissers" becoming Uhlans to scout for the "armor" (cavalry).
4. US motorized doctrine and needs was oriented on the referent enemy (Not Canada) but MEXICO.

See MAP>



One gets the idea, that the Americans were thinking of a march across this terrain or alternatively a coastline of Jungle as bad as BURMA?



If one is keeping score, the preferred route is that one which is 600 miles across a desert plateau about a MILE HIGH. The Jungle route was deemed too dangerous.

From Caen to Dusseldorf? About 400 miles. Country is reasonable sea-level with lots of friendly French and the only obstacles are some Germans. It is not like one will have trouble with the freezing dry cold, no water at all, high altitude sickness and quite fierce Mexicans.

miletus12 , wanted to post this here but then i realize, this is your thread, so you have the honor to post and comment on it first.

[miletus12]

No, sir. This is your site. I am a guest. Please post away. In fact: I leave part II at your discretion, when it appears.

[lordroel]

Jan 23, 2022 14:30:25 GMT miletus12 said:

No, sir. This is your site. I am a guest. Please post away. In fact: I leave part II at your discretion, when it appears.

My lady, i have several other threads i keep updated, i like if members pick a YouTube channel they like to follow and post here, so i leave the Bovington Tank Museum and the Chieftain in your capable care here on this forum.

[miletus12]

Jan 23, 2022 14:35:42 GMT lordroel said:

Jan 23, 2022 14:30:25 GMT miletus12 said:

No, sir. This is your site. I am a guest. Please post away. In fact: I leave part II at your discretion, when it appears.

My lady, i have several other threads i keep updated, i like if members pick a YouTube channel they like to follow and post here, so i leave the Bovington Tank Museum and the Chieftain in your capable care here on this forum.

Thank you.

[miletus12]

Lousy and British are synonymous with British WWII tanks.

a. The Charioteer was the botch designed to make a Cromwell able to carry 20 pounder gun. Why? To fight a T-34. It was a lousy tank as a Cromwell but as the Charioteer, it was a debacle. The tank had so much obscurant when it fired that follow up shots were impossible.
b. The Black Prince was a modified Churchill. Everything wrong with the Churchill was amplified with this piece of junk. Too heavy for the British to transport; the British built this disaster to carry a 17 pounder gun. The tank is very underpowered. It lacks mobility and speed. Slower than a T-28 it is. The gear box was a disaster as the driver could possibly stall the tank in place and then the T-34 would pop it.
c. The L1E3 was an amphibious tank. The thing allowed bullets to pass through clean through it. The thing cannot emerge from surf or current. Transit for this joke tank was almost impossible. This thing used Kort nozzles and screws. Out of the water the screws were a shoot me here feature. It was a machine gun tank. The one-off was a waste of scarce resources.
d. The Covenanter is an awful tank? London, Midland and Scottish Railroad Company was tasked to build it from a government design. The Covenanter was botched in that design process to be overweight. It was powered by a Bedford Meadows piece of junk engine. My gripe, which Dave Fletcher does not cover, is that it is a collage of shot traps. The tank was designed in 1938 so the panic weapon excuse, for the mistakes made, is sort of valid. This junkheap was specifically afflicted with exposed shoot me here steerage linkages.
a. The Valiant. This tank broke driver's feet. It was bolted together castings. The gear shift jammed. The driver's seat raised his head to the Kibosh position when the cover hatch flopped forward. Ground clearance was too low. The tank used a Valentine suspension system. It would lose the track laying mechanism as too much weight bottomed it out in a jolt maneuver. The tank is underpowered. The tank was cancelled in mid-test. It was used as an object lesson in how not to design a tank.

=================================================================

I love David Fletcher! He has a sense of humor.

Five foreign (To him because he is British), tanks he deems not so good.



a. The Carro Veloce: an Italian copy of the Carden Lloyd carrier, it was reliable enough, but bullets could pass through it. It did not have 360 degrees of offense or defense. British armored cars were faster and better armed, with better cross-country mobility and were cheaper and simpler to make. So, yeah, this tankette was a disaster.
b. The M-22 Locust. This piece of oddity was an airborne tank. This tank had to be air landed instead of parachuted in. Marmon Harrington designed this thing. It was used in Montgomery's Operation Plunder. Well-designed, well-built and mechanically reliable as American tanks were of the era, it did not work at all as intended. The British glider dropped these things in oversized Horsas. See the Carro Veloce for why armored cars make more sense in the role.
c. Russian T-35. This was Russia's version of the A1E1 Independent, the British tank that inspired the multiple turret tank craze in the mid-1930s. The tank cannot turn. The tank cannot be missed by a blind man who can shoot at it by mere sound alone from hundreds of meters away, it is so big. Bullets can pass through it, the armor is so thin. The turrets foul each other's line-of-sight and fire. The T-35 also catches fire if one looks at it funny. The transmission was typically Russian. It broke very early and often.
d. The Jagdtiger is next. It is too heavy. The thing could not even move under its own power. It has no 360 degrees of offense and defense. It has Tiger type suspension, which seized up and occluded with mud. The Jagdtiger used a twin wheel and torsion bar suspension and a bracket fixture system. SNAP. Instant paperweight. The armor was not thick enough everywhere to keep all Allied AP shot off. Ferdinand Porsche would be proud.
e. The ARL 44. French tank is an evolved Char B2. The French decided to make their heavy tank as their contribution to the Allied WWII effort. The tank was cobbled up from spare parts taken as all over, including the battleship Dunkirk. The 90mm gun did not work. The engine did not work either. The Maybach diesel
was the wrong choice. Transmission failed. This tank quickly disappeared.

Well; at least the American Locust was a runner.

I really like David Fletcher.

[miletus12]

Tanks in the movies. Stuntman perspective. Interesting. Notice how the Germans keep getting things wrong?

[miletus12]

One of these days, I am going to have to dissect the Australian Sentinel tank. But a nation that produced the boomerang grenade was bound to produce a bottom fiver tank, too.

But, let us get on with the comments...

5. The A1E1 Independent makes the list. I am not a fan of Walter Wilson. The kludge of a AAA gun, the stretcher hole in the side hull, are among the bolos. The length to width ratio is a track thrower issue more than a cornering tank problem. Turrets foul each other's lines of fire. I do not consider it a childish design as much as a "clever" design where people who never had to operate the contraption designed it. Hence, the rule of making the designer actually proof the thing.

4. The Tetrach is the British "Harry Hopkins". More "Britishisms", such as bendable track, pop out all over. The Hamilcar glider, when it delivered these pieces of mechanical junk, killed the glider pilots. When the Tetrarchs were broken loose from the gliders, they proved out as non-runners, because of course British airborne had stowed the tanks with so much tiedown strapping and lines that those Tetrarchs which did not snap loose in the crash landings and kill the glider occupants were entangled in cord and were rendered into paperweights.

3. The Valiant is the same leg breaker as seen above. There was no excuse for it. The British never have been as concerned about human factors as the Americans, but even the British must have noticed that this piece of trash was unacceptable.

2. The FV4005 assault gun is more of the British thinking. The design process is all too clear. Actually, the design is top-heavy. "Satisfactory?" They called it satisfactory. Too much gun for the chassis is obvious.

1. And now the Sentinel makes the list. Australian wife nixes it. I will get to it, eventually.

1. Substitute. The Maus makes the list. The British army trialed it. It cannot be moved or supported at 188 tonnes. It was supposed to be rail transportable. It had a snorkel kit. Climbing up a riverbank? Ferdinand Porsche designed it, so an idiot's delight of mistakes.



The British and the Germans, here together, become proof examples that even nations with well-earned reputations for allegedly good engineering can produce some real classic examples of "unacceptable for use by any American military service, whatsoever."^1

^1 American military bureaucratese for "rubbish".