A view on why Britsh tanks were so inferior.

[Don Juan]

Oh, those old chestnuts.

However, in the real world:

[EKB]

Your unidentified report does not give any statistics to back up its claims.

[Don Juan]

Your unidentified report does not give any statistics to back up its claims.

When you bother to provide primary source documents to back up your posts, I'll start taking them seriously.

[EKB]

Your unidentified report does not give any statistics to back up its claims.

When you bother to provide primary source documents to back up your posts, I'll start taking them seriously.

Unfortunately your "primary source" document does not name any of its primary sources.

It is obvious that the reporter either failed to, or refused to, identify specific individuals who supposedly endorsed the contents of the message.

[Don Juan]

[EKB]

The video indicates that General Everett stopped short of admitting that he discontinued production of the A30 Challenger.
Therefore I have doubts about his complicity.

[Don Juan]

He was too busy inventing shoulder guns.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Hi guys,

Two questions if I may?

EKB, is the British major your reference quoted named or is there a reference to where the quote came from?

Don Juan, is there a reference number for the file from which your information came from.

Cheers

Tom

[Don Juan]

Hi Tom,

IIRC, EKB's quote is from Major KM Ronald of the King's Dragoon Guards, after Exercise Dracula in August 1943. This was an exercise deliberately set up to test the reliability of the Centaur and Cromwell, which were both less reliable than the Sherman at this point in time. The Cromwell certainly improved, but the Centaur, as far as I can tell, didn't. The quote can be found in RAC Progress Report No.8 (WO 165/134)

My quote is from AVIA 11/30.

PM me if you would like to see the relevant documents.

[Urmel]

Your unidentified report does not give any statistics to back up its claims.

When you bother to provide primary source documents to back up your posts, I'll start taking them seriously.

Unfortunately your "primary source" document does not name any of its primary sources.

It is obvious that the reporter either failed to, or refused to, identify specific individuals who supposedly endorsed the contents of the message.

I'd take that report over the view of some major from a year before what he said was to become relevant, provided without any context and maybe even deliberately intended to mislead. Wilbeck's book is a pile of badly researched nonsense and statistically challenged disinformation even without this quote.

If you want to challenge people who actually go and dig in the archives, maybe do them the courtesy of not resting your argument on some US army junior officer's masters thesis turned into a book because its about Tigers.

[MarkF617]

Hello,

I'm joining this discussion late and haven't been able to read the whole thread so please forgive me if this has already been brought up.

A lot has been mentioned on this thread and others about the small size of British turret rings and therefore limitation on the size of gun that could be fitted to the tanks, in order to get a bigger gun were turretless assault guns ever considered? I know the Archer was created but this was a self propelled gun but I have never heard of a British equivalent of a Jagd Panzer or SU85 etc.

Mark.

[phylo_roadking]

A lot has been mentioned on this thread and others about the small size of British turret rings and therefore limitation on the size of gun that could be fitted to the tanks, in order to get a bigger gun were turretless assault guns ever considered? I know the Archer was created but this was a self propelled gun but I have never heard of a British equivalent of a Jagd Panzer or SU85 etc.

The simple answer is - yes; but the numbers constructed and deployed were quite small - if deployed at all...

Churchill Gun Carrier - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_ ... .28A22D.29 (of which quite a lot has been written over the years on this forum)
Archer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_(tank_destroyer)
Alecto - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alecto_(SPG)
Sexton - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexton_(artillery)
Bishop - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(artillery)

As discussed elsewhere - including IIRC on this thread - there was a long "turf war" conducted in Whitehall regarding who "owned" such artillery, the tank regiments/brigades or the Royal Artillery; it certainly coloured and delayed the development of the Churchill Gun Carrier

[Don Juan]

A lot has been mentioned on this thread and others about the small size of British turret rings and therefore limitation on the size of gun that could be fitted to the tanks, in order to get a bigger gun were turretless assault guns ever considered? I know the Archer was created but this was a self propelled gun but I have never heard of a British equivalent of a Jagd Panzer or SU85 etc.

The whole thing about turret rings is a debate that emerged post-war. There's very little discussion of the limiting factor of turret rings in the contemporary documentation. This is because the solution was always seen as the introduction of new designs. Even with SP guns, turreted versions were seen as the "proper" solution rather than fixed ones. The Valentine Archer was viewed as an interim vehicle until the introduction of the intended standard British SP gun, which was the A30 Avenger. If they'd been able to productionise the Avenger sooner, the Archer would have been cancelled, which it was on the cusp of being in early 1944.

The issue of up-gunning the Crusader and Valentine only emerged because of the delays in bringing the Cromwell into production, which was mainly due to the Ministry of Aircraft Production refusing to release components and tooling for the new Meteor engine, which was based on the Merlin. There's a persistent myth that there was resistance to the Meteor by Nuffields and Leyland, but this isn't true - they both bent over backwards to get the Meteor into production. Fortunately the shortfall in more powerful tanks could be made up with Shermans.

Other than that, the best method for making the existing British guns more effective was to produce more powerful and/or more appropriate ammunition. This is the one thing that could really have added more combat power to British tanks in the 1941-42 period, but for various reasons was not adopted.

[phylo_roadking]

The whole thing about turret rings is a debate that emerged post-war. There's very little discussion of the limiting factor of turret rings in the contemporary documentation.

Also - as noted back up the thread, the issue of turret ring size seems to only be an "issue" in respect of what each company/conglomerate producing a given design could manufacture/machine. There are plenty of examples of "small" turret ring tanks still being built and in quite large quantities alongside larger ones by different companies/conglomerates if you sit down and match sizes with production dates...

The real issue with production was getting numbers of tanks and getting them out there; as noted in the long discussion on Convenanters, what Britain suffered from at a given point mid-war was a chronic lack of cruiser tanks whatever their turret ring size. In a period in the Desert War when one Royal Tank Regiment was having to temporarily re-equip with captured Italian tanks with all their acknowledged issues, I doubt if the turret ring size of British Cruiser tanks would have been of much import to them...

[EKB]

Hi guys,

Two questions if I may?

EKB, is the British major your reference quoted named or is there a reference to where the quote came from

“ … The next report in the packet was from a Major Ronald of the Westminster Dragoons, position un-stated. Excerpts follow:

Reliability: The outstanding lesson of this exercise has been to me the exceptional reliability of the American machines. All my ideas, based on 2 ½ years experience with an armoured regiment equipped with British machines have had to be revised, and though before the exercise started I was inclined to think that perhaps Sherman was somewhat overrated I am completely convinced of the superiority of this machine over anything that this country has produced up to date.
It is evident that the commander of a unit equipped with Shermans can be confident of taking 99% of his vehicles into battle, at any rate during the first 2,000 miles of their life. On the other hand, if he were equipped with Cromwells or Centaurs he would be in a continuous state of anxiety as to whether enough of his tanks would reach the battlefield to carry out the normal tasks expected of his unit …”

http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-brow ... h_Dracula/

I'd take that report over the view of some major from a year before what he said was to become relevant, provided without any context and maybe even deliberately intended to mislead. Wilbeck's book is a pile of badly researched nonsense and statistically challenged disinformation even without this quote.

If you want to challenge people who actually go and dig in the archives, maybe do them the courtesy of not resting your argument on some US army junior officer's masters thesis turned into a book because its about Tigers.

If you want to lecture and pontificate about official papers then go ahead and post some relevant documents and statistics. Otherwise you are wasting time and bandwidth.