A view on why Britsh tanks were so inferior.

[phylo_roadking]

Okay, here's some more detail; the war diary for 1941 for 3rd County of London Yeomanry, part of 22 Armoured Brigade - http://www.warlinks.com/armour/3_cly/3cly_41.html. It looks as if the entire unit was aboard the HMT Orion.

HOWEVER - if you look at the diary - unfortunately large chunks...including arrival in Egypt!...are missing - you can see that they received their crusaders (Cruiser MkVIs) by dribs and drabs through the year from Chilwell. Throughout the year they were training/exercising on them - so if they arrived without major components, then what must have been ON most of these tanks for all those weeks and months of training must have been removed!

EITHER 1/ we ARE looking at uprated/improved components behing shipped with them, the previous having been removed once the Yeomanry reached Westbury, OR...2/ All that training through the year had already caused major wear - hence replacements being shipped with them?

Moving on....4th County of London Yeomanry and it's Crusaders were on the Strathnaver - http://www.warlinks.com/armour/4_cly/4cly_41.html....

And buried in there, there's THIS! -

Joined convoy of 5 other ships which included HMT Strathmore and HMT Orion carrying the rest of 22nd Armd Bde.

Again, unfortunately October is missing!

The last element of 22 Armoured briagde was the 2nd Royal Gloucestershire Hussars - who although the pertinant mid-1941 months are missing - http://www.warlinks.com/armour/2nd_rgh/2nd_rgh_41.html - must have been in Strathmore, as per the above

Note what it says for the 3rd to the 20th of october 1941 -

During this period 52 tanks were modified and equipped RAOC Workshops at ALEXANDRIA and CAIRO.

Again - looking at those other two diaries, both other units ALSO had their Crusaders for some number of months' training and exercising before they left England! These weren't brand new tanks arriving with the unit, they'd been training on them for some time...and looking at the most detailed, for the 3rd Yeomanry -

1/8/41 Westbury.Personnel recalled from 7 days Privilege leave after 48 hours reported throughout day. Intensive preparation for move abroad commenced.
2/8/41 First 4-day Embarkation leave party departed.
3/8/41 Preparation for move.
4/8/41 Preparation for move. 2nd embarkation leave party.
5/8/41 Preparation for move. 3rd embarkation leave party.
6/8/41 Preparation for move. Personnel recalled from Privilege leave depart for 48 hour Embarkation leave.

...there's time for leave, but not time to fit new parts that were apparently missing from their tanks - but that were sitting on the dockside to ship to Egypt with them in separate boxes???

[Urmel]

German tanks were not all that flash either.

Quite. Just look at the size/weight of the Panther, and then consider the fact that its side armour was still not up to keeping out the most numerous anti-tank gun's rounds it would encounter.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Phylo,

I'd always thought that 'Stathnavar' was a troop ship, and that tanks would have been on a separate ship - the way I read the CLY war diary it doesn't actually confirm that tanks and troops were on ship - or am I missing something??

Regards

Tom

[Urmel]

Tanks seem to have arrived very shortly after the troops in the case of 4 CLY. I would presume that even if troops and tanks were not on the same ship, the tanks would be accompanied by a small detachment (maybe one man per tank?). That's how the Germans seem to have done things.

[phylo_roadking]

Actually, personally I would have to agree with this - for when googling the HMT Orion I can see deatails of it moving back and forth all over the shop during the war with personnel on board rather than materiel. And the Strathmore is definitely a liner too...

I posted up what the war diary specified, and sadly as I noted can find no pick of the Orion to go by I would have hoped that the "thin" war diary entry was definitive - but that doesn't really make sense; I agree it simply makes more sense for the tanks themelves to have been in the other three cargo ships...and the personnel in the liners.

Aha! Just now I've found a pic of the Port Jackson...



....and the Brisbane Star...



So I would now indeed expect troops in the liners, tanks in the cargo ships

[Urmel]

This being the British army I would expect the officers to be in the liners and the troops to swim.

[phylo_roadking]

I've just been talking to Andreas in ww2talk - he's the guy who runs the Crusader Project. I asked the questions there, and when I threw up this oddity he went back and check the overall 22 Armoured Brigade war diary

The three constutuent units took 45 tanks along with them from England, 10 each in 2 RGH and 4 CLY, and 15 in 3 CLY (of which 5 were despatched by 2 AB directly to port, and another 10 from the workshops) These of course having been USED in England had no bits missing!

While at sea - Each of the regiments then had 52 tanks issued to it from the ships in October, and it appears they brought 166 tanks in total, so 121 new tanks

Interestingly, he also said the following -

Tanks were accompanied by a party of 1 Off 32 OR for each regiment, at least until the embarkation port, although I guess they would have continued on the ships.

They certainly had a pleasant enough cruise - they don't seem to have lifted a bleedin' spanner!

[Urmel]

It's a bit disconcerting then that 86 out of 121 tanks had some rather crucial equipment uninstalled...

[Gooner1]

And I would argue that the 88 was better than the British 3.7" because it achieved similar performance at a much lower weight, by the way.

The 3.7" did fire a shell one-third as heavy again to a higher ceiling though.

OTOH the 3.7s weight was such that Gort at BEF was calling for more of the obsolescent 3" AA guns instead.

OTOOH even had Britain designed an AA gun similar in performance and weight to the 88 they didn't have had a tractor to give it decent cross-country mobility anyway.

[Urmel]

I wasn't aware there was such a performance difference. Thanks for setting me right on this.

[phylo_roadking]

It's a bit disconcerting then that 86 out of 121 tanks had some rather crucial equipment uninstalled...

Yes, Andreas agreed his statement that the number of replacement parts needed meant that all the 166 tanks of the three units had at least one fault was a little misleading now; it was more likely that the 86 NEW tanks had multiple deficiencies

The answer probably lies in that WS-file mentioned in the article about the deficiences of new Crusaders...

Then again...if you look at the three war diaries, there's movement of issued Crasaders used for training in the UK back to Chilwell - for modification???

[Urmel]

I understand it was found that general modification was not required. Just someone forgot to tell ME Command.

[Sunbury]

Barnett was damming of British Industry for creating inferior tanks, sadly the British workforce made sure that they contributed as well. The practice of Quality Control seems to have been an alien concept, never really comphrended.

General Auchinleck writing to Churchill in December 1941 on the two Churchill tanks sent for trials wrote:

These vehicles were stowed on the forward well-deck, unsheeted and unlocked, exposed to sea water. When received these tanks had water on floors and showed rust markings nine inches up the walls; considerable damage to electrical and wireless gear, requiring fourteen days work before the tanks can run. Method of stowing and despatch most unsatisfactory. All American tanks are dispatched with all crevices and doors pasted up with masking tape

The Crusader tanks when the arrived in 1941 were found to only have their chassis bolts done up finger tight, Wavell estimated he needed a 25% reserve just to allow for faulty tanks arriving. The war had been going how many years?

Toss in the 1400 Austin Trucks with piston faults in August 1944 (5 years of war), quality control in British Industry was very hit or miss. It should have been totally unacceptable.

[Tim Smith]

Well, what with the British Empire finding itself fighting Germany alone from July 1940 to June 1941, it's perhaps understandable for British industry to be geared toward quantity production rather than quality production. Two badly-manufactured tanks are thought to be preferable to one well-manufactured tank. It's called 'Panic Mode' and it happens to all nations that find themselves losing a war - produce as many weapons as possible as quickly as possible, and cut as many corners as possible. And British workers weren't lazy or inefficient, just exhausted from working 16-hour shifts 7 days a week.

The same thing happened to German and Japanese industry from 1944, where production levels skyrocketed, but quality nosedived.

I guess it took some while for British industry to get itself out of 'Panic Mode' and start treating quality as important again - probably it took until 1943.

[Michael Kenny]

Barnett was damming of British Industry for creating inferior tanks, sadly the British workforce made sure that they contributed as well. The practice of Quality Control seems to have been an alien concept, never really comphrended.

Sadly you seem to have a problem that compels you to make silly statements.
It is obvious now that you have no point other than to disparage everything 'British'.
We get the message.

If you get the Jentz PanzerTracts book on the Nashorn (7-3, Panzerjaeger) you can read how they were so poorly designed and built (bolt in the brake drum, drill filings in the engine housing, soldering joints failed, gears broke, drive shaft broke, odometer and tachometer cables too short, engines overheated and failed, sights drifting out of alignment every time they move, gun travel lock too flimsy, ammo stowed over exhaust pipes heated up and was falling short, brakes poorly adjusted, armour plate cracked etc, etc,) that they wanted to stop all production. The fact it was the only tracked 88 L/71 available was all that keept it going. Not even mentioning all the brand spanking new Panthers that had to be sent back to the factory and rebuilt..............
How does that fit in your 'Germans rule' universe