The Comet and British WW2 tank production

When asked to list the best British tank of WW2, the Comet seems to comes at the top of most peoples lists, not surprising since it had the benefit of a lot of experience in its design.

If the Comet had entered production sooner, say end 1942, with a 17pdr or its historic 77mm would it have been considered superior enough to other British built tanks including the Churchill that the inevitable disruption to production caused by swapping production to the Comet would have been acceptable?

Could the Comet have taken a larger gun?


How extensive was welding in British tanks compared to those from other countries particularly America and what advantages did it have over riveting apart from presumably no rivets to go flying around at high speed when the tank is hit.

 

Swapping production would definitely have been worth it judging the advantages in speed, mobility, armor and firepower that the Comet had over the Crusader and even Cromwell, the two cruiser tanks that preceded it. However, production of the Churchill would never have been stopped in its favor since the Churchill was built for entirely different reasons (as an infantry tank) and its purpose could not be overtaken by the Comet.

 

What if in this alternate history, the day after the Comet was introduced, the seperate crusier and infantry tank roles had been combined into one 'universal' tank role, did the Comet offer enough advantages over the Churchill to compensate for the disruption in changing production?

 

The Comet was primarily built for speed and mobility with an edge in firepower and armour over the other cruisers as well. However, infantry tanks were built for armor and therefore slow, which didn't matter since they were supposed to advance with infantry. I don't think the two roles could have been merged, viewing the totally different designs that were developed to meet either purpose.

The Comet would in any case be much too fast to work well with infantry assaults.

 

I always found the need for separate "infantry support" tanks absurd. In reality, any AVF that has a machine gun or even a small calibre 20mm cannon qualifies as an infantry support vehicle, just look at the infantry fighting vehicles of today.
While it's true that one with a larger gun that fires an effective HE round would be prefer, but most tanks are capable of firing AP as well as HE rounds anyway. People also tent to forget while supporting your infantry, you are often opposed by enemy armor, a slow and heavy "infantry support" tank with a low velocity gun that fires a HE round is not exactly the ideal anti-armor weapon.
Are you telling me that a Churchill tank was more effective in the infantry support role than the fast-moving, reliable and versatile Shermans, or T-34?

 

The seperate roles didn't last long beyond WW2, what if the Comet drove a little slower??

 

PMN1

You aren't listening to what Roel is telling you.

The Comet was not designed to engage infantry. You cannot get around that fact. The requirements of an Infantry tank according to British docterine is that a Tank be well armored enough to withstand any known infantry level anti-tank weapon, be able to move at speeds that allow it to stay with the infantry, and carry a gun capable of delivering a high-yield HE shell for infantry support. The Comet could not fulfiull this roll.

 

The need for an infantry tank was a pre-war notion, wartime experience showed that such specialisation was a nuisance - tanks got thrown into whichever role was needed, regardless what they were designed for. So any tank needed to be able to engage other tanks with AP and engage infantry or other soft targets with HE or MGs. It also needed to match good protection with reasonable mobility. The British eventually realised this, which is why the Churchill was the last infantry tank. Instead, the British concentrated on developing a good all-round tank, which emerged just too late for action as the Centurion.

The Comet was an interim effort at getting a reasonably powerful gun into service as quickly as possible. It couldn't really have come any earlier unless the British had appreciated the needed for a high-velocity large-calibre gun much earlier than they did.

Tony Williams
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/

 

Actually, the interim effort was the Challenger I, basically a lengthened Cromwell chassis with a 17pdr gun in a rather high turret. It was a miserable and unpopular machine.

 

And not as good as the machine that was the 'interim' design until the Challenger appeared - the Sherman Firefly!

 

Since this is a ‘what if’ thread, lets give the Comet a gun that has the same AP capability as its historic 77mm but also has a decent HE round and it assume it has been decided to phase out the separate Cruiser and Infantry Tank roles.

Does the Comet now fit the ‘universal tank’ description that the Centurion had when it entered service or would it need extra armour to perform the Infantry Tank role.

If it does fit the Universal Tank description would the disruption of swapping from the Churchill to the Comet be worth it?

What would this do to the Black Prince, would not spending any time at all on this have helped the introduction of the Centurion or was time taken on this so small as to be insignificant.

 

Ok, ultimately threads like this are pointless. The very idea of the "what if" thread is flawed. In a "what if" thread, the topic starter is free to manipulate the circumstances as far as he needs to get the desired answer.

What you are asking is: "What if the Comet was the perfect vehicle, without flaw? What if it, by its very nature, made every single Tank in the British arsenal obsolete? Would production then shift primarily to Comets?"

With that, you have answered your own question.

 

Just because something is superior, it doesn't necessarily mean it will replace all other construction - the disruption caused may not be acceptable at the time - which is why I'm asking, if the 'what if' had been the case, would the disruption have been worth it?

 

Darn right! an excellent gun on a well -proven tank...At certain ranges, the 17 pdr, outperformed the Krupp 88...