US M26 Pershing vs the Centurion

No problem Clint, when we are talking about Tanks from this period, Perishing, Patton, Centurion & Is IIIs, could you count the Comet in this group or was it just a stop gap tank used by the British till the Centurion came into full production, I can see from its appearance that it looks like a Cromwell with the same running gear and its box like armour, but was it a good enough tank to take on the Soviet stuff, there weakest tank being at the time the T-34/85, I wonder what happened to the poor Comet was it sold off to other nations after WW2?.

 

Don't hold me to this, but I seem to remember reading that the low gearing of the Comet allowed it to perform quite handsomely in the steep terrain of Korea. I'll look around and see if I can find that ref.

 

Thanks Clint, I was looking at the North Korean and Chinese forces from the Korean theatre and they seemed to have only two AFVs.
The T-34/85
SU-76
Didnt the Soviets supply them with any of there many other Assault guns, they must have had a big surplus of AFVs after ww2.
Apart from the American AFVs (which there is too much to write down) and the British Comets, Centurians & Churchill Crocodiles, did the any other Allied nations supply any AFVs in this conflict.
Regards Yan.

 

WW2 Tanks and Fighting Vehicles by Chris Foss has the entire Pershing line listed as :
T25, T26, T26E1, E2, E3, M26, M45, M46 and many variants from1945 to the 1950's. Twenty T26E3's were sent to Europe for the Zebra Mission in early 1945. In May 1946 the M26 was reclassified as the M46 medium tank.

 

The only really unreliable part of the M26 was the original GM cross-drive transmission in use. This was a new item for US tank production and was quite a remarkable piece of engineering. That it had bugs in it to some degree was inevidable for a new design.
That said, by comparison, the M26 was more reliable than anything the Germans or British were fielding in late 1944 -45. So, claims of its unreliability are relative. By US standards it was unreliable. By anyone else's it would have been seen as reasonably reliable or even reliable.
The biggest two drawbacks the M26 has is that it is underpowered and it is a gas hog. By comparison, the first Centurian was severely undergunned with a 17 pdr, had an equally if not more so, unreliable drive train (the RR Meteor engine is far less reliable than the Ford GAA) and, it too was a gas hog. Both vehicles had maybe a realistic 100 mile range.
Post war the US designated the M26 as an interm design and the improved but nearly identical M 46 as "standard." The M 46 fixed most of the major drive train problems of the M26. Concurrently, the British were fielding the first Mk 2 Centurians still with a 17 pdr.
The Centurian Mk III of 1947-48 is the first with a 20 pdr putting it more on par with the US in terms of firepower. It remained in production in this form with only minor modifications through 1956 and was the model that saw service in Korea. The US during the Korean war reworked the remaining M 26 into M 46 for the most part. To improve the M 46 the T 42 tank's turret was substituted on the hull becoming the M 47. This tank also introduced the improved 90mm M36 gun rather than using the earlier 90mm M3.
At the same time the US started development on what would become their standard MBT in to the 60's the M 48. The pilot T 48's were sent to Aberdeen for testing in early 1952. The British at the end of the Korean war began development of additional marks of Centurian eventually running these ten different marks (Mk 4 to 13). The Mk 10 represents the last new production vehicles while Mks 11, 12 and, 13 are modifications of the Mk 10 or earlier vehicles.
Both the M 47 and M 48 remained in service well into the 90's and some are still in use world-wide today. Given the much smaller production numbers of the Centruian fewer are still in service. Basically, today virutally any AFV can be extended in life significantly with new suspensions, engines, transmissions, guns and, other equipment.
Look how far the Israelis took the Sherman. Many users of older Soviet AFV (T 54/55, T62) have gotten these rebuilt extensively using non-Soviet / Russian technology to both improve and extend their service lives.

 

Thats the thing, the new 76mm turret was the same as that of the T-23 which later modified into the T-25 and used on the Pershing. All the turrets and guns are interchangeable, except that the ammo has to be moved when the 90mm is used in the t-23 turret. The 90mm was specifically made to fit into the existing 76mm mount.

 

To be fair to McNair, he never dictated the technical specifications of any medium tank. He only demanded that it had to be proven and battle-worthy. (To the best of my recollection, he opposed developing a separate infantry tank and an armor branch tank which made sense to me) I am not aware of any obstruction on McNair's part that impeded the M26 program; it was simply not ready for operations until 1945.

 

Looking at photos the turrets don't look identical to me. What is your source on this? I do know the turret rings were the same.

 

The turret rings are indeed the same diameter of 69".

When it comes to the turret itself, the turret sides appear flat in comparison to the chassis, but from the back of the turret it is quite obvious it is the same. I can totally understand how you could not see the resemblance from the front, it just looks so much different on a difference chassis.



This is a 90mm Sherman picture from this very site, notice the turret is identical:


And here is the 76mm Sherman, note the bustle is haped differently, as it contained the counterweight and so it would naturually be of a different size in each turret:

 

Oh, and please note they are not EXACTLY the same, as the T-25 which ended up in the M-26 had far thicker armor. Otherwise, they were both developed from the very same T-23 turret, and the 90mm indeed could be mounted in the 76mm mount, although I doubt it would fit in the glacis, as the hole would need to be larger. Its as close to a drop in replacement as they come.