British tank design

Was there reasoning behind the design of early British tanks that gave then a turret ring too small to accept a larger turret and gun?

Was it a case of not thinking ahead to the possibility of upgrading, a case of wanting to carry on using existing transport systems (rolling stock etc)?

 

the british didn't get their act together till 1940 ,

 

Probably both. The railway size limits were a definite factor affecting design in general and the turret diameter in particular. However, I don't believe that any nation foresaw the gun/armour race which took place in WW2, so no-one saw the need to provide for upgunning. The fact that some prewar tanks lent themselves to this was probably a happy accident rather than deliberate planning.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

My next question is - could the Matilada, Crusader, Valentine etc have have been designed with a turret ring big enough to accept upgrades (with a bit of Foresight)

I know your tanks in your book 'The Foresight War' do (do I get a share in the royalties for shameless advertising??)

:smok:

 

Crusaders and velentines actually were upgunned, 6pdr for crusader III, 6pdr then 75mm for valentine, though both at the expense of a turret crew member. I think part of the problem was that British industry was set up for the manufacture of the 2pdr gun. Even though it was appreciated that a larget calibre gun was desirable it was felt prudent to continue manufacturing an obsolescent gun rather than face armament shortages while factories were re-tooled and manufacture geared up. This was especially true when Britain faced invasion.

 

I guess it has a lot has to do with the way the armour thickness shot up during the war, just compare a Mark I or II to a Tiger. I suppose that's because thicker armour was simpler to develop than better penetrating guns and rounds.

Would a 2pdr main gun been sufficent against Mark I and II's and maybe even early III's?

Also as the Matilida was an infantry tank was an anti tank role given a high priority? I would have thought not given it's speed and manouvability and the fact that the British developed "cruisers" seperatly for that task.

FNG

 

The 2pdr was actually a very good weapon in the first 2 years of war and could easily master a pzI, II or early models of III. Despite being an infantry tank the Matilda II had no HE rounds (well, none to speak of), special close support versions with 3" howitzers were fielded in relatively small numbers. Some sources state that the CS versions carried a lot more smoke shells than HE, strange British tank doctrine again?

 

I get the feeling that British tank tactics and knowledge could have written on the back of a stamp during WW2. Constantly in all the books I read they are critisced for their designs and tactics.

FNG

 

The british still considered a tank entirely as an infantry support vehicle , while the germans tryed hard to "perfect" what a perfect tank should be , and they put more consideration into powerful tanks , they went for firepower and armour while the allies more or less went for mobility ,low cost ,reliability ,and speed .

 

Or possibly 1944!

Sadly true.
We developed mobile armoured tactics, yet we ignored them.
We had the occasional genius like O'Connor, but undervalued them.

Our tanks were handicapped by a reluctance to see the value of sloped armour and (initially) the lack of decent guns then the reluctance to develop a tank with a wide enough turret ring to cope with a decent gun (due to size restrictions for logistical reasons).

 

Well, the British did go for speed in some tanks (cruisers), armour in others (Matilda, Churchill)... We never really got the point that all 3 areas should be combined!

 

Yet the British were the first to exploit the potential of the Sherman to house a bigger gun, developing the Firefly in 1943.

 

That is highly debatable. It's true that the weapon was capable of performing well against these vehicles. The problem was the uncapped ammo versus face hardened German armor. The so-called shatter gap.
The Brits were slow to realize this fact and slow to deal with it and the problem persisted well into the N. Africa campaign.

Surely a doctrinal failing. They realized it and dealt with it eventually.

 

Agreed. The importance of a higher velocity gun was realized by the British before the US caught on to it, it seems, at least before they began to seriously address the problem. I have always been puzzled though by the flat, unsloped armor of the Comet..

watsup wit dat?

 

I'm guessing it all boils down to time.

If post Dunkirk the British stop and say to themselves; okay what we need now is a tank with a good height velocity gun with a useful HE round, thick sloped armour and good speed and reliability,

The problem with this is their basically going to have to start designing it from scratch. So it will probably be several years before this tank sees the light of day.

However the army will be saying; what can you give us right now? That means the best that can be achieved is an incremental improvement on existing designs.

Bottom line: even the most horribly flawed tank is better than no tank at all.

 

The belief that, as a shell will never strike a tank at exactly 90 degrees (vertical or horizontal), so therefore it does not really matter if you have sloped or unsloped armour. :-?

 

I think the US realized the value of a bigger, if not high velocity, gun before the Britsih did. Even the M3 Grant/Lee had a 75mm gun. The 75mm gun on the Sherman was "blessed" by the " battle tested and experienced" British. Both the US and British realized that a high velocity gun was required for AT purposes at about the same time. Having said all that, the best AT gun in a tank used by the Western Allies was the British 17pdr.

 

I agree, that's why I stated high velocity gun rather than bigger gun.
The Brits pioneered the hyper velocity, sub caliber, weapons (along with the Germans, French and Russians..I don't know who was truly first..proably predates WW II) however the Brits got some of them into action earliest on the Allied side. the Germans had developed taper bore and APCR sub caliber munitions even earlier however their shortage of tungsten limited their usefullness.

Guess what the highest velocity gun of the war actually used was? and who made it?

 

Do you mean gun as in 'any kind of gun' or specifically as 'tank gun'?

If the former, then the highest-velocity piece to see service was, offhand, the German K5 Glatt 30,5 cm railway gun. It had a muzzle velocity of over 1,500 m/s (5,000 fps). A close second came the German 15 cm Hochdruckpumpe (V-3) which managed 1,460 m/s (4,800 fps) but that never worked properly.

If you mean tank gun rounds then the British 2 pdr Littlejohn hit 4,200 fps (1,280 m/s). In anti-tank guns, it was probably the German 2,8 cm Pzb 41 (Gerlich squeezebore) which hit 1,400 m/s (just under 4,600 fps).

[Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

Hi Tony I should have known you would be able to answer that question inasmuch as I was reading your article THE SEARCH FOR HIGH VELOCITY to research the topic. It's good to see someone of your qualifications reading and posting here.
I was thinking of the Pzb 41 and wasn't even aware that those huuge guns could achieve such velocity. Wow..amazing !