Cromwell tank

bag of spanners!

 

a high quality tank , but no match for any german panthers or tigers !

 

The gun barrel was chopped back? Source? If you chop the barrel down you have to do something to the other end (breach) to maintain balance, especially on Brit tanks (that's why the Centaurs have that huge sleeve round the end of the barrel - replace the weight of the shortened barrel).
And if you lose material off the breach aren't you risking breach failure?

Other point. Comet fan wrote:
IMHO the 77 mm was an excellenct tank gun, I wonder how it cmpared to the amercian 76 mm in terms of HE cpacity, accuracy and AP capabilities.
AFAIK the 77mm was only slightly inferior to the 17pr, and the 17pr was so much better than the US 76. Eisenhower was really pissed off with the US 76 vis a vis the 17pr - The Universal Tank, Fletcher, D. Page 102. (although not expressed in quite those terms).
That, however would refer to AP capability, as already discussed elsewhere on this site, 17pr was relatively poor at HE.
Oli

 

Most books dealing with the 76mm Shermans mention this, but you can find it in Roger Ford's "The Sherman Tank" and Steven Zaloga's "M4 (76mm) Sherman Medium Tank 1943-65"

By the way, it wasn't three feet (~ meter) but 15 inches (380mm; from 57 calibers to 52) that were removed ("chopped" is a bit strong). A counter weight was added to the breech.

 

Thanks, will dig that one out. Counter weight added?? Shurely shome mishtake (Brit humour - ignore it if you don't read Private Eye). If you shorten the barrel then you have to reduce breach weight to restore balance? Otherwise the thing is going spend all its time pointing at the clouds
A reduction of 380mm is about 10 kg lost off the front end. Compensating by losing 10kg from the breach sounds pretty iffy to me.
Oli

 

The relationship between the US and British tank guns of 3 inch calibre went like this (approx penetration using capped AP ammo, 1,000 yards, 30 degree impact):

US 76 mm = 90 mm
British 77mm = 100 mm
British 17 pdr = 120 mm

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

My reaction as well, but all the sources are consistent (error at the prime sources perhaps?). It is possible that since the T1 was a test gun it was never properly balanced to begin with and even more weight would have been required if the original length had been retained.

 

Yeah, that occurred to me about an hour after I posted. We (fans etc) tend to assume that things are designed properly from the start. As a design engineer I should know better, having made one or two slight errors in my time... (I think £15000 for the sake off 5 inches (127mm) was one of my better ones :-? )
Oli

 

Oli, so you made tanks for britain in ww2?

 

Sheesh, I'm used to cracks about my age but...
Nope, just making the point that as a design engineer I should be used to mistakes at source, and illustrated with an example of how much a little error can cost.
Nothing to do with AFVs, sorry.
As a design engineer I don't make things, I think of them, design them, do the drawings, hand them to somebody with less intelligence ( :lol: :lol: ), and then point out that of course it won't work, he misunderstood me completely :kill:
Oli
The drawing office is the source of all faults.

 

Hmmm

tell me oli - is it true that an engineer is a person educated beyond his intellence? as a skilled tradesman for the last 40 years i agree that the design group is the source of all wrongs. at my end we tend to nod nicely and then do it the right way. then when it all works out well in the end everybody's so releved that nobody ever mentions that it doesn't look anything like the print.

 

For God's sake don't tell everybody the secret! :lol:
The one thing our "managers" could never understand was the relationship we had with "the shop floor" guys. Monday morning as we rolled in at a nice comfortable 9 o'clock there were cat calls, jeers and outright nasty insults going both ways. More than once I've had a trained "manager" ask if there was a personality problem between me and one of my regular "monkeys". He couldn't work out that that was just for laughs. I did the drawing, he told me where/ if it was wrong, we'd put it right. A good draughty ALWAYS listens to the guy who is gonna build it. I haven't got time for the designer who really think the shop floor is there just to do as they're told :angry: Skilled tradesmen are worth their weight in gold, and most of them reciprocate.
But work's always more fun when you can have a laugh at the same time.
Oli

 

It was actually more or less the other way around. The Firefly was conceived as a safeguard against failure of the Challenger programme. As it turned out, the Firefly was ready when needed, the Challenger was not.

 

well what was the best British tank of WWII?

Did the Chanenger see action?

 

The Comet. The best design made was the Centurion, but that was too late to see WW2 action.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

The Challenger did see action - but as Roel said, it was a little disappointing.

And thanks Skua!

 

Cromwell tank and Challenger

I found this picture of british tanks in 'Tanks & Armoured vehicles of VW II" by Jan Surmondt (page 97).


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v252/ ... engers.jpg

Note the two Challengers (marked with a white star) amongst the Cromwell tanks and a few Shermans.
The Challenger really look's clumsy compared to the more compact Cromwell !

 

The Challenger was slightly more difficult than normal to manoeuvre because it was a tad too long in relation to its width ( the width was the same as for the Cromwell, but it was more than 5ft 10in longer ).

 

The photo is 7th AD Recce Regiment (8th Hussars) waiting to cross the Rhine. There are also 2 Fireflys in the photo showing that recce Regs. had both of the 17pdr. tanks in their line up.

 

Re: Cromwell tank and Challenger

and ugly!!!!