Was the Comet tank feasible 1938-1939?

This question has popped up on another board, what do people think?

http://p216.ezboard.com/fwarships1discu ... 1484.topic

Was the technology and production capacity available to produce the Comet in the late 1930s, for deployment in France by 1940, and North Africa in time to meet Romel?

 

probably all the ww2 tanks could have been made in 39 had the will and forethought been there. The actual heavy engineering was not mindblowingly different like jet/rocket engines to prop planes.

FNG

 

It was probably possible but not thinkable in the late 1930s. Who would ever have envisioned the need for an anti-tank gun that could penetrate over a hundred millimeters of steel when the heaviest tanks of the day carried little more than half that? Who would have thought to improve the Christie suspension with track return rollers? And who would fit a cruiser tank with more than a hundred millimeters of armour when the enemy's standard AT guns were stuggling to penetrate half that? All these elements in the Comet's design were ordered later on during WW2 after combat experience had been gained and studied.

 

What was the comet anyway, for those of us who don't know.

 

comet

This is the Comet.

 

comet

one more.

 

See Merlin's pictures for details... This was the best cruiser tank used by the British during WW2. It incorporated all the developments made on tanks through the lessons of combat (except sloped armour) and was very popular with its crews because of a good and very accurate gun, a high top speed, a low profile and nice thick frontal armour. All in all it was a lot better than all the previous British attempts at producing a medium tank.

 

comet line drawing

A rather neat Comet line drawing for modelers.

 

Comet in action

 

I posted this on the Warships1 board

The tank you going to get in the late 30's will be dependent on the thinking of the time.

Are there any in the British Army in a position of authority or even any at all who are thinking/talking about a 'universal' tank that the Comet would probably be described as?

And Hoist40 came back with an interesting answer.

http://p216.ezboard.com/fwarships1discu ... c&index=15

Yes in a way there was a step toward a Comet, according to David Fletchers book “Mechanized Force” in 1936 there was efforts toward designing a “heavy or battlecruiser tank” which had some protype work (A14, A15). This was first pushed by Giffard Martel (Assistant Director of Mechanisation) It was not a Comet, but it was at least bigger then the 10 –16 ton tanks that were being produced. Details are a little sketchy in the book but one prototype (A14) was 29 ton’s though they wanted to get it down to 25 tons. A15 had a 2 pounder, a medium range howitzer, two machine guns on the turret, with two more machine guns in the hull in turrets and a smoke mortar. Thought the author says that there was some evidence that there was some involved in the projects who appreciated a tank that could be expanded to take larger guns or thicker armor.

There was also the A16 design which was a A13 design with thicker armor and the same gun arrangement as the A15

Here is a quote from the book

Quote:Yet in a sense, railways were its downfall. Limitations set by the British railways loading gauge always had, and for a long time continued to dictate the overall size of British tanks, and the projected A15 exceeded this. In an effort to get round this problem the War Office discussed the idea of building tanks to suit the continental loading gauge, which offered an advantage of about ten inches in width, but this was turned down by more conservative element who, presumably, could not imagine British tanks operating in Europe and the project was suspended in December 1937.

 

comet

Arimanis, your 'Comet in action, in Europe' pic is a bit clean for 'in action, from the buildings I'd say Bovington, OK it's in Europe. Working Comets look like the pictures I posted in Italy and Egypt.
In any case we've got a Comet thread running recently.

 

Did they have the knowledge of what the makings of a tank were?

If not then...no

Other wise, why wouldn't it be (except maybe for the depression. But I don't know what effect it had in Britain so I can't say)

 

Re: comet

Yes, It is true, but I've put another picture of the Comet in Action, and It was very large and don't appear in my post, then, I changed it for a little picture that appears, and isn't "in action"...Sorry.

 

What do you mean exactly? The tank as such had been invented twenty years earlier.

 

I mean like an understanding of shell penetration versus armour thickness and angle.

Did they have that kind of understanding in the '30's? It's been mentioned that tanks with sloping armour were often 'tougher' then a tank with unsloped armour (or a more vertical slope) of the same thickness.

 

Apart from the fact that the Comet mostly used plate thickness rather than slope to guarantee crew protection, yes, they were aware of how armour penetration worked in the 30s. There hadn't been any need to develop really thick and/or sloped armour yet, however.

 

Unless you count the infantry tanks, like the Matildas

 

The engine was the most significant part of the comet's development - fast, powerful and reliable. It is the engine in main battle tanks (to which the comet was close) that enables everything else to take place - balancing weight of armour etc with power and hence mobility. As the comet's selection of engine was reached by a process of evolution through the war years, I would say that the comet could not have been possible in 1939 - if it had been built then it would have been a lesser beast altogether - far less mobile and reliable (not as well armed either for that matter).

Engine engine engine engine engine.

Let's hear it for engines - not the most sexy topic in tank forums where everyone gets excited about big guns and armour plate. Engines are great. While I'm at it let's hear it for suspension too.

 

Very true, the engine is another thing of which the sheer scale reached later on in the war was hard to imagine in the late 1930s. Still, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to draft something with the kind of power generated by the Rolls Royce Merlin, seeing as the Matilda II (thanks Ricky) weighed only five tons or so less than the Comet.

 

While we are at it - gearbox?