# January 1936: British army, you run the show



## tomo pauk (Oct 29, 2014)

Simiar with current aviation-related threads - what should be the best, but historically plausible outfit to choose for the upcoming years for the British army? Thinking about tanks, artillery, small arm, AAA.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

A lot of this comes down to money, _MANY_ of the choices made at this time were due to the amount of money (or lack of it) the Army got from the defense budget. Without a major change in the funding many things were going to wind up the same.

starting with small arms (and the British actually did pretty good here).

Pistol; An Automatic would have been nice since the .380 Enfield wasn't exactly a stellar weapon but since pistols probable casue the fewest enemy casualties per weapon issued it doesn't make any difference except to special forces units. 

Rifle; a change from the Lee-Enfield SMLE would have been nice but a semi-auto was probably out of the question. Faster change over to the No. 4 might have been though and coupled with better training _might_ have made a difference, although small. 

Sub-machinegun; the only real failing of the pre-war small arms. Earlier adoption of????? Most pre-war SMGs were of the costly/well machined/finished type. Money spent there isn't available for......? 

LMG; You aren't going to do much(if any) better than the Bren gun. British were also using the Bren as a bit of a GPMG at the time with a tripod mount and AA mounts. 

Medium MG; Vickers did OK, might not be ideal but only real alternatives might be the Browning or Besa. Vickers tooling, training manuals, expertise already exist. 

Heavy MG. The standard Vickers .5 and/or one of the high Velocity commercial guns? or the 15mm Besa? See; Untitled Document

Earlier adoption of 20mm AA guns? 

Mortars;
The 2in was pretty good, no need for change unless you change role/tactics.

The 3in was somewhat behind world standards until it got a better barrel, baseplate and different firing charges around 1942/43 which improved things. Could have been done earlier. 

The 4.2in mortar was a bit late in coming (so were equivalent mortars in most other armies), a point of opportunity for the British??? But if you buy 4.2in mortars what _aren't you buying?_

Light AA: See above Heavy MGs or 20mm cannon. Again you have the cost problem. British 'standard' for Light AA for the infantry battalion in 1940 was four .303 Bren guns, each mounted on it's own light truck. 

Will shift to heavier weapons in other post/s.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

Moving on to artillery.

AT guns:
The 2pdr was a world leader at the time. Main failing was the expensive and heavy 360 degree carriage. A smaller/lighter/cheaper split trail carriage might have paid dividends. And we can also start what is going to be a constant refrain or chorus in the 'song' about British artillery. Cheap ammo. The 2pdr started with plain AP shot, no cap, no ballistic cap, no HE bursting charge. Armor Piercing Capped Ballistic Capped ammunition with HE bursters dates back to WW I for naval ammunition. Nothing _new_ has to be invented, made smaller perhaps. Now maybe you don't need all the features in one round. Getting APCBC shot before 1943 (when the 2pdr was going out of service as an AFV gun) might have helped, it had teh same penetration at 1000 yds as the plain shot did at 500yds. Getting a HE 2pdr round _before_ late 1942 might have helped considerably too, for infantry support as well as tank/AFV use. Use 2pdr pom pom projectiles or 40mm Bofors projectiles, at least as staring points. 

6pdr was _supposed_ to have been designed in 1938 and held back while building 2pdrs. Perhaps outside the scope of this thread? anyway the _cheap ammo_ rears it's head again with ONLY plain shot being available in 1941, HE (in small numbers) joining in 1942 and APC and APCBC showing up in 1943.

Field artillery, a real sore spot.
The 13pdrs are few in number and obsolete. Can be disregarded even for "what if schemes". 18pdrs exist in two classes. Old barrels, recoil systems and carriages suitable for training and newer barrels, recoil systems and carriages which were being converted as much as possible to 25pdr MK Is or equipping existing units while the new/converted guns were being worked on. The 25pdr MK II carriage which we are all familiar with didn't go into production until 1940. Perhaps with more money it could have been speeded up a bit? Or do the Germans just capture better guns at Dunkirk? We also had the _cheap ammo_ refrain. The 25pdr having about the lowest weight of explosive to shell weight of any major light field artillery piece of WW II. 

The 3.7in Mountain Howitzer was a decent enough gun. The Army was also soldiering on with an assortment of WW I odds and sods like the 4.5in howitzer (max range 7000yds), the 60pdr gun and the 6in 26cwt howitzer among others. The 5.5in gun was late in coming (design requirement 1939 and first _production_, not prototypes in 1941) and was limited by the *cheap ammo.*

Who needs long range guns when you have airplanes? 
Who gets the money? 

More later.


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## tomo pauk (Oct 30, 2014)

The 2pdr was also a tank gun - maybe cancel it while it is in prototype stage, and use the existing 3pdr as a base for the new AT and tank gun? The MV was about the same, the shell weighted 50% more. 
How much there is a need for the heavy MG for the ground forces - perhaps go with twin belt-fed LMG and a 20 mm all the way?


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

The MV of the existing 3pdr was much lower than the 2pdr. So low that it was rated at about 25-27mm armor penetration at 500yds/30 degrees. 

A lot of machine gun use was doctrine and tactics. The "medium" gun (Vickers) was expected to fire at ranges between 1000 and 2000yds. It was the major support weapon of the infantry until the 3in-81mm mortars came along and with the British dropping the ball and accepting a max range of 1600yds for the 3in MK I mortar it meant the .303 Vickers gun could handily out range the battalion mortars. British also did not issue Vickers guns to the infantry battalion but held them at higher echelon to be 'attached' as needed to individual battalions or concentrated for certain tasks/missions. 

"In the pre-war period it had been planned that each Infantry Brigade would be supported by a Machine Gun Battalion. In the event however, Machine Gun Battalions were designated Corps Troops, and were allotted on the much reduced scale of one Battalion per Division. Each Machine Gun Battalion had forty eight Vickers medium machine guns, divided into four Companies, with three Platoons of four guns per Company." This for the 1939-40 period, things change. See this website for theoretical Paper) British organizations/scale of issue. 

http://www.bayonetstrength.me.uk/British/Infantry/The British Infantry Battalion.htm

twin belt fed LMGs sound great for AA use but are pretty useless for most anything else and even LMGs start running into the the ammo supply problem. To keep them firing for very long requires good logistic support. For AA work Bren guns _could_ be given 100 round drums and the 4 postition gas regulator opened up to the max setting to boost the rate of fire. 







Granted most armies (US and Russians excepted) didn't see much need for 0.5in/12.7-13mm machine guns for ground combat although the French and Japanese (and a few others) did use them for AA work.









Timing is everything and the 20mm guns were still somewhat in development in the late 1930s. Depending on year and model of gun rates of fire could be rather low. With it taking several years to even acquire licences, set up a factory and issue enough guns to equip more than trials units selecting the 'right' one could be a bit of guessing game.


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## tomo pauk (Oct 30, 2014)

The 3pdr Vickers was firing at almost 800 m/s - Ordnance QF 3-pounder Vickers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia?


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

different gun than the 3pdr tank gun used in Medium MK II tanks and a few prototypes. 

OQF 3-pounder gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It appears the Naval gun weighed about 2 1/2 times what the tank gun did, or to put it another way, it weighed only a little bit less than a modern (not WW I) 6pdr tank gun or 75mm gun used the Cromwells and late Churchill's.

Granted if you spent more money on developing a new barrel to fire the high pressure naval ammunition using modern (1930s) steel alloys and construction techniques instead of using old (1903) steel/construction could probably lighten it up quite a bit but then what would you have spent your money on? A soon to be obsolete 47mm gun?


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

British heavy artillery park of the BEF in 1940 

12 8in Howitzers with 1 in reserve. 200lb shell, range 12,400yds





12 6in MK XIX guns with 1 in reserve. 100lb shell range 18,750yds




although updated with pneumatic tires like 8in howitzer

176 6in 26cwt Howitzers with 45 in reserve. 100lb shell, 11,400yds.





32 total 4.5in gun MK I on carriage 60pdr MK IVP, 55lb shell 20,500 or 21,000 yds. 

can't find photo on internet

16 + 3 reserve 60pdr MK II. 60lb shell 15,100yd range. 




Guns used in France would have pneumatic tires. the 4.5 in gun was on this carriage and would look very similar except for slightly longer skinnier barrel. 

4.5in howitzer at least 96 lost in France 35lb shell 7,000 yd range.





This last gun was used to fill in for missing 25pdrs and is not really part of the heavy artillery park. 

Please note that these were ALL modernized WW I left overs with limited traverse.

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## tomo pauk (Oct 30, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> different gun than the 3pdr tank gun used in Medium MK II tanks and a few prototypes.
> 
> OQF 3-pounder gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> It appears the Naval gun weighed about 2 1/2 times what the tank gun did, or to put it another way, it weighed only a little bit less than a modern (not WW I) 6pdr tank gun or 75mm gun used the Cromwells and late Churchill's.



The weight of the naval gun was with the mount - the naweaps.com lists 800 kg for the mount and some 300 kg for the gun alone, making together 1100 kg. A 300 kg gun should be within capabilities of any worthwhile tank or AFV, and can be available well before the 6pdr or 75mm. 



> Granted if you spent more money on developing a new barrel to fire the high pressure naval ammunition using modern (1930s) steel alloys and construction techniques instead of using old (1903) steel/construction could probably lighten it up quite a bit but then what would you have spent your money on? A soon to be obsolete 47mm gun?



It would be less obsolete than the 2pdr, that we will not develop instead.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

Weight of the 2pdr barrel and Breech was 287lbs. 

Weight of the 3pdr L32 tank gun was 217lbs 

Weight of the 6pdr tank gun/AT gun varies but goes about 768lbs for the L 43 version.

There was no secret technology that went into the 6pdr gun, just the willingness to shift to the larger gun and mount/s, larger turret rings. 

German troops using a French 47mm AT gun 




MV 855m/s but the gun (total) weighed 1070kg. 

This was a more powerful gun than used in any production French tank. 

Using 40mm Bofors projectiles in the 2pdr cartridge could have provided the British with an HE shell with 2 1/2 times the explosive of the German 37mm tank/AT shell even if well below the 50mm shells.


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## tomo pauk (Oct 30, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> Weight of the 2pdr barrel and Breech was 287lbs.
> 
> Weight of the 3pdr L32 tank gun was 217lbs
> 
> Weight of the 6pdr tank gun/AT gun varies but goes about 768lbs for the L 43 version.



Thanks. The 3pdr L50 was at 650 lbs (barrel, breech, recoil system) - using the technology of 1930s we can expect the '3pdr Mk.2' to be at maybe 450-500 lbs? 



> There was no secret technology that went into the 6pdr gun, just the willingness to shift to the larger gun and mount/s, larger turret rings.



3pdr was an off-the-shelf design, unlike the 6pdr, even unlike the 2 pdr. It (3pdr) can be produced as such, from day one, until we take advantage of the technology of the day to have an lightened model in production. 



> German troops using a French 47mm AT gun
> ...
> MV 855m/s but the gun (total) weighed 1070kg.
> 
> This was a more powerful gun than used in any production French tank.



Thanks for the picture. 



> Using 40mm Bofors projectiles in the 2pdr cartridge could have provided the British with an HE shell with 2 1/2 times the explosive of the German 37mm tank/AT shell even if well below the 50mm shells.



Going with 3pdr instead of 2pdr gives the British ground forces a gun on par with Czech and French (ATG) 47mm, Soviet 45mm and German 5cm/L42, and, more importantly it can be built more expediently than 2pdr, let alone 6pdr.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> Thanks. The 3pdr L50 was at 650 lbs (barrel, breech, *recoil system*) - using the technology of 1930s we can expect the '3pdr Mk.2' to be at maybe 450-500 lbs?



Recoil system???




We don't need no stinkin recoil system. 

Many of those small naval guns depended on the weight of the gun, the mount and being bolted to the deck to control recoil. Or at least most of it and had rather minimal recoils systems. 



> 3pdr was an off-the-shelf design, unlike the 6pdr, even unlike the 2 pdr. It (3pdr) can be produced as such, from day one, until we take advantage of the technology of the day to have an lightened model in production.



Off the shelf in the sense of digging into the archives and dusting off the prints. Likewise digging out whatever tooling there was and cleaning the rust and crud off of it. Most recent production of 47mm guns for the British service were the guns used in the Medium MK II tanks. Machinery exists for making ammo and shells though. 



> Going with 3pdr instead of 2pdr gives the British ground forces a gun on par with Czech and French (ATG) 47mm, Soviet 45mm and German 5cm/L42, and, more importantly it can be built more expediently than 2pdr, let alone 6pdr.



This gets real tricky as the 2pdr used several different projectiles (as did a number of the competing guns) and it used two different velocities. "Normal" velocity of the 2pdr AP ammuntion was 2650fps (803 m/s) compared to the 775m/s for the Czech gun, 885m/s for the French gun (which despite it's model 37 designation was a pretty rare gun in 1940), 760m/s for the Russian gun and a mere 685m/s for the German tank gun. 
The 2pdr also wasn't a real 2pdr. it's AP shot was listed in some sources as 2.375lbs (1.07kg) which puts a bit closer to some of the competition like the Russian 1.43kg projectile (33% heavier not 50%). British also came out with a HV loading of 2800fps (848m/s) which boosted performance a bit. 
Finally when they stopped being so cheap and and went to an APCBC projectile it gained weight (2.69lbs / 1.22kg) and dropped back to 2650/803m/s. However penetration with the good projectiles does beat the German 5 cm KwK 38, they just issued the stuff about 1 to 2 years too late. 
Unless you can convince them to use good projectiles to begin with even the HV 3pdr could be in trouble. 

Issue good ammo from the start and a lot of the 2pdrs bad reputation goes away.

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## tomo pauk (Oct 30, 2014)

The 3pdr can also use whatever better (and historical) projectile type we think of. It should offer not just better AP performance than 2 pdr with same ammo type, but it will provide a heavier HE shell needed to dislodge the pesky AT guns the Germans will throw in against the UK tank with the 3pdr. The 'cushion' against any problems the 6pdr might encounter, be it in design or production phase (or both) is far better than with the 2pdr.

Now what about the artillery? After reading your fine overview - maybe license build the Czech K4 gun, bored out to receive 6in shells? Or the Bofors 15cm? Request the 5.5-6in howitzer from British manufacturers ASAP? 
Is it too late to re-think the 25pdr - maybe produce instead a 4.5in howitzer with a longer barrel, with muzzle brake and modern carriage?


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2014)

First look at what was real broke and fix that, then worry about super weapons. 

British designers could come up with good weapons, they just needed the user (the army in this case) to come up with good requirements. 

Not crap like the Matilda I tank, or 900 Vickers light tanks armed with MGs. Or insisting the two bus engines on a common crank case would be a good tank engine or.............

The 25pdr MK II carriage was a deliberate choice as they had 18pdrs on split trail carriages. 

http://nigelef.tripod.com/18-prMk5P.jpg


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## tomo pauk (Oct 31, 2014)

My tone towards British engineers is rather mild, in want for a better phrase. Reason for suggesting the license production of a big gun is to buy more time.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 31, 2014)

The problem wasn't time, it was money. Too much of the armies equipment (and the lack of it) was 'built to a price'. The Army didn't _want_ WW I leftovers and re-barrels. It is what they could afford after the RAF and the Navy got their money. The Army _wanted_ large numbers of tanks. The only way to get numbers (like many other countries) was to buy _cheap_ tanks. A few 'luxury' items got through, like the 2pdr (the carriage, not so much the gun) but the cost of each item was a very real factor. For some of the companies building equipment in the 1930s the production runs were often short so costs had to be controlled by cheap design to begin with and by borrowing/sharing as many parts/components as possible with previous models. When the big rush started too many weapons (aircraft included) were ordered "off the drawing board" _and_ put into service (because there was nothing else) before enough testing/debugging was done. 

As far as the Czeck K4 Howitzer goes, it was a very good weapon but might be a bit late for the British. While it has a '37' in it's designation it didn't go into production until 1938 or 39 (about the time the _rest_ of Czechoslovakia was taken over by Germany. Not much time to test even the protoypes and get the drawings/licence. The Germans sure weren't going to agree to give the British any help getting heavy artillery


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## tomo pauk (Oct 31, 2014)

My bad, it should be the K1, that was produced several years before the K4.

What about the tanks?


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## tomo pauk (Oct 31, 2014)

Engines used on tanks that saw combat early in the ww2:
- AEC 179 6-cylinder petrol 150 hp (110 kW), a commercial engine, used on Cruiser I, a 12 ton tank, and in Cruiser II, a 14 ton tank, max speeds were 25 and 16 mph respectively
- Nuffiled Liberty, 340 HP, a V-12 engine - derivative of ww1 aircraft engine, used on Cruiser III of 14 tons with max speed of 30 mph; less reliability issues than on Crusader tanks?
-doubled diesel engine, as used eg. in buses, 2 x 95 HP, powering Matilda II, a 27 ton tank, up to 16 mph
-AEC petrol and diesels engines used on Valentine, from 130-210 HP, plus the GMC 6004 diesel; a 16-17 ton tank up to 16 mph

The RR Kestrel modified for the tank use is the SR6's proposal I like very much, say 450 HP for a tank weighting 25-30 tons. The non-supercharger Kestrel X was good for 560 HP at sea level, weighting 409 kg. It will not use the 87 oct fuel while in tank, but 77 oct, or whatever it was the case for tanks,
Another engine that might be used is the Napier Lion; the Sea Lion, used on high speed launches was rated at 500 and 600 HP.
There was quite few air cooled aircraft engines that can be used on tanks, like the De Havilland in-lines, or Armstrong-Siddely radials, though I guess that readial engine in a tank will present a significant departure from British interwar tank design.

Granted, commercial engines are bound to be used on under-20 ton tanks?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 1, 2014)

Tanks were sort of the same situation. Not enough money soon enough.

Too much money was spent on light tanks, but then so did most other countries so it wasn't quite as apparent a mistake at the time. 

With production contracts small and with the constant emphasis on price, there was little incentive to design/build specialty power-plants. 

As a for instance the Matilda I 






was built to the tune of 140 tanks _BUT_ the contracts were 1 + 60 + 60 + 19 instead of 1 (prototype) + 139. This makes it difficult to invest in special engines or even special facilities for large scale production. 

Due to a lack of experience, last type of tank produced in numbers was designed in 1922/23, which meant that the Army didn't really know what it wanted, you had two types of cruiser tanks let alone the light tanks and the Infantry tanks. 

The two cruisers (A9/10 and the A13) managed to get the basic layout right after the A9. 
Engine in the back.
Transmission/steering gear in the back, leaving crew/fighting compartment clear.
3 man turret with cupola for commander.
Radio in turret. 
The A13 even managed to ditch the hull mg 

Of course then the British managed to muck it up with the A13 MK III Covenanter,









their first try at purpose built tank engine being a flat 12 so they could reduce the height of the hull. The also reduced the height of the turret and got rid of the Cupola, which rather limited outward vision while closed down and that big hatch offered a _little_ too much opening when open. Putting the radiators in the front wasn't the best idea either (except in the winter). A host of other problems also kept the tank from ever seeing service use except as a bridge carrier. 

It is here that major changes could have been made that would have impacted the British war effort. 

Nuffield had supplied the Turret design for the Covenanter and used the same one on the Crusader but nearly everything else was different, unfortunately they brought back not just the bow MG but in little turret form. The transmission and steering gear were a major step forward though.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 1, 2014)

BTW a major restriction in British tank design was the British railroad loading gauge. The max height and width a of a railroad car and it's load. 






This is governed by tunnels, bridges, platforms and railside obstructions.

Only at the end of the war were British tank designers freed of this restriction, of course it then meant that all long distance moves inside Great Britain had to be done by truck on selected routes.

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## tomo pauk (Nov 2, 2014)

Thanks for the diagram 



> Tanks were sort of the same situation. Not enough money soon enough.



Indeed. Hence the modestly-sized tanks need to be ordered 1st, they will be cheaper, and can use commercial engines. Going for maybe 15-17 ton infantry tank, and 13-14 ton cruiser tank? 
Once there is a requirement (and the money) for more capable tanks, we can go for 27-30 ton tank ('stead of Matilda II) that will use either Kestrel or Lion, and 20-23 ton tank that can use Liberty engine?

Back to the size limitations - the tanks' hulls need to feature sponsons (Matilda II have those, for example), so a wider turret ring can be engineered. The gun mantlet need to be of 'external' type, rather than of 'internal' type, so a more powerful gun can be installed for a given turret ring.

What about the Vickers 6-ton tank? No that it was a wonder tank, but it is a small and off-the-shelf design, so it will cost less money and time to bulk up the tank units strength.


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## parsifal (Nov 2, 2014)

A glaring omission in the small arms area that was not sue to financial constraints, was the almost criminal refusal to allow wholesale adoption of tha SMG as an adjunct to squad firepower. The British Army was real;ly lacking in SMGs until well into 1942. It didnt have to be that way.

Amother thing they should have reconsidered is not selling their surplus horses to the Germans in the 1930s. The heer wasa very quick to use these beasts to provide transport for many of their own divisions.

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## tomo pauk (Nov 2, 2014)

Interesting - do you have more info re. how much horses the UK sold to the Germans, price etc?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 2, 2014)

The British had looked at the 6 ton tank but didn't like it, although they did buy a dozen chassis to use as gun tractors. 

The Lion is a problematic engine as it is _both_ wide and tall although a bit shorter than a V-12. From Wiki;

Length: 57.5 in (1460 mm)
Width: 42.0 in (1067 mm)
Height: 43.5 in (1105 mm)
Dry weight: 960 lb (435 kg)


The Liberty used a 45 degree angle between the banks and so was a few inches narrower than most big V-12s. wiki;

Length: 67.375 in (1,711 mm)
Width: 27 in (685.80 mm)
Height: 41.5 in (1,054.10 mm)
Dry weight: 845 lb (383.3 kg)

R-R Kestrel

Length: 74.61 in (1,895 mm)
Width: 24.41 in (620 mm)
Height: 35.63 in (905 mm)
Dry weight: 957 lb (434 kg)

Length of engines is dependent on reduction gears and supercharger (if fitted) and is probably the most easily accommodated dimension.

Wiki claims the Covenanter _had_ to move the radiators to the front because the flat 12 Meadows took so much width that the radiators could not be placed along side the engine. Don't know if it is true but sounds plausible. 
Have seen a picture of the Liberty in a Crusader chassis with a mechanic/worker on each side with legs inside between engine and hull walls. 

commercial engines, while cheap, may not be available in large numbers without a fair amount of work. Another article on Wiki says the Meadows company had about 2,000 employees at some point near the beginning of the war but was making about 40 different types of engines. This ranged from small engines powering generator sets to small car/truck engines to the large truck engines. Meadows did make " a flat-12 type-MAT/1 engine of 8858cc for military applications including the Tetrach Light Tank. Later they built a 16litre 300 bhp flat-12 type-DAV petrol engine used in the Covenanter tank[2]" So perhaps they could have expanded sooner to make more large 6 cylinder truck engines or built a V-12 instead of a flat 12 if instructed to do so.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 2, 2014)

The Lion was considerably narrower than the twinned engine used in the Matilda (~1070 vs. 1470 mm), while not much higher (1105 vs. 950 mm). Also narrower than the Bedford twin-6, but, again higher. It should be also of much more modest dimensions than the Chrysler Multibank and GMC twinned 6046.
The shorter engine directly means that one can have a shorter tank (British tanks, as most others, used longitudinal engine placement) - either better protected for same weight, or lighter for same protection. Granted, the Kestrel without supercharger and reduction gear should've loose some length - seems like the Meteor (no S/C, no reduction gear) was only 1470 mm long? The Lion II should also shave some length without the reduction gear.

FWIW (please open in a separate tab):


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## fastmongrel (Nov 2, 2014)

Get Vickers building the Valentine a year earlier. It was a simple mostly off the shelf design but an armoured division of them in France would have meant a nasty time for the Panzers.

Whatever you do I feel it means boat loads of shiny new expensive kit gets left in France. Britian needed to spend more money on its Navy and Airforce a shiny new tank or heavy gun means fewer Spits/Hurris or fewer Destroyers.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 2, 2014)

It all depends what you want to put it in. The Shermans with the twin diesels and Chrysler multi-banks were lengthened about a foot (300mm , this is from memory so...) over the aircooled radial engine hulls so you can't re-engine an air cooled tank with a different engine set up without a _lot_ of work.

For British tanks the A9-A10 used a rather boat shaped hull with the suspension bolted to the outside. Granted their inline 6s didn't take up much width. The A-13s, Crusader and the Cromwell series all used a Christie suspension with rather large coil spring units between double walls of the hull. This made the interior of the tank a bit smaller than it might first appear. While the Matlida was a small tank despite it weight ( or because of it?) it's suspension was bolted to the hull sides and pretty much contained with the width of the tracks rather than being inboard of the tracks. This gave more hull volume of the same or similar width. 

If you haven't seen them there is a nice series of videos on tanks by "the Chieftain" AKA Nicholas Moran. 2 to 4 8min videos per tank, He goes over a lot of the tank from the user's (crewmans) view.

Lead video for the Matilda; http://video.search.yahoo.com/video...n&vid=da62a03632221f48b6428918f7d28bb1&l=8:09

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## Shortround6 (Nov 2, 2014)

fastmongrel said:


> Get Vickers building the Valentine a year earlier. It was a simple mostly off the shelf design but an armoured division of them in France would have meant a nasty time for the Panzers.
> 
> Whatever you do I feel it means boat loads of shiny new expensive kit gets left in France. Britian needed to spend more money on its Navy and Airforce a shiny new tank or heavy gun means fewer Spits/Hurris or fewer Destroyers.



Well, that is what they did and while it kept England from being invaded in 1940, it meant the Army struggled and lost a lot of men in many of the other theaters after that due to poor equipment and tactics. NOTHING you gave the British BEF in France would have saved France.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 2, 2014)

I'm sure nobody wants to gold-plate the British army, though in many cases there was more bang for buck available than it was historically so.
What about the 'CS' tanks, armed with howitzers? Granted, since the 'regular' tanks would get the HE shells, there is less need for those? Or maybe insist that CS tanks carry much more HE shells, rather than smoke? How true is a repeted rumor that delivery of HE shells was a domain of Royal artillery, rather than of Royal tank corps?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 2, 2014)

I don't know how true it was or how untrue. After the war the people responsible for such stupid decisions certainly weren't highlighting them in their memoirs 

However according to this site : WWII Equipment.com

and then 2 Pounder Anti-Tank Gun

Show that no HE rounds were manufactured *until *1942 and then only 40,000. 474,000 HE shells were manufactures in 1943 and 304,000 in 1944 with none in 1945. 
SO until sometime in 1942 the AT gunners didn't have them either. For perspective in 1942 they made 8,202,000 rounds of AP shot. 205 rounds of AP for every HE round. 

The British tank "howitzers" were pretty light affairs (to fit in the 2pdr mounting) and fired light for their caliber rounds at _very_ low velocities.

One book says the 3.7in CS mortar fired shells of about 15lbs at 620fps (189m/s), max range 2000yds and that HE was available. I have seen one source that 'claims' the load out for a CS tank with 40 rounds was 36 rounds smoke and 4 HE (that is assuming the the HE ever made it to the front line ammo depot). 

The 3in howitzer that replaced it fired 10lb projectiles at 600-700fps, max range 2400yds and again HE is listed as available but there is no scale of issue.

The 95mm Howitzer used in the Centaur, Cromwell and Churchill fired 25lb HE shells at 1075fps and had a max range of 6,000yds for comparison. Of course it fitted into the mounts for a 6pd gun. 

BTW the production totals for the 6pdr show He ammunition being produced to the amount of 396,000 in 1942, 1,865,000 in 1943, 286,000 in 1944 and 172,000 in 1945. How it was issued may be another story.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 2, 2014)

Thanks again.

Interestingly enough, the Churchill tank (A22) was designed as 3.25 m wide vehicle, and that is already in 1940 - 30 cm wider than what was specified by the British railroads. The A20, specified prior the war, was also wider? 

How about an AA gun next/on the commander's hatch? Some Valentines carried the Bren gun there, maybe because the 6pdr armed versions carried no coax gun?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 2, 2014)

Many British tanks were fitted for, or at least trialed for, Bren AA guns but the mounts were rather large and cumbersome, at least when NOT in use. 

This site wont let me link pictures but here is the site. : Engines of the Red Army in WW2 - Bren Gun Mk.1 Light Machine Gun on Lakeman AA mount

There may have been other tank AA mounts. The British tended to stow the Guninside the tank rather than drive around with it outside. 

the Mount for use in truck beds was called the Motley mounting.

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## tomo pauk (Nov 3, 2014)

Interestingly enough, there is no mention of the Naval 3pdr Vickers in Tony Williams's table available here. The British also adopted, for the interwar tank use, a new cartridge, let's say a 'mid-power' 47 mm x 351R Vickers (560 m/s), despite the availability of a more powerful 47 mm x 376R Hotchkiss cartridge (650 m/s) for almost 50 years. 

added: the powerful 47 mm x 411R Vickers was also available for some time

What to do with AFVs lighter than 10 tons? Meaning light tanks, transport vehicles etc? Any point to have a 20mm automatic installed on those, or 2-3 pdr to hit tanks, even if it would mean going for a limited traverse weapon, ie. not in turret? When is a good time for a SP artillery, and a bigger/better tank gun (3in?, 17pdr?) and/or such a tank itself?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 3, 2014)

A lot depends on your doctrine, 

Get a decent tank, make in in numbers and you don't need a whole bunch of little tank destroyers running about that will be next to useless once the Germans shift to 30mm armor. 

Few armies are polite enough to let your light armor engage their light armor while their medium/heavy armor engages your medium/heavy armor _only._ 

See all the problems the US had trying to get the Germans to co-operate with the US tank destroyer doctrine 

20mm weapons on light armor have a real problem with ammo storage which limits their use against infantry/soft targets (trucks). Do you want a 20mm with 200 rounds or a belt fed rifle caliber MG with 2,000 rounds? Which can support your ground troops for longer period of time? 

SP artillery is good anytime, *IF* you can afford it. It's primary purpose though is to move from one firing position to another in support of the armor (which it can do much faster than towed artillery) and *NOT* to take part in the battle using direct fire.

But since money is a major problem, which is better, an SP 18/25pdr in 1940/41 or a decent 120-150mm howitzer (and shell) that is towed instead of the WW I left overs? The only made 177 5.5 in barrels in 1941 after NONE in 1940 (they had made 5 prototypes earlier) and while the 4.5in _gun_ went into service earlier it was on left over carriages and the 4.5in shell was a pretty poor piece of work. For a 55lb shell it only contained 3.9lbs of explosive which is about the the _worst_ ratio of any commonly used artillery piece in WW II and less than the US 105mm howitzer. 
Also please note that the _standard_ German 10.5cm howitzer (without muzzle brake and supercharge) could out range the British 6in 26cwt Howitzer by 275 yds (depending the state of wear of the guns involved). A bit to close to really call but if your opponents "light" divisional howitzers have the SAME range as your Corp artillery you _DO_ have a problem. 

If you are not aware of it this is an excellent site with much information about artillery use and how/why things worked they way they did. You might not agree with everything but it is by an ex- Royal artillery man and is the best site on the web I have come across and beats most books too. 

Site Directory


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## tomo pauk (Nov 4, 2014)

Agreed re. 20mm soon to be obsolete. It would be needed to be replaced, either by 40mm or, preferably by yours truly, by 47mm. BTW, the Pz-II carried both 180 rounds of 20mm and 2700 rounds for the MG. The LMG is ill able to take it on enemy ATG, unlike the 20mm.



> SP artillery is good anytime, IF you can afford it. It's primary purpose though is to move from one firing position to another in support of the armor (which it can do much faster than towed artillery) and NOT to take part in the battle using direct fire.



I'd prefer to have the ww1 left overs installed on tracked chassis, it's task to engage in the indirect fire. The direct fire was the task for the CS tanks, that would be much more useful with predominant HE shells aboard, instead of Smoke shells.



> But since money is a major problem, which is better, an SP 18/25pdr in 1940/41 or a decent 120-150mm howitzer (and shell) that is towed instead of the WW I left overs? The only made 177 5.5 in barrels in 1941 after NONE in 1940 (they had made 5 prototypes earlier) and while the 4.5in gun went into service earlier it was on left over carriages and the 4.5in shell was a pretty poor piece of work.



The heavy gun 'position' was a glaring weakness of British army during the 1st part of the war, agreed.

added: re. ammo carried: the Vickers light tank MK.VIB carried 400 rds for the .50 gun and 2500 rds for the .303


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## Shortround6 (Nov 4, 2014)

Well, the MK II was a bit larger tank than the British light tanks. 

The WW I left overs make lousy weapons to try to mount on tracked chassis without some major modifications. The Sexton got around the traverse limits of the gun carriage by using a different mounting that allowed 25° left 15° right traverse instead of the 8° total you would get by bolting the towed gun carriage into an armoured box. 






The vertical drum holding the gun turns. 

You also have to mount the gun high enough off the 'floor' so the breech doesn't hit it when recoiling at high elevations. (solved on some 'older guns' by digging pits in the ground under the breech, not an option with a steel deck.) 

Or limited elevation, solution used on the Bishop which limited max range of the 25pdr unless you parked it on hill sides or ranps






Bishop carried 32 round of ammo compared to the Sextons over 100. 
The British didn't actually have the large number of 'small' Left over WW I artillery pieces that many people seem to think they had. 

For example they only ever built 416 of the 13pdr cavalry guns and most of those were _pre_-WW I. Due to one gallant and heroic action the gun wound up being used for ceremonial purposes. Most were worn out, destroyed or scrapped during/after WW I. A _few_ were mounted in pill boxes for anti-invasion duties and used for training but since most (all?) of the available ammo was of WW I manufacture nobody was in a hurry to use them in the front lines. 

Btw, soldiers could break most anything if you gave them long enough.






For the 18pdr, while well over 10,000 were built most were hard used in WW I and of the survivors many were scrapped after WW I.

From Wiki so......" During World War II the 18 pdr was used by Territorial Army regiments in the British Expeditionary Force in 1940, where 216 guns were lost. This left the British Army with 126 guns in UK and 130 in the rest of the world, according to a stocktake in July 1940. 611 18-pounder were converted to 25-pounders before the war, and 829 during it."

Now please note the guns lost by the BEF in France would be the modern guns (split trail or box trail) and not the older pole trail guns. 

Please remember that there were *3* different recoils systems and *3* major types of carriage with the last recoil system (cylinders below barrel) being used on two different carriage types , box trail and split trail. Most surviving pole carriage guns ( max elevation 16 degrees) would have been converted to the hydro-pneumatic recoil system. 

Ranges from WIKI

6,525 yd (5,966 m)
Mk I II
7,800 yd (7,100 m)
with trail dug in
9,300 yd (8,500 m)
(Mk III, IV V)
11,100 yd (10,100 m)
(streamlined HE Shell Mk IC)

How useful an 18pdr was depended on which model it was (the MK IV and V used a different breech which increased the rate of fire) and the carriage it was mounted on. The vast majority of the late 18pdrs ( first went into action Nov 1918)
were the ones converted to 15pdrs. Leaving you with which ones for SP conversions?????

from Wiki on the 4.5in Howitzer; while 3359 had been built in WW I by WW II .... in France in 1940. 96 were lost, leaving 403 in world-wide service (only 82 outside UK) with the British Army, plus those held by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The British holdings were expected to increase to 561 by August 1940 due to completion of reconditioning and repairs. And without some sort of pivoting mount the gun carriage had 3 degrees of traverse each side and the gun had a max range of about 7,000 yds. 




> The heavy gun 'position' was a glaring weakness of British army during the 1st part of the war, agreed


.

They didn't _need_ heavy guns, _they had Lysanders_ 

And that is where some of the money went.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 4, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> Well, the MK II was a bit larger tank than the British light tanks.



It was longer, since it employed a separate engine compartment, vs. the Vickers that have had the engine installed next to the driver. The Vickers' 400 HMG rds compare well to the Pz-II's 180 rds for the 20mm, volume-wise.



> Or limited elevation, solution used on the Bishop which limited max range of the 25pdr unless you parked it on hill sides or ramps
> Bishop carried 32 round of ammo compared to the Sextons over 100.
> The British didn't actually have the large number of 'small' Left over WW I artillery pieces that many people seem to think they had.



Not suggesting the Bishop. The 'proper' SP arty need to have propulsion at the front, and gun at the back. Choosing out the smallest battle-worthy tank to be converted to a SPG does not sound like a well-thought decision either.
The early cruiser tank I've proposed earlier (13-14 tons) should have the 'Merkava' layout, so it is later easier to install a decent (25pdr or similar) gun on it, while still having good ammo supply and enough elbow room for the crew.


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## parsifal (Nov 4, 2014)

> For the 18pdr, while well over 10,000 were built most were hard used in WW I and of the survivors many were scrapped after WW I.



This does not add up. Admittedly i dont have information on the British Army, but for the Australian Army, in 1914 we had 116 18 pounders. From there until 1918, the inventory was increased to just over 500 guns. 216 were brought home, the remainder handed back to the British Army, who presumably scrapped them. 216 were still on hand in 1939 (some of the originals had been exchanged during the 20 year period), and they were retained in frontline service until 1945. We could not get enough of them, where their rugged construction made them very useful in rough terrain. In 1945, there were still over 100 in service. They were retained in the reserve park until the 1970's. Now there are none operational, and just 7 in the country. Money is currently being raised to restore one of them to working condition.

On the basis of those numbers, one has to question the Wiki figures. I suspect the numbers refer to refurbished guns, but it defies logiuc to suggest that only a couple of hundred remained in 1940. on the Australian experience, based on a proportional guesstimate, i would suggest total stocks might be around 4000.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 4, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> It was longer, since it employed a separate engine compartment, vs. the Vickers that have had the engine installed next to the driver. The Vickers' 400 HMG rds compare well to the Pz-II's 180 rds for the 20mm, volume-wise.



From Tony Williams site:










tomo pauk said:


> Not suggesting the Bishop. The 'proper' SP arty need to have propulsion at the front, and gun at the back. Choosing out the smallest battle-worthy tank to be converted to a SPG does not sound like a well-thought decision either.
> The early cruiser tank I've proposed earlier (13-14 tons) should have the 'Merkava' layout, so it is later easier to install a decent (25pdr or similar) gun on it, while still having good ammo supply and enough elbow room for the crew.



Not suggesting the Bishop either, just pointing out that trying to use odd bits and pieces sometimes doesn't work out well. Bishop used a 25pdr with good elevation and the installation limited it. Starting with a WW I left over that had poor elevation is also a limit as regardless of where you put the engine you still have the low elevation _unless_ you build a *new* gun cradle and elevating arc. You also have a recoil problem. The Late 18lbs would recoil 48in when horizontal and slower change recoil as it was elevated until at full elevation it was recoiling 26in at 37 degrees elevation. The older guns recoiled 41in regardless of elevation so even _IF_ you build a new cradle elevating arc the Breech may hit things (like the floor) at higher angles of elevation, You _could_ build a new recoil system but at that point ALL you are saving is the barrel and breech mechanism. 

The Merkava may not scale that well either, a Merkava is about 1.2 meters wider than an early Cruiser and it is not _all_ track. A better 'model' may be the German MK II and the Wespe. In any case you may not get quite the tank you want if you try to adapt it too much for the SP gun role. 6 cylinder engine (and limited power) so drive can fit along side the engine ( so he has some forward/downward vision) or V-8/V-12 taking up the width of the hull with the driver behind with his head higher?


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## tomo pauk (Nov 4, 2014)

I'd go for an in-line 6 cylinder engine, AEC 150 HP, as used on early Cruisers. Merkava has a V-12, that about doubles the width of the engine compartment required, and might push the tank's width above what British railways prescribed. 

What about the SP AAA? Would the twin .50 Vickers be too weak? Maybe a twinned Besa 15mm, until the production of 20 and 40mm ramps up?

edit - seems your attachment does not work?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 4, 2014)

parsifal said:


> This does not add up. Admittedly i dont have information on the British Army, but for the Australian Army, in 1914 we had 116 18 pounders. From there until 1918, the inventory was increased to just over 500 guns. 216 were brought home, the remainder handed back to the British Army, who presumably scrapped them. 216 were still on hand in 1939 (some of the originals had been exchanged during the 20 year period), and they were retained in frontline service until 1945. We could not get enough of them, where their rugged construction made them very useful in rough terrain. In 1945, there were still over 100 in service. They were retained in the reserve park until the 1970's. Now there are none operational, and just 7 in the country. Money is currently being raised to restore one of them to working condition.
> 
> On the basis of those numbers, one has to question the Wiki figures. I suspect the numbers refer to refurbished guns, but it defies logiuc to suggest that only a couple of hundred remained in 1940. on the Australian experience, based on a proportional guesstimate, i would suggest total stocks might be around 4000.



It may add up because of the 500 the Australians ended up with, very few of them might have been among the the 116 they started with. Of those 10,000 and some odd guns they fired over 99, million rounds on the western front alone. A very large number of the survivors in 1918/19 would need major overhauls. 
The British had not been happy with the 18pdr even in 1913/14, it had been adopted Dec 24th 1904, and work was under way for improved model when the war started and sidelined everything. Production of the 'new' versions started in mid/late 1918 after a period of tinkering with design, with battery seeing action in Nov 1918. 
Now in 1919 with the production lines already switched over (or in the process of switching) do you make enough 'new' guns to meet the post war needs and scrap the old guns (or most of them) or do you institute a _massive_ overhaul and repair program for the obsolete model so you can place then in storage? Or do you make some new guns/carriages and pick just the newer (low shot count) good condition guns to go into storage and scrap the rest. 
By 1918 the frantic firing of 1914/15 was over but in the early part of the war some guns were firing 500 rounds a day (in part to make up for a lack of heavy guns... hmm... sounds familiar) so it really didn't take many months before the tube might need relining even if the rest of the gun was in good shape. 18pdrs used fixed ammo and there was only one service charge. No reduced loads for a large percentage of it's shots.
Many of the early guns broke their recoil springs, hundreds were blown up by defective ammunition, let alone enemy action and 'normal' wear and tear.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 4, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> I'd go for an in-line 6 cylinder engine, AEC 150 HP, as used on early Cruisers. Merkava has a V-12, that about doubles the width of the engine compartment required, and might push the tank's width above what British railways prescribed.
> 
> What about the SP AAA? Would the twin .50 Vickers be too weak? Maybe a twinned Besa 15mm, until the production of 20 and 40mm ramps up?
> 
> edit - seems your attachment does not work?



You mean like this? 

View attachment 275927


Four 7.9mm Besas







British did use 20mm guns mounted on trucks for AA work. And later 40mm guns mounted on trucks.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 5, 2014)

Is there any good information how well the quadruple Besa worked vs. Axis planes? 

BTW - was the 7.92mm Besa really needed? We read so much that UK have had huge stocks of the .303 ammo in warehouses, so no new ammo and gun were envisioned? Why not adopt the .303 Browning to the task? I know that Royal tank corps have had a separate supply system vs. British army, but how much there is sense for that?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 5, 2014)

They wanted to get rid of the Vickers gun and it's water cooling. And it's ability to jam in about 27 different ways. In the open, on a tripod, the majority of jams were minor and easily cleared and the Vickers rarely actually broke a part. But in the confines of a tank turret, or those ridiculous little one man bow/hull MG turrets, clearing the jams might be more difficult. 

Since in some respects the MG was the *primary* armament of the tank with 2pdr being secondary (A Matilda carried more ammo for it's one gun than a Spitfire II did for 8 ) Having a _really_ good MG was important. The BESA was a good tank gun, I don't know if it was enough better than a 1919 Browning to make the ammo problem of minor importance or not. 
The BESA used a combination of gas and recoil operation and fired as the barrel was still moving forward which absorbed some of the recoil. Early versions also had an internal spring buffer mounted on lever that could be swung in and out of position to vary the rate of fire.

These turrets and tanks were developed _after_ the Battle for France and pretty much only saw action in North Africa.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 5, 2014)

Hmm - since the Vickers light tanks historically formed the bulk of RAC/RTC (?) before 1941, we might as well outfit them with either 4 LMGs from the start (say, 2 one atop of each other, a pair on each side of the turret), with option to fire either all in the same time, or in pairs (to save ammo), and/or go with a more convenient location for the .50 Vickers. Either way we have a far better infantry killer, we can do a better job of suppressing the enemy ATG, and should double as SP AA. 

Related to the thread - the paper on APSV ammo, among other. In German, but schematics and tables are worth it. The Swiss were using it post war, with good results (penetration upped by factor 1.7 approx.), until something better was on the table: link

A question: from what book this might be (open the pic separately for hi res):


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## gjs238 (Nov 5, 2014)

This just seems crazy:

From Wikipedia:
_Although Britain's armed forces used the .303 in rimmed round for rifles and machine guns, the ZB-53 had been designed for the German 7.92 x 57mm Mauser round - referred to by the British as the 7.92mm. Although it had been intended for the British to move from rimmed to rimless ammunition generally, with war imminent wholesale change was not possible. It was considered by BSA and the Ministry of Supply that the industrial, technical, and logistical difficulty of converting the design to the .303 round would be more onerous than retaining the original calibre, especially given that the chain of supply for the Royal Armoured Corps was already separate from the other fighting arms of the British Army. As a consequence, the round was not changed for British production. Since the Besa used the same ammunition as Germany used in its rifles and machine guns, the British could use stocks of captured enemy ammunition.
The Mark II version entered production in 1940. It was modified with a selector to give high (around 800 rounds per minute) or low (around 500) rates of fire. As the war progressed the design was modified to be more rapidly and economically produced, resulting in the Mark III version. This came as either an "L" (for low) or "H" (high) firing rate models.[1] While American-produced armoured cars or tanks would have been fitted with .30 cal Browning machine guns, many British tanks and armoured cars would be equipped with the Besa machine gun._


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## tomo pauk (Nov 5, 2014)

Looking at the picture of the pom-pom posted by SR6 in the other thread, let's see how it compares with other AAA. It has a lower MV than other AAA of 37-40mm, also the German and Soviet guns fire greater RoF. On the plus side, it is available for the British forces, unlike the Bofors 40mm whose production in the UK did not hit the stride until the ww2 started. It is also a bit lighter.
Against the 20mm, it will also have lower RoF and MV, but it should handily out-range it, the hit should mean also a kill, the AP round would actually stand a chance to perforate a tanks armor.
Now, I'm not suggesting the pom-pom should be produced instead of other light AA, but it can be available early on, while being easier to install on lighter chassis than the Bofors, and more lethal than 20 mm. A round with tracer element is needed earlier, too.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 5, 2014)

trying to get AA tanks for the British army in 1939-40 is like putting Chrome tail pipes on a 30 year old rusted out truck. 

The British army didn't have enough AA guns of any type or size. In 1939 they tended to jump right from .303s to the 3in 20cwt AA gun.

Just getting _more_ .303s on AA mounts would have been a help as would getting practically anything that would shoot skyward. Buying even few hundred Vickers commercial class D machine guns would have been a help. But them on trailers, put them in the back of trucks, just get some sort of light automatic AA guns into the battle area. 

The Squeeze bore principal was interesting but wound up a dead end. The Little John adapter showed up about the same time as HE ammo did for the 2pdr and since you can't shoot HE ammo out of the barrel with the adapter screwed on ( and the enemy was seldom polite enough so as not to shoot while the crew climbed out and unscrewed it) it tended not to see much use, especially as the crews soon figured out that the AP ammo worked _almost_ as well without the adapter. 
The Principle was being offered on custom commercial hunting rifles before the war so it wasn't exactly a secret, Cutting tapered rifled bores was difficult (expensive) and the adapter was a compromise. British (stealing from the French?) were moving on to the APDS projectile in any case which was a better "practical" solution.

Problem for the British in 1935-1940 is that the PTB ( Powers That Be) won't even pay for capped AP shot let alone capped ballistic capped. Tungsten Carbide cores in composite shot with collapsing flanges and tapered bores? Might as well ask for solid gold sling swivels on the old SMLE.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 6, 2014)

The 2 x 15mm Besa SP AAA, Vickers light tank hull; should also make the life interesting for the crews or armored cars, ATGs, Pz-I and -II.:






Quadruple LMG mount (7.92mm Besa?):






Vickers light tank with 2pdr:


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## Shortround6 (Nov 6, 2014)

I tried to post the twin 15mm picture earlier but couldn't get it too link. It too was a post France experiment. The AA versions were built on converted tanks, already produced. 

The quad gun used Brownings, I believe they are on their sides which changes the silhouette. Most certainly NOT BESA's as BESA's have a rather distinctive side plate that shields a good part of the barrel. Not just on the tank MGs but on the original Czech MG. 






The Tank Destroyer does look rather useful. 

The BEF consisted of 10 infantry divisions and one tank division. A couple of handfuls of AA tanks would have made no difference to the BEF as a whole. And they would have made little to no difference in the early desert fighting or Greek campaign. 
The air defense of a standard British 39-40 infantry battalion was 4 light trucks _each_ with a *single Bren* on the above Motley Mounting plus whatever Bren guns the individual unit commanders decided to NOT use as squad weapons (and there were only 9 Brens per infantry company) , the ONLY other MGs available to the Battalion commander were the 10 Bren guns in the carrier platoon (1 command and 3 sections of 3 carriers) and the Carrier platoon often acted as the mobile reserve. There were NO extra Bren guns at company HG or battalion HQ level. 
There were NO AA guns of any sort attached to any higher units until you get passed the Division level. This would change with the 1941 tables of organization when a regiment of 48 towed 40mm guns was added to the Division. 
The Battalion AA was increased in 1941 by going to twin Bren guns on the Motley mountings and as time went on adding a few more Motley mountings to other Battalion trucks/vehicles. 

There were NO Vickers guns in the Battalion and in fact there were no Vickers guns in the Division proper. Vickers guns were in a separate battalion attached to/alocated to the division from Corp, with 48 Vickers guns in the Battalion. 

The British army needed more/better light AA across ALL units, not a few expensive AA tanks in one or two divisions.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 6, 2014)

The Vickers LT with 2 HMGs (even the Vickers, if not Besa) on high-angle mount would still not be an expensive weapon, while far more useful than historical one, armed with 1 LMG and 1 HMG on low-angle mount. But I agree that AA suite was found lacking in British army early on.

What about the Universal Carrier? Maybe build it a bit bigger than 12 ft (Lloyd was almost 2 ft longer, was also front drive with engine in the back)? With 2x2 main wheels per side, like some variants (Lloyd, Windsor, US T-16)? With engine next to the driver, so more room is left in the vehicle?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 6, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> The Vickers LT with 2 HMGs (even the Vickers, if not Besa) on high-angle mount would still not be an expensive weapon, while far more useful than historical one, armed with 1 LMG and 1 HMG on low-angle mount. But I agree that AA suite was found lacking in British army early on.



Useful for what?
You don't use AA guns for recon work. The AA tanks went back to a two man crew. The early ones had no power traverse so tracking of aircraft is a bit suspect. Only 50-60 total were built/converted and details are sketchy at best, especially for the twin 15mm version which _might_ have been a sole prototype. 
The Twin 15mm looks impressive but but if it had no power traverse one man would certainly have his hands full. That and the ammo supply is out side the turret. OK for an AA gun, not so good for getting in among the enemy ground troops. 
The last of the four gun 7.92mm were supposed to have gotten the power traverse back but there seem to be no combat reports that are easy to find on the internet. 



tomo pauk said:


> What about the Universal Carrier? Maybe build it a bit bigger than 12 ft (Lloyd was almost 2 ft longer, was also front drive with engine in the back)? With 2x2 main wheels per side, like some variants (Lloyd, Windsor, US T-16)? With engine next to the driver, so more room is left in the vehicle?



You keep trying to fix things that weren't really broken. Less than optimum maybe but not really broken.

British battalions only had TWO 3in mortars. Germans had SIX. And German Battalion _might[/] have a pair of the 7.5cm inf guns on loan from regiment. German Regiment had six 7.5mm in guns and two 15 cm inf guns. British brigade (functionally the same as a German regiment) has only one attached combat company, An AT company, more later. 
British battalions had NO heavy MGs, unless they take Brens from rifle companies or Bren carrier platoon and mount them on tripods, German Battalion has 8 MG 34s in special MG platoons with tripods and all the "stuff" to operate as medium/heavy mgs (spare barrels and lots of ammo). 
Both depended on a scattering of AT rifles for close AT defense, roughly one per platoon (Germans had a section of 3 at company level instead but it averages out close) although the British had a few more in odd places (Each AA truck had an AT rifle for example.) 
British Brigade had it's AT company, which in France consisted of 9 25mm Hotchkiss AT guns, 3 platoons of 3 guns each. There was also an AT regiment of 48 towed 2pdrs at division level. 
German Regiment had an AT company of 12 37mm guns. 4 platoons of 3guns. Division had an AT battalion with 3 twelve gun companies. With the three regiments AT companies that makes 72 37mm guns about a tie in total number of AT guns. The German 37 did have an HE round although it was rather poor. 

British artillery was either 72 25pdrs *or* 48 18pdrs and 24 4.5in howitzers.
German Artillery was 36 10,5 cm howitzers and 12 15cm howitzers. 

British don't have the best shells in the world for the 25pdrs ( a polite way of saying crappy) with 1.9lbs HE per shell. German 10.5cm how shell held 3.04lbs. While the British 4.5in shell held 4.3lbs it had a max range of 6600yds. 18pdr had 1.1lbs HE. The extra British barrels don't really mean 33% more target effect. 

British also have few, if any sub-machine guns and the above numbers are for a unit that was fully equipped and many of the units in France did NOT have full issues of Bren guns, AT rifles and other weapons. 

We also know that the British artillery above division level was low in numbers and performance. There is only so much skill and dedication can do. 

Artillery does about 1/2 the killing or casualty making so poor artillery throws a much bigger burden on the infantry and armor._


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## tomo pauk (Nov 6, 2014)

Having a more useful Carrier, with same engine, but of different layout, does not take anything from the artillery branch of the British army. It can actually save some money, since it would be able to carry around more stuff, meaning we need to buy less of those. 

Re. HMGs on the Vickers - two .50s should be able to be installed without much of trouble, retaining protected ammo and 3rd crew member? Recon should be the domain of the recon cars, at least until we have enough of proper tanks so the light tanks can be relegated for recon job.

What do you specifically suggest for the artillery branch?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 6, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> Having a more useful Carrier, with same engine, but of different layout, does not take anything from the artillery branch of the British army. It can actually save some money, since it would be able to carry around more stuff, meaning we need to buy less of those.



Maybe yes and maybe no. Depending on what you are carrying or using them for a bigger carrier may just be a bigger carrier. The 10-13 Carrier platoon in the infantry Battalion would have lost flexibility with a smaller number of bigger carriers. From the website http://www.bayonetstrength.me.uk/

"Carrier Platoon - the Bren carrier was an attempt to provide a fully tracked, lightly armoured vehicle, which could transport a Bren gun team across exposed ground and set up a firing position to support the advance of the Rifle Platoons.

In its earliest form the Platoon operated ten Bren carriers, with a HQ and three Sections of three carriers each. Platoon HQ had a single machine crewed by the Platoon Commander, driver-mechanic and batman. Each of the three Sections had three carriers, with an NCO, rifleman and driver-mechanic in each vehicle. The first carrier was commanded by a Sergeant, the other two each by Corporals. Each carrier mounted a Bren gun, and one in each Section also had an anti-tank rifle. There was also a 15-cwt truck with its attached driver from the Admin Platoon."

Only 3 men per carrier. larger carrier could carry more men, or stuff or ammo but they needed to be able to divide the platoon into sections for tactical flexibility and the sections could not not be 9 men in one big carrier 

a mechanical break down or combat loss takes out too much of the platoon. 



> Re. HMGs on the Vickers - two .50s should be able to be installed without much of trouble, retaining protected ammo and 3rd crew member? Recon should be the domain of the recon cars, at least until we have enough of proper tanks so the light tanks can be relegated for recon job.



Not sure if you are talking about an AA gun set up or just sticking two .5in Vickers guns in the standard turret? 

MGs over 7-8mm are bit over rated for use against personnel, you can only kill a soldier once. Unless you are firing against enemy troops in the kind of cover that the big machine guns could shoot through and the little ones can't ( and the little ones might surprise you) the big MGs were rarely worth their weight and size and especially the weight and and volume of the ammo. 
Against light armor (12-15mm and under) they have their place and against aircraft they have a longer _effective_ range. 



> What do you specifically suggest for the artillery branch?



I would suggest 4-5 things.

1, Fix the 3in mortar sooner. It should not have been a surprise that it was much shorter ranged than just about _everbody_ else's medium mortar. The price of better steel for the barrel and base plate couldn't have been _that_ much more money. 
1a, Buy more of them, even better quality ones are going to be about the cheapest form of firepower you can give the Battalion. 
2, Go for a bigger mortar sooner. Brandt in France was offering both 100mm and 120mm mortars before the war broke out. 
3, Get a better shell for the 25pdr. It means more expensive steel. It also means more HE so you need less of them ( but a bigger HE factory) . It also means more range with less barrel wear. British were playing with a 21lb shell (containing 3lbs HE) for part of the war but dropped it at wars end without issuing it. It had a max range of 14,500yds. 
4. Going out on a limb here, a 4.5-4.7 gun/howitzer. 45lb shell or so. Much like the the Russian 122mm M38 only a longer barrel (and bigger powder charge) for a few thousand more yard/meters range. Somewhere between 14-15000yds would be nice. Good steel for the shell so it has about 6lbs of HE. It will be heavier than the Russian howitzer due to the extra range but should be tons lighter than 5.5in gun/how. Put 16 of them in each division instead of 16 25pdrs. 
5. Build the 80lb shell for the 5.5in from the start.


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## parsifal (Nov 7, 2014)

maybe instead of the fully tracked universal carrier, the british would have been better off with a proper halftrack each carrying 8-12 men and mounting a HMG with light ATG capability as a secondary role. . thats not an increase in resources, its just a re-allocation of existing dollars for different equipment.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 7, 2014)

The two vehicles actually have different primary roles although they tend to blur. The Bren carrier was a weapons carrier. It was intended to carry a MG or light mortar with crew and ammo about the battlefield to critical points. It was NOT an APC for a squad. The American half-track _was_ a squad APC. 
You can take a squad APC and turn it into a weapons carrier and because of it's size it _will_ carry bigger weapons and/or more ammo for the same weapons. 

It would be interesting to find out what each one 'really' cost. although different contracts and exchange rates will complicate things. A US half track did weigh about twice what the US built universal carrier did though. And the engine the US used in the half-tracks was 6.3 liter 6 that would have been seen as a tank engine in most of Europe for 10-12ton tanks in the late 30s. The Bren Carriers used a 3.6liter engine. 
You might have had a lot fewer half-tracks even though they were more capable.

The other "job" the American half track was designed for was as a prime mover for light/medium artillery. It towed 105mm howitzers. Something well beyond the capability of a Bren carrier. But at what cost?


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## tomo pauk (Nov 7, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> Maybe yes and maybe no
> ....
> Only 3 men per carrier. larger carrier could carry more men, or stuff or ammo but they needed to be able to divide the platoon into sections for tactical flexibility and the sections could not not be 9 men in one big carrier
> 
> a mechanical break down or combat loss takes out too much of the platoon.



A 'refined' and a bit bigger Carrier would be probably carrying 5-6 men? The platoon will still be flexible 




> Not sure if you are talking about an AA gun set up or just sticking two .5in Vickers guns in the standard turret?



If we can go with a regular turret modified to hold two HMGs while allowing for at least 70 deg elevation, than go with that. Otherwise, go with two .50s at the sides, with ammo inside the turret. 



> MGs over 7-8mm are bit over rated for use against personnel, you can only kill a soldier once. Unless you are firing against enemy troops in the kind of cover that the big machine guns could shoot through and the little ones can't ( and the little ones might surprise you) the big MGs were rarely worth their weight and size and especially the weight and and volume of the ammo.
> Against light armor (12-15mm and under) they have their place and against aircraft they have a longer _effective_ range.



The greater effective range should also be able to suppress the crew of an ATG at 'safer' ranges, if not make a real kill.




> I would suggest 4-5 things.
> 
> 1, Fix the 3in mortar sooner. It should not have been a surprise that it was much shorter ranged than just about _everbody_ else's medium mortar. The price of better steel for the barrel and base plate couldn't have been _that_ much more money.



The longer barrel should not be that expensive?



> 2, Go for a bigger mortar sooner. Brandt in France was offering both 100mm and 120mm mortars before the war broke out.



Yep, the British 4.2 was too late, for all of it's qualities.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 7, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> The longer barrel should not be that expensive?.



It wasn't a question of longer barrels but of stronger steel, When they first tried to increase the range using larger propelling charges the existing barrels bulged (how many rounds before they split?) so initially they just used what ever charge didn't bulge the barrel. Pretty much the same for the base-plate, the increased recoil from the heavier charges bent the base plate under repeated firings. Troops in NA had tried using German/Italian ammo from the British tubes and had bulged/burst a few there. They will fit as while the British mortar is 'called' a 3in it was really an 81mm. 

The British were a little too in love with the idea of cheap weapons/ammunition. The Germans a little too in love with complicated/expensive weapons/ammunition.


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## gjs238 (Nov 7, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> The British were a little too in love with the idea of cheap weapons/ammunition. The Germans a little too in love with complicated/expensive weapons/ammunition.



So if this is the story of The Three Bears, who is Mama Bear? USA, Russia, France, ......


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## tomo pauk (Nov 7, 2014)

Back to the tanks - on what to bet on? 
A 30 ton tank with something better than a 2 pdr should be feasible; the Matilda II was at 27 tons. The lighter tanks might be needed to overcome the budget restraints, though, while using the commercial engines (1x150 or 2x85/95 HP), so we can have enough of decent tanks. The Liberty must be kept at 340 HP, without attempts to increase the power, in order to give good service?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 8, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> Back to the tanks - on what to bet on?
> A 30 ton tank with something better than a 2 pdr should be feasible; the Matilda II was at 27 tons. The lighter tanks might be needed to overcome the budget restraints, though, while using the commercial engines (1x150 or 2x85/95 HP), so we can have enough of decent tanks. The Liberty must be kept at 340 HP, without attempts to increase the power, in order to give good service?



Best service for the Liberty engine is to attach long chains to them and use them as boat anchors 

The WW I aircraft engines were made by a number of companies and while a _good_ Liberty engine by a _good_ maker was a decent enough engine, too many of them were junk from the day they left the factory door. 
For a brief review : Liberty Notes

Why somebody thought that an engine with a 75 hour overhaul life would make a _good_ tank engine I have no answer for. 
The fact that few, if any, commercial operators (not counting rum runners) used the engine for very long, even getting them at surplus prices should have been another clue.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 8, 2014)

Roger that 
How the tanks should be looking, on a more affirmative note?


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## fastmongrel (Nov 8, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> Best service for the Liberty engine is to attach long chains to them and use them as boat anchors
> 
> The WW I aircraft engines were made by a number of companies and while a _good_ Liberty engine by a _good_ maker was a decent enough engine, too many of them were junk from the day they left the factory door.
> For a brief review : Liberty Notes
> ...



The engines used were not Libertys as built originally but a reworked engine developed and built by the Nuffield organisation (Morris Motors). The Nuffield engine wasnt actually too bad by the standards of 1940 it was the ancillaries like transmission, cooling and filtration that let it down. Nuffield Libertys with modified ancillaries carried on in service till 1945 so they cant have been too bad. Some Crusader gun tractors were modified by the Argentinians into SP guns and served until the mid 50s


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## tomo pauk (Nov 8, 2014)

Since the Germans were fond to mount anything or anything, here is what they used the Bren Carrier for (with 20mm Flak, 25mm ATG, 37mm ATG, 2pdr, 47mm ATG (whose in original?), French 75mm):


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## Shortround6 (Nov 8, 2014)

fastmongrel said:


> The engines used were not Libertys as built originally but a reworked engine developed and built by the Nuffield organisation (Morris Motors). The Nuffield engine wasnt actually too bad by the standards of 1940 it was the ancillaries like transmission, cooling and filtration that let it down. Nuffield Libertys with modified ancillaries carried on in service till 1945 so they cant have been too bad. Some Crusader gun tractors were modified by the Argentinians into SP guns and served until the mid 50s



It still wasn't a good engine to work from.





Each Cylinder has it's own water jacket (welded sheet metal) which is almost a recipe for coolant leaks ( guess what? they leaked). The crankshaft Unless Nuffield changed it, had NO counterbalances and suffered from torsional vibration and broken crankshafts. Please note valve gear hanging out in the open, Common enough in WW I for air cooling of the valve gear but not really what you want in a tank. Nuffield may have thrown a sheet metal box around the valve gear later. 

I can also tell you some stories about 1950s fire trucks I was driving in the 1970s, Desn't mean they were any good, just that department had no money to replace them ( to be fair a couple of them were spares and only got driven a couple hundred miles a year, being "in service" can have a lot of meanings).


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## Shortround6 (Nov 8, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> Since the Germans were fond to mount anything or anything, here is what they used the Bren Carrier for (with 20mm Flak, 25mm ATG, 37mm ATG, 2pdr, 47mm ATG (whose in original?), French 75mm):
> 
> View attachment 276259



Some shop workers had too much time on their hands 

The French 75 had an interesting traverse system. There was rack in the axle and the traverse gear would shift the axle housing, to which the gun cradle was bolted, left and right on the axleshaft using the spade of the trail as the pivot point. Has the advantage that the gun is ALWAYS recoiling in line with the trail instead of a few degrees to one side or the other, Not such a good system to try to adapt to an armored vehicle. Where does the trail go even if you shorten it?
You can build a new traverse system 






Gun also recoils several feet unless you modify the recoil system.


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## fastmongrel (Nov 9, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> It still wasn't a good engine to work from.
> View attachment 276260
> 
> 
> ...



Not saying it was a great engine just that by the standards of 1940 it wasnt too bad and all the reports I have read say that it was what was bolted onto the engine that caused most of the problems. Nuffield would have been better off building a land based Kestrel in my opinion but I dont know if that was ever considered. The Kestrel tank engine could have powered Britains tanks from 1940 to the Comet when the Meteor could be dropped in.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 9, 2014)

Hmm - the Germans and Americans lashed up the French 75mm to the split-trail carriages, so they can have an anti-tank gun in quantity, until better stuff came along. Americans converted over 900 pieces. link

Both the US and German ATG would've better fared with a better ammo - only full bore, full weight ammo seem to be issued.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 9, 2014)

Yes, both the Americans and the French "lashed up the French 75mm to the split-trail carriages" but the _lash up_ pretty much just kept the barrel and breech. Not only new carriage but new gun cradle but new traverse and elevating mechanisms. 
Even new recoil system. It might have been worthwhile but it was NOT a quick and dirty "grab this old gun out of the warehouse and slap into this spare chassis". 
The extra elevation also added about 2500 meters to the max range. 

TOADMAN'S TANK PICTURES 75mm FIELD GUN M1897A4 and CARRIAGE M2A3

Edgar Brandt (of mortar fame) was working on sub-caliber projectiles _before_ WW II. The trick is not just making them but getting acceptable accuracy from them. Getting the sabot/s to separate in a uniform, consistent manor so you can actually get the projectiles to hit in a small area at a distance. 
The next thing to figuring out if it is going to "work" is figuring out IF the sub-caliber projectile is actually going to go through more armor at the distance desired (they probably will work better at close range) AND have the desired effect on the target. Do you want to poke a 40mm hole in the enemy tank or a 75mm hole? Just because you made a hole in the armor does NOT mean you destroyed what was behind the armor. Crew, ammo, engine, etc. 
If made of similar materials ( steel for example) and shape the large shot/shell will retain it's velocity better at long range and it's penetration will fall of less with distance. The sub caliber round may very well be superior at close ranges, where is the cross over point? Don't forget the larger round will penetrate more armor at the SAME velocity as the smaller round due to having more weight/mass per unit ( sq in/sq cm) of frontal area. 
Tungsten carbide works so well because it has about twice the density of steel so the smaller projectile can have similar weight (or be bit better?) per unit of frontal area. Helps with both retained velocity and the armor punching. 
Even the allies had problems with producing enough Tungsten carbide during the war. Many US tanks and tank destroyers seldom having the 2-5 rounds in the 'official' load out in 1944.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 9, 2014)

fastmongrel said:


> Not saying it was a great engine just that by the standards of 1940 it wasnt too bad and all the reports I have read say that it was what was bolted onto the engine that caused most of the problems. Nuffield would have been better off building a land based Kestrel in my opinion but I dont know if that was ever considered. The Kestrel tank engine could have powered Britains tanks from 1940 to the Comet when the Meteor could be dropped in.


 Maybe by the standards of bolting a couple of bus engines together it wasn't too bad but that isn't exactly a good recommendation. 

I don't know enough about how/why Nuffield _selected_ the Liberty engine. Were they at some point an overhaul facility for Liberties in British service in the 1920s or 30s? Were they offered a "deal" on surplus engines/parts/tooling in addition to the blueprints and manufacturing licence? 
Problems with the Liberty in aircraft use were well known. While a number of aircraft records were set using Liberty engines it took a _lot_ of support. For instance the first circumnavigation of the world by air was done with Liberty engines, but..."The spare parts included 15 extra Liberty engines, 14 extra sets of pontoons, and enough replacement airframe parts for two more aircraft.[9] These were sent ahead along the route around the world the aircraft would follow."
"The American team had greatly increased their chances of success by using several aircraft and pre-positioning large caches of fuel, spare parts, and other support equipment along the route. At prearranged way points, the World Flight's aircraft had their engines changed five times and new wings fitted twice."
Now counting the engines they started with and a flight of 27,553 miles that is an average of about 4600 miles per engine. Or a bit less, Most the flight was done by three aircraft. One of the first four crashed early on and and second plane was lost over the Atlantic and the original 5th aircraft joined up for the last legs. Average speed was 70mph. Average time on engines was 65 hours (?) 

Perhaps Nuffield built the Liberty because that is what the Christie protoypes used but Christie was rather restricted in what engines he had available. I believe he used Both the Liberty and an American LaFrance V-12 firetruck engine is some of his prototypes? The Liberty had power and were available _cheap_ as surplus.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 9, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> ...
> Edgar Brandt (of mortar fame) was working on sub-caliber projectiles _before_ WW II. ...



There are AP ammo types, better than plain AP ammo, and still not the APSD, that 75mm (or other gun that will be poking holes) can use. Eg. the Germans could use the steel penetrator that weights 3-4 kg, the MV will be much higher than at 570 m/s, but still under 850 m/s (= shatter unlikely to happen). The AP capabilities would've been better. Even better with tungsten carbide, for the ones that can afford it, of course.



> The sub caliber round may very well be superior at close ranges, where is the cross over point?



Above 500-600m distance it seems the full-bore AP has better capabilities, penetration wise, for the 'small guns' we're discussing. The sub-caliber, high speed projectile should offer greater hit probability, though, both because of less arcing trajectory (good if the range was calculated with error) and lower time until hit (less target lead needed).



> Do you want to poke a 40mm hole in the enemy tank or a 75mm hole? Just because you made a hole in the armor does NOT mean you destroyed what was behind the armor. Crew, ammo, engine, etc.



Problem might be that, where we can make a 40mm hole, we might not have any hole if we want a 75mm wide one. That was many times a problem for 75-76,2mm guns in Allied and German use. Hence the sub-caliber ammo.



> Don't forget the larger round will penetrate more armor at the SAME velocity as the smaller round due to having more weight/mass per unit ( sq in/sq cm) of frontal area.



One of the reasons I like the 88mm L/56 much more then the 75mm L/70


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## fastmongrel (Nov 9, 2014)

Done a bit of quick googling on the Nuffield V12 and it seems some major changes were made to the original Liberty. Redesigned heavier crankcases, cast iron cylinders, rocker covers, flanged steel backed white metal big ends, small ends and main bearings, 2 x distributors working off the camshafts and a crank chain drive for the cooling fans which was changed to 2 x driveshafts running off the crank in the mark IV and V. I have also found mention stellite in the valves though not sure whether thats just the seats or the valves as well.

Tank Museum Nuffield Liberty






Liberty L12






Nuffield tank engine left and Liberty aero engine converted to marine use on right crankcases.






There is a fascinating and from reviews exhaustively comprehensive book by RJ Neal on the Liberty which has a big chapter on the Nuffield
Liberty Engine: A Technical Operational History: Robert J. Neal: 9781580071499: Amazon.com: Books

Some nice engine p0rn pics of a Liberty stripped and rebuilt

Liberty disassembly

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## Shortround6 (Nov 10, 2014)

Thank you.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 10, 2014)

The British were installing coupled engines on their tanks Matildas and Valentines. Unfortunately, the power was still under 200 HP. The two 6-cylinder AECs coupled together will bring 300 HP to the table - should be enough for 20 to 25 ton tanks, even for the ones between 25 and 30 tons. 
Granted, less elegant solution than a good V-12.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 10, 2014)

The Valentine used a single engine. Either an engine similar to that use in the A9/A10 or later a GMC 6-71 diesel was often used. These GMCs were paired up the M3A3 and M3A5 Grants, M4A2 Shermans and M10 tank destoyers. 

while a pair of 150hp gas engines will move a 30 ton tank it won't very "sprightly"  Germans had 265-300hp in the MK 1Vs. adding another 6tons or so isn't going to be kind.

Disadvantage to using a pair of SIX's is you need to leave a bit or room between them for maintenance. 

The big engines also had a _LOT_ of torque which meant you needed fewer gears or had better acceleration or both. Unless you are dealing with 800 cubic in (13 liter) Sixes two of them probably will not have the torque of the Liberty.

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## tomo pauk (Nov 12, 2014)

Back to the tanks/AFV. 
The lighter designs I've proposed (under 15 ton cruiser, above 15 ton I-tank; powerpack transmission all-front) can serve as carriages for the artillery, once they are obsolete to serve as 1st line tanks (talk 1942). The I-tank can have the big anti tank gun or/and the 25pdr, mounted in a well armored superstructure; use both for direct fire (shades of the StuG/StuH). The rear installation should give more useful volume. Cruiser can also receive the big AT gun or 25 pdr (high elevation), the resulting vehicles being a 'better Marder' or 'not quite Wespe'. Either vehicle can be modified to serve as an APC, in lieu of the various Kangaroo APCs. The Cruiser can also receive the multiple 20mm for AA duties, if not already the Bofors.
Once the halftracks are received from the USA, install the 25pdr on those, much like the T19 vehicle was used by the US Army. The 25 pdr will not have as great the recoil as the 105mm (even lower with muzzle brake installed), so no problems with that.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 12, 2014)

Uh, Tomo. Above 15 ton I tank engine in front. 






Problem with 15-25 ton I tanks is that they are _small_ as in almost _tiny._






65mm armor (2.5in) weighs 100lbs per sq ft. you don't get a lot of sq ft to the ton so _light_ I tanks are tiny. And even the T19 was smaller than what was wanted. 






They commonly towed ammo trailers. 

The British and Americans very seldom used _old_ tank chassis for SP guns, new manufactured obsolete chassis yes. 

The British could have done themselves a world of good by dumping the Covenanter in the rubbish bin early on and building tanks they could actually use. 

1771 tanks of which only a handful were ever used in action at that was to carry bridges.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 12, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> Uh, Tomo. Above 15 ton I tank engine in front.
> 
> Problem with 15-25 ton I tanks is that they are _small_ as in almost _tiny._
> 
> 65mm armor (2.5in) weighs 100lbs per sq ft. you don't get a lot of sq ft to the ton so _light_ I tanks are tiny.



'My' I tank, with 6-cyl engine compartment aside the driver, should allow more space for combat compartment if the tank is overall as long as Valentine. Compared to the Archer, it should be able to fire during the advancement phase, in support of attacking tanks and infantry, not just to use it for ambushes.



> And even the T19 was smaller than what was wanted.
> They commonly towed ammo trailers.



Ammo trailer is a good thing. The 25pdr gun and ammo is much lighter/smaller than the 105mm ammo, that combined with ammo trailer should mean plenty of ammo per vehicle.



> The British and Americans very seldom used _old_ tank chassis for SP guns, new manufactured obsolete chassis yes.



Indeed. 



> The British could have done themselves a world of good by dumping the Covenanter in the rubbish bin early on and building tanks they could actually use.
> 1771 tanks of which only a handful were ever used in action at that was to carry bridges.



Agreed again.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 13, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> 'My' I tank, with 6-cyl engine compartment aside the driver, should allow more space for combat compartment if the tank is overall as long as Valentine. Compared to the Archer, it should be able to fire during the advancement phase, in support of attacking tanks and infantry, not just to use it for ambushes.



You are confusing two different roles. 
Using direct fire "able to fire during the advancement phase, in support of attacking tanks and infantry" and being a self-propelled artillery piece. 

Granted some armies did try to blend the two but it leads to compromises. 
Like.





Great for following the tanks by 200-600 meters and blasting strong points, Lousy at being back 2,000-6,000 meters from the battlefield and providing support fire and absolutely useless at providing support fire at around 8-12KM. The design of the chassis and gun installation limit the elevation to 26 degrees which cuts several thousand meters from the max range. It has either 10 degrees total or 20 degrees (10 either way) traverse without moving the vehicle and cramped crew compartment limits rate of fire. Not too important blasting pillboxes/strong points at 500-1000 meters range but a real limit in support fire. 

Compare to 




Late or end of war M-37 on M24 light tank chassis, replacement for the M-7.

Not very good for shooting it's way into a city or town but a dandy weapon/chassis for supporting an armored advance. Able to move swiftly from firing position to firing position and lay down HE or smoke on demand from forward units. This of course assumes a decent radio net. Without the radio net you _may_ have to *depend* on close accompanying guns rather than remote artillery. 

BTW, it appears from trying to measure scale drawings that the Valentine hull was only about 5 ft wide, about the same width as the light tanks and around 1/2 ft narrower than the early cruisers and a 1 1/2ft narrower than a Cromwell (Cromwell then sucks up some of the space with the Christie suspension). Grants and Shermans were actually rather narrow between the tracks but then so much of the tank was _above_ the tracks.

Edit: British had a far greater need in NA for artillery able to move from firing position to firing position to keep up with the advance than they did for bunker blasters. One of the more famous slaughters of Matilda tanks by 88s occurred when the battery of 25pdrs assigned to support the attack got bogged down in a sand waddie tying to reach it's position and in order to keep to the firing schedule _skipped_ it's first fire mission. Of course this also speaks to a lack of communication ( and a bit too much emphasis on radio silence) and a bit to much "press on regardless" attitude but 3-4 25pdr armed "assault" guns/tanks a few hundred yards behind the Matildas would have made little difference to the outcome of the battle. An 88 or two knocked out/destroyed, a Matlida or two more saved (at the cost of how many of the assault tanks?) but the position still in German hands. 
Even SU-122s weren't going to do much trying to advance across several kilometers of open dessert against dug in 88mm guns. Best they could do was fire smoke and get the Matildas to withdraw but then how many smoke rounds do these 'assault' tanks carry? 
And "smoke" was much more difficult to use than most (all) war games would have us believe. And unfortunately for use in the desert, both types of common smoke used by the British need (or are helped) by moisture in the air. Dry air reduces the effectiveness of smoke shells.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 13, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> You are confusing two different roles.
> Using direct fire "able to fire during the advancement phase, in support of attacking tanks and infantry" and being a self-propelled artillery piece.



Hopefully I'm not that confusing. My comment starts with 'Compared to the Archer, it should be able to fire...', and Archer was, despite all of it's virtues, lousy in doing that when compared with AFVs with the gun pointing forward. The 'real' SP artillery piece will not have the 17pdr, of course, but the mentioned 25prd.



> BTW, it appears from trying to measure scale drawings that the Valentine hull was only about 5 ft wide, about the same width as the light tanks and around 1/2 ft narrower than the early cruisers and a 1 1/2ft narrower than a Cromwell (Cromwell then sucks up some of the space with the Christie suspension). Grants and Shermans were actually rather narrow between the tracks but then so much of the tank was _above_ the tracks.



The Valentine was some 25 cm narrower than Matilda II, so the I tank does not need to be that narrow. We can shave some length (due to engine placement) in order to keep the tabs on the weight.

The British tanks certainly needed sponsons (Matilda II have had them) in order to receive the bigger turret with a bigger cannon. The external mantlet layout (say, T-34, Panther, M4; Matilda, again), instead of internal (Cromwell, Comet, just to name a few), should also provide more space for a bigger cannon, for a given turret ring diameter.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 13, 2014)

What is confusing to many people, even if not you, is that the Germans used both style weapons and at times, in part due to vehicle shortages, mixed then up. This was not helped by the Germans using two slightly different names for rather different roles for the SP AT guns. 
This has tended to mix up the actual roles of the vehicles in other armies for many observers/commentators. 

Many web sites/wargames tend to lump them all together. 

The original Stug IIIs were artillery that _could_ accompany the infantry in the assault. However the first units used artillery type sights for both gunner and commander, had radio receivers only, and EVERY battery had at least one dedicated armored forward observer vehicle (the Sd Kfz 253). The Forward observer vehicle had a higher priority than the Sd Kfz 252 ammo carrier and most were built before the SD Kfz 252 production run. Now since the reason for using forward observers is so the gun/vehicle can sit back from the front line and shoot without getting shot at (much) it would seem it's primary job was NOT to lead the infantry in or even follow them at a few hundred meters distance. The fact that they could added flexibility to the German tactics. The other early German SP gun was the 150mm sIG 33 and in no way, shape or form should this thing have been operating anywhere where enemy infantryman could get behind it. 







Granted they only built 12, more as a proof of concept than as what they considered even close to ideal. 






Bundles on left rear fender are actually ammo storage. 
What confuses things further is that they would use the same "gun" for a different role.






On the MK III chassis max elevation was restricted to 25 degrees so max range was restricted compared to the MK I, MK II and Czech 38(t) chassis self propelled versions but the closed top (not to mention back) , heavier armor and a MG that didn't require a crewman to stick his upper body out of a hatch or above the superstructure wall to use meant the vehicle actually had a different role.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 13, 2014)

Hmm - how useful would be the 6in howitzer installed on a 25-30 ton British tank, for use, mostly, in direct fire mode, like that StuIG 33, or the Pz-IV based Brumbar? Maybe on the Churchill (unless we figure out a better 40-ton tank here ?
Granted, the size and ammo would be greater in the British weapon than at the German 15cm. 
Or maybe 4,5-4,7in gun howitzer instead, not unlike the SU-122?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 13, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> Hmm - how useful would be..........



Pretty useful........*IF* the British had faced a Stalingrad or Sevastopol type defensive situation in North Africa or Italy. 

Of course if you have a decent heavy artillery park and decent logistics to begin with you don't need a few dozen one trick pony vehicles to try to paste over some of your shortages.

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## Shortround6 (Nov 14, 2014)

To try to put some of these oddballs in perspective.

Year..............................1941............1942...................1943

MK III chassis..................2213...........2958...................3379
-stugs............................650?............600?...................????
# of 150mm MK III............0 or 12......12 or 24................0
MK IV chassis...................467............994.....................3822
38(t) chassis....................678............652.....................1,008 
-SP guns..........................0.............394-444?...............750?
150mm 38(t)....................0................0........................200???
Sturmpanzer IV................0................0..........................60?


Germans may have found the 150mm heavy assault guns "useful" but hardly critical. 

The ones on the 38(t) chassis were pretty much conventional SP artillery guns. 




rear panel was folded down in "action" and tray holding 3 projectiles provided a convenient work space for fitting fuses and prepping the ammo. 

Niether version of the 38(t) was suitable for actually getting in the middle of a fire fight. 






When trying to figure out how to "improve" an army, air force or navy the first things should be figuring out if they were deficient in any basic combat _needs/requirements_. *Trick* planes, tanks, guns of limited utility would wait until the basic needs are met.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 15, 2014)

Now, about the things that were supposed to kill tanks. Anti-tank rifles - any point in those? Grenade launchers, both rifle-based ones and of greater power, like the Bazooka, PIAT or Panzerfaust?


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## tomo pauk (Nov 15, 2014)

The penetration figures for the British guns:

British Anti-Tank Gun Penetration tables


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## Shortround6 (Nov 16, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> Now, about the things that were supposed to kill tanks. Anti-tank rifles - any point in those? Grenade launchers, both rifle-based ones and of greater power, like the Bazooka, PIAT or Panzerfaust?



We are talking on the platoon/company level? 

Anti-tank rifles (anybody's) tended to crap out once the armor gets to 30mm or better. So in hindsight an awful lot of effort and money was spent on them for not a lot of return. The British and Russians probably got the best return on their AT rifles. The British, in part, because one of their main enemies in 1940-42, Italy, had about the thinnest, weakest armor on their tanks on average (the Carro Veloce CV-33 really pulled down the average). The Russians had two things going for their AT rifles, One of the more powerful cartridges used in _common_ AT rifles and again, somewhat weak armor on the majority of German tanks, at least in the first 2 years of the Russian Campaign. The 14.5mm being able to _just_ penetrate the side 30mm armor at reasonable (?) combat distances given a decent impact angle. Of course shooting at the sides/backs of tanks means they have already over run your position. 

The next question is how much do you want to _bend_ history. The shaped charge effect was pretty much a lab curiosity/parlor trick called the Monroe effect (at least in English speaking countries) until a couple of Swiss guys figured out how to weaponize and tried to sell it. Unfortunately for them a British military attache at the demonstration (or so the story goes) recognized that they were NOT sell a 'a new and powerful explosive" but were using the Monroe effect in their demonstration. This was going on in the late 30s, the Germans used hollow charge demolition charges against Fort Eban-Emael and the British were issuing the No 68 rifle grenade in the middle of 1940. Earlier introduction of hollow charge weapons requires not just different choices being made with information available at the time but information not really available in 1936-37-38-39. It took teh US until 1943 to get the Bazooka to be a _reliable and effective_ weapon, early versions being bad enough that they stopped issuing Bazookas for while until the problems could be sorted out. 
The British tended to sour on (not favor) the shaped charge after their first experience with it and only used it when no other solution seemed to offer _any_ chance of success. 
Perhaps with a bit more development work ( a better design of cavity and liner) their experience would have been better. 

However once the British leave France, the utility of _very short_ ranged AT weapons falls off considerably, and doesn't really pick up until the invasion of Sicily (Far East excepted). 

The PIAT was a miserable weapon to work with but had the advantage of a very low firing signature and the ability to be used from a confined space (small room/bunker) which the Bazooka and Panzerfaust could not.


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## vinnye (Nov 16, 2014)

I think you need to train the anti tank troops to aim at the side of the tank as much as possible and avoid the frontal armour. Taking a track out or a wheel to disable the tank rather than knock it out completely is the objective. I think a lot of crews would bail out pretty quick if their tank was immobilised?
Anti tank rifles although heavy and having a big recoil give infantry a bit more distance between them and the tank compared to a PIAT etc.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 16, 2014)

Most of the infantry Anti-Tank 'stuff' is sort of a last ditch weapon. If the enemy tanks stop 200 yds short of your position and proceed to shoot it up with cannon and MG fire while their infantry creeps forward all the Bazookas, Panzerfausts, Piats and for the most part AT rifles are pretty much useless. Only if the enemy tanks try to drive _through_ the defensive position do they become effective and having something that shoots even 75 yds beats the heck out of running up to a tank and trying fling a demo charge onto it's engine deck or into the tracks. 
In the desert (or in places on the Steppes) the infantry AT weapons weren't very effective. In Forest/Jungle or towns/cities where the infantry could 'ambush' the tanks they were a lot more effective. The infantry had places to hide and the tanks ability to maneuver was greatly restricted. They often _had_ to come down certain roads/tracks or go hundreds of yards out of their way (with trees/buildings in the way so they could not support each other).

Trouble is sometimes the tanks could do terrible things to the defenders in minutes if not stopped. In the desert the tanks sometimes turned at the first line of defense and drove down it machine gunning the trench, line of weapons pits and literally driving over guns and positions with the tracks. A _second_ defensive line now gets a nice flank shot at the tank/s but the men in the first line are in deep trouble. Some times the tanks broke left and right at the same time and rolled up the lines while a second formation of tanks headed for the second line of defense, a several hundred yd wide gap really allowed the enemy infantry access to the position. Granted this is sort of textbook and seldom happened in perfect order. 
But telling the infantry to "just wait" for the side shot takes favorable circumstances and determined/brave men.

Bailing out tended to vary with the crews and the threat. If you are a British tanker and an 88 or 75mm takes off one of your tracks you bail out as fast as possible before another round hits the tank. If you threw a track making a sharp turn and have a bunch of MG bullets pinging off the tank you stay inside, try to call for help _and_ try to locate the MG and shoot back. In the early years the tank shells were too small to be assured of "killing" tanks even with a penetration. Kill or wound one or more crew members yes, but not the entire crew or render the tank totally out of action. Many tank crews and AT gun crews continued to shoot at tanks they hit _until_ they *saw* the crew bail out, flames or large amount of smoke or saw guns point skyward or towards the ground. (British tanks used the gunners shoulder to control elevation). Too many tanks had come back to 'life' after a brief period of time and started shooting again. 

Best AT defense for infantry is battery of AT guns occupying the same ground


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## tomo pauk (Nov 18, 2014)

The next step from a small caliber tank and AT gun? I do favor the 3pdr Vickers, so the next step might be a new gun, designed around the 3in AA round. That one fired 12 lb shell at 750 m/s, the 16 lb shell was fired at 610 m/s. Of course, the new ammo types need to be issued as they are developed.
The AP capabilities would be on par with German 7,5cm L/43 and L/48 guns, in case similar type of ammo is used; much better once the APDS is introduced. Far heavier HE shell than the 6pdr along with better penetration, of course. Against the 17pdr, or a similar 'hi-power' gun, it would fit into smaller tanks/AFV (25-30 tons) or towed carriages. The ammo count would be greater also.

For something bigger - the gun about as powerful as the 17pdr (4 kg of propelling charge), but of the 88mm caliber. Not that I'm advertising copying the famous German gun, it is simply that the 25pdr was of that caliber, and this big gun will fire it's HE and other non-AP shells, on a reduced propelling charge if needed (in case lower quality steel is used). The round would be looking like the 17pdr ammo, necked-out a bit.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 19, 2014)

Let's get back to the Littlejohn adapter. It did have it's shortcomings, 1st and foremost the need to be removed if the full-bore shell is to be fired from the gun. That would make the use in tanks very problematic, less so for the towed AT guns; no problems if the aircraft is carrying the gun. Another problem is a somewhat late introduction (from the above linked site):



> This was known for security reasons as the "2pdr littlejohn", the Mk I entered production in January 1943 and the Mk II was approved in May 1944 to improve performance against spaced armour.



On the benefits. The penetration was more than doubled vs. the 2pdr with plain AP shot at 1000 yds and under, and almost doubled vs. the APCBC shot. Unfortunately, seems like the British never developed/issued the APCR for the 2pdr gun. 
The penetration of 71mm at 1000 yds, against the rolled homogenous armor at 30 deg, was only surpassed by the 6pdr gun if it was outfitted with longer barrel (50 cal long) and APCBC ammo or better. The Germans introduced additional armor plates, of face-hardened armor, against whose the plain AP shot was less efficient, unlike the APC or APCBC sots.
Another benefit was the earlier introduction than the APDS shot for the 6 pdr, meaning there was a way to have a substantial increase in AP capability before the APDS is perfected. Increased MV also meant the increased hit probability.

For the 3pdr Vickers with the Littlejohn adapter (ammo called APSV), we might assume a 10% increase in the penetration vs. the 2prd with same, ie. penetrating 75-80 mm at 1000 yds, at 30 deg vs. the 'MQ' plate? An earlier introduction would help it, of course. The penetration would be somewhat lower without the adapter, of course, but can be used it on the tanks/AFV, as the APSV 2pdr was historically used sometimes.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 19, 2014)

A lot of the armored car crews which had the Littlejohn adapter simply fired the ammo with out the adapter and it pretty much acted like APCR shot. They lost a bit of velocity but the ability to switch ammo ( AP or HE) without having to get out of the turret and crawl out to the end of the barrel was considered a fair trade-off. By the time the Littlejohn and ammo was issued the NA campaign was over and the chances of long range shots (1000yds or so) was very much smaller in Italy and France so the extra penetration at longer ranges with the streamline projectile (after being squooze {new technical term  ) wasn't missed. Penetration at short range is hardly affected except for the loss of initial velocity due to no adapter. 

We are back to the cheap British ammo. There was no technical reason that APCBC ammo could not have been issued with the first 6pdr guns (or even 2pdr guns). APCBC or variations on it had been used in WW I by British naval guns down to 6in. 
Making APCBC projectiles shouldn't have been any more expensive than making APCR projectiles or projectiles that smooshed down in diameter as they went through barrels/adapters that changed in diameter.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 19, 2014)

The Commonwealth armies used quite a number of 'Kangaroos', the tanks/AFVs turned into APCs. The main problem with those was that infantry was expected to jump over the sides to join combat, not a very healthy proposal for the grunts. Also they were not protected from above, a lucky shot was able to wipe a complete dismount.
Once the needs for the 1st line tanks and SP artillery are met, APCs should be next on the list? 
The most straightforward might be the conversion of the American tanks, hopefully done in Canada? Cram the engine from the rear into mid position, like it was done with the M12 gun carrier. Install the rear-facing ramp, of course, also install the roof. Also the hull lengthening might be a good idea, should offer more space at the back.
The similar conversion could be attempted with M3/M5 light tanks. Also a conversion from the lighter cruiser tanks that Ive proposed earlier; a new build also. 

This might be interesting: link


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## Shortround6 (Nov 19, 2014)

You can pretty much forget the light tanks, unless you add a 3rd bogie to the chassis.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 19, 2014)

duplicate


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## tomo pauk (Nov 19, 2014)

I did, years ago... In the middle is the version with a smaller hull extension.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 20, 2014)

The earlier introduction of a bigger, but not too big a gun (like the modern gun designed around the 3in AAA cartridge) might allow for easier, earlier and more numerous conversion of the US tanks/AFVs once their armament is seen as lacking, mostly in AP capabilities. The introduction of the APSD shot for the US 3in/76mm should be a straightforward job.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 20, 2014)

The introduction of APDS for US guns had a limit because there was a limit to the amount of tungsten cores. The _need_ for APDS shot in the US guns (basically the 3in in the M10 tank destoyers and the 76mm armed Shermans) wasn't quite as great as might be believed because at close range (say under 500yds) the difference in penetration between APDS and APCR isn't that great and, subject to availability, the APCR shot for the US guns had already been designed, approved and manufactured. While it is possible to get long shots in western Europe the opportunities are a lot less than the opportunities in the desert or on the plains/steppes of eastern Europe. The longer effective range of the APDS was less needed. The US also believed (with some justification in the first few years) that APCR was more accurate than APDS. And here you hit a possible problem. Some rounds/projectiles are more sensitive than others to changes in velocity and rifling twist in regards to accuracy. Using slightly modified British projectiles in American guns might have been like getting a duck to swim or it might have been like getting a fish to fly. 
The US didn't shift to APDS shot in US tanks until they installed the British 105mm cannon in the M-48 to make the M-60 tank. Doesn't mean they were right 

The US 3in/76mm high velocity guns fired 15.4 pound projectiles at 2600fps compared to the 77mm gun in the Comet firing a 17lb projectile at 2600fps. The British gun was better but is a 10% increase in shot weight, worth a re-gunning program? That leaves changing the original 75mm gun on the Shermans as the only possible worthwhile re-gunning program. And sticking the 77mm (or an earlier version) might not be that much easier than sticking in the 17pdr. It may be a lot easier, I don't know. Americans used a whole new turret when they went to the 76mm.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 20, 2014)

> That leaves changing the original 75mm gun on the Shermans as the only possible worthwhile re-gunning program.



The British didn't received the 76mm armed Shermans in more than token number anyway? The 75mm versions were in vast majority, up-gunning of these with the proposed gun would bolster both HE and AP capacity (even before the APDS is introduced).

added: FWIW: the US tests of the 17pdr on the Sherman: link

added 2: the British were able to install the 77mm in the Comet, despite the restrictive internal mantlet. The 17 pdr was a no-go there.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 23, 2014)

The self-loading rifle for the British, and/or the automatic rifle? The automatic rifle would need an 'intermediate cartridge', though.

added: seems like the Germans used the Diglykol propellant for their 7,5 cm Pak 41 already ( link) (re. the 'R4M on steroids').


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## fastmongrel (Nov 23, 2014)

tomo pauk said:


> added 2: the British were able to install the 77mm in the Comet, despite the restrictive internal mantlet. The 17 pdr was a no-go there.



Was the Comet turret an internal mantlet it certainly looks external.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 23, 2014)

Indeed, it was the external mantlet. My bad.
Unfortunately, the mantlet was not located well out of the turret ring, but it was within, when looking from above.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 23, 2014)

(to use this double post)

This might be of interest - the web page dedicated to the Churchill tank. There is (finally) some data about the twin-6 engine. link


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## Shortround6 (Mar 16, 2017)

Video of French 75 gun on Renault Ft 17 chassis.


Better than a towed gun (?) but using WW I left overs on small chassis can bring a host of problems.

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## swampyankee (Mar 17, 2017)

Tony Williams, author of numerous books and articles on small arms and ordnance, posted a speculative article on an alternative gun for British pre-wwii tanks, AN ALTERNATIVE 1930s BRITISH TANK GUN

His basis is a 57mm (6#) gun firing a new 57x307mm round.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 18, 2017)

Getting back to the original premise, what was wrong with the British army in 1936-39 and what was wrong later? 
What are important fixes and what are 'nice to have'?

At what levels were some of the deficiencies? Platoon/company level or division/corp level? 

Often large differences in effectiveness came with sort of "behind the scenes" changes. As the war went on the communications, even in an Infantry division changed considerably. A 1939/40 division had about 75 radios of which 51 were in the divisional artillery regiment and 42 of those were operated by artillery regiment operators. In late 1944 a division had about 1000 radios. At the beginning of the war other 'signalling' methods included runner/messengers, flags/signal lamps/ signal panels (for aircraft) and of course telephone/telegraph wire. These three categories dropped off as the radio use increase. 
In late 1944 _any _forward observer could call for the fire of any and ALL guns/tubes within range of the target regardless of what units they belonged to. A flexibility enjoyed by no other army. The BEF would need about 10,000 more radios to bring it up to 1944 standard of equipment let alone the changes in doctrine/training. See this site for much more detail: Artillery Communications

In some cases using the Germans as a model may make sense but not everything the Germans did was the _ best _or _only _way of doing something.

I would also note that while the British army was the first to be motorized/mechanized this merely meant there were no horses. An infantry company in the BEF in France had Four 15cwt trucks. (1680lb/764kg payload) and one 8cwt truck. All the Infantry walked. Of course giving the BEF more vehicles just means the Germans capture more at Dunkirk. 

The Best thing you could do for the BEF was build 40-50 LSTs to get them off the beach faster

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## Shortround6 (Mar 25, 2017)

Going back to the tanks, you have the circle of doctrine (tactics) dictating the weapons specified in future tanks and then you had the weapons fitted helping dictate the tactics (doctrine) used in the field. 
The British in the 1930s believed in "*firing on the move*". That is that _rapid _and _accurate _firing while moving/advancing would suppress the enemy and give the British an advantage. Without mechanical stabilizers the British tried a _scheme_ of using tank guns that were _free _in elevation. That is there was no mechanical elevation mechanism, ie hand-wheels/gears. Elevation was controlled by the gunners shoulder against a shoulder piece and his legs/body allowed for a much more rapid and accurate adjustment in elevation as the the tank crossed less than smooth ground. This may very well have been true at slow speeds in tests. However in the real world the ability of the gunners to control elevation in this way was actually pretty limited. It also made no allowance for changes in line (lateral movement) which 
It also had the follow on effect of degrading the armaments long range ability. It didn't matter how good the gun/ammo performed at long range (800-1000yds and beyond) as each shot was essentially a "first" shot because the gun/s moved under recoil even if the gun was stationary. Correcting a 1st shot miss wasn't a matter of going up or down a 1/4 turn on a handle for instance but trying to either push the rear end of the gun up or relaxing the leg/body muscles and letting it drop a bit,_ hardly_ precise. The firing on the move could also consume a lot of ammo for each hit actually achieved. 
Now combine this with the decision to NOT us HE ammo because the 40mm was considered too small in spite of the fact that just about *every *army that used a 37mm tank gun issued HE ammunition and the British are having a real problem dealing with targets of all types at long range. The MG was _supposed _to deal with ALL non-armored targets and here we run into another problem. The vast majority of the worlds AT guns and light field guns _were partially armored. _At least they had nominally _bullet proof _shields covering the forward arc. 
Granted a number of these shields could be pierced at close range by rifle/mg ammo at close range even without using AP ammo but that didn't help at around 800yds and beyond. The gun shields could and did protect at least a few of the crew from long range mg fire. 
What this means is that British tankers, when faced with long range AT gun or field gun fire had two or three choices. One, call for artillery support while popping smoke. Given mid/late 30s radio nets this was somewhat iffy even _if _the tanks were within range of the supporting artillery. It also means a halt/temporary retreat in the advance. Two is attempting to slug it out at long range which is the worst choice and three, advance as fast a possible (charge?) to get close enough for the MG to become effective against the towed guns. Close enough to penetrate the shield or advance to a point to take the guns from the flank and/or close enough to make getting a hit on gun a likely proposition with the main gun AP shot. The last two choices are not very good ones but given the radio communications of the day may be the ONLY options. 

Different choices in the design process may have allowed different tactics, which in turn, may have allowed for different choices for future tanks. Throwing out the "firing on the move" tactic early on _may _lead to improved long range accuracy for both the main gun and the co-ax gun which extends the range the tanks can deal with non-armored targets. Better, more precise elevation control for quicker walking successive shots onto the target. Buying HE ammo from the start would also do wonders for this stand off capability. The 40mm Bofors shell held 65grams of HE. The German 37mm held 25 grams and the US 37mm AT and tank shells held about 38 grams. The 2pdr wouldn't take out field fortifications but it's ability to deal with towed guns (and their towing vehicles, one or two 40mm HE vs how many MG rounds?) would be much enhanced. 
The 2pdr solid shot was also a bit lacking in long range performance due to it's shape.





From




as I want to give credit for the picture. 
4th round is an APCBC projectile and extended the practical range of the 2pdr by several hundred yds at least.

Again, a better round for long range use and better/ more precise gun mountings might have lead to different tactics.

more later.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 26, 2017)

Shoot *Neville Chamberlain.*

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## swampyankee (Mar 26, 2017)

Robert Porter said:


> Shoot *Neville Chamberlain.*


In 1936, you'd have to shoot most of the Tories, including Churchill.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 26, 2017)

I just figured if we offed him then we would never get the "Peace in our time" crap. But hey, all for whacking the Tories as well.


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## michaelmaltby (Mar 26, 2017)

"....all for whacking the Tories as well."

Replace with whom? .... specifics, please


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## michaelmaltby (Mar 26, 2017)

".....In some cases using the Germans as a model may make sense but not everything the Germans did was the _best _or _only _way of doing something..."

Post 1918, Germans were taught warfare with much greater attention to fieldcraft, small unit tactics, and leadership up front than any other Western army.

Britain did/does not have a culture of taking their army seriously ... the Royal Navy got the lion's share .... until 1914. And _that_ culture was surely not going to change after the catastrophe of 1914 - 18.

The Germans took their Heer seriously and kept it's culture alive throughout the interwar years .... circumventing Versailles restrictions through secret "deals" with USSR, and U-boat contracts with fellow North Sea States that had been neutral in WW1.

Britain, the Commonwealth and the USA had to _learn_ how to fight. The Russians learned through very costly tactical blunders directed - by phone - from the Kremlin.

But in the end, Czarist military strategy prevailed, and the Red Army began to use the tactics that had prevailed against Napoleon.

If you want to improve your army -- take your army and take war _seriously_.

(Pray for peace, prepare for war)

IMHO, I think the USA has, overall, a very realistic approach to its defense needs and military .... but, very costly. Only GB has an historical record of spending equivalent $$$ amounts of GDP .... on the Royal Navy.

God knows ... they (USA) has a history of NOT doing that ... it caught them unprepared in the Civil War, 1917, 1939 and Korea.

But as an _alternative _to the German model, the USA is a ++ role model


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## swampyankee (Mar 26, 2017)

Robert Porter said:


> I just figured if we offed him then we would never get the "Peace in our time" crap. But hey, all for whacking the Tories as well.


The Tories were far too worried about the Bolsheviks (whose ideological predecessors were defeated by, for example, Bismarck's implementation of fairly trivial social welfare programs) to worry about somebody whose goals were racially-based slavery, bloody vengeance on the victors of the Great War, and killing off Jews and Gypsies. Heck, opposing those last two may even get you thrown out of the better clubs.

Not that Labour was much more realistic about defense needs in 1936, but they were in opposition.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 26, 2017)

I think in general terms, the appeasement of Hitler was a lost cause from the gate, except of course I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but the premise of this thread is "what if" based and honestly it would certainly have changed things if Europe as a whole had stood up to Hitler's early moves. He himself was initially amazed that no one did, and then labelled the British and French governments rightly as fools when they continued the appeasement. Pretty good exchange if you ask me, off one or 10 idiots and save literally millions.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 26, 2017)

Getting back to the tanks and AT guns. The 2pdr was designed in 1934 in response to requirements posted in 193??? The tank version was approved in Jan 1935 and the AT version not long after. Unfortunately, like many British weapons, it took a long time to go from approval to even limited production. Throwing out the 2pdr in 1936 and trying for something else is really going to leave the British scrambling for effective tanks in large numbers in 1940. Changing ammo and mounts is_ much_ easier. 
As AT guns go, the British had turned down a simple split trail carriage (like the rest of the world used) back in 1936. Such a carriage, while limiting the traverse to somewhere between 60 and 90 degrees instead of 360 degrees would have been lighter, cheaper, easier to dig in and camouflage. 

The A13 tank was one of the best tanks of it's time. 




Granted it could use a few improvements 
The Covenanter was a step backwards in several respects.




In the quest for "low silhouette" they set turret design back several years. That big, one piece hatch was an abomination. Cutting the commanders view, when closed down, to a single rotating periscope and a vision slit out each side (if he could see past the loader on the right?) instead of improving the cupola on the older tank was a major mistake. The other aspect of "low silhouette" was squashing the hull down between the tracks. The older tanks had vertical space between the top of the tracks/running guards, the wheels had quite a bit of vertical travel and space above the the tracks with vehicle stationary is misleading) that _*could have been* _used for sponsons out over the tracks to fit larger hull top and a larger turret ring. 

BTW....._IDEAL _Crew layout for a tank is driver in the center of hull, equally good (or bad) view to both left and right. Turret crew should be gunner on the right and loader on the left. Loader gets to hold larger rounds with left hand/arm and ram shells into the breech using the right hand/arm (more people being right handed) not a big deal with small round but when you get to the big ones? 
Commander should be behind gunner, center of turret means restricting gun recoil and/or limiting space behind the gun for loading. again, not a big deal with small rounds but when you get to the big ones every inch/cm counts. Building tanks _without _cupolas was a serious mistake. If the commander can't see he either can't fight the tank or has to ride with head exposed. Not bad in a long range gun dual but not very good when operating in close terrain with infantry about. Best way to _stop _an enemy tank with a rifle??? shoot exposed crewmen.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 26, 2017)

Robert Porter said:


> I think in general terms, the appeasement of Hitler was a lost cause from the gate, except of course I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but the premise of this thread is "what if" based and honestly it would certainly have changed things if Europe as a whole had stood up to Hitler's early moves. He himself was initially amazed that no one did, and then labelled the British and French governments rightly as fools when they continued the appeasement. Pretty good exchange if you ask me, off one or 10 idiots and save literally millions.



The is a school that believes Chamberlain was a lot more cynical than given credit for. That he didn't really believe Hitler but sold out Czechoslovakia to buy more time for Britain to re-arm. How much truth there is to that I don't know but the British Army and AIr Force were in pretty bad shape in 1938. What was unknown in the west at the time (and is known now) was how much of a paper tiger the Germany army was at the time (1938). 
Going to war in 1938 would have meant Gloster Gauntlets fighting He 51s at times.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 26, 2017)

Agreed, which seems to be a pattern in history. Fight a war, win, then disarm because of the huge cost of maintaining a military. Then you become a target and around we go again. The cold war largely was an exception to that cycle in the sense the potential for things going hot was much more likely than in pre inter (intra?) war periods. But I would still suspect Chamberlain as he did not come back and immediately push for re-armament and an increase in force size. Instead he seemed to continue the status quo.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 26, 2017)

Shortround6 said:


> Getting back to the tanks and AT guns. The 2pdr was designed in 1934 in response to requirements posted in 193??? The tank version was approved in Jan 1935 and the AT version not long after. Unfortunately, like many British weapons, it took a long time to go from approval to even limited production. Throwing out the 2pdr in 1936 and trying for something else is really going to leave the British scrambling for effective tanks in large numbers in 1940. Changing ammo and mounts is_ much_ easier.
> As AT guns go, the British had turned down a simple split trail carriage (like the rest of the world used) back in 1936. Such a carriage, while limiting the traverse to somewhere between 60 and 90 degrees instead of 360 degrees would have been lighter, cheaper, easier to dig in and camouflage.
> 
> The A13 tank was one of the best tanks of it's time.
> ...


Was the lower silhouette the only driving factor in the design? It would not seem to make sense to replace a relatively capable tank with one with so many deficiencies?


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## Shortround6 (Mar 26, 2017)

michaelmaltby said:


> ".....In some cases using the Germans as a model may make sense but not everything the Germans did was the _best _or _only _way of doing something..."
> 
> Post 1918, Germans were taught warfare with much greater attention to fieldcraft, small unit tactics, and leadership up front than any other Western army.



What you say is true but I was referring to the German's sometimes questionable use of close support artillery. Using penny packets of artillery pieces attached to relatively low level units for fast response is a somewhat good idea. It is also an admission that your communications network wasn't as good as desired/needed (but early war no one's was).
Many German SP artillery units were just barely useable (some allied ones had limits too) and often required a lot more support vehicles in a full battery than western nations did to move a similar amount of ammo and/or have a similar command structure. 
Much is often made of the Stug but it wasn't a real replacement for the tank. It had a very limited ability to support infantry. While an early Stug carried 44 rounds of cannon ammo (and NO machine gun) AN early MK IV carried about 80 rounds of cannon ammo and 2700 rounds of MG ammo, a late model MK III armed with the short 75 carried around 60 rounds of cannon ammo and over 3400 rounds of MG ammo. 
It may have been 30% cheaper (or more?) but if it carried 3/4 of the cannon ammo and could provide either very limited or NO MG support were they really getting value for money?
The late Stugs with long barreled guns were effective mobile AT guns but that isn't the extent of a tanks duties/roles.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 26, 2017)

Robert Porter said:


> Was the lower silhouette the only driving factor in the design? It would not seem to make sense to replace a relatively capable tank with one with so many deficiencies?



The Covenantor was first ordered (100 tanks) in April of 1939 without a prototype having been built so they were operating of theory rather than experience. To be fair the Cupola on the early A 13s may have been a pretty poor specimen (3 viewing blocks?) but at least it existed and could be improved, it is hard to improve what you don't have, although the Germans did try. 
Early Panzer II turret.




Between Poland and France the Germans re-fitted many Panzer IIs and changed production of new Panzer IIs to this type hatch cupola.




A Eight vision blocks. Vision isn't as good as head out side of hatch but much better than the y periscope on the early tanks. 
It took the British and Americans years to figure out some of the advantages of a _good _cupola. 

The Early A 13s were good in their time and offer a good base to go from. Unfortunately many of the _improvements _*weren't!*

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## swampyankee (Mar 26, 2017)

Robert Porter said:


> I think in general terms, the appeasement of Hitler was a lost cause from the gate, except of course I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but the premise of this thread is "what if" based and honestly it would certainly have changed things if Europe as a whole had stood up to Hitler's early moves. He himself was initially amazed that no one did, and then labelled the British and French governments rightly as fools when they continued the appeasement. Pretty good exchange if you ask me, off one or 10 idiots and save literally millions.



The problem with that argument is that, even in 1938, Britain probably was probably relatively weaker than Germany. France had a whole host of internal problems, including politicians from the left and right who were so antagonistic to their political opposition they'd prefer invasion to actually working across the aisle ("better Hitler than Blum")

Trying to scramble back onto the thread, when the British picked a 40 mm for their tanks they were very much in the main stream of tank development. They could have made an alternative choice, and they had used larger guns in the past -- their WW1 tanks carried 6 pounders -- so it seems to me that they could use historical precedent as a selling point. 

The other issue I would look at would be improvements in logistics and in some sort of formal alliance with France. It would be interesting had the French and British armies worked together to improve their mutual distrust and command and control problems.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 26, 2017)

Part of the tank armament problem was that the 75mm/3in gun was about the smallest weapon that could fire a worthwhile smoke projectile. This was seen as more important than even HE by some people. So if a 57mm/6pdr can't fire smoke and a 40mm/2pdr can't fire smoke then that is one area where there is zero difference in the weapons. 
For tanks there are two types of smoke. 
The defensive smoke provided by smoke grenades, smoke candles, grenade projectors and even small mortars that shield the tank from view when take by surprise, they are taking fire but exact location of attacking guns is unknown. Smoke is either right by the tank or only a short distance away 50-200yds? and allows the tank/s being fired at to withdraw or get behind local cover. 
Offensive smoke is fired by 75mm or above tank guns (or artillery support) an known or identified enemy positions to allow the the tanks-accompanying forces to advance across otherwise open ground to get very close to the enemy positions without taking large casualties.
No 45/47mm-50/57mm guns fired smoke. Which is why the British still built CS tanks to accompany the 6pdr tanks. It is why the Germans built MK IV with short 75s instead of standardizing on the long 50mm or building their own 57mm gun. The Short 75 being roughly equal to the short 50mm in penetration. Or roughly equal to the British 2pdr 
The existing High velocity 47mm (3pdr) and 57mm (6 pdr) guns were old naval cannon from before WW I and were heavy and often lacked recoil systems. Recoil was absorbed by heavy mounting bolted to a thick steel deck. They provide a starting point and some minor tooling. 
Trying to use muscles to control the elevation of heavy guns doesn't work so you need to switch tactics/doctrine from the fire on the move. Yes the British did use the Shoulder control on some tank mounted 6pdrs. 

Now just for comparisons sake these are the muzzle energies of some of the guns we are talking about.

German 37mm AT/tank gun.............................200,000 joules
American 37mm AT/tank gun...........................340,000 joules 
British 2pdr AP shot..........................................392,000 joules
Russian 45mm AT/tank gun..............................404,000 joules
German 50mm L42 tank gun............................566,000 joules
German 50mm L60 AT/tank gun.......................652,000 joules
British 6pdr AT/tank gun....................................989,000 joules

Now, since armor penetration is somewhat proportional to the amount of energy applied per unit of area of the armor the British 2pdr actually holds up fairly well as it delivers more energy per sq cm or sq in than the German 50mm L42. This assumes equal projectiles and equal quality armor. 
While it would have been nice for the British to enter WW II with 1000 Cromwells armed with high velocity 75mm cannon it wasn't going to happen. Just cutting back on the Number of Light tank MK VIs and Maltida Is and building a few hundred more A 13s might be about all you could do.
But give them good ammo, good vision and change some of the operating doctrine.
Do something about closer cooperation between the tanks and artillery. 
Get 6pdr into production quicker, even a trickle.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 26, 2017)

When you think about it in historical context, Tank development seems to have been as rapid as any weapons system, more so than some. However it seems like deployment of that development was a lot slower if that makes sense.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 27, 2017)

Appease Hitler? or appease Stalin to curb Hitler? We chose, in the end, to do the latter. Ten years later we were totally committed to an alliance with a productive prosperous partner "whose goals were racially-based slavery, bloody vengeance on the victors of the Great War, and killing off Jews and Gypsies."

Communism has too-often received a get-out-of-jail card free ... IMO. 

Putin _still_ wants 'the buffer' in eastern Europe and the Baltics that we appeased Stalin with at Yalta/Potsdam. He wanted it in 1939 and he got it then ... with Hitler's blessing.

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## Robert Porter (Mar 27, 2017)

Weird how that all worked out, it was a circle jerk of delaying actions in the form of appeasement. Hitler hated communism, he knew he would have to fight them, but bought time by allowing Stalin the buffer and a non-aggression pact. In turn the allied powers apparently tried to buy time by appeasing Hitler. In the end it all fell apart and millions died.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 27, 2017)

An interesting question is *if *either side/coalition was really strong enough to knock the other out in 1937/38 or wither the long war would have just started a year or two early? 

Granted the Germans had 2 or maybe 3 Panzer divisions in 1938 but the British only started taking delivery of A9 Cruiser in Jan of 1939. Matilda Is were either a handful or non-existent. British armored forces would have consisted of the old Medium MK IIIs and few hundred (if lucky) Vickers light tanks. The Boys anti-tank rifle was only approved in Nov of 1937 so quantities available in 1938 would have been small even near the end of 1938. 

Most other European nations were in a similar situation. Lots of drawings and plans, very little in the way of new hardware instead of WW I leftovers in the hands of the troops.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 27, 2017)

If the war starts _after_ Hitler has seized Czechoslovakia than he gets his hands on an _experienced_ , innovative tank industry which is a huge asset.
I cannot, given the politics of the times, see France performing any better in 1938 than in 1940, can you? And the collapse of the French military was indeed a surprise to Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Hitler.
It's going to be a long war no matter what, IMO.

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## Robert Porter (Mar 27, 2017)

The speed with which France collapsed is one of those oh my moments in history. It gave rise to a lot of jokes about the French Military.

French Tanks - 1 forward speed 10 reverse.
French Rifles - Only dropped once.

Most of which was undeserved. They had placed a lot of confidence in fixed fortifications and were not really mobile enough to react to the German advance. I am sure there are other factors as well. But honestly other than a real coordinated policy to contain and stop Hitler early, impossible given the political climate and will of the time, I doubt much of anything could have prevented the war.


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## michaelmaltby (Mar 27, 2017)

"....I doubt much of anything could have prevented the war."

USA stays _out_ in 1917 and France, Britain, Germany fight to an exhausted, negotiated draw early in 1919.

All three of these nations were _traumatized_ ..... and display that behavior in the interwar years


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## Shortround6 (Mar 27, 2017)

michaelmaltby said:


> If the war starts _after_ Hitler has seized Czechoslovakia than he gets his hands on an _experienced_ , innovative tank industry which is a huge asset.
> I cannot, given the politics of the times, see France performing any better in 1938 than in 1940, can you? And the collapse of the French military was indeed a surprise to Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Hitler.
> It's going to be a long war no matter what, IMO.



Not just tanks but small arms, artillery and even a small but vibrant aero industry.

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## Robert Porter (Mar 27, 2017)

michaelmaltby said:


> "....I doubt much of anything could have prevented the war."
> 
> USA stays _out_ in 1917 and France, Britain, Germany fight to an exhausted, negotiated draw early in 1919.
> 
> All three of these nations were _traumatized_ ..... and display that behavior in the interwar years


That may have worked, the way WW1 ended set the stage for WW2

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## swampyankee (Mar 27, 2017)

michaelmaltby said:


> Appease Hitler? or appease Stalin to curb Hitler? We chose, in the end, to do the latter. Ten years later we were totally committed to an alliance with a productive prosperous partner "whose goals were racially-based slavery, bloody vengeance on the victors of the Great War, and killing off Jews and Gypsies."
> 
> Communism has too-often received a get-out-of-jail card free ... IMO.
> 
> Putin _still_ wants 'the buffer' in eastern Europe and the Baltics that we appeased Stalin with at Yalta/Potsdam. He wanted it in 1939 and he got it then ... with Hitler's blessing.



It's also the boogeyman. For Britain and France, it was an internal, not external security matter that could be defused by the sort of social welfare programs granted by Bismarck in the 19th Century.

The elites like Chamberlain were so fearful of conceding anything to the unwashed masses that they didn't consider Hitler a threat until too late.


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## michaelmaltby (Mar 27, 2017)

".... It's also the boogeyman. "
Sure ... just a political invention ... harmless ... as Tartars, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans, Lats, Estos, Poles and millions of others will testify.


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## swampyankee (Mar 27, 2017)

michaelmaltby said:


> ".... It's also the boogeyman. "
> Sure ... just a political invention ... harmless ... as Tartars, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans, Lats, Estos, Poles and millions of others will testify.



For _*Britain *_and _*France, *_in the 1930s, the USSR was not a military threat -- it was unable to defeat either Poland or Finland without German assistance. Bolshevism was not an external threat; it was an internal security issue that was probably worsened by the existence of fascists: extremists love having each other to use on fearful polities.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 27, 2017)

See : 

1926 United Kingdom general strike

and 

Invergordon Mutiny

The Russian revolution and civil war (lasted until 1922?) were still in everyone's mind and socialist newspapers were common.

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## parsifal (Mar 28, 2017)

michaelmaltby said:


> Appease Hitler? or appease Stalin to curb Hitler? We chose, in the end, to do the latter. Ten years later we were totally committed to an alliance with a productive prosperous partner "whose goals were racially-based slavery, bloody vengeance on the victors of the Great War, and killing off Jews and Gypsies."
> 
> Communism has too-often received a get-out-of-jail card free ... IMO.
> 
> Putin _still_ wants 'the buffer' in eastern Europe and the Baltics that we appeased Stalin with at Yalta/Potsdam. He wanted it in 1939 and he got it then ... with Hitler's blessing.




Both regimes were about as distasteful as the other, but the USSR was not seen as the same level of threat as Germany. There were a number of reasons for that assessment. Germany was centrally located in the cockpit of Europe, able to threaten the European order from that position. Secondly, it was a question of potential. Germany in 1938 was second only to the US in terms of its industrial outputs, whilst the USSR lanquished somewhere above Italy and japan, but below France. Militarily the Soviets were seen as inept, having struggled to defeat such an inferior machine as the Japanese army. The VMF 9Soviet navy) was viewed as a joke. Her air force obsolete and largely grounded, her economic potential extremely limited and backward. In 1938, the allies rightly saw the Soviets as a sleeping giant….distasteful, obnoxious, much as they are now, but no threat to the world order (much as they are now).


Hitler could not be viewed in the same light. He had broken treaties, lied, bullied and was a real threat to the security of the Franco British alliance. There was no room to compromise with hitler. Lord knows they had tried at munich. Hitler had thumbed his nose at that prospect and wanted nothing short of war. There was nothing the allies could do other than resist him, or become the plaything of the Nazis. The Soviets never enjoyed that kind of respect. They were treated with disdain and almost outright contempt by the west, but deep down they feared the SU.


The SU is not a communist system, never has been. Id suggest your fears are driven by pure xenophobia, fear of the unknown

Facts are we don’t exactly know what Putin is after. He is a wylie customer that has outmanouvered our own poor excuses for politicians at every turn. We would do well to watch and learn I daresay.

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## swampyankee (Mar 28, 2017)

I have a hypothesis that, had the Whites won after the revolution and ensuing civil war, the independence of Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltics would last just about as long as they did after the Reds won, and Poland and Finland would have been invaded just as quickly: the White Russian political and military leaders did not come from a political philosophy that endorsed national self-determination of subject peoples.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 28, 2017)

Stalin only eliminated his commitment to the COMINTERN in 1941 after the invasion, prior to that and afterwards he was still plotting for world revolution.
The Whites may have won the Civil War and they were certainly Russian 'exceptionalists' but they were Christians, believed in business, property and the family unit.
Communist Russia wasn't a _threat_ .... haha, Stalin had a huge army in 1939, massive air force and lots of tanks. He lost to Finland but soundly crushed Japan and humiliated Romania months before, seizing large amounts of territory and proximity to Hitler's oil. Had Germany, France and Britain pounded each other into exhaustion again, Stalin was poised with troops massed to sweep west and complete the revolution.
Churchill told Stalin in 1941 during his visit to Moscow that Britain and Russia didn't have conflicting interests and in a very close interpretation that was true but ... and it's a huge but ... Churchill was putting diplomacy in his tea because he needed Russia. Churchill did NOT say Communism and Capitalism have no conflicting interests. He did NOT say Democracy and Totalitarianism have no conflicting interests.
If Communism was not a threat in 1929 or in 1939 ..... why was it a threat in 1949?

"...Facts are we don’t exactly know what Putin is after."
He wants respect. Freedom to maneuver. Unrestricted access to the Mediterranean. Control of the Black Sea. And a return to "The Good Old Days" when communists were real men and women were double-breasted.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 28, 2017)

As has been said, Communism and Russia/Soviet Union were not the same thing. And both changed over time. In 1929 the Soviet could barely run itself without outside help. Several hundred Non-russians being hired just to keep the national telegraph system working in the late 20's. Western companies hired to build/rebuild industries wrecked in the civil war. Or hired to build new factories to try to bring the Soviet Union to with 10-20 years of the west in regards to technology. Russia was NOT a military threat to anybody not on their immediate border. The *idea *of communism/socialism *was *a threat to western nations (or at least to the existing power structure) with wide spread labor unrest in the world during the 20s and 30s. The Miners, farm workers, dock hands, factory workers were no longer willing to work for barely sustenance wages. In many capitalist minds (owners) labor unions and communism either weren't very far apart or were identical. 
Much of the early atrocities of the Soviet union were either hidden or covered up as part of the final sorting out of the civil war. 
By the late 30s the Soviet Union was gaining strength as an industrial power.(compared to where they were in 1922) Communism as a world wide *idea *was fading although the Spanish civil war(s) {trouble dates back to 1931 at least} had many people in France and other countries worried about similar uprisings and the French general strikes of 1936 while not communist lead did nothing to quell the fears of conservatives. 
In 1949 the Soviet Union *WAS *a world power and it appeared that the only way to spread "communism" was with a gun as it had failed to actually take hold in the previous 30 years anywhere else but the Soviet Union.


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## michaelmaltby (Mar 28, 2017)

".... the only way to spread "communism" was with a gun as it had failed to actually take hold in the previous 30 years anywhere else but the Soviet Union."

And_ that_ is exactly what Stalin's blue-print strategy _was_. Not in 1945, not in 1949, but way, way back in the mid-30's when industrialization was taking place. The Red Army was equipped, structured and indoctrinated exclusively in _offensive_ 
warfare. The massive forces over run in the centre-south in the summer of '41 were deployed in _offensive _depositions. The Soviets had more paratroops than any other nation. Their Christie-suspension tanks were designed for roads, not cross-country. They had eyes-on-the-ground, everywhere. Watching. Waiting. Reporting, Following orders.

I _do_ believe, however, that Stalin was no Communist .... he was a cunning, clever Georgian bank robber who became a Tsar. Communism simply provided an ideology, a discipline, a language, a network that Stalin could turn to his own ends. (Remember that Stalin was supposed to be a priest) Many Russians accepted/justified the excesses of Stalin _because_ they believed in the virtue of "world communism".

Lenin referred to these folks are "useful idiots" .... and we can see them on display in all western democracies today .... doing their bit to undermine the system, to weaken from within, to tweak the data, to hasten the fall of accountable government.

No threat. No worry.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 28, 2017)

The founding documents of Communism clearly state the system cannot last nor succeed unless the entire world is brought under the same system. It advocates doing so by force. That said I don't believe Putin nor Stalin paid anything more than lip service to communist ideals, as mentioned above it is a means to an end for them. But you have to wonder if they don't perceive us as the threat since Capitalism is in and of itself a threat to any other economic system. Certainly it has proven itself a threat to the USSR and its follow on the SU. 

Given that we are certainly a perceived threat to their status quo you have to conclude that they would want to defend against such a perceived threat. And as any good Russian knows the best defense is a great offense.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 28, 2017)

You have quite a few things that went on that affected peoples views of the "world" and you had more than few things that were not widely known (communist massacres/purges). The Western involvement in the Russian civil war (in support of the white Russians) was not something the Soviets were likely to forget or ignore even if they did turn to the west for technical assistance just a few years later. 
The "Workers of the World" did not unit and rise up against their masters during the 20s and 30s (at least not in significant numbers, despite some very violent strikes and murders/massacres) in most countries enough to actually topple governments. 
A hidden or long range threat (decades) isn't of much concern in the short term, next five years? and the "threat" of internal communists was stronger in most countries than the threat of the Russian military rolling over their country in the 1930s. Again see French labor troubles during the 30s vs chances of the Russians rolling over Poland and Germany to reach the French border. 
The internal threats never materialized the way the Soviets may have hoped (although they did sway elections) but perceived threats and actual threats never line up anyway.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 28, 2017)

".. Given that we are certainly a perceived threat to their status quo you have to conclude that they would want to defend against such a perceived threat. And as any good Russian knows the best defense is a great offense."

Well said. We must recognize that we - NATO, western democracies, and like-minded democracies - threaten Russian autocracy - and Russian vision of its own "exceptionalism". Putin's minister said "the difference between American exceptionalism and Russian exceptionalism is that we - Russia - don't try and force ours down your throat"

And that's it - Russia is saying "respect us, leave us be"

What the west can and must answer is - "_respect _has to be earned. actions speak louder than words. You want respect, Putin, earn it. Demonstrate that your ideas and methods can prevail in a free market, pluralistic, continent-sized country that's rich but only exports raw materials and hockey players.


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## michaelmaltby (Mar 28, 2017)

Of interest ...

The Nominal National Products of the major powers in 1938, in current dollars:

(1) United States: 84.7 billion
(2) Germany: 46.0 billion*
(3) UK: 27.51 billion
(4) USSR: 23.02 billion
(5) France: 16.18 billion
(6) Italy: 8.68 billion
(7) Japan: 7.49 billion

*The German number includes Austria and annexed Czechoslovakia

The USSR has made phenomenal progress in 10 years.


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## swampyankee (Mar 28, 2017)

Maybe spreading bolshevism with a gun was Stalin's goal in the 1930s, but he did not have the capability to do so beyond countries on the USSR's immediate borders, and did not attack all of those: he wasn't rabidly invading everybody within reach; most of the pre-WW2 invasions were of countries that had been part of the Russian Empire. In this regard, I believe that the White Russians, had they won, would have done exactly the same thing. Hitler would have just made some trivial changes to his rhetoric, replacing "communist" with "Slav."

As for the internal threat of communism, anybody who joined with a friend in asking for a raise or some other improvement in working conditions was immediately labeled a communist.

I'm not defending the USSR here; I'm attacking the perception of the USSR being a military threat to countries in _Western _Europe. It wasn't; the countries that were targeted before WWII were those that had been in the Russian Empire and were adjacent to the USSR. Before WWII, the USSR couldn't send a force to invade the Faroe Islands.

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## parsifal (Mar 28, 2017)

Robert Porter said:


> The founding documents of Communism clearly state the system cannot last nor succeed unless the entire world is brought under the same system. It advocates doing so by force. That said I don't believe Putin nor Stalin paid anything more than lip service to communist ideals, as mentioned above it is a means to an end for them. But you have to wonder if they don't perceive us as the threat since Capitalism is in and of itself a threat to any other economic system. Certainly it has proven itself a threat to the USSR and its follow on the SU.
> 
> Given that we are certainly a perceived threat to their status quo you have to conclude that they would want to defend against such a perceived threat. And as any good Russian knows the best defense is a great offense.





Sorry Robert, but where in Das Kapital does it say anything like that? Id suggest you actually read Marx and Engels before making statements like that, because, with respect, what you are saying is just untrue. It might be in soviet manifesto, or Lenins Interpretation of the Communist Manifesto, but the “founding works” of communism say no such thing as you are claiming.


The critique of the political economy of capitalism proposes that:


Wage-labour is the basic "cell-form" (trade unit) of a capitalist society. Moreover, because commerce, as a human activity, implied no morality beyond that required to buy and sell goods and services, the growth of the market system made discrete entities of the economic, the moral, and the legal spheres of human activity in society; hence, subjective moral value is separate from objective economic value. Subsequently, “political economy” — the just distriibution of wealth and "political arithmetick" about taxes — became three discrete fields of human activity ….economics, law and ethics, each relatively divorced from the other (Marx)


"The economic formation of society a process of natural history" according to Das Kapital, , thus it is possible for a political economist to objectively study the scientific laws of capitalism, given that its expansion of the market system of commerce leading to Objectified human relations (ie I think materialism); the use of money (cash nexus) voided religious and political illusions about its economic value (ie Marx’s take on the principal of the separation of powers and the necessary separation between church and state). Marx also talked about the natural tendency of society toward “commodity fetishism”. Something all too apparent in modern society. Marx questioned the the belief that an object (commodity) has inherent economic value. Marx believed that because societal economic formation is a historical process, no one person could control or direct it, thereby creating a global complex of social connections among capitalists; thus, the economic formation (individual commerce) of a society precedes the human administration of an economy (organised commerce). He did not advocate worldwide armed conflict to overthrow or change the system, the opposite actually.
The structural contradictions of a capitalist economy, the _gegensätzliche Bewegung_, describe the contradictory movement originating from the two-fold character of labour, and so the class struggle concept between labour and capital was developed as a social theory by Marx, but again he is so often misquoted here as advocating armed struggle to redress the imbalances between the classes. It happens that this often was the result of his thories, but he did not advocate that this needed to be conducted on a global scale. He was observing the nature of societal conditions and how that might play out.
The economic crises of recession and depression on the one hand and boom and oversupply by the free market were observed by Marx and he advocated a different societal model to address those shortcomings
In a capitalist economy, technological improvement and its consequent increased production augment the amount of material wealth (which Marx sometimes described as “use value”) in society, while simultaneously diminishing the economic value of the individual units built or acquired under that system. He was academically describing the cost savings that come with economies of scale. Marx argued that such unit duplication was bad for profits, but I think he was wrong in this regard. Though I agree that the percentage of profits per unit does drop in a mass production environment. Marx described this phenomena as a paradox….a characteristic of economic crisis in a capitalist economy; "poverty in the midst of plenty" consequent to over-production and under-consumption” in this he was undoubtedly correct. Our worl enjoys higher levels of abject, life threatening poverty, in a world where consumption and wealth are greater than they ever have been at any other time in history .
After two decades of economic study and preparatory work (especially regarding the theory of “surplus value”) the founding works behind the communist movement first volume appeared in 1867: _The production process of capital_. After Marx's death in 1883, Friedrich engels introduced, from manuscripts and the first volume; Volume II: _The circulation process of capital_ in 1885; and Volume III: _The overall process of capitalist production_ in 1894. These three volumes are collectively known as Das Kapital.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 29, 2017)

".... I'm attacking the perception of the USSR being a military threat to countries in _Western _Europe."

.... and _defending _Soviet Communism's behavior of expansion which was as brutal and totalitarian as Hitler's. In 1939 - 40, the Communist cells in France and Britain were fed the line from the COMINTERN that the "enemies" of the Revolution were the bankers of Berlin and London. The object was to weaken and disrupt these countries ... and _that_ is hostile behavior as surely as cyber war against Estonia or the USA is today


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## Robert Porter (Mar 29, 2017)

parsifal said:


> Sorry Robert, but where in Das Kapital does it say anything like that? Id suggest you actually read Marx and Engels before making statements like that, because, with respect, what you are saying is just untrue. It might be in soviet manifesto, or Lenins Interpretation of the Communist Manifesto, but the “founding works” of communism say no such thing as you are claiming.



I should have been more precise. I have read both Marx and Engels, and the information I am referring too is from Lenin not them so you are correct in that it was not the foundational documents. That said every leader since Lenin and including Lenin advocated the spread of communism by force. And Mar and Engels both said the system could not survive in isolation but had to be spread to the world. They used different language but the meaning is pretty clear.

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## Robert Porter (Mar 29, 2017)

For some reason history (rightly) vilifies Hitler and the Nazi's but gives considerably more latitude to Stalin and the Communists. Stalin after liberating various concentration camps filled them with his own undesirables, he established and greatly expanded his own version of the Nazi approach to consolidating power by confining and murdering dissenters wholesale. His methods and results were at least as horrific as anything the Nazi's did yet history has largely let that pass. While I have yet to find a source I can trust with 100% confidence all indications are he killed far more civilians and his own troops than Hitler dreamed of. He ordered the destruction and death of units of his own troops that were Nazi POW's to include civilians that had lived under occupation of the Nazi's as they had been "tainted" and were no longer reliable.

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## Robert Porter (Mar 29, 2017)

parsifal said:


> After two decades of economic study and preparatory work (especially regarding the theory of “surplus value”) the founding works behind the communist movement first volume appeared in 1867: _The production process of capital_. After Marx's death in 1883, Friedrich engels introduced, from manuscripts and the first volume; Volume II: _The circulation process of capital_ in 1885; and Volume III: _The overall process of capitalist production_ in 1894. These three volumes are collectively known as Das Kapital.



An applicable quote from Marx to illustrate my point:

_Marx divides the communist future into halves, a first stage generally referred to as the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and a second stage usually called "full communism." The historical boundaries of the first stage are set in the claim that: "Between capitalist and communist society lies the *period of the revolutionary transformation* of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat._


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## michaelmaltby (Mar 29, 2017)

"....For some reason history (rightly) vilifies Hitler and the Nazi's but gives considerably more latitude to Stalin and the Communists."

The Judeo-Christian tradition contains teachings and foundations that former-believers have been comfortable with accepting as their new non-theistic creed ..... and acceptance, of course, gives Communism the luster of science and philosophy which lures academics and social commentators. However, Communist science was/is demonstrably bad science while Communist philosophy is mechanical philosophy .... dialectical.

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## Robert Porter (Mar 29, 2017)

One thing that most people that study Marx and Engels leave out is the extensive correspondence between the two where they openly discuss and debate what would eventually become Das Kapital. In particular they discuss what to leave out of it in order to not "shock" the proletariat and thereby loose their message. But the fact that they both understood that force would be necessary is clearly expressed in a great deal of that correspondence. Little of which made it into Das Kapital. If you read the Constitution of the former Soviet Union it appears to give all manor of rights and protections to the citizens. None of which actually mattered or were implemented. Das Kapital was similar in that it expressed what the creators chose to express not their entire vision. Their own notes and correspondence expresses that the world was perhaps not ready for the full story.


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## swampyankee (Mar 29, 2017)

michaelmaltby said:


> ".... I'm attacking the perception of the USSR being a military threat to countries in _Western _Europe."



which it wasn't. The USSR had neither the military nor industrial capability to attack any country not on its borders.


> .... and _defending _Soviet Communism's behavior of expansion which was as brutal and totalitarian as Hitler's. In 1939 - 40, the Communist cells in France and Britain were fed the line from the COMINTERN that the "enemies" of the Revolution were the bankers of Berlin and London. The object was to weaken and disrupt these countries ... and _that_ is hostile behavior as surely as cyber war against Estonia or the USA is today



Blaming bankers is a favorite hobby of left and right; it's a reflex.

As an aside, I said _absolutely nothing _defending Soviet behavior; what I said was that a) politicians in many Western countries used the non-existent Soviet military threat for political purposes, and b) used the threat of communism to promote their domestic political agenda and c) that the White Russians would have invaded Poland, Ukraine, etc. in exactly the same way as the bolsheviks. The Whites may not have deliberately starved people in Ukraine had they won the civil war, but I never said the Bolsheviks didn't do so.

Politicians, left, right, and center, demonize groups all the time. The ones in Western Europe were following a long tradition. Sometimes they are so busy demonizing one group, they fail to notice the real threat. In this case, before WWII, many politicians did just that. The bolsheviks were a minor internal security threat, not an existential one to any of the Western democracies. They had the chance to break Hitler in 1936, when he remilitarized the Saar. They blew it then, when Germany was too weak to do anything but back down.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 29, 2017)

What you said:
"I'm not defending the USSR here; I'm attacking the perception of the USSR being a military threat to countries in _Western _Europe. It wasn't; the countries that were targeted before WWII were those that had been in the Russian Empire and were adjacent to the USSR. Before WWII, the USSR couldn't send a force to invade the Faroe Islands."
To which I replied:
"... and _defending _Soviet Communism's behavior of expansion which was as brutal and totalitarian as Hitler's.

I am discrediting your argument because the threat in 1939 was real and it was as much from a heavily armed Red Army conscripted to the service of an internationally disposed Soviet communist party. Stalin's proposal to France and Britain in 1938-39 says it all - "let me occupy Poland and I can stop Hitler because I will have a buffer".

In 1939, was the Russian Army a threat to Poland - with whom both western France and Britain were bound in mutual defense treaties? Was the Russian Army a threat to Finland? To Estonia? Latvia? Lithuania? Romania?

History says "yes".

As for this:
"Blaming bankers is a favorite hobby of left and right; it's a reflex."

You're _flippant. 


_


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## parsifal (Mar 29, 2017)

Seems to be lost in this debate that marx did not consider armed conflict with nations, rather armed conflict between the classes. marx saw the nation state as a tool of elite, and in the class war that he saw the nation state was an obsolete concept. it was not war between nations that he forecast, it was war between the classes

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## Shortround6 (Mar 29, 2017)

And this is why some western officials viewed communism as an internal security threat and not an external one. With riots, demonstrations and strikes going on they feared a really big riot or uprising (even if it had no real chance of success) more than a Russian invasion. 
Whatever the politicians or newspaper editors feared the better military officers knew the Russians were in no position to march hundreds of miles across Europe, anymore than the Germans could March hundreds of miles across Russia several years later. 
Russians had less motor transport, crappier railroad equipment and the different rail gauge. Military officers had figured out rates of advancement and ranges of advancement from supply points back around the time of Napoleon (if not before, Napoleon just proved them right). Yes the Soviets could gobble one country, stage there awhile and advance again, stage and advance again and stage again..........But to roll across Europe in weeks wasn't going to happen.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 29, 2017)

Trying to get back the premise of the thread, Doctrine often dictated weapons and weapons/equipment in turn could dictate tactics.

For instance the British developed their armored theories on the Salisbury plain, which _might _have lead to the British exploring long range gun fire to fit in with the long open spaces found there. Instead they got the idea of near land fleet actions. Groups, often large, of tanks moving about in formation and firing on the move. Large formations would be impractical as tactical formations in much of Western Europe, and while theoretically ideal the for the open dessert in NA the firing on the move idea came up very wanting in the desert (although it may have worked better at the shorter ranges in Europe.) 

British tanks in the dessert seem to have been limited to max effective range of around 800yds, both for the 2pdr gun and the co-ax gun. 
The problem NOT being a the fault of either gun but rather the doctrine. The tanks were fitted with the shoulder control elevation mount which allowed for quicker reaction while moving, it made the _ability _to fire on the _move _a possibility even if not very likely. However it made precise follow up shots at longer ranges a near impossibility. the gun kicked up on firing and each shot had to be re-layed (aimed) all over again for elevation. 
This was coupled with a lousy long range sighting system. The difference between the German sight/s and the British sight/s in magnification was not really significant. What was significant was that the British sight/s weren't much more than a simple cross hair. The gun/s were zeroed to the cross hairs at a given range and the gunner had to use experience and judgement on much to hold over at longer ranges. The point blank range (range at which you could put the cross hairs on the center of mass of the target and still get a hit either top or bottom ) was close the previous mentioned 800yds. 
The Germans had a crude range finding reticule in their sight. A series of triangles that were multiples of 2 mils in angle (center one was 4 mils. Once the gunner _estimated _the range using the mils and size of the target he turned a dial or ring on the sight to the appropriate range setting and the _aiming mark moved to the correct elevation for that range. _Combine that with the geared elevation mechanism that prevented the gun from changing elevation when fired and the Germans were in much better shape to engage in long range gun duels in the dessert. 
German co-ax guns were provided with an adjustment of 1200 meters on most tanks ( a few differed) USING THE SAME AMMUNITION as the Besa guns that limited to about 800yds in the British tanks due to *doctrine---gunsight----elevation mechanism. * 
Likewise the German 37mm, short 50mm and short 75mm were all given sight settings of up to 2000 meters with the long 50 and long 75s (L43 and L48) going to 2500- 3000meters. 

I am NOT claiming the 2pdr could shoot enemy tanks at 3000 meters given better sights but the sights and mount were more of a limitation that the ballistics of the gun/ammo.

Given the limits of the gun/sight/mount system what tactics could have been used by the British tankers? Close range as fast as possible to get the enemy tanks within the effective range of the *system. * 

Doesn't matter if you change to a 47mm gun (3pdr) or a 57mm gun. If you don't change the "doctrine" and change the gun mount and sights (which might work better than the German system in Europe at ranges of under 800yds) then you are going to get near the same results as historically. Doesn't matter how powerful the gun is, if you can't hit the enemy tanks.

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## Robert Porter (Mar 29, 2017)

parsifal said:


> Seems to be lost in this debate that marx did not consider armed conflict with nations, rather armed conflict between the classes. marx saw the nation state as a tool of elite, and in the class war that he saw the nation state was an obsolete concept. it was not war between nations that he forecast, it was war between the classes


Agreed, however it was unrealistic and he knew it. While he chose to believe that a "State" was a construct, the reality was and remains that states are the arbiters of class and as such any conflict between classes necessitate the destruction of the state. That too is an oft discussed subject between he and Engels. It honestly matters very little what he thought so much as how those thoughts were realized and put into action. We could debate, and indeed academics still do, about what he thought or meant. The real world however is still dealing with how his thoughts and ideas have been placed into action. Those that took up his ideology, debatably as a means to an end rather than any real belief, have taken the ideology of a stateless classless society and instead made one of the most rigidly defined class based societies and a very totalitarian state.


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## parsifal (Mar 30, 2017)

Its a matter of opinion if he did know it, and its a matter of opinion that if he did know it that it isn't going to happen still, though I don't think marx took into consideration all the factors. Nation states have difficulty dealing with international issues like global terror or global warming, because the national interest outweighs the wider societal interests. this explains the overall disillusioment with the political system and the political class we are witnessing today. States cant solve the societal fundamentals because they are set up to inherently protect the vital interests of the ruling classes. My opinion is that within a century we will be witnessing the failure and collapse of the nation state on a more or less global scale.

How does this relate to the british army in 1936. it relates to the perceived threats as they existed at that time. it relates to whether the USSR was ever a possible greater threat to world security over Nazi aggression.

It really is a matter of opinion and the relative weight you want to give to the various issues at play here. The Nazis were possessed with greater war making potential and were geographically in a more dangerous position, whereas ideologically the Soviets and their brand of socialism were more of a societal threat. Nations knew that the Soviets in 1936 were not in the same level of threat as the germans, though people like Churchill were avid anti-communists just the same. For Britain and France, Germany was a far more serious threat to their vital interests, whereas the Soviets were far more dangerous to their societal stability. It got down to a choice between which was the greater threat and Britain (and France) were never in any doubt that it was Germany that was the greater threat to their vital interests. even as late as 1945 that assessment was valid. With Germany prostrate and almost defeated, though doubts about Soviet intentions were beginning to permeate the allied consciousness, there was never the slightest chance that the allies would abandon the Soviets until the job was done. that was the right decision IMO.

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## swampyankee (Mar 30, 2017)

At least some sources have said that two goals of Britain's establishment were avoidance of a land war on the Continent, and not to permit France to dominate Europe (the last time that appended, it did not go well); these both tended to favor a softer policy towards Germany than had been agreed to at Versailles. Combine this with penurious military budgets and an expensive empire to defend, one wonders if an army competent for sustained operations against an industrialized country, like Germany, was considered a priority by Whitehall or 10 Downing Street. As to Eastern Europe, one wonders how Britain or France could have directly intervened without Germany's cooperation. Hitler would not have given that consent, and Weimar may not have had enough power over its security services to do so.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 30, 2017)

"...one wonders if an army competent for sustained operations against an industrialized country, like Germany, was considered a priority by Whitehall or 10 Downing Street"

Indeed. A great portion of the modern era Britain subsidized _other_ European states such as Prussia to maintain a large standing army . As I stated early in this thread, Britain didn't prioritize the need for a modern army the way it appreciated that the Royal Navy was critical to existence.


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## Robert Porter (Mar 30, 2017)

As I mentioned and quite agree with the sentiments above up to a point, we did not know at the time but Germany was largely a paper tiger and was gambling on the reticence of European, primarily British, states to engage it militarily as would have been necessary to stop its expansion. By the time that was no longer possible to avoid it was too late to avoid the very land war they did not want to fight. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that any number of avenues were available if pursued to have contained Germany but pretty much the entire western world, including the US, was war weary and had their collective heads in the sand. I do agree that the Soviet was not a viable military threat at the start of the war, but it was engaged in becoming one. 

The best way, at least the historical consensus says, to have avoided the war was not to have treated Germany so shabbily at the end of World War 1. I rather subscribe to the theory that there was no viable way to avoid the war as the continent had more or less been in a continual state of war since before the Roman Empire. Most of that war had moved to proxy wars in the various continents being "colonized" by the Western powers. The Spanish American war is an example of such a proxy war. Neither side directly engaged the other in all out war. 

I do agree we are probably living in, to paraphrase Churchill, the end of the beginning of whatever the next societal groupings will take. Nations as we know them will morph into something new. What form that will take will probably be more economic than political.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 30, 2017)

The British _did _appreciate the need for a modern army and indeed the British army in 1939/40 was a modern as anybody else's, at least in terms of_ types_ of equipment available (with a few exceptions). Failings were the scale of equipment issue and in some cases doctrine. 
The actual size of the army was something else but Armies can be expanded in size faster than Navies and Air Forces, at least if you have core/cadre units and designs for _tested _weapons in hand with sufficient production resources. 
As far as France 1940 goes even 15 better equipped divisions wouldn't have made any difference compared to the 10 under equipped
Divisions that were there. For comparison the Dutch army was roughly twice the size of the BEF, the Belgian army was roughly four times the size of the BEF and French Army was comprised of a total of 71 infantry divisions (granted about 19 were rather ill-equipped), 5 fortress divisions, 3 armored divisions (4th added during the campaign), 5 light cavalry divisions, 3 light light mechanized divisions. 
The British could NOT save France.

However the British could have made better choices in figuring out doctrine/tactics before the war and made better choices in armament/scale of issue and other details that would have allowed for much better results in North Africa and later campaigns. 

The British had made at least 1250 No4 Mk I rifles in the early 30s for test, this is more than simple tool room prototypes, some sort of small scale production tooling must have existed. It was approved and then filed away _until needed. _Production didn't deliver rifles in quantity until 1941. The No 4 was supposed to be cheaper to build than the No 1 MK III. I am not sure if theArmy existed on left over No 1s during the 30s or if there was ongoing production of the No 1. sources vary. Small scale production of the No 4 should have been started during the mid to late 30s. 
The 3in mortar was about the simplest way to increase the Battalion firepower. It was under performing in the mid to late 30s compared to world standards and 2 tubes per battalion was below most other armies scale of issue. 
The idea of concentrating ALL heavy MGs into a machine gun corp (or divisions) to be parceled out in packets of companies per inf regiment (or platoons per battalion) _as needed, _ was also contrary to world practice. Now in reality, in some theaters a sub unit of the MG Corp may have been loaned/assigned to a particular regiment/battalion for an extend period of time and become a defacto member of the regiment/battalion but it means that infantry officers were not trained to think of the Vickers machine guns as organic battalion firepower and had to learn how to use them to best advantage "on the job" with the help of the MG detachments leader/s. And I think we can imagine how that went at times.  Subaltern Jones trying to tell Major Smythe that no, that position the Major had selected for the MGs was really NOT the best place for them. 

Britain was not alone in failing to realize the fast pace of armoured vehicle development, although it really shouldn't have been that hard to foresee some of it. British built about 1000 of these. 





Which were pretty useful for fighting these 




but almost useless for fighting these




Please note added armor to front of turret, front of superstructure and that the front of the hull is added armor over a previously rounded hull front. The British .5 Vickers or 15mm Besa was useless against the front of these upgraded MK II tanks, while the 20mm gun would penetrate the British light tanks at considerable distance. 

Since the British were making 12-14 ton cruiser tanks at the same time as the Light tanks and the French were build 12-14 ton two man tanks by the thousand during the late 30s it is a little hard to figure out why the British built so many 5 ton tanks. Several hundred may have needed but these tanks made up the bulk of the armor in the BEF and North Africa.

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## michaelmaltby (Mar 30, 2017)

"The British could NOT save France."
France could not save France.


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## michaelmaltby (Apr 4, 2017)

1939 Newsreel ..... 


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNX5ZE3C1Gg_


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## Old Wizard (Apr 4, 2017)




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## Shortround6 (Apr 6, 2017)

Getting back to doctrine and tactics. The British armored formations pre WW II were very armor heavy and support unit (including infantry) light even if the bulk of the tank numbers were made up of light tanks. 
Many other countries and unbalanced formations (Brigades or divisions) but the British were pretty much as far on one end of the scale as you could go. 

A British tank "division" (and there were only 2, one in England and one in Egypt) couldn't hold ground (pre 1940 it had ONE infantry battalion). 
It couldn't assault defended positions very well. Lack of infantry and surprisingly, lack of artillery in sufficient numbers. Especially considering the lack of HE and smoke capability of the tanks themselves. The early 3.7in tank Howitzer/mortar was a weapon and ammo unto itself and had nothing in common with the 3.7in Pack howitzer except the bore diameter. 

Basically they were sort of mechanized cavalry and not heavy divisions. Useful for exploiting a breech in the enemy lines once it had been made. But far less capable of dealing with trouble spots than the German tank divisions. The divisions in both armies were evolving at this time (and would continue to evolve). 

The British were depending on infantry divisions _with attached infantry tanks _to assault defended positions. A problem with attaching a tank unit to an infantry unit for a particular attack or operation is the lack of familiarity and co-operation. The tanks will try to fight their own little battle regardless of what the infantry are doing, the artillery belongs to the infantry division commander so requests for support are not going to be at the top of the list. After a tank unit had worked with a particular infantry unit for a while each came to appreciate the others problems and became more "invested" in the other units survival. In the early desert fighting many infantry units had a poor regard for tank units as they tended to draw enemy fire (including artillery) and tended to bug out leaving the infantry holding the bag. Of course the tanks needed secure areas to re-arm, re-fuel and perform maintenance. 

Changing the gun in the cruiser and/or infantry tank doesn't do much to change the fundamental flaws in British doctrine/tactics. 

In the early years the German MK IVs with their short 75mm guns not only fired HE support but provided the long range smoke support for the tank formations (until supporting artillery could be called in.) 
The German 105 howitzers also had a much larger smoke charge in their smoke shells than the British 25pdrs did. Better or different artillery fire doctrine/practices could make a difference.

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