Best possible tank for UK Commonwealth, 1940

Wishing that they had skipped the Covenanter and gone to a Crusader with a bit bigger turret could hardly result in fewer tanks on the front lines

Bad tactics and the lack of HE ammunition were responsible for a large share of the poor performance of the British tanks.

There was a reason Vickers used the A9 'slow motion' suspension. The A13 suspension was less robust and heavier even if it could cope with more speed. The larger the turret the larger the hull and the more the weight. The fixed point, around which all Valentine compromises were made, was the AEC bus engine. A sound device but limited in power. The later GM diesel was somewhat more powerful but was of the same class.

The only alternative was the Liberty. It suffered from poor installations causing overheating. It went into the A13 with little trouble and gave twice the AEC power but now you need a larger hull, a larger fuel tank, a larger 3 man turret and effective (ie up to 50mm antitank gun) armour. We call this a Cavalier. It is tempting but thinkcarefuly. You are now suggesting an untried vehicle.

Stick with a working Valentine for 1939 to 1943 and spend your time on a 17 pounder Meteor vehicle. Trialled in service at the end of 1943 and replacing quantity Valentine production in 1944.

The Matilda Infantry II tank was a wonderful device but horrendously expensive in production costs and time. This is why Vickers said they could give something nearly as good but far cheaper in materials and time. There was no way you could make vast numbers of Infantry II tanks. It was beyond the capabilities in depth of British industry. The Valentine could be made by many branches of heavy industry.

I have tried to keep to the 1938 industry limit and my only 'what if' is to bring forward the 6 pounder gun which is quite achievable and to urge production of more force multiplying tank transporters.

The 6 pounder HE round was certaily inferior to the French 75mm type but was still effective against anti tank guns, US army 6 ponder gunners used to try to get HE rounds from their British counterparts they were not issued to US guns.

Without the OTL desire to avoid breaking Cromwell hull production, we can postulate a 1944 larger Comet type vehicle, Meteor engined with a 3 man 17 pounder turret and sloping glacis. Essentially a Centurion but in time for D day

Hi, SR6,
How thick the armor for your machine?

parsifal said:

One thing I would argue. in tanks vs tank engagement, the 2pounder armed brit tanks were equal or superior to the equivalent early war Axis AFVs.

Where the Brit tanks fell down badly was in HE capability. This enabled many tanks to be knocked out by long range AT fire (both 50mm and 88mm) with relative ease.

Which makes me think that even if the brits had disrupted their production lines, and opted for a revised tank with saay a 6pdr gun, it would have made not a great deal of difference, except that fewer brit tanks would have been available. I have the strong suspicion that we would be lamenting the shortage of numbers in this alternative scenario, and how a few more tanks of simpler easier design might have made the difference. in other words, be careful what you wish for.

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Agree with AP capability of the 2pdr, it was fine to deal with any tanks axis was deploying in 1940, and for almost all the tanks Italians Japanese were fielding years later. With HE shell available from day one, much of the criticism would've never emerged.The retention of the 2pdr at the mainstay of the tank guns to almost 1943 is hard to comprehend.

As far as weapon goes, Brits have pre-war 3pdr, then the 2pdr and 3,7in howitzer, with 3in howitzer and 6pdr in pipeline - it does not seem like a ruthless standardization. The proposal at my liking is the one by T. Williams - a gun based upon the dimensions of the 57mm cannon that was used in ww1, but manufactured by the technological standards of the 1930s, so the new gun would be roughly comparable with german 5cm/L42. As the plan B, in case the 'new 57mm' encounters issues, the 47mm cannon can be installed. Another choice might be the Czech 47mm, 50% more HE, and we can tackle the later Pz-IIIs/IVs better.

If we take a look at how many substantially different tank designs UK serially produced from 1935-40, not even the Soviets were that prolific. Perhaps it was historically the case that too many designs (many being partial or total flops) were hampering war performance of them?

Keeping the Vickers slow motion suspension is not going to save enough weight to turn either the AEC or GMC engines into creditable engines for a standard tank unless you use two of them, hardly a savings in cost, space or weight.

A "standard" tank needs to be able to engage all types of targets, not just other tanks. This was a major failing of the early British tanks. They had to rely on the MG/s for all targets that were not armored ( yes they fired 2pdr AP shot for morale effect.) this might have been a bit more successful if they had had more ammo on board for the MG/s. While th eroded hull guns on the US tanks were useless the storage for 6,000 rounds or so of MG ammo meant that a few tanks could put out a lot of covering fire for the infantry or suppressive fire without using the main gun. An up gunned Valentine, if it even had a MG, carried seven 225 round belts, at just 225 rounds a minute ( well under the cycle rate of the gun) that is just seven minutes worth of fire.
Vision from closed down British tanks was just plain bad. Some other counties had tanks as bad but that really isn't a good excuse. There is one story of an attack using Valentines on a defended position and three Valentines would up onto of each other in a ditch. The following tanks could not see where the tanks before it had gone.
The tank commander needs to have at least some situational awareness and a single periscope and a couple of vision slots in the sides of the turret do not cut it. If the commander. Is acting as the loader that just makes things worse.
The Commander needs to be looking one or two targets ahead, spotting the fall of shot, looking for threats to the sides and trying to co-ordinate with the either tanks in his unit. ( not get to far ahead or behind). If the tank commander is also a platoon or company commander his duties are that much more complicated.
Please note that the Germans did a major refit to the Panzer II after the battle of France to fit many of the existing tanks with a cupola with 6 vision blocks replacing the split hatch and periscope of the MK IIs used in France and this is on a one man turret. All German tanks bigger than a MK II had some sort of cupola for the tank commander.
Luxury or did it allow their tank commanders to fight their tanks more effectively?
British threw away the advantage of the cupolas on the Matilda II and A13 cruisers and went for the low profile lozenge turret with rear 1/3-1/2 of the turret roof forming a giant hatch that rose a bit and slid rearward ( well it beat the early T-34 two man hatch that folded forward but obscured the tank commanders vision to the front unless he climbed half way out of the tank. That's not saying much.)

I think the British could have done much better in the cruiser series if they had skipped the Covenanter while is still on paper and gone straight for the Crusader only with a slopped front end ( ditch the stupid bow machine gun turret) and a bit bigger turret with a cupola. Keep the 2pdr to keep things simple to start but give it HE ammo. Armor should have been 50mm basis on the front and 30-40mm on the sides. That is to say the armor should provide the protection of a vertical 50mm plate or 30mm or 40mm plate. A 20mm plate sloped at 60^ from the vertical will weigh what a 40mm plate will for the same height but will offer increased protection.

Going for a Kestrel/Peregrine tank engine would make things much better but may be too much to ask for.

Thanks for the assessment

Going for a Kestrel/Peregrine tank engine would make things much better but may be too much to ask for.

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Why do you think so?

How about 'turretless' designs? OK you lose some tactical flexibility but more armour, bigger guns and more ammo?

I know little of Armour but see nothing mentioned of the Ram tank built in Canada using a M3 Chassis but a lower profile turret

The Ram had much merit but was not a 1940 machine. It was curiously popular 2nd hand post war though.

1940's technology turretless designs suffer from the German 'assault gun' title. They are first class mobile anti tank guns but not suitable for assaulting. Against tanks and anti tank guns they are unable meet and return fire other than from the frontal arc and, for the same reason, cannot readily support infantry with HE fire. Now 1960's S-Tank technology is another matter. Wouldn't it be good to combine that in 1940 with an almost equally out of period Mollins auto 6 pounder!

I am open minded about better cupolas on Valentines but fear raising the height too much.

I think correspondents here each have a different philosophy on the possibilities and swapping technical numbers will not change these. Mine is simply to stick to something we know will work and to approach it from an industrial point of view(ie make lots of something just adequate).

HE weaknesses in my Valentine were the reason for my 6 pounder gun (or Tony Williams'). Certainly a 3 man turret is far better than a 2 but 2 did work and you can get 3 into a Valentine turret ring (see Crusader, AEC and Matilda II 6 pounder turrets). As for speed, I am not sure this is as important as others do, but ungoverned Valentines could (and did) run at a reliable road speed of about 30 kmh which is much the same as early PzIII or IV.

The opposite approach is to seek the best technical device which became the German one and left the PzIV still making up much of the numbers in 1945. The best drove out the good. The consensus is that the Germans would have been better off if they had either stuck with purely PzIV or moved on entirely to PzV. Like the British they played around with too many alternatives. The Russian's and American's T34 and Shermans could be criticised but they went for huge amounts of them as a standard item. For the British and Commonwealth forces in 1940 what I believe was needed was quantity production of a single tank type that works. For my money the Valentine answers this, even if it could be better in various ways.

Incidentally, the Kestrel was out of production long before 1940 and Miles had to search around for as many as possible for Master trainers until they had to move on to Mercuries. The Peregrine was a dead duck in 1939, only being made to use up Whirlwind production. The Rover Meteor took until 1943 to get going and 1944 in quantity (even then having to re use old Merlins to keep production going.)

The AEC was a sound engine but low power (130-160 bhp). The GMC replacement went up to 210 bhp. The situation was that UK did not make large enough lorries to have a bigger simple 6 cylinder engine but USA and Canada did so that is what went into Canadian then UK Valentine production. Australia and India(?) also had such engines and there is no reason why they could not also have made 200+bhp Valentines. India certainly had the railway industrial capacity to make Valentines.

As a last piece, I had cause to speak with someone whose father was a Russian tank commander 1943-45 in Valentines and Shermans. He allegedly much preferred the Valentine because you could hide it. He compared it to infantry and cavalry. If an infantry soldier is shot at he can lie down. The cavalryman is stuck 1 metre up in the air.

For those that differ from my take on the original question; I readily acknowledge that you can postulate a better tank than a Valentine, but do you know if you can make it in quantity and in time using the actually available industry?

A couple of comments. The turret less design is a way of getting a bigger gun onto a chassis than the chassis could fit if you used a turret ring. Increase in armor is marginal if you keep the same weight as the original tank. Increase in ammo is an illusion. You have less interior volume with a bigger breech mechanism. German and allied turret less designs also carried very little machine gun ammo. Some German turret less designs carried a single MG34/42 ford from an open hatch or over the wall of the open superstructure. Ammo capacity was "officially" 600 rounds in many cases. What the crews really carried I don't know but even 750-900 rounds is a far cry from the 2500-6000 rounds the medium tanks were carrying.
Tank machine guns varied enormously in capability. Fixed guns like the US tried in the M3 Stuarts and the grants/ early Shermans were just about useless. Bow machine guns were better but not really worth the room they took up. A heavy barreled medium MG that was belt feed and mounted in a power turret and aimed with a telescope is worth how much compared to a similar gun on a tripod aimed with open sights? The tanks with the higher ammo capacities were carrying enough ammo that it would take 10-12 ammo bearers, a hand cart or small motor vehicle to carry the same ammo.

pbfoot said:

I know little of Armour but see nothing mentioned of the Ram tank built in Canada using a M3 Chassis but a lower profile turret

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It wasn't a bad tank but it is a bit late in timing and it would never have been accepted by the British pre-war as it is way too large to fit the British railway gauge. The British railway loading gauge governed not only height but width.
The Ram was also heavier than the British desired at the time and required an engine of 340-400hp which also was not available. It is this lack of an available 340-400 HP engine that drove the British to both the Meadows and Bedford flat 12s and the decision to build the Liberty engine. Rams were powered by a Wright Whirlwind aircraft engine made under license by Continental.

yulzari said:

The Ram had much merit but was not a 1940 machine. It was curiously popular 2nd hand post war though.

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Yep, it's does not fit in this time line.

1940's technology turretless designs suffer from the German 'assault gun' title. They are first class mobile anti tank guns but not suitable for assaulting. Against tanks and anti tank guns they are unable meet and return fire other than from the frontal arc and, for the same reason, cannot readily support infantry with HE fire. Now 1960's S-Tank technology is another matter. Wouldn't it be good to combine that in 1940 with an almost equally out of period Mollins auto 6 pounder!

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1940 Stug-III is 1st and foremost an assault gun that would provide infantry with, mostly, direct fire support. Sure enough, if an unsuspecting tank finds himself in cross hairs, it would be targeted, too. As for the angles to meet the fire, that would be 360; in order to return fire the whole vehicle slews into a general direction of the target, the gunner making fine aiming. No point to mention here the S-tank, other as the spiritual successor of the StuG idea.

I am open minded about better cupolas on Valentines but fear raising the height too much.

I think correspondents here each have a different philosophy on the possibilities and swapping technical numbers will not change these. Mine is simply to stick to something we know will work and to approach it from an industrial point of view(ie make lots of something just adequate).

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My approach is similar - a Cromwell, using the bits pieces that were available, or feasible prior 1940 (gun, engine).

HE weaknesses in my Valentine were the reason for my 6 pounder gun (or Tony Williams'). Certainly a 3 man turret is far better than a 2 but 2 did work and you can get 3 into a Valentine turret ring (see Crusader, AEC and Matilda II 6 pounder turrets). As for speed, I am not sure this is as important as others do, but ungoverned Valentines could (and did) run at a reliable road speed of about 30 kmh which is much the same as early PzIII or IV.

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How well 2 man turret worked? The 2 men are never as efficient as 3 in turret, the ammo count for 6pdr was down on 53 rounds, the MG installation was nothing to brag about. Sticking another crew member further cuts ammo count by large margin. I don't know of any Crusader 3 man turret that was featuring 6pdr, care to elaborate on this? AEC was a wider vehicle, the mid hull unobstructed by tracks allow for far wider turrets. Matilda featured sponsons, and the 6pdr turret was mounted on reworked upper hull (possible via the presence of the sponsons). How much the speed was important? All the major tank producers were settling at 50-60 km/h tanks in ww2, so even 30 km/h still dictates a separate Cruiser tank design to be built.

The opposite approach is to seek the best technical device which became the German one and left the PzIV still making up much of the numbers in 1945. The best drove out the good. The consensus is that the Germans would have been better off if they had either stuck with purely PzIV or moved on entirely to PzV. Like the British they played around with too many alternatives. The Russian's and American's T34 and Shermans could be criticised but they went for huge amounts of them as a standard item. For the British and Commonwealth forces in 1940 what I believe was needed was quantity production of a single tank type that works. For my money the Valentine answers this, even if it could be better in various ways.

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I'm not aware of the 'consensus', maybe there is not any? Perhaps the Germans needed, from 1943 on, a tank that is better than Pz-IV, yet simpler, lighter (maybe a better all-rounder, too) than Panther. No such beast for them; the Germans played around with too few alternatives IMO. But the British were really prolific re. number of designs.
I agree that for the British it would be the best to produce a single tank that would be produced for both 'I' and 'C' purposes, while being as good team player as the Pz-III/IV. The Valentine does NOT fit the bill.

Incidentally, the Kestrel was out of production long before 1940 and Miles had to search around for as many as possible for Master trainers until they had to move on to Mercuries. The Peregrine was a dead duck in 1939, only being made to use up Whirlwind production. The Rover Meteor took until 1943 to get going and 1944 in quantity (even then having to re use old Merlins to keep production going.)

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Future (for mid 30s) phasing out the Kestrel as the aircraft engine in production plays into the hands of the tank design production. Instead of licence-built Liberty, go for the Kestrel and British have the the most powerful engine (out of the USSR); the second hand examples are possibility to sped up the initial tank production testing. We won't bother with Peregrine, while choosing of Merlin in, say, 1938, as a tank engine seem so tempting

The AEC was a sound engine but low power (130-160 bhp). The GMC replacement went up to 210 bhp. The situation was that UK did not make large enough lorries to have a bigger simple 6 cylinder engine but USA and Canada did so that is what went into Canadian then UK Valentine production. Australia and India(?) also had such engines and there is no reason why they could not also have made 200+bhp Valentines. India certainly had the railway industrial capacity to make Valentines.

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Canada and Australia were gearing towards production of the 30 ton tanks (Ram, Sentinel), so I'd say they judged their industry to be capable enough.

As a last piece, I had cause to speak with someone whose father was a Russian tank commander 1943-45 in Valentines and Shermans. He allegedly much preferred the Valentine because you could hide it. He compared it to infantry and cavalry. If an infantry soldier is shot at he can lie down. The cavalryman is stuck 1 metre up in the air.

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No disrespect to the old soldier. But, what it's good for him (ability to hide well), might not be what is good for the army (make a good maneuver, attack defeat the enemy either directly or by supporting other units etc).
The small profile (and the good armor) was a direct benefit of the tank based on small engine, cannon, general capabilities. If one wants a decent gun, decent speed armor, plenty of ammo fuel, the tank is no more a small one, but it grows.

For those that differ from my take on the original question; I readily acknowledge that you can postulate a better tank than a Valentine, but do you know if you can make it in quantity and in time using the actually available industry?

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Really expecting an answer to that kind of a question?