Ready for El Alamein: ideal British tanks

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The Sherman Firefly was a last minute modification that only reached the first British armoured units just before D-Day, it would have been impossible for there to have been enough built in that time to equip US armored units as well.

The US did actually order some Sherman Fireflies but they weren't delivered until it was too late for use in the European war.
 

The idea for the Firefly was first proposed in Jan 43 and design work started in June 43. Vickers started work in Aug 43 and it became an official Dept of Tank Design project in Sept. In Oct 43 the Army got in on the project and were very enthusiastic. The reason it was only becoming available in June 44 was that the gun barrel and cradle had to be specially made for the Firefly it was a different shape to the normal 17pdr, setting up a production line takes a long time.

I wouldnt call 12 months from initial design to field use last minute especially for a large organisation like the military thats positively breakneck speed particulary as it took three times as long for the Cromwell to go from 1st design to production standard.

Actual conversion of a Sherman to a Firefly was relatively quick a box fresh Sherman went in one end of the workshop and came out the other end with a different turret as a Firefly in a week iirc. Britain wanted bare hulls with just running gear fitted and turret castings to modify but the lines in Detroit couldnt be interrupted for a relatively small special order so complete tanks had to be used which slowed things down.
 
One might contemplate the US 76mm with APDS round - the AP performance equal to the 77mm HV, whilst easier to pull for the US Sherman fleet?
 
in any event, a gun with enhanced AP performance in 1942 wasnt what the British needed so much as a gun that was both AP and HE effective. 6 pdr was more than adequate for ant-armour work 1942-4. What put the British in a world of hurt wasnt the german tank mounted weapons, it was the AT version of the 88mm, and taking a towed AT gun out was best done by HE, not AP. Thats was the very problem facing the British, their quite good 2pdr andf 6pdr tank mounted guns were quite good ATGs, but sucked as HE firing weapons
 
Glider said:
A good start would be giving the tank HE ammo for the 6pd
Click to expand...

There was a proposal for a heavy 6 pdr HE round, it would have been longer and set deeper in the case. It would have had completely different ballistics and would have required a modified sight. I dont know when this was proposed probably about the time the 75mm was coming into British service. The standard 6 pdr HE round was okay but didnt have much explosive.
 
Glider said:
A good start would be giving the tank HE ammo for the 6pd
Click to expand...
Churchill tanks armed with the 6 pdr were issued with HE rounds in both the Italian and Northern European Campaigns.

One troop in each squadron of Churchills in both these campaigns retained 6 pdr armed Churchills in order to give them some ability to take on the heavier German tanks
 

That is right. The solution found to improving 6 pounder HE shells was to use a larger barrel and use standard issue allied 75mm HE. Not rebored as often is said. They simply made this change to new production ROF tank guns which gradually superceded the 6 pounder vehicles in service.

As early production went to D Day preperations, this left the Italian front with the problem unsolved. Hence the Churchill 75mmNA improvisation to reuse Sherman 75mm guns and mantlets on Churchill 6 pounder turrets for infantry HE support whilst retaining some 6 pounder tanks for anti tank protection.

But back to pre El Alamein................
 
I'm not sure if this has been brought up here before - the thread is long and the search function is a bit... flaky - but Tony Williams made an alternative timeline for an improved 57 mm HE lobber and general hole puncher: AN ALTERNATIVE 1930s BRITISH TANK GUN

The 'what if' proposal is based around the idea that a better gun than the 2 lbs could be fielded pre WW2, given the size limitations of British pre-war tanks.

He takes the 57x307R cartridge of the 6 pdr 8 cwt gun as a starting point, updates it with modern (for the period) powder and puts it in a 43 cal barrel, which Tony gives as the limit for the machinery of the period.

Ammunition follows two streams - a large heavy HE shell with a low M/V (4 kg shell with a 540 m/sec muzzel velocity) and a APCR (HVAP) shell with a 1.8 kg round fired at 850 m/sec.

This gives us a HE round with 50% more filler than the standard 6 pounder, but reduced effectiveness AP round (~50 mm with a steel core at 1000 yards and 30 deg and ~70-75 mm with a tungsten core).

He also has a proposal for scaling the gun up, based around the 76.2x420R. Same procedure for the ammunition - a low velocity high capcity HE shell (9 kg at 500 m/sec) and a AP round with the ability to penetrate ~90-95 mm with steel core and ~130-140 mm with a tungsten core, roughly between the US 76 mm APCBC and the UK 77 mm APCBC in terms of performance.
 
UK did have had another chance for a better 'small gun' (vs. 2pdr), namely the adoption of either French or Czech 47mm - not that far fetched, if we consider the introduction of Swiss, Swedish and Czech weapons in the UK in late 1930s.
The AP and HE performance would've been in the league of the German short 5cm.
 

Dont forget Belgian, US and French as well. Britain didnt seem to suffer from Not Invented Here syndrome when it came to guns. I can think of Minie musket (French) Snider breechloader (Swiss I think) Martini Henry rifle (Swiss/N American/British) Gatling, Hotchkiss and Nordenfeldt man powered MGs (US/Swedish) Lee Enfield (US/British) Lewis LMG(US/Belgian) Vickers HMG(US) and the 15 pounder Quick Firing gun (German)
 
A South African sapper removing anti-personnel mines from protective containers, Egypt, July 1942.



A South African sapper carrying a stack of mines.
 
An M-84 (Yugoslavian update of the T-72) with the turret blown up (due to ammo fire explosion), that landed on barrel 1st. Effort of of under-gunned outnumbered defenders of Vukovar, Croatia, autumn of 1991:

 
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