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Any engine in a British tank not called Liberty had to be pulled for major rework like thatProblem for the British until Lend Lease kick in was that the British were trying to fit British engines into British tanks and while the actual widths were not much different the US was sticking the suspensions on the outside of the hull inside the tracks. The British cruisers had their Christie springs in-between an inner hull and outer hull. which restricted the width of the engine compartment.
Being able to pull heads (or cylinder blocks) nearly vertical is also an advantage over the Lion.
The timing doesn't line up well.The Meteor was not that far forward thinking, it just fitted nicely into the timescale that large WW2 tanks developed it seems to me. The availability of Merlin spare/unusable parts built-up hugely in the War. Remember that there were whole UK factories stripping and rebuilding new Packard Merlins to the later modification states and many of those thousands of parts were suitable for the Meteor.
Superficially, the history of AFV engines seems to be one of underperformance. Here, I say that the Meteor broke that mould and did great service. Certainly, developing a "V-8 Lion"
or similar that was anything useful would likely have missed the War and then, it would have been too small and a shot in the dark.
No, the Meteor was a brilliant move that is probably under appreciated.
Eng
The timing doesn't line up well.
They were working on the early cruisers in 1936-38 and the A 13/Cruiser III was in production in early/mid 1939. In fact prototypes were built in 1937. Decision for the Liberty dates from 1936-37?
Well before there were thousands of Merlin parts floating around.
The Staff requirement for a 20hp per ton engine (600hp for 30 ton tons) was not based on much in the way of testing, except perhaps for a few prototype Christies?
40mph in a 30 ton tank turned out to be not as useful as they thought. Broken tanks and broken crewmen.
It did provide pretty spritely performance in the 39 ton (short ton) Comet in 1944/45 and the Centurion certainly needed the power, But that was 1945/46 and not 1939-41.
Germans might have loved a 16 liter V-8 instead of their 11.9-12 liter V-12s in the MK III & IV.
I am having a hard time believing that turning a W-12 into a V-8 is that much harder than turning a V-12 into a V-8 (Meteorite) or the Ford V-8 from their abortive V-12 aircraft engine.
It took Ford almost 4 years to go from design to reliable service use but they only had drawings in 1940. Napier had over 15 years of experience with the Lion including racing versions. Granted the chief designer was now working for RR.
Granted it doesn't have the future potential but the Liberty V-12 didn't any future potential either.
The Kestrel may have been the best potential option but the chances of anyone getting a license to produce it was very, very small in the 1930s.
I am not advocating using either the Nuffield Liberty nor yetthe Armstrong Siddeley Tiger. Only pointing out that the Nuffield Liberty was not a totally incapable tank engine and that Armstrong Siddeley had a wasted asset of a design and engineering team whose engines made no effective contribution to the war despite having some very skilled staff and that they might have been better used in making a (fixed) Tiger tank engine than chasing their dog series experimental aero engines.What have you got against the British soldiers?
in 1938 the RAF banned the Whitleys with Tiger engines from flying over water. Granted the tanks are already on the ground but trying to use an already unreliable engine in a tank is just begging for trouble on bent knees and folded hands.
The idea is to get a better engine than used historically, not another exercise in making do and persevering with crap equipment. The Liberty was bad enough.
The Tiger was overkill. A 32.7 liter 14 cylinder radial was not needed in any British tank until you get the Centurion. You could have powered a Sherman with just one row of the Tiger.I am not advocating using either the Nuffield Liberty nor yetthe Armstrong Siddeley Tiger. Only pointing out that the Nuffield Liberty was not a totally incapable tank engine and that Armstrong Siddeley had a wasted asset of a design and engineering team whose engines made no effective contribution to the war despite having some very skilled staff and that they might have been better used in making a (fixed) Tiger tank engine than chasing their dog series experimental aero engines.
The Tiger, as a 2 row radial, had a built in weakness of only a 2 bearing crankshaft but, in a tank, it does not get the stresses of supercharger pressures and rpm can be held within practical limits that the 2 bearing crankshaft can manage reliably. Weight is less of a concern in a tank than an aeroplane so possibly redesigning it with a central bearing is also feasible. Pool petrol made rpm less of need.
I say again, for the UK the best alternative at the start of the war was an adaptation of the Lion (or Sea Lion) rated for tank use. It would have had reasonable power (400-450 BHP with a CR of between 5:1 and 5.5:1 on pool petrol), good torque (~1200 lb-ft), and a long proven record of reliability in its existing applications.
Heaven forbid the UK tank designers might have to design the chassis around the engine to any degree. (It would have fit easily enough in the Churchill at least, as well as the Cromwell/Centaur/etc and later.)
We are talking about two different time periods after all.I agree that in the late 1930's, a derivative of the basic Lion would probably have made a good 400hp AFV engine for early WW2 tanks. I guess that, as you say, the status quo at that time was not able to accept the changes to tank design and the cost of the engines would have been high.
Eng
That was done by the Soviets a little later:I've always had the thought that if the Jumo 205 could be persuaded to work turned 90 degrees horizontally (and somehow I think the original idea was that it could lie flat on the wing of the plane) that would be the perfect engine for Tiger and Panther tanks.
That was done by the Soviets a little later:
Development of the 5TD began sometime in 1953. Its ancestor was the Jumo 205. And the T-72 was a "simplified T-64" with a V12. There was also a hybrid - a modification of the T-72 with the 5TDF.This (is it a T-64?) was not there .
So you either build a 'Centurion' around the Tiger or cut the Tiger in half for a 'Sherman'.The Tiger was overkill. A 32.7 liter 14 cylinder radial was not needed in any British tank until you get the Centurion. You could have powered a Sherman with just one row of the Tiger.
Tigers had few other problems aside from the lack of center bearing. Like keeping the oil inside the engine.
The manufacturing side kept fairly busy making 7 cylinder Cheetah engines for Avro Ansons and Airspeed Oxfords.
The British seemed to have had few problems with several bespoke tank engines, like the Bedford twin six and the two Meadows Flat 12s. Both of which were a waste of time.
Perhaps, but the 5TDF engine had serious problems - for example, it had great difficulty starting in cold weather. I wonder whether this was a feature of the engine scheme or just a flaw of the Soviet engineers. But according to the recollections of tankers from the Group of Soviet troops in Germany, during sudden exercises, 1-2 tanks in a company could be started in the standard way, which required pouring hot coolant into the cooling system. The other tanks were then started by towing. I don't know the story of the Jumo 205 very well, but I have heard that it was not considered particularly reliable. It would be too risky to use an engine with such shortcomings in tanks under war conditions.Yes, I have the feeling more and more that the Jumo diesel engines series has been unfairly neglected.
I understand that postwar some Bristol radials were used as engines in busses.My mind boggles at the thought of redesigned twin-row radials etc, especially as these were engines already effectively out of production.
The more problematic obstacle to the Jumo 205 in WW2 is that 2-stroke opposed piston engines inherently have greater scavenging and thermal constraints than conventionnal 4-stroke engines. They work best when the transmission has excellent torque coverage, ideally hydromechanical types. WW2 transmissions are purely mechanical so the Jumo would face much the same constraints as the 5TD did in T-64 and the L60 in Chieftain...but probably worse. 1930's and WW2 tank designers simply didn't and couldn't put in the effort to make this work when there were simpler and in practice better solutions.Aircraft engines in tanks,
hmmsomehow I've always had the thought that if the Jumo 205 could be persuaded to work turned 90 degrees horizontally (and somehow I think the original idea was that it could lie flat on the wing of the plane) that would be the perfect engine for Tiger and Panther tanks.
And let's not forget the Napier Deltric from the ships is actually 3x Jumo 205 stacked in a triangle. So it could probably work on its side.