RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/19/2021 5:46:20 PM

asl3d

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British PIAT

Another reasonably good if unpopular weapon was the PIAT; heavy and awkward to carry but safer to use if not as powerful as the German Panzerfaust, it could also be fired by one man and was safe to use from inside hard cover, unlike other SCAW. It also doubled as an improvised HE and smoke mortar out to 750 yards, or to 350 yards for what was described as 'house-breaking' albeit not very accurately. Given the choice of no back-blast or the ability to fire to lower elevations, the former was a more useful feature in tank hunting since the operator could stay inside buildings or other confined spaces. That said, having to try and re-cock the thing manually if the recoil from a previous shot failed to do this risked a hernia or strained back, since the operator had to use his feet in the way that the less powerful medieval crossbows were re-cocked, but by either standing or by lying horizontal. In Burma, PIAT gunner and Victoria Cross winner Ganju Lama actually managed to do this twice in succession, standing up, despite wounds to three of his limbs, and so destroying two Japanese light tanks. Although one source observed that an essential ingredient to using the PIAT was that a man "should have suicidal tendencies", analysis showed that PIATs destroyed 7% of German armour lost to the British in Normandy, compared to 6% lost to the much over-rated aircraft rockets. A skilled man could hit a target over 60% of the time at 100 yards.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/20/2021 6:09:46 PM

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British Ordnance

British ordnance was the same mixture of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly found in all armies, but pre-war development of artillery had suffered from financial stringency, large stocks of 1918-vintage equipment, and the excessive influence of those officers responsible for colonial defence. From the early 1920s there was a growing emphasis on anti-tank artillery and even new field or medium-calibre guns had to be capable of 'self-protection' from hostile armour, at the expense of inter-war research in heavy artillery, since it was deemed to be surplus to requirements thanks to (empty) promises of air support. The 25-pdr field gun, for instance, was first mooted in 1925 but no detailed specification emerged until 1936 and production only began in February 1940.
When war seemed inevitable this process became more frantic, to the extent that the 5.5" gun/howitzer (based on a January 1939 General Staff requirement) was ready for trials the same year but the first carriages were too light to take the weapon and production of a stronger, welded, version was not cleared until April 1941. Some safety tolerances were, however, relaxed during the war to speed production, conserve scarce materials and boost ballistic performance, but balanced against this was the need to use inferior metals in British shells for strategic reasons, necessitating thicker shell walls at the expense of the explosive filling; the resultant weight increase also partly explains the poor range of British mortars.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/21/2021 5:57:49 PM

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Ammunition

The 2-pdr anti-tank gun and its tank-mounted equivalent are often singled out for odium because they failed to penetrate German face-hardened armour at certain ranges (between 300 and 1200 yards, and sometimes over 1800 yards) but this was due to the uncapped AP ammunition rather than due to any inherent weakness in the gun itself. By the time that APCBC ammunition (which did not shatter on impact like AP had) was available, February 1943 for the 2-pdr (April 1943 for the 6-pdr, and August 1943 for the 17-pdr), German armour thickness had increased to the extent that the 2-pdr was fit only for recce vehicles or for use against Japan. Due to production problems even uncapped 2-pdr AP shot was scarce during the 1940 French campaign. In fairness to the British, the USA had similar problems until 75mm M61 APCBC became available, because the older M72 AP 75mm shot supplied for the M3 Lee/Grant in the desert also shattered against German armour, and was rarely effective above 500 yards. Even worse, no AFV (Technical) Branch to examine captured vehicles was set up by GHQ Middle East until November 1941, so that when the British captured a German PzKfw IV as early as April 1941, nobody bothered to inspect it until March 1942—when its face-hardened armour was finally discovered. The US 37mm had, theoretically, less penetration than the 2-pdr but at least had an APC projectile that coped better with the impact of a hit. However, some British Lee/Grant crews apparently did not use the 37mm at all, considering it a waste of money, and relied entirely on the 75mm gun.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/22/2021 5:23:00 PM

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2-pdr anti-tank gun

With so much pre-war doctrine in the hands of military theorists with little practical experience of tactical or technical problems, it appears that MGs alone were expected to suffice in dealing with enemy anti-tank guns and other 'soft' targets. This unfounded optimism and the obsession with countering the threat of the tank conspired to give the 2-pdr only AP shot (to defeat as much armour as possible) even though an HE round had been developed as early as 1935; it was also more than mere co-incidence that this emphasis on anti-tank capability came at the very time that the guns themselves, together with the responsibility for anti-tank defence in the British army, passed from the infantry to the artillery between 1938 and 1940. Even when HE was finally issued there were still problems because the small explosive filling gave such poor lethality, and this probably also explains why the British did not issue 37mm HE in the desert campaign.
To complete the picture of the 2-pdr, the anti-tank gun was harder to conceal than its nearest equivalent—the 37mm PaK 35/36—although it had 360° traverse, and it was complicated and difficult to mass-produce (taking 2,682 man-hours to produce compared to the 6-pdr's 1293 and 17-pdr's 2726). Its weight also impaired man-handling, but then anti-tank guns survive by concealment, not mobility, and in the hands of resolute crews its small size enabled it to destroy enemy AFVs with daring close-range flank or rear shots (provided it could be deployed in suitable terrain). This was how the 2-pdr was supposed to have been used, and the ANZACS were especially good at these tactics. The 2-pdr saw out the Pacific battles as an anti-tank gun because it could deal with any Japanese AFV frontally, and was easier to man-handle in difficult terrain than its larger successor, though 'officially' it should have been phased-out to ease the logistical burden.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/23/2021 5:34:20 PM

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6-pdr anti-tank gun

The story of the 6-pdr is one of delay caused by the urgent need to replace the 509 2-pdrs lost in France, rather than disrupt existing production and introduce a new gun at a critical time. Moreover the first versions had barrels 16" shorter than intended because British lathes were old and small. It eventually arrived in the desert not a moment too soon to counter then new German AFVs but, again, HE ammunition only came later and its lethality was poor compared to the 75mm HE round as well as being scarcer. There were also problems with HE premature recorded in British documents dated as late as April 1944—due mainly to the incompatibility of certain HE fuses with 6-pdr tubes fitted with muzzle-brakes.
That said, the 6-pdr proved more useful in destroying Japanese bunkers than its smaller and otherwise more popular 40mm calibre stable-mate, and in the PTO the 6-pdr was fitted with castor-wheels to ease man-handling in rough terrain. Against Japanese bunkers it was found that the gun was effective at 75-300 yards using AP to first enlarge the embrasure, and then 10-50 HE rounds to neutralise the enemy inside.
With APDS ammunition this gun had at least a chance against the frontal armour of some of the later German AFVs at close range, though core separation from the sabot made it less accurate than APCBC, and British reports indicated that it tended to hit a target 2 to 3 feet higher up than predicted.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/24/2021 6:16:32 PM

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17-pdr anti-tank gun

The 17-pdr is a success story—almost. Available in good time (for a change) to deal with the later German AFVs, it has come to be regarded by some historians as some sort of wonder-weapon in the British and Common-wealth arsenal. Yet combat experience and various Anglo-US firing trials showed that with 'conventional' ammunition (i.e. APCBC) it "frequently" failed to penetrate the Panther's glacis plate armour even at 300 yards, while the desert veteran and South African cricket celebrity Robert Crisp (author of the engrossing Brazen Chariots, in which he recounted his brief and eventful time commanding Stuart tanks) noted that the 17-pdr needed three good hits on a Panther's hull front to ensure penetration as most rounds merely scuffed the surface. A British study of German tanks destroyed up to 31" August 1944 in Normandy concluded that only 12.5% of hits by the 17-pdr on the Panther's glacis plate penetrated, compared to 50% of hits on the mantlet or turret front. This was very sobering, given that something between 30% and 70% of all Panthers built from about mid-1944 had poorer-quality, more brittle, armour.
HE ammunition was, as with the 6-pdr, over-looked for over a year and, as with all high-velocity weapons, its explosive effect was inferior to low-velocity weapons of identical calibre since the shell walls had to be stronger (i.e. thicker) to resist the greater forces imposed at the expense of the explosive filling.
The towed anti-tank gun was also a beast of a gun to conceal and man-handle, to the extent that a prototype motorised version, (similar to the post-war Soviet 85mm gun) was made albeit not put into production.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/25/2021 6:28:32 PM

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25-pdr gun

Other British guns of excellent quality included the celebrated 25-pdr, which made a passable anti-tank gun in the desert for want of anything better. Its special turntable, an ingenious feature, permitted rapid traverse by a single crewman and greatly enhanced its anti-tank capabilities as did the fitting of a modified open (as opposed to dial) sight for use in poor light in January 1942. But the 60-second set up and 3-minute limber-up times and low rate of fire (due to two-piece ammunition) were all inferior to 'pure' anti-tank guns, however creditable for a field gun. The AP allocation was, however, officially low; 8 (later 12) rounds for the towed gun in 1941 and 11 for the Bishop and 18 for the Sexton. This anti-tank capability owes its origins to a decision made in 1938 that all 25-pdrs of the divisional artillery were to be primarily responsible for their own anti-tank defence, and experience in France showed that one field regiment's 18/25-pdrs "was consistently successful" against German tanks "so long as it withheld its fire until the enemy was within 600 yards and conserved its AP shot". This was asking a lot with just 8 rounds per gun, as the gun's curved trajectory rendered it less accurate in the anti-tank role, while the high silhouette usually denied it sufficient cover in the desert to remain undetected long enough for close ranges shots where hits were more likely to be obtained. It also lacked killing power against fortifications when firing indirect compared to 105mm artillery, primarily because its good range as a field gun came at the expense of shell weight.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/26/2021 7:38:05 PM

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3.7-in. AA gun

The 3.7-in. AA gun, first mooted in 1920 but not produced until 1938, was one of the best AA guns of its day and a lost opportunity to field a more powerful British version of the famous and deadly German 88mm Flak 18 or 36, albeit a less mobile one. On rare occasions it was used against Axis armour in France and the desert, and was issued with steel AP shot for self-defence against tanks, though lacking the correct sights and crew arrangement for a true dual-purpose role. Significantly, the official British War Office report on wartime artillery performance tends to mention only small-calibre AA guns used in the anti-tank role, though there is reference to the 3.7-in. gun being used successfully to harass Axis road traffic during the siege of Tobruk, and for counter-battery fire. This led to low-angle range tables being issued in May 1942. According to the official history of the Mediterranean campaign, 60 3.7-in. guns were fitted with sights for the ground role in April 1942, for the Battle of Gazala. The gun's air-burst capability cost Japanese troops dear at the hands of Heavy AA batteries in Burma, when it was re-deployed in the ground support role there, one unit being known as `The Twelve Mile Snipers'. In the ETO its air-burst capability was also very effective against German mortars and other ground tar-gets. The obsolete 3-in. 20 cwt AA gun of Great War vintage was also a potentially excellent anti-tank gun, but never used in anger. The larger British guns were not particularly good or new, save the Anglo-US 7.2-in. howitzer Mk VI, which arrived only late in the war.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/27/2021 6:27:23 PM

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British SP artillery

The British were also poorly equipped in SP artillery because development had ceased in the early 1930s in favour of conventional towed weapons, thanks to poorly defined doc-trines and conservatism, The 18-pdr SP `Birch' gun, developed between 1925 and 1928, for example, was a potentially sound basis for later SP weapons but with funds lacking and a gulf emerging between the tank and artillery factions of the British army, the Royal Artillery refused to adopt it after arguments over ownership. Moreover, to artillery men it looked too much like a tank, and "if such a thing were taken on, Gunners would have to dress themselves in dungarees, cover themselves in grease and develop new smells", as well as give up their beloved horses. The tank faction, convinced that the tank would prevail on the battlefield without any outside help, rejected the very notion of artillery support, and so gave the project no backing. Although the un-armoured 2-pdr portee had been successful in Greece, where the terrain was suitable for hit-and-run tactics as at Proasterion Ridge, in the desert both the 2-pdr and 6-pdrportees, were found to be horribly vulnerable as crews tended to misuse them as tanks, with predictable results. Eventually firing en portee was discouraged, particularly in the case of the more conspicuous 6-pdr version, and when so used as many crewmen as possible would dismount, since the impact of a direct hit would throw the gun backwards and kill or injure everyone in its path.
The high-sided and ponderous Deacon and the crude Bishop were clumsy and inefficient improvisations; the latter was so cramped that the rear doors had to be kept open in hot weather to provide ventilation while firing. The Priest, while welcome as a useful and versatile addition to the British arsenal at Second Alamein, fired non-standard ammunition and suffered from a short barrel life and vulnerable recoil gear, which also wore out rapidly. This led directly to development of the Sexton. While more efficient, with a better firing range, more ammunition and superior internal layout than the Priest, the Sexton was under-gunned for its size and weight, while the Archer got a mixed reception.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/28/2021 6:04:19 PM

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Artillery organisation and doctrine

The Germans had taught the British much about artillery doctrine in the Great War, and by the end of this conflict British artillery was very skilled at laying-down 'creeping' bar-rages to support the infantry and in executing counter-battery fire. Unfortunately amid the complacency of victory many of the lessons of the war were then forgotten and had to be re-learned. In 1944 British counter-mortar units, used so successfully in the desert and Italy, were disbanded for 'Overlord' to con-serve manpower and only reinstated in August 1944 after experience showed that German mortars had inflicted 70% of all British casualties. But the main flaw in British artillery practice was an organisational blunder imposed in 1938 whereby field artillery regiments were re-organised into two batteries of 12 guns apiece, instead of the traditional four batteries of 6 guns each. The idea came from an Indian army practice called 'linking' whereby the fire of two adjacent batteries could be con-trolled from one point. However, because the basic role of these regiments was to sup-port the infantry brigades containing three battalions there were problems dividing two batteries into three without disrupting administration and fire control. This defect of anonymous parenthood was only remedied. after Dunkirk by changing to three 8-gun batteries; it was felt that 12-gun batteries were too large a target for German dive-bombers even when divided into two 6-gun 'troops', so 8-gun batteries were split into two troops of 4 guns each. But this could not be done overnight; one source claims that the two-battery TO&E lingered on until 1942 in the desert.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/29/2021 5:58:17 PM

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British gunners

As to personnel, the British artillery probably contained the cream of the available intake of the land forces, and from 1926 onwards the promotion ladder for a British artillery officer demanded not only technical competence but was also dependent on passing difficult technical examinations after very thorough training, resulting in far higher standards than found in the officer colleges for the infantry and other branches of the army. Junior artillery officers were thus often better qualified than their seniors, though standards did decline as shortages took effect. In their artillery at least the British were numerically as well as qualitatively superior to even their German counterparts. If British ordnance was of mixed quality it was well handled most of the time, although anti-tank guns were rarely used as imaginatively as German weapons. Ironically, the tactic of luring enemy tanks onto a hidden screen of anti-tank guns was first used by the truck-mounted Central India Horse against the Italians and then by the wily British and Commonwealth defenders in Tobruk in April 1941 after which they appear to have forgot-ten the trick for far too long—a much chastened Rommel did not. With a shortage of heavy artillery for most of the war, and with the RAF indifferent (if not hostile) towards tactical air support in the first half of the war (despite the lessons of 1917-18) due to an obsession with their bombing crusade against Germany, there was an over-reliance on field artillery for both fire support and anti-tank work initially. Not only was it over-worked, it was too thinly spread to provide inure than token support well into the desert campaign and even during the liberation of Europe there were complaints that British artillery lacked killing power against dug-in defenders.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 9/30/2021 6:15:18 PM

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Forward observers

The main problem for the British was how to retain effective control in fast-moving mobile warfare and quickly direct fire to where it was needed, and they solved this brilliantly. Based on the Indian 'linking' system but on a larger scale, not only the adjacent batteries in the same regiment shot as one, but other units would add their firepower too. The use of forward observers was combined with radio communication to revolutionise fire control, but from December 1942 the British put senior rather than mere junior officers up front with infantry commanders as well as observers to make the rapid decisions necessary and issue appropriate orders for the supportive firepower of an entire corps if necessary, without having to make time-consuming requests through the normal command chain. But even then, junior officers could supply fire corrections by radio. The simple and ingenious system was devised by Colonel H.J. Parham who commanded a field regiment in Belgium in 1940 where he used it unofficially and experimentally against German armour; ordering all his batteries to fire 10 rounds per gun without taking any ranging shots into a wood full of Panzers engaged in refuelling. With Parham's help Brigadier S. Kirkham then devised a simple drill enabling the for-ward observer to have control of the regiment's firepower in 3 to 4 minutes, compared to the 30minute delay of the inter-war years. Although the system demanded good radio links it enabled every gun in range to quickly smother even a small target with what was effectively a shotgun approach, speed, and weight of bombardment to provide hammer-blows in emergencies mattered more than accuracy.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/1/2021 5:33:19 PM

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Expensive junk

Although all nations produced their share of expensive junk (the inevitable fate of all weapons systems eventually) for most of the war British tank design was a national scandal. Britain's Chief Technical Liaison Officer to US Army Ordnance, G. MacLeod Ross, later wrote "...little of the labour and materials expended on the 25,000 British-built tanks helped to win the war." A contemporary authority on British tanks of World War Two observed that "...anyone who attempts to chronicle the development of British tanks in an entirely positive way should really move over to writing novels... [As] ...any researcher is likely to develop a jaundiced view." Without the US tank arsenal to fall back on, the Empire would never have struck back for even at 2nd Alamein US-made tanks, material and fuel made a decisive contribution. The growing dominance of US-built tanks can be shown by the fact that by 1944 up to 32 British regiments in NW Europe had Shermans, 12 had Churchills or AVREs, and 9 had Cromwells. In 1945 the equivalent figures were 25 (minimum), 11, and 8—while another 4 eventually had Comets. Nor is this the whole story for it ignores the Stuarts found in all RHQs, or the fact that most tanks used in Italy or the PTO were US-built, and that three Churchill units in the ETO were disbanded before VE-Day after heavy losses. Moreover, many British-built tanks used components made in the USA.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/2/2021 5:59:04 PM

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Leadership in tank design

In the 1930s, the British, who had started the whole idea of tank warfare and formulated many of the theories which the Germans later turned into the Blitzkrieg concept, forsook their lead in tank design and the development of armored forces. Indeed, at the time of the Munich crisis in 1938, Britain possessed not a single modern gun-armed tank. This was the result of several factors: the financial austerities of the times; the innate conservatism of certain powerful individuals in the Army; and the high priority given to the Army's role in policing the Empire (for which only light tanks with MG were required). Even as rearmament began, the schism in tank doctrine caused by disagreement over the tank's true function in combat remained unresolved. Three different roles were seen for tanks: recon-naissance, for which the current light tanks would (in theory) suffice; mobile operations, during which the new class of fast, gun-armed but lightly armored Cruiser tanks would engage in pursuit and exploitation in much the same manner as cavalry had in the past; and infantry support, for which slow but heavily armored tanks were being produced. The manufacture of MG-armed light tanks ended when their poor survivability on the modern battlefield became manifest. However, the dichotomy of Cruiser and Infantry tanks, which caused needless dispersion of effort in design and production, and which complicated supply and tactical coordination, lasted until the war's end.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/3/2021 8:30:09 PM

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British tank production

Many early-war British tank designs suffered from unreliability due to being put into production without adequate testing beforehand. This occurred during the hasty rearmament of the late '30s, and again in the frantic months after Dunkirk when, after the loss of over 700 tanks in France, only a few hundred remained in all of Britain. Another factor affecting British tank design was the country's railway gauge, which limited the maximum permissible width of a tank. This restricted the size of the turret ring, in effect rendering the tank incapable of carrying a large-caliber, high-velocity gun such as the 17pdr. On the positive side, Britain led the way in the development of specialized armor such as DD tanks, bridge-layers, mine-clearing tanks and the multi-purpose AVRE. These vehicles, which collectively were known as "Funnies", were Britain's major contribution to armored warfare during WW2.
The British built an estimated 33,000 tanks in the 1936-45 period, including some 2,800 produced in Canada and Australia during the war. Total British (only) tank production in the years 1940-45 amounted to some 24,800 vehicles. Between 1938 and 1945 the British also built an estimated 46,000 AFV of other types, including the output of Canada, India and and South Africa but excluding tracked Carriers. Of these, about 36,000 were AC, SC, LRC and wheeled Carriers—highlighting the fact that during WW2 the British made far greater use of wheeled AFV than did any other nation. The U.S. Lend-Leased 27,755 tanks and at least 20,000 other AFV to the various "British" forces/countries.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/4/2021 6:02:07 PM

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British tank losses

The British only used US built tanks in the second half of the war. Of the 15,844 tanks lost by British and Commonwealth forces up to 30th June 1945 from all causes (including losses at sea and scrapping) in all theatres, at least 7020 (44.3%) were US-built, and this figure excludes Lee/Grants lost in North Africa after 23'd December 1942 and Lee/Grants lost in Burma. Put another way, although no US built tanks saw action until November 1941 fully 29.7% (1258 of 4235) of the British tanks lost between the start of the war and 23rd December 1942 were US built.
As the pioneer of the tank and victors of the Great War Britain had rested on her laurels and allowed her tank producing infra-structure to decay in the locust years between the wars. Little equipment was still being made by specialist firms and only one privately-owned (i.e. non-government controlled) tank manufacturer, Vickers-Armstrong, remained since AFVs—especially tanks—were non-commercial propositions in peace-time. Consequently neither prestige nor money was to be made by designing or producing them and the business, such as it was, attracted little design talent. Thus, when re-armament began many heavy engineering and automotive concerns became designer / producers to restore the lost capacity despite their inherent unsuitability. Most had inadequate design facilities and fairly idle plant of patchy quality. Anyone, the assumption went, could design and build tanks and contracts were often awarded on the basis of how to lift ailing companies out of the economic doldrums into which they had sunk in the Depression. The automotive industry in Britain, for example, could in no way be compared to its US counterpart; it was smaller, less efficient and traditionally more concerned with aesthetics than significant technical innovation, while heavy engineering firms such as shipyards and railway workshops had little if any experience of vehicle mass-production.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/5/2021 6:09:05 PM

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Light tanks

With pre-war research and development severely curtailed financially, there was a deliberate preference for light tanks and armoured cars, individually cheaper both to build and operate, at the expense of more combat-worthy vehicles. The former were also easier to transport and ideal for colonial `peace-keeping', so they got priority. As few Britons relished or expected involvement in a European war, heavier tanks to cross the trenches, shellholes, and wire of another (static) Great War were given relatively scant attention.
There was a vicious spiral of demand caused by the dearth of pre-war prototypes and the lack of a coherent design pol-icy, coupled with an over-reliance on the French army and its industrial base in Britain's rather hurried war plans. When France fell the British haste to rearm became so frantic that quantity was allowed to totally suppress quality for a critical period. This led to the mass-production of untried designs like the Covenanter, the Crusader, and the Churchill, all of which were effectively still prototypes; their components performed well enough in bench-tests but not under combat conditions when assembled together. The deficiency was particularly acute in power units and, for a shorter period, transmissions (the heart of any AFV); until the arrival of the GMC diesel and the Rolls-Royce Meteor, under-powered commercial engines had to suffice. Because optimistic rearmament fore-casts could not be met, technological corners were cut, with lamentable results. Some 1,771 Covenanters were built, a machine best described as "junk".

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/6/2021 5:56:32 PM

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Sloped and welded armour

To compound matters, the responsibility for the development and production of tanks passed from the War Office to the new Ministry of Supply shortly before the war began, depriving the soldiers at a stroke of all technical advice and control of specification policy.
The Tank Board, created to help formulate policy and liaise between the War Office and Ministry of Supply, can be dismissed as "an AFV discussion group" or at best little more than a rubber-stamping body.
The large number of Churchill and Cromwell Marks is not so much a chronology of steady improvements as a long series of vehicles belatedly 'reworked' up to approximately acceptable standards of mobility, reliability, gun-power and protection, and the Crusader probably suffered from this more than any other British tank.
The rather conservative approach to design and production of tanks meant that new features like sloped and welded armour were adopted much later than in most other countries, even though the latter had been developed as early as 1930.
In 1937 the prototype A10 heavy cruiser had been built with a well-sloped hull front marred only by a vertical driver's visor, but the War Office then reconsidered and demanded that a hull machine gun be fitted, so the tank went into production with a vertical hull front, creating an unfortunate precedent. The poorly-sloped hull front of the Comet (like on its predecessors, used in order to provide decent sights for the hull machine gun) beggars understanding so late in the war, and one wonders if British designers ever knew that vehicles like the T-34 or Panther even existed; the Soviets obligingly shipped a sample of their medium tank to the UK in the early war years but British designers did not take the hint. Similarly, despite user criticism of this feature, the British also persisted with the polygonal, and angular, shaped turrets with steeply-sloped sides on vehicles like the A13 Mk II, Covenanter, Crusader and Grant which compromised ballistic protection.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/7/2021 5:43:46 PM

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British rail-way network

Tank design was hampered by, initially, severe AFV size and weight restrictions. The latter were based on the available engineering equipment (of 1918 vintage, prior to the introduction of the excellent pre-fabricated Bailey Bridge which gave a generous clearance of 11' 4" and a weight capacity up to 70 tons) that was only slowly replaced and could only accommodate light AFVs. When it came to size, the AFVs had to be rail-trans-portable because the very dense British rail-way network had considerable over-capacity and promised quicker, cheaper, and easier transportation than the contemporary less developed road network. Britain paid the price as the pioneer of railways with very tight height and, especially, width restrictions through bridges, tunnels and between multiple tracks—limiting the width of tanks and hence their turret rings so that problems arose when up-gunning became imperative.
Churchill tanks with their side air-intakes removed could just be accommodated, as could the taller Grants and Shermans on special low-slung flat wagons, but even when the width restriction was relaxed to 9' 6", the Cromwell and Comet could not unless equipment protruding beyond their tracks was first removed. That the Sherman could combine a larger turret ring with a width suitable for British rail transportation speaks volumes for US designers. Ironically, in practice the rail transportation of tanks was largely confined to machines leaving the factory for overseas or storage, and those already adopted by formations usually went by road on tank transporters for greater flexibility and convenience, and from March 1942 road movement became the rule for all new tanks, except during the D-Day build-up.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/8/2021 5:50:59 PM

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Firepower

Firepower was of less concern to the tank builders than to the soldiers manning them; production statistics mattered more to just about everyone else and the gun became almost an after-thought. Thus, a lack of fore-sight rendered the earlier tanks, especially, incapable of being quickly and easily up-gunned. For example, the turret rings (which determined the size and power of the main armament) in the Matilda H and Valentine were only 50" in diameter, 54.25" in the Churchill, 55.5" in the Crusader, 57.2" in the Cromwell, 64" in the Comet, 66.75" in the Challenger, but a generous 69" in the Sherman, up to 70" in Australia's home-grown Sentinel, and 74" in the Centurion I. Even worse, when the soldiers got extra 6-pdrs produced for tank use there were no vehicles immediately available to mount them because the only serious contender, the Valentine, had been re-designed prior to production with a smaller turret. The original turret was probably unacceptable (no one knows the official reason why) because the 2-pdr barrel over-hung the hull front, a feature that most con-temporary designers except the Soviets avoided at all costs. When the 6-pdr was, eventually, first squeezed into the Valentine turret the only MG fitted inside was a locally produced improvisation. Using a shortened empty 6-pdr cartridge-case with a hole bored in it, a .3" Browning was inserted and aimed with the 6-pdr gun sight, a similar improvisation to the MG fired from inside the early German Tiger-Elefant SP gun. Although the British gadget worked well, it was less than ideal.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/9/2021 6:01:25 PM

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The 75mm gun

Until 1942 the roles of tanks and anti-tank guns were to defeat enemy armour, hence the issue of only solid AP shot. But the folly of this over-specialist doctrine was obvious by late 1941 from desert experiences, and a flood of requests for HE to deal with enemy anti-tank guns followed. As good AP and HE performance are, to some extent, mutually-exclusive much argument and official soul-searching followed before the British embraced the "dual-purpose" US 75mm weapon as standard a year later. Montgomery's unfortunate signature on a telegram stating, "...the 75mm gun is all we require" was, alas, taken too literally.
Having finally produced the Comet, British designers were then instructed to develop a version with a reduced diameter 57" turret ring to mount the less potent 6-pdr, 75mm or 95mm CS guns already carried in the Cromwell. More alarming, the fighting in Tunisia and then Europe gradually revealed the need for good AP performance - but many Churchill tank units had already been issued with kits to convert their machines from 6-pdr to 75mm guns because official thinking prior to D-Day and then initial (and optimistic) reports of the fighting after D-Day concluded that only 75mm guns, and no 6-pdrs, were required in them.
It was intended to cease supply of 6-pdr Churchills to units in Normandy as Mk VII production gradually came on stream and replaced losses, and at the same time thus also cease to supply 6-pdr APDS ammunition. Thereafter 6-pdr Churchill tanks steadily declined in numbers and the few left were used in the role of ersatz tank-killers to sup-port the 75mm and 95mm versions on the basis of one per three-tank troop. As if the fighting there had not yet rammed the lesson home, there were also arguments about whether the new Centurion should mount a 17-pdr or the less potent 'dual-purpose' 77mm version.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/10/2021 9:42:29 PM

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Inter-departmental rivalry

Inter-departmental rivalry (at times the War Office and the Ministry of Supply were not even on speaking terms), non-cooperation, stupidity or official inertia and plain 'bad luck' also played their part. A few examples are worth mention. The Cromwell could have been in service by 1942 but for the fact that Leyland Motors, who accepted "parentage" of the project, argued "tenaciously" in a prolonged dispute for the installation of their modified version of the obsolete US Liberty engine, rather than the superior Meteor. When the Meteor was finally selected, this adaptation of the famous Merlin engine was causing Rolls Royce problems so in December 1942 the industrialists agreed, over lunch, to exchange their respective engine programmes. Although this enabled Rolls Royce to retain their aero-engine specialism, and Rover their tank engines, the resultant chaos that this arrangement brought kept the Cromwell out of the war until Normandy. Not only that, but having developed the Meteor from the Merlin, Rover found that the RAF got priority in receiving engines, so production of Meteors had to wait until the RAF "was glutted" with Merlins. To add insult to injury, Rolls Royce had first been asked to produce a 600 hp tank engine way back in 1933 but had done nothing until 1940. The introduction of the Comet was also delayed because the Challenger was given priority over it and because of prolonged arguments over the choice of main armament (contenders included the US 75mm (!), US 76mm, 17-pdr and, eventually, its 77mm variant), over whether the hull should be welded or not and about other "irritating changes to the specifications". A similar fate befell the Centurion; the need for such a tank was acknowledged in the summer of 1942 but thanks to a government ban on any new projects that would not be ready to enter service before 1944 no authority to proceed was given until July 1943. So the tank that could have been in service two years earlier finally appeared just after the war in Europe ended, delayed even further over disputes concerning the main and secondary armament.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/11/2021 5:49:12 PM

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Delays

Inter-departmental rivalry (at times the War Office and the Ministry of Supply were not even on speaking terms), non-co-operation, stupidity or official inertia and plain 'bad luck' also played their part. A few examples are worth mention. The Cromwell could have been in service by 1942 but for the fact that Leyland Motors, who accepted "parentage" of the project, argued "tenaciously" in a prolonged dispute for the installation of their modified version of the obsolete US Liberty engine, rather than the superior Meteor. When the Meteor was finally selected, this adaptation of the famous Merlin engine was causing Rolls Royce problems so in December 1942 the industrialists agreed, over lunch, to exchange their respective engine programmes. Although this enabled Rolls Royce to retain their aero-engine specialism, and Rover their tank engines, the resultant chaos that this arrangement brought kept the Cromwell out of the war until Normandy. Not only that, but having developed the Meteor from the Merlin, Rover found that the RAF got priority in receiving engines, so production of Meteors had to wait until the RAF "was glutted" with Merlins. To add insult to injury, Rolls Royce had first been asked to produce a 600 hp tank engine way back in 1933 but had done nothing until 1940. The introduction of the Comet was also delayed because the Challenger was given priority over it and because of prolonged arguments over the choice of main armament (contenders included the US 75mm (!), US 76mm, 17-pdr and, eventually, its 77mm variant), over whether the hull should be welded or not and about other "irritating changes to the specifications". A similar fate befell the Centurion; the need for such a tank was acknowledged in the summer of 1942 but thanks to a government ban on any new projects that would not be ready to enter service before 1944 no authority to proceed was given until July 1943. So the tank that could have been in service two years earlier finally appeared just after the war in Europe ended, delayed even further over disputes concerning the main and secondary armament.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/12/2021 6:08:21 PM

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Squandering of British resources

Apart from the Centurion, the best tank the allies never had was probably the Sentinel. This Australian design of late 1941 was the right tank in the wrong place at the wrong time and so made way for other inferior British and US designs that—in the PTO at least—were adequate. The Sentinel was an excellent design with considerable potential, low-slung, with a high top speed and capable in the last version (thanks to an enlargement of the turret ring from 54", then 64" and final-ly 70") of mounting the 17-pdr gun. Using cast armour extensively, it was a considerable technical (pioneering) achievement for a nation with only limited industrial capacity, and deserved a better fate. Quarantined on the Australian mainland, the British would have done well to swallow their national pride and adopt and develop the design instead of the Cromwell but then the 'professional' British designers thought that they knew best (forgetting that an 'amateur' built Noah's Ark while the "professionals" built the Titanic).
If the Sentinel's qualities were wasted through a lack of interest and a perceived glut of Shermans, resources in Britain were squandered on the inferior British version of the American 75mm gun; based on a re-bored 6-pdr it had numerous teething-troubles (some inherited from the 6-pdr) and special firing trials were held as late as October 1944 after user criticism. Troops preferred the US version, especially the mounting, side-opening breech for faster loading and the electric firing system. An 'improved' version was also produced for the Cromwell, but thankfully never used.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/13/2021 5:59:57 PM

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17-Pounder gun

Then there was the problem of how to mount the 17-pdr in a tank. Far-sighted and desperate soldiers finally got this mounted in the obsolete Sherman as a temporary solution, but the bureaucrats had been asked to do this as early as July 1942. The Challenger was a poor and unpopular substitute due to its inferior armour and a tendency to shed its tracks thanks to an unfortunate combination of rear sprockets, excessive track and hull length and its Christie suspension. Another drawback was its poor ammunition stowage, for it carried only 42-48 rounds for the 17-pdr whereas the Firefly had up to 78 (though some units in Italy removed the 14-15 round front hull stowage bin in the Firefly to improve maintenance access and carry an additional crewman). The stowage in the Challenger was the exact opposite; 31 rounds were in the hull front, three in the hull sides and just 14 readily available in odd corners of the turret, and while the tank's second loader was a help in feeding the gun. As for the de-rated "77mm" 17-pdr in the Comet, its AP performance was seriously compromised by the absence of APDS ammunition in wartime; small quantities were manufactured from early 1945 onwards but there is no evidence that it was ever issued. It was some consolation that the gun's accuracy and its HE round were both superb, and that fortunately by the time Comet was in service, German AFV targets were comparatively rare.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/14/2021 6:05:53 PM

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Dead-end designs

The British engaged in over-experimentation and the production of "dead-end" designs that wasted resources, the former activity in part due to the unpleasant experiences caused by the mass-production of tanks straight off the drawing-board earlier in the war. Examples of this wastage included the Tetrarch and similar Harry Hopkins, TOG I and II (an enlarged version of the French Char B, only even uglier), the Cavalier, Centaur, Valiant, the SP 95mm Alecto, the Challenger, Avenger (a lower-slung Challenger with no other worthwhile improvements), Tortoise (a super-heavy 3.7-in. SP gun with the mobility of Fort Knox), Nellie (a 131-ton trench-digging machine, the A[mphibious] T[ank] 1—an ungainly cross between an LVT and a Covenanter tank, and the Black Prince (a widened Churchill with 17-pdr gun). None of these gave the British army a battle-worthy AFV like the Soviet T-34 family.
The Matilda II, for example, was a contemporary vehicle and Britain's best tank when war began. It is true that it had good armour and for a short time was superior to any German tank, but even here the British erred. Inadequate testing had fostered the delusion that it could resist the German 88mm FlaK gun above 440 yards range, whereas it was actually vulnerable at over 2000 yards. This was finally and tragically demonstrated in 1941 when Matilda were confidently sent in against 88mm guns. 99 of 104 Matildas deployed were lost. Nor was the Matilda designed for the rigours of mobile warfare, but as a slow-moving assault tank to be used for short periods only between lengthy spells of maintenance and preparation. It also had high ground pressure and was not particularly reliable. Matildas were also difficult to mass-produce owing to the many armour castings utilised and were probably the most expensive British tanks to see combat in the war. This was not exactly good value.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/15/2021 6:10:12 PM

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Maintenance

British tank interiors were criticised in a post-war report for being far too cluttered with stowage. Moreover, official doctrine emphasised accuracy and ammunition conservation and crew safety, all of which kept rates of fire low. Worse, the misalignment of the gun-sights in 2-pdr armed tanks was only discovered after nearly two years of fighting, causing the shot to fall short and nullifying any hope of a first-round hit. Ironically, it was an ex-artillery officer who discovered this defect but he then had to over-come official resistance to even admitting a problem existed, let alone implementing a solution. Initially the British practised firing on the move, hence the demand for free elevation, but German tanks in the desert (which fired while stationary), soon showed this to be a waste of ammunition, tanks and their crews since accuracy was so poor. The British appear to have made little if any use of the unpopular and "imperfect" gyrostabilisers fitted to their US-built AFVs except in Italy.
One major problem was the accessibility of components for inspection, maintenance, or replacement, particularly in the Crusader. So unreliable was this tank that commanders in the desert had to plan operations on the basis of a 25% reserve to allow for those out of action in the workshops, and as late as March 1943 over half of 8th Army's 717 Crusaders were unserviceable. But the real 'prima donnas' among Allied tanks were the Covenanter, the Churchill and the early Soviet KV Is; the British tanks needed 4 hours of daily attention if mechanical tantrums were to be avoided, while the latter's engine needed lubrication after only 1-2 hours' running.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/16/2021 6:22:36 PM

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Mechanical reliability

Thanks to British amateurism in technical matters, the mechanical reliability of British tanks was very poor and in 1940 75% of British tanks left in France were lost through mechanical break-down; in the early desert battles it was still 60%. The lack of tank transporters until 1942 to cut-down non-tactical movement also conspired to increase wear-and-tear, as did the nightly routine withdrawals from the battlefield. Experience in the desert and Greece also showed that the tracks of the early and often worn-out British cruisers were too fragile, and sharp turns could easily snap them, and to minimise tracks breakages speed had to be limited to 10-12 mph, whereas the elated British crews of new Stuart tanks failed to snap the tracks despite deliberate attempts to do so in tests. The early Churchill's battle debut was considerably delayed due to the evil reputation that it had gained for poor reliability even in the cooler UK climate, and there was great reluctance at first to send it to the desert, even after running trials there with two samples had gone well. The Crusader's inherent mechanical weaknesses were worsened by often poor workmanship, while two British tanks in particular—the wretched Covenanter and the Light Tanks Mark I to VI shared an unfortunate tendency to "reverse-steer" in certain conditions, although it was not unknown on the other steering systems used prior to the Crusader's. If the Covenanter's compressed air steering and braking system ran out of air while running down-hill it could have potentially catastrophic consequences, while the turret lid's safety-catch was unreliable and likely to decapitate the commander or at least rob him of some fingers. Ventilation was also a problem and the badly positioned cooling system roasted the crew, especially the driver. None of the foregoing can have done much to inspire crew confidence.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/17/2021 8:44:53 PM

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Lack of standardisation

Other factors contributed to British woes, including a total lack of standardisation. On the eve of war Britain had two types of light tank, five types of cruiser, three infantry tanks either in production or development using six different suspension types, seven different engines, four different transmissions plus numerous different track systems which demanded a huge variety of spare parts, repair and maintenance requirements and driving techniques. By 1942 there were even more, with 16 different types in service, but of which just 3 were if US origin. Worse, the supply of spare parts was often chaotic, and not soundly based on running trials but on the basis of analogy with other vehicles with quite different characteristics. Even in 1944 the British had a plethora of tank types mixed within units, or operating in the same theatre. British manufacturing techniques were often poor with a "craft" approach that mass-produced parts to only crude tolerances before relying on hand-finishing to make the parts fit. Tanks were often moved around dockyards under their own power with empty radiators, to the detriment of the Crusader's delicate cooling system in particular. Worse, while US tanks sent over-seas were thoroughly water-proofed, British tanks arriving in the desert were often in a shocking state after being stowed as deck cargo with no attempt made to protect them from the elements, or in holds without being properly secured against movement (hence collision) in rough weather. Up to early 1942 tanks arrived with many damaged parts due to careless stowage, the ingress of water or the growth of rust and mould, and items like tool kits had often been stolen.

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RE: The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod - 10/18/2021 6:06:43 PM

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Lights first time

British tanks were shipped to the desert in UK camouflage paint, and without desert-pattern fittings like dust filters to try and confuse imaginary enemy agents as to their real destination. This obsession with secrecy then demanded considerable effort by desert work-shop staff to refit and repaint the vehicles for desert conditions.
The later British tanks burned more slowly when penetrated than German or US tanks, giving their crews more time to bale-out. This was attributed to British trials in the desert in 1941 with wrecked tanks filled with fuel and ammunition from which the British took steps to improve ammunition stowage to reduce the hazards from fire. The British also filled the Crusader's auxiliary external fuel tanks with water, reducing the fire hazard and creating a useful reserve of this rather precious commodity in the desert, while Crusader Ms were also fitted with "home-made" steel ammo bins to reduce the risk of fires from hot splinters if the armour was penetrated. The crews in early Crusaders especially tended to fight with open hatches to make escape easier, and the extra escape hatches on Churchills were especially welcome too. British studies revealed that between 80% and 100% of Shermans caught fire when hit (compared to only 50% of Comets and about 60% of Churchills) and the British wryly named their Shermans Ronsons' after the cigarette-lighter manufacturer whose slogan was "lights first time", while the dry-humoured Germans called them "Tommy-cookers".

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