Tank Development In Wwii

[Logan Hartke 0]

Hey guys, I was on another discussion group and we got talking about the late war heavies (started on a discussion of the PzKpfw IV). Anyway, I gave a rundown of the tanks and their relative strengths and weaknesses in the discussion after a few generalizations were made that I didn't entirely agree with. A few comments were made that my writings on the tank development made for interesting reading and, being that there's a few of you who are interested in that sort of thing, I've posted it here. I also wrote a bit on the Panther's fatally flawed suspension and the E-series in that same discussion if anyone's interested.

 

For those of you that need pictures, I've added some.

 

By the time [the M26, Centurion I, or IS-3] came along the Pz IV had all but been phased out. IIRC by the end of '44 there was single factory producing the tank the rest had switched to Panzerjaegers. As to vaulting up Allied tank technology I'm not sure. The Centurion I and Pershing were both about the equivalent of the Panther - the JSIII of the Tiger II. More like catch up than vaulting ahead.

I'd agree with that...to an extent. It certainly appears that way on the surface. I think it's very true of the Centurion. Simon Dunstan does a very interesting comparison of the Panther Ausf A and the Centurion 2 in his Osprey on the subject showing that the British were about 4 years behind the Germans in that sense. The suspension, hull, and turret were far better designed, to be honest, however. As I pointed out earlier, the Panther's suspension really wouldn't have taken much more weight, its powertrain was horribly unreliable, and its turret was too small to but uparmed anywhere near what the Centurion was mounting at the end of its career.

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=qRWxjB961...oBZKIkASA4bCXBQ

 

 

In 1945, the Pershing was probably the most battlefield-ready between it, the Centurion I, the Panther Ausf G, and the IS-3. If an American tank wasn't reliable, then it never made it onto the boat and across the ocean. McNair would not have it. The Centurion's Meteor engine gave it trouble and wasn't always popular, although it and the Ford GAF V-8 in the M26 both both had their own troubles. Neither would be the last engine their chassis would see. The Panther was never a reliable tank and a fresh look since the end of the Cold War shows that the IS-3 was really a hanger queen and the IS-2 was more practical and reliable until the end of their careers.

 

 

For their weight, the IS-3 was the most revolutionary, with a number of things the others lacked that did show the Soviets knew how to really design a tank. It had a gun in the 120-125mm range, a four man crew with a driver in the middle of the front hull and three in the turret (commander, gunner, & loader), a powerful diesel engine, and torsion bar suspension, a heavily-sloped front hull and heavy armor protection throughout.

 

It was a layout that--with the exception of those countries that adopted an autoloader or gas turbine engine--remains the standard to this day.

 

 

That being said, the Centurion was probably fought the closest to any modern tank. You could probably stick a Challenger 2 crew in a Centurion I and with a hour or two of training, they would likely be fairly effective on the battlefield of 1945. The Soviets knew how the basics of tank design. They knew what worked and what didn't. The British knew a tank's role on the battlefield better than anyone else and the US knew how to build reliable tank and powertrain better than anyone. The Germans, well they were the innovators.

 

The M26 and Centurion were both better than the Panther, especially in overall armor protection. Frontally they may have been comparable, but the Panther had awful protection from the side and was more vulnerable to catching on fire than either the British or American design. Also, both the M26 and Centurion had a far superior ability to fire on the move with any level of practicality. The M26 was more reliable by a wide margin and the Centurion was the better cross-country and hot climate performer.

 

 

All had their strengths and weaknesses. The British had the smallest industry and were the worst when it came to "design by committee", so their equipment would be designed well but would often have compromises and be the last on the battlefield of anyone's. The US was always following someone's lead (be it German, British, or Russian) and suffered from having their factories thousands of miles from the battlefield, but when it got to the battlefield, it would work and work well. The Germans were technophiles and would have the most advanced designs at the expense of practicality, reliability, and affordability. The Soviets had the biggest army, so had to make design and efficiency compromises in order to keep things affordable and interfere with production the least.

 

The six tanks (Panther, Tiger II, M26, Centurion, IS-2, and IS-3) are a reflection of these differences.

 

Logan Hartke

[Korona 0]

Some interesting ideas there Logan, thanks for posting. I don't agree with everything though so I'll chip in my two cents.

 

While the Pershing was nothing to be sniffed at, I think the US had something of a crisis in its philosophy of tank warfare at the end of the war. The Pershing was designed for a role that was evaporating. The wholesale postwar overhaul I think is indicative of the problems. I would compare it to the T-44. It sowed good seeds but it would only come into its own with an overhaul.

 

I think the Centurion had already had that process with the Cromwell/Comet chassis. The lessons learned allowed them to have the Centurion out of the blocks earlier because the fundamental rethinking was already occurring. It wasn't a clear process though. The British had their own mess with the Conqueror. This tank was as much of a joke with hindsight as the Tiger 2 was.

 

 

The IS3 had nice armour layout for sure but the fundamental concept of such a massive tank was just plain obsolete like the Conqueror. As we all know the 120mm calibre masks a multitude of sins. I would sooner have the 17pdr with some nice sabot rounds. The Red Army would also agree, halting it's development to concentrate on the T-54s in a mirror of the British abandoning the Conquerors to concentrate on the Centurions.

 

I really have to take issue with the idea that the Brits were 4 years behind the Germans. That is utter nonsense. They predicted the Tiger and had the 17pdr ready for it. On the MBT front, okay it was around a year behind and somewhat ad-hoc but I think the Firefly was a better tank than the Panther, let alone the Centurion. The Panther was a logistics nightmare. The Sherman chassis on the other hand was a great mount for the 17pdr. The deadly ammunition available for it late in the war made it a real beast. The idea that the Germans were cutting edge really doesn't bear scrutiny. Every advantage their tanks had on paper has a real world compromise that counts against them.

 

It's like comparing a sprinter with a marathon runner, sure the marathon runner looks faster but it really cannot go the distance.

 

For me the Centurion is the real breakthrough. It was ahead of it's time and for that reason has stood the test of time.

[Logan Hartke 0]

The Pershing was, by the time it was sent to Europe, absolutely intended to replace the Sherman. It was designed to be the standard tank of the US Army, the MBT of its day. The concept was not outdated in any major way that I can think of. It had evolved from the flawed doctrines that gave birth to the Lee, Sherman, and Hellcat AFVs.

 

The flawed doctrine that was dying a slow, agonizing death at the time was the one that gave birth to the Centurion and that was the Cruiser/Infantry tank nonsense. One only need read about the Desert War in 1940-43 (my current topic of interest) to see how poorly that played out and how flawed it was. It ranks right up there with US Tank Destroyers for the "bad tank doctrine of WWII" award. That's why the Centurion got thicker armor, was heavier, and was slower than its predecessors and its counterpart--the Black Prince--was quietly put in a corner and forgotten. This was something the Soviets picked up on in 1940 when they ditched the T-50, but took the British another three years to catch on to.

 

Also, the T-44 had about as much in common with the T-55 as the Centurion Mk 1 did with the Sho't. Just because it underwent a couple of designation changes during the evolution doesn't mean it got a total overhaul each time. There was a lot done, but so too was there throughout the Centurion marks.

 

Comparing the Cromwell to Centurion process to the T-44 to T-54 process is not correct. The T-34 had as much in common with the T-54 as the Cromwell did the Centurion, especially in design.

 

The IS-3 was--developmentally--a dead end, that's absolutely correct. They kept the design on life support through the T-10, but Khrushchev finally killed it off in the 50s. It was, however, designed by guys who knew what they were doing and saw the future of tank warfare. It would be between large, hard-hitting, heavily (but intelligently) armored vehicles that would need mobility to stay alive on the battlefield. The M18 Hellcat was not correct design philosophy. Neither was the Black Prince, nor the King Tiger. The IS-3 was, but the execution was very poor. It was especially the wrong tank for the Soviet Union. While the T-90 of today can't point right at the T-54 as its design forefather, the Challenger 2 has more in common with the IS-3 for design philosophy and ancestry.

 

The 122mm gun on the IS-3 was the wrong tank gun for its day, I'll give you that. Without an autoloader, multi-piece ammunition is not the right answer. Neither, however, was the 17pdr. It was flawed as the 75mm KwK 42. They were the 60mm HVMs of their day. Great penetration for such a small caliber and well worth it if all you have to do is knock out tanks all day. The problem that would develop with those is the same that developed with the 2pdr in the Desert War in '41-42 and the AMX-13 in Algeria. One of the days, you're going to have to shoot at things that are more vulnerable to HE and your gun won't be up to the job. I read about US soldiers fighting Panthers during the Bulge. They were holed up in a Belgian house and a couple of Panthers were putting HE rounds into the side wall of the house at point blank range, but it was having no effect on the troops inside because the rounds had so little HE content. An IS-2 in the same situation would've fired one round and been done with it. The Brits had the same trouble with the 17pdr, which is why they never equipped an entire large tank unit in combat with it. That was part of the advantage of the 20pdr. It was more multipurpose.

 

The right gun for the time was a dual-purpose weapon, such as the 20pdr, a good 90mm, or (best of all) a 100mm gun. The Soviets saw that as early as 1943, but production couldn't make it a reality until after the war. In that sense, the British were over a decade behind the Soviets in knowing what constituted a good tank gun and it was only the tip off from the Soviets in 1956 that led them to develop the best tank gun of the Cold War, the L7 105mm.

 

 

As far as being years behind the Germans, you're either missing the point or are in denial and need to read up on the subject. The point isn't that they were behind in knowledge, but that the absolutely were in fielding tanks that reflected that knowledge. Instead, they had to rely on the admittedly backwards Americans to supply them with tanks. If you still disagree, then you're disagreeing about British armor not just with me, but with David Fletcher, Simon Dunstan, and Ian Hogg and that's not the side of the argument I'd want to be on if I were you, but you pick your own battles, cowboy.

 

As far as the Firefly goes, I agree that it was the better tank than the Panther in the real world. Pointing to the Firefly as evidence of British tank development prowess is not the way to go, however. That was an American tank with a British gun. It was about as British as the M60 or the M1 Abrams.

 

The Centurion was a great design, but showed British forward thinking about as much as the Colossus-class aircraft carrier. Both were intended to be interim designs, but--because they incorporated lessons learned throughout the war and the fact that their successors were hampered by poor design philosophy and/or inadequate funding--they ended up serving for many decades when it was hardly thought they would last one. It showed the sterling work British designers could do when they aimed to be purposeful instead of innovative or stuck in bad doctrine.

 

Not only that, but the Centurion wouldn't have become the MBT of the free world had the US not funded so many in the 1950s. Demand for US tanks outstripped the ability of the US factories to produce them (due in part to the complex casting of the M48 hull and turret), and the US wasn't keen on exporting their latest and greatest everywhere, anyway. So they went to the UK, saw that the Centurion was a darn good tank (and had served alongside it in Korea, where the 20pdr's accuracy and the tank's hill climbing ability and tough armor were noted) and so paid British factories to make them for everybody in NATO.

 

The Centurion wasn't way ahead of its time. It was a great design in its time and it was adaptable. That's what allowed it to stay a very good tank twenty and thirty years after its debut. A great design from 1945 with 1960s updates can prove a serious challenge to a bad design from the 1960s (like the T-62). Just like the M24 and the Essex-class carriers weren't way ahead of their time. They were very good for their time, so it was still pretty good long after its time. They were all still evolutionary designs rather than revolutionary. Nobody sat up and said, "GREAT SCOTT!" They said, "about time..."

 

The B-29 was ahead of its time. It revolutionized the world when it came out and the world struggled to keep up. Other examples of that would be the Type XXI U-boat (flawed though it was) and the StG 44.

 

Logan Hartke

[Korona 0]

The Pershing was designed to be a Sherman with more armour and a better gun and so on. That came at the cost of its power to weight ratio but that was seen as a fine compromise. It was at heart a heavy tank pressed into serving as an MBT. I was saying that the US tank philosophy had moved on past WW2 thinking but the tanks they had to enact this new philosophy weren't designed for it.

 

Maybe I am missing the point of the comparison but the guy seemed to be saying that the British were fielding an army in 1945 with equipment qualitatively equivalent to the 1941 Wehrmacht. It's just absurd. If the Firefly is invalid then how about the the Comet? It had flaws and it was expensive but it was a damn sight better than the Panther since it could actually get to the battle without breaking its own drive train. I really like the cruiser idea. It seems to me to have evolved into the universal tank/MBT concept.

 

The Centurion was a fantastic tank but I agree that it came into it's own with the 105mm gun. I'm not convinced that it was a fluke that it got this gun though. It was more that they had under-estimated the strength of the T-54s rather than they had a fundamental eureka moment. Remember that they were already planning to replace the 17pdr. The 1956 events guided that process. The key really was the realisation that they could get two Cents for the cost of a Conqueror and end up with two tanks for one. Once that mental leap had been made then the up-gunning of the Cents with 20pdrs was a logical next step.

 

However for me it's not just the gun that makes a great tank, but rather the chassis. The upgradability of the Cents I think speaks a lot about their fundamentally sound design. The gun can be replaced as better ones are available but issues with terrain, logistics and maintenance are perennial. The chassis issues with the Panther are why I don't like it. You could up gun a Panther to 1960s levels and it would still have the same problems.

[Rattuskid 0]

IIRC, many of the design constraints on the original Lees, Grants and Shermans was width related. They had to pass through railroad tunnels on their way to the coasts, and thus the theatre of combat. The Pershing among being a better all around design, didn't have this restriction as it was built closer to the ports.

 

It just got held back for so long from legal dickery.

[Korona 0]

Well the Allies had tons of tanks by then, it wasn't really going to swing things.

[Logan Hartke 0]

The Pershing was designed to be a Sherman with more armour and a better gun and so on. That came at the cost of its power to weight ratio but that was seen as a fine compromise. It was at heart a heavy tank pressed into serving as an MBT. I was saying that the US tank philosophy had moved on past WW2 thinking but the tanks they had to enact this new philosophy weren't designed for it.

In that case, yes. They weren't designed from the ground up for it, but I think that once they got to the Patton series (even in its earliest incarnation, the M46), they had gotten the size and capabilities for a tank that they were looking for, and in that I think they were spot on.

 

 

Maybe I am missing the point of the comparison but the guy seemed to be saying that the British were fielding an army in 1945 with equipment qualitatively equivalent to the 1941 Wehrmacht. It's just absurd. If the Firefly is invalid then how about the the Comet? It had flaws and it was expensive but it was a damn sight better than the Panther since it could actually get to the battle without breaking its own drive train.

In that case, yes, you are missing the point. The author was saying that it wasn't until 1947 that the British fielded a significant number of tanks that were as powerful as the tanks Germany had been using since 1943. That being said, the British tanks (not counting the ones built in former colonies) of 1943 were not much better than what Germany had on the battlefield in 1940-41. They were behind. With the exception of the Matilda II in very small numbers (and a developmental dead-end), British tanks were horrendous. Many in Greece were abandoned due to awful reliability. The idea of a reliable tank with a three-man turret mounting a multi-purpose gun and a suspension that moved faster than a crawl eluded the British Army until the advent of the Cromwell. It was something the Germans had four years before that. Heck, the US started producing such tanks in late 1941 and the Canadians in early 1942. The British took until at least 1943 before they could get a tank that was reliable enough for combat and it wouldn't be until D-Day that such a tank would actually see combat. Until then, they got their choice of either 2-man turret, 2pdr gun, or 2mph top speed. What to choose, what to choose. THAT is the scandal.

 

The Sherman showed the British what could be done with an adequate--if imperfect--tank. They knew what they wanted, but it eluded them. The Comet was very good, but it had a gun that was actually worse than the Firefly's, armor worse than some variants of the M4 Sherman and certainly worse than the Panther, mobility no better than the M4A3, and the only thing it had to show for it was a lower profile. The Third Army M4A3s with 76mm gun and additional armor were their equals on the battlefield with better frontal armor, higher top speed, and a gyroscope. The Comet benefited from having the lower profile and the better designed albeit more heavily strained suspension. The 76mm M1 was on a par with the 77mm OQF for penetration according to some sources and only slightly worse according to the rest. Neither were as good as the Panther in the armor or firepower category. It wasn't until the [Centurion] that a British tank was...which was the whole point.

 

 

I really like the cruiser idea. It seems to me to have evolved into the universal tank/MBT concept.

The Cruiser tank evolved into the MBT developmentally--by default, I might add--not doctrinally. If the Black Prince would have been a better tank than the Centurion, then I think the Infantry tank would have evolved into the MBT. Had the FV200 been a success and the Black Prince and Centurion both failed, then the Universal tank would have evolved into the MBT.

 

Of those doctrines, the Universal was the closest to the modern MBT concept, far moreso than the Cruiser or Infantry tank. The Universal tank was the FV200, which started as the A45...an Infantry tank.

 

You want to see how great and far-sighted the Cruiser tank concept was? Read about its trial by fire in the desert. It's not pretty. It's also obvious why--after encountering the PzKpfw III, the PzKpfw IV, and the Sherman--the obsolescence of the concept became obvious to them and the A41 ditched the Christie suspension, gained a bunch of armor, and accepted the speed loss. They were willing to give up their flawed doctrine to get a better tank and a WISE choice it was.

 

 

The Centurion was a fantastic tank but I agree that it came into it's own with the 105mm gun. I'm not convinced that it was a fluke that it got this gun though. It was more that they had under-estimated the strength of the T-54s rather than they had a fundamental eureka moment. Remember that they were already planning to replace the 17pdr. The 1956 events guided that process. The key really was the realisation that they could get two Cents for the cost of a Conqueror and end up with two tanks for one. Once that mental leap had been made then the up-gunning of the Cents with 20pdrs was a logical next step.

What do you mean "they were planning to replace the 17pdr"? They already had with the 20pdr. There were no immediate plans to replace it, merely supplement it with the US 120mm gun in the Conqueror, the purpose of which was to take care of the Stalin tanks while the 20pdr tonked T-54s. The 105mm gun was a crash program when they got the impression that their 20pdr was not up to the task.

 

 

However for me it's not just the gun that makes a great tank, but rather the chassis. The upgradability of the Cents I think speaks a lot about their fundamentally sound design. The gun can be replaced as better ones are available but issues with terrain, logistics and maintenance are perennial. The chassis issues with the Panther are why I don't like it. You could up gun a Panther to 1960s levels and it would still have the same problems.

Agreed, but with that you point out the reason the Centurion was not "a breakthrough" or "ahead of its time". Its suspension was more than adequate and better than the Panther's to be sure but just as the Neanderthal were well-adapted to their environment and very tough, yet a developmental dead end, so too was the Centurion's chassis. How many modern MBTs use the Horstmann-type suspension system? That's right. Once the remaining Centurions and Chieftains go out of service...none. The Merkava's was closest and its getting further and further away with every new mark in an effort to improve mobility. Torsion bar and hydropneumatic are about all that's in use anymore. So, the introduction of the Centurion gave the world an engine type nobody uses in a tank anymore, an equally dead-end suspension, a gun that was only ever good at one thing and was soon not even good enough for that, and armor that the world had already seen for 3 years. What made the tank so useful? It was a BIG armored box with a great big turret ring and a suspension that was tough and relatively trouble-free.

 

These were all attributes that had already come to be appreciated with the PzKpfw IV and (to a lesser extent) the Sherman. They were also attributes that the T-54 had and would take full advantage of in its long career. They are, in my opinion, the most important attributes in a tank design that aims to be in service for any length of time. That being said, they do not make a tank revolutionary, just contribute to its success.

 

Logan Hartke

 

Edit: I was re-reading this and I noticed I had put "Crusader" where I meant "Centurion" in one case. The name game was throwing me off. It's been fixed.

Edited March 4, 2009 by Logan Hartke

[flyby 0]

I'll respond later this week on this interesting discussion.. don't have the time atm...

[Comrade Raptorkov 0]

It's like comparing a sprinter with a marathon runner, sure the marathon runner looks faster but it really cannot go the distance.

 

A marathon runner looks fast but can't go the distance? huh?

[Korona 0]

Well the breakthrough is I guess more how it allowed the army to be transformed. It enabled a wholesale revolution in how the army was organised. The Centurion became the cornerstone of a modern armoured force. It was that through accident perhaps but

 

I think the comparison of 1947 and 1943 tanks is invalid because the Centurion entered production in 1945. However there is also no one in their right mind who would pick a Panther from 1943 over a Centurion. They may look similar on paper but they are anything but.

 

With the Cruisers, I would argue that the Comet was already approaching the hallmarks of the MBT. From the horrific mess of operation Crusader to the Cromwell and then to the Comet there is an iterative process that went on. The Cruiser doctrine was evolved at each step and I think by the end of the war the MBT idea was a logical extension of where they had arrived with it.

[Logan Hartke 0]

 

Well the breakthrough is I guess more how it allowed the army to be transformed. It enabled a wholesale revolution in how the army was organised. The Centurion became the cornerstone of a modern armoured force. It was that through accident perhaps but

You could say the same of the M4 Sherman, but I wouldn't call it a "breakthrough". The abject failure of the FV200 (Conqueror) had as much to do with the "transformation" as the wonderful greatness that was the Centurion. It's like the sinking of US battleships at Pearl Harbor forced the carriers into the main striking power of the US Navy in WWII. The Yorktown-class wasn't a revolution in carrier design. It was just good enough to be at the forefront of the revolution. The equipment didn't drive the revolution in either of these cases. It was just good enough to enable it.

 

That's different than the Maxim machine gun, the Minié ball, the Bazooka, or the AK-47, for example. In each of those cases, the equipment WAS the breakthrough and it DID drive the revolution.

 

With the Cruisers, I would argue that the Comet was already approaching the hallmarks of the MBT. From the horrific mess of operation Crusader to the Cromwell and then to the Comet there is an iterative process that went on. The Cruiser doctrine was evolved at each step and I think by the end of the war the MBT idea was a logical extension of where they had arrived with it.

 

The Comet was only a Cruiser in name, like the Centurion. They're ratcheted its speed down to lower than it's Medium Tank American counterpart, the Sherman. The original British idea of a Cruiser tank is actually very similar in design to the US Tank Destroyers, both of which were failed doctrines.

 

I think the comparison of 1947 and 1943 tanks is invalid because the Centurion entered production in 1945. However there is also no one in their right mind who would pick a Panther from 1943 over a Centurion. They may look similar on paper but they are anything but

 

Then you're fooling yourself again. Those were only prototypes and it didn't enter serial production until after the war was over. On top of that, the first REAL production version, the Centurion Mk II didn't enter service until December of 1946, which is basically 1947 before they were ready for action. Nobody said they'd take a Panther in 1943 over the Centurion of 1947, so you've defeated another straw man. Congratulations.

 

Logan Hartke

[Korona 0]

Okay, well I heard the Mk2 went into production in Nov '45 and that it was the 20pdr versions that were going into production in 1947. The Panther was only in service in mid 1943 because it was rushed (and that showed at Kursk with half of them breaking down :P).

 

The point is that the Cents were ready much sooner than they are being given credit for. The lack of a war means any comparison based on when they are hitting the front lines is moot when discussing the actual state of thinking and design. Remember that after the end of the LLA until the start of the Marshal Plan the British economy was utterly exhausted. There was no way to sustain a massive tank programme at wartime levels. A four year lag sounds like total bunk since by '47 they were mounting the 20pdr. After four years they weren't finally caught up with the Panther, they were going beyond even it's best aspects.

So yeah, in my view the reasons for the delay to get them to the front lines are practical economic ones, not theoretical. I'm not trying to straw man the point but I do think that it is either trivial or plain wrong.

 

 

Regarding the status of the Comet as a true cruiser: Remember that the speed on the Comet was deliberately capped to preserve the drive system. It could go faster if they took off the limiters... You can argue that the Comet wasn't really a cruiser but when it was designed even the Centurion was seen as a cruiser. At the end of the day the British designers were reasonably pragmatic and evolved their thinking with lessons learnt. Cruisers were always meant to deal with enemy mobile forces including tanks. The Comet just reflected a more practical design for mobile tank-on-tank warfare.

 

While I agree that they didn't know what they had when they designed it (as the Conqueror development shows) the British had reached a maturity in their design that would be the template for all modern MBTs. Even things like the Maxim gun or Assault Rifle weren't an obvious advance. It took innovators to realise their potential to revolutionise warfare. It took over ten years of experiments after WW2 to get the basics of the modern assault rifle down.

It took a few years to realise that it had made all other tanks obsolete but surely the simple fact that the Centurion did relegate the Conqueror to the dustbin shows what a good design it was?

[Logan Hartke 0]

Okay, well I heard the Mk2 went into production in Nov '45 and that it was the 20pdr versions that were going into production in 1947. The Panther was only in service in mid 1943 because it was rushed (and that showed at Kursk with half of them breaking down :P).

 

The point is that the Cents were ready much sooner than they are being given credit for. The lack of a war means any comparison based on when they are hitting the front lines is moot when discussing the actual state of thinking and design. Remember that after the end of the LLA until the start of the Marshal Plan the British economy was utterly exhausted. There was no way to sustain a massive tank programme at wartime levels. A four year lag sounds like total bunk since by '47 they were mounting the 20pdr. After four years they weren't finally caught up with the Panther, they were going beyond even it's best aspects.

So yeah, in my view the reasons for the delay to get them to the front lines are practical economic ones, not theoretical. I'm not trying to straw man the point but I do think that it is either trivial or plain wrong.

Again, you're arguing with Simon Dunstan and David Fletcher (curator of the Tank Museum at Bovington) on the matter. As far as the first 20pdr Centurions goes, they were just rolling off the production lines, not going into service. In that respect, by late 1943, the Germans were already building the first King Tigers...which also mounted a gun with performance as good as the 20pdr (the 8.8cm KwK43), so you're still 4 years behind any way you slice it when it came to comparative performance, which is all that's being said here.

 

Regarding the status of the Comet as a true cruiser: Remember that the speed on the Comet was deliberately capped to preserve the drive system. It could go faster if they took off the limiters... You can argue that the Comet wasn't really a cruiser but when it was designed even the Centurion was seen as a cruiser. At the end of the day the British designers were reasonably pragmatic and evolved their thinking with lessons learnt. Cruisers were always meant to deal with enemy mobile forces including tanks. The Comet just reflected a more practical design for mobile tank-on-tank warfare.

Well aware of the technical reasons why it had a speed reduction, but the fact that the British were willing to accept that compromise showed the devaluing of the Cruiser concept. If they still thought the idea of a tank riding in to battle other tanks at 40 mph and machine gun trucks behind the lines, AT guns and infantry be damned (which was the original idea of a Cruiser tank and the theology the Cruiser clergy such as Hobart had mistakenly put their faith in), then they'd have turned their noses up at the Centurion and not taken a second look at the blueprints.

 

The Centurion had this silly 20mm gun designed to combat those pesky AT guns and a top speed of barely 20mph. That was closer to the Valentine and Churchill infantry tanks and the Centurion didn't even have a proper suspension for high speed. The Horstmann suspension was good, but couldn't take cruiser speeds and the British knew it. The Cruiser tank proponents such as Hobart had seen their grand tanks fail in combat time and time again in the Desert while the non-Cruiser tanks such as the Matilda, Churchill, and Sherman proved their usefulness. They kept from admitting their poor judgment by labeling the Centurion a "heavy cruiser", but anyone familiar with tank design knew that they had fallen from the purer faith.

 

The Centurion was not a Cruiser tank, and it benefited from the separation from that doctrine. A top speed of 21mph may have been good enough for a Cruiser tank in 1923, but everyone from Liddell-Hart on would have considered anything under 30mph heresy.

 

The Centurion may have been the first "Universal" tank or MBT, but that was by default, not by a doctrinal shift that led to its design, at least not officially.

 

Logan Hartke

[Korona 0]

The Tortoise was wielding the 20pdr in '44, so the British had their share of monster AFVs too, but at least they knew not to put them into full production. The Panther ausf A was just going into production in late '43, so surely comparing the Cent mk2 to the ausf A requires a similar reference point, in which case late '45 seems appropriate as that is when the MkII went into production. Even granting that the MkII is nothing more than an Anglicised Panther ausf A. That puts the British two years behind the Germans, not four. Talking about production speeds is irrelevant if you are just interested in technological advancement. If there was still a war on then I am sure things would have been given a higher priority and production would have been faster.

 

The essence of the Cruiser doctrine was a tank able to exploit breaches in the enemy lines. 40mph may have been seen as necessary in the '30s but it simply wasn't. I think the Comet and Centurion are truer to that ideal than you give them credit for. Just because they have a lower than ideal top speed it doesn't mean they were unable to fulfil that strategic role of armoured spearheads making deep penetrating strikes.

[Logan Hartke 0]

The Tortoise was wielding the 20pdr in '44, so the British had their share of monster AFVs too, but at least they knew not to put them into full production. The Panther ausf A was just going into production in late '43, so surely comparing the Cent mk2 to the ausf A requires a similar reference point, in which case late '45 seems appropriate as that is when the MkII went into production. Even granting that the MkII is nothing more than an Anglicised Panther ausf A. That puts the British two years behind the Germans, not four. Talking about production speeds is irrelevant if you are just interested in technological advancement. If there was still a war on then I am sure things would have been given a higher priority and production would have been faster.

There was a similar reference point that you are ignoring. The Germans had hundreds of Panthers in service by 1943 and over a thousand had been produced by January 1, 1944. It wasn't until the start of 1947 that the British had one measly regiment of an equivalent tank design in service and it wasn't until 1948 when the 20pdr Centurion entered production (FIVE years after the King Tiger). I don't know when the British finally managed 1,000 Centurions. It may not have been until US MDAP money arrived in the late 40's. If I had to guess, based entirely off of production orders, they maybe had 1,000 Centurions by late 1948. By comparison, the US had built nearly 2,000 M26 Pershings by VJ-Day three years before.

 

 

The essence of the Cruiser doctrine was a tank able to exploit breaches in the enemy lines. 40mph may have been seen as necessary in the '30s but it simply wasn't. I think the Comet and Centurion are truer to that ideal than you give them credit for. Just because they have a lower than ideal top speed it doesn't mean they were unable to fulfil that strategic role of armoured spearheads making deep penetrating strikes.

A 21mph road speed is closer the 15mph design speed of Infantry tanks than the minimum 30mph of all Cruiser tanks that preceded it and a long way from the 40 mph of the Cromwell that was the most numerous Cruiser tank in service at the time it came out.

 

A bolt action rifle is never an assault rifle, no matter how fast you work the action or how you're using it. Same goes for a 20mph "Cruiser" tank. The British tried a 20mph "Cruiser" tank with the A10 and soon found that it was neither fast enough to be what their idea for a "Cruiser" was, nor as heavily armored as the Matilda II. When they got their dream Cruiser tanks with 30+mph top speed and sent them racing into the desert to show them how true armored warfare was fought, they found very fast that their Liddell-Hart notion of Blitzkrieg was not what the Germans practiced and when the Cruiser concept of tank warfare ran into the combined arms warfare of Blitzkrieg, they came out on the losing end time and time again.

 

After having the Germans rudely point out the deficiencies of the Crusader and the Sherman drivers in the British Army turned their noses up at the Cromwell, a few of the old Cruiser gang put their heads together and thought that maybe they'd gotten things wrong somewhere along the way (something the Russians figured out the hard way in 1941, too). Tank warfare had progressed to the point where you could have a tank with heavy armor and not have to go 7mph cross country, so they decided to cut the speed in half, double the armor, and design themselves a Centurion. It was no longer a Cruiser, but the Infantry organizations had their Churchills and so weren't in as dire need of a halfway decent tank. The Cromwell-saddled tank divisions would need something after the Lend-Lease Shermans had to be returned, so they got the "Cruiser" (*wink wink, nudge nudge*) Centurion tanks.

 

After the Churchill run in with the Gothic Line Panther turrets, the Cruiser tank guys and Infantry tank guys agreed that the other guy had some merits. The Infantry tank folks thought that a vehicle with more than a 15mph top speed and a gun that could knock out enemy tanks would be a good thing, while the Cruiser tank folks decided that they had 20mph of unnecessary speed, but would like the ability to take a hit every now and again. The combined the best of both worlds and came up with...

 

TA DA! The FV200. It fell flat on its face, and they then looked around and noticed that the answer to their prayers had been in front of them all along. The Cruiser guys had, on their own, already made those compromises and produced the darn good Centurion. The bright folks in Royal Ordnance came up with a smashing L7 105mm gun and, Bob's your uncle, you've got a world-beater.

 

Logan Hartke

[Korona 0]

British industry was anaemic, but their brain power was not. The Panther ausf D was in service mid 1943 but the ausf A on the comparison chart from the book you linked to entered production in August 1943 and incorporated lessons learnt from the debacle at Kursk. The MkII Centurion went into production in November 1945. That is 2 years and 3 months after the ausf A, a long way off 4 years...

 

Modern day Zimbabwe probably has a stronger economy than postwar Britain. Until the Marshal Plan they could barely feed themselves. If you want to talk about the pure production numbers then sure I totally agree that Britain was exhausted, but I think it is irrelevant to the discussion on military design and thinking, on which design is better for its time.

 

 

 

Regarding what is and what is not a "cruiser", well I guess the Centurion was not really a cruiser in the traditional sense. However unless I missed something I think it was projected to do the job of these tanks as an interim weapon until something better could be developed. It pays at least lip service to the idea and was an advance of the basic concept modified through iteration and lessons learned.

 

I take on board your point that really you could start almost anywhere you like, infantry tanks or whatever, and iterate them through the same process and end up with an MBT since this weapon is really the perfection of armoured warfare. One of my favourite AFVs of WW2 was the Slugger. I think you can see this weapon also converging on the same point.

[Logan Hartke 0]

One of my favourite AFVs of WW2 was the Slugger. I think you can see this weapon also converging on the same point.

Agreed. I'm also glad to see someone else calling it the Slugger. Everyone else incorrectly calls it the Jackson. That was technically only the name for the M36B2 and it was a postwar name bestowed upon the vehicle. I think that M4A3s with the M36 turret (M36B1) would have been better than the M36 in combat and much better than the M4A3 in most situations. Not bad for a hybrid.

 

For the record, the Centurion is my favorite major tank of the Cold War. It was just such a bulldog of a tank and acquitted itself well in every war it fought in. It may not have been the best in the world at all times, but it wouldn't let you down.

 

Logan Hartke

[flyby 0]

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All had their strengths and weaknesses. The British had the smallest industry and were the worst when it came to "design by committee", so their equipment would be designed well but would often have compromises and be the last on the battlefield of anyone's. The US was always following someone's lead (be it German, British, or Russian) and suffered from having their factories thousands of miles from the battlefield, but when it got to the battlefield, it would work and work well. The Germans were technophiles and would have the most advanced designs at the expense of practicality, reliability, and affordability. The Soviets had the biggest army, so had to make design and efficiency compromises in order to keep things affordable and interfere with production the least.

 

The six tanks (Panther, Tiger II, M26, Centurion, IS-2, and IS-3) are a reflection of these differences.

 

Logan Hartke

 

First thing i can observe is that the vehicles do not really have the same time frame. War time years do make a far bigger difference as the pace of development is drastically accelerated. So comparing them isn't quite "honest"...

 

Another point is that each of the countries had a different environment (strategically, economically, politically) in which the development took place. These do have an impact on the design possibilities that is often overlooked.

 

a final question mark ; what are we actually looking for, by comparing them?

I put question marks when comparing vehicles and designs that do not have the same "environment conditions". It is not a straightforward exercise, as these external factors often have a profound impact on the final result...

 

And how do we look back on WWII tank development? Through the perspective of late 20th century tank development? all judgement we have on that period is always clouded by our current perspectives...

 

Now, back to the topic...

I do tend to agree with the general notion of the above statement, but i do not wish to end this in a better/worse scenario..

 

I have little knowledge on the Centurion, so I’ll steer clear of commenting anything on that, although my general impression of the British tank development is one of a rather stiff and difficult bureaucratic decision making organisation, that suffered from internal competition and self interests...

 

I have no knowledge on Russian tank development at all. All I can say is that the IS-3 did indeed hold some of the key elements that became the development direction of the 60-70 and 80's...

 

I can however compare US tank development and the German tank designs...

Germany started with a clear advantage in tank designing at the beginning of the war, especially on the organisational and technical aspect. But somewhere along the road that advantage got diluted and eventually squandered....

By reading the book on Kummerdorpf, one of the main German testing grounds, I got a clear insight on how German design and testing philosophy changed during the war.

Germany was the first to have a very rigorous military testing program. Just as the later USA testing programs it was a very methodological approach and resulted in excellent end results. It was completely in hands of the military... but then things started to change when the nazi's got control over the army. An ever growing political influencing started to interfere with the normal process of testing and decision-making. It completely eroded the quality control system of the German army. Once the testing grounds in hands of the nazi's, you also saw several manufacturers shortcutting the normal testing procedures and get their approval directly from nazi high command. The testing program then became a mere formality and results got deliberately skewed to suit political agendas.

The Panther program already suffered from this political interference and was pushed into production way too early, long before the any rigorous testing was performed. With catastrophic results, which gave the early panther versions a bad reputation…

 

One of the weaknesses of the German tank development is the lack of including the strategic situation of Germany in their concepts. Mid war tank engineering lived in a bubble, disconnected from any reality. Understandable, in a way, as at that point Nazism, with their arrogance of being superior, was intolerant to any criticism on strategic (resource) decisions. In combination with the shortcutting manufacturers, this leaded to excesses and wasted energy in tank design.

 

By the time German quality control started to slide into oblivion, Americans had rewritten their obsolete tank doctrines and installed a similar rigorous quality program…

But where the German testing programs started to falter, due to political interference, the Americans were able to keep any political interference out of the system. As a result their testing parameters were held high and as Logan correctly indicated, only the best functioning designs were put into production.

what's more, Americans were very sensitive to the strategical/economical aspects of tank design. Combined with their impressive production capacities, it became one of the key elements in winning the war....

The reversal in the german production mentality came too late and the by then, the increased pressure to produce more tanks, seriously hindered any tank development... Jenz's "panzer tracts" is full of design variations and testprograms that never made it due to cramped production capabilities... (like the sloped Pz IV fe)

 

US development somehow lacks a certain degree of continuity; where as in German design there seems to be a more progressive approach.

I’m not sure what is best, tbh…

I’m inclined to say that American design was, because it just had overthrown its old tank doctrines, was still trying to discover what would work best. However, that uncertainty did not prevent them to formulate adequate design requirements and pick out the best design that suited those tasks.

It took them till the development of the Abrhams to really find an answer to the Russian tank design.

We’ll never truly know to what German tank design would have been capable off for the late 50s and 60’s, were it not for the catastrophic nazi interference and the simple fact they lost the war, leaving the country completely in ruins….

 

All I can notice is that 3 of the 4 nations were heavily involved in research big nasty machines, either during the war (Germany) as post-war (USA and UK)… a path that turned out to be a dead-end in tank designing…