Bad Tanks

Discussion in 'Weapons, Technology & Equipment' started by von Poop, Oct 6, 2018.

  1. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Thanks!

    I love the three bank Caddy engine in the Sentinel, especially the welded plate crankcase.

    Perrier-Cadillac 41-75 Tank Engine
     
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  2. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Well, they did get a 17 pounder into a Sentinel. I've seen a picture of it. Not only that, before they tried the 17 on it they even tested two 25 pounders in a side-by-side mount in the same turret.
     
  3. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    The Twin 25 (Which, if I recall, had 'issues' with recoil) :
    sentac4proto.jpg

    The 17:
    P03498.009-640x521.jpg

    I couldn't file the Sentinel under 'bad'.
    'Towering national achievement under difficult circumstances', maybe, but not bad.
    Strategically, the Aussies could not know if the Pacific fighting would turn towards them, & with Japan never short of belligerence & external supply initially uncertain it made sense to start on 'something'. Far from perfect, but really rather good considering beginning from a base of pretty much zero. If invasion had ever come they'd only have to be better than whatever the Japanese fielded. They probably would have been.


    I'd like to enter the A7E1 Medium.
    14 tons. 3 crew in the turret, all seated, wireless, all so far so OK for the time (early 30s).
    Even the driver's left-hand view being totally obscured by an MG & terrible engine reliability could perhaps be forgiven. Clever but weak suspension too.
    But... the only way of getting in & out of the hull, was by a large hatch in the front plate.
    The front plate... Where the enemy would be. Where much of the rigidity lies in narrow thinly-armoured boxes. Where the opposition might be most likely to shoot at.
    It might just have been another footnote in the gradual march towards better machines, but that front hatch is special. Maybe even unique?

    a7e1.jpg
     
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  4. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Aside from Moran's comments about the Sentinel's turret ergonomics being terrible, I'm not sure the Sentinel actually belongs on any "top 5 worst tanks" list.
     
  5. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    A frontal hatch!? You have got to be kidding.
     
  6. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake All over the place....

    The British army verdict was that it was unbattleworthy. The blurb for the book includes some lovely euphemisms. "designed for home service" meant "unsuitable for deployment in the theatres where we needed tanks" I don't think anyone commissioned a tank purely for home service.

    David Fletcher cites the separation of the radiator and engine as a fundamental design flaw. I can see his point. I would not like to be in an AFV with hot coolant pipes passing through the crew compartment. This alone rendered it unsuitable for deployment in North Africa

    What are the benefits of this design?
     
  7. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Re.

    "It would have been interesting to see how it would have got on in the event of an invasion, but alas we'll never know."

    That's quite a long way to go to test a tank tho ;-)
     
  8. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    Well, the Covenanter was cleared for use in hot climates, and six of them were sent to Tunisia in January 1943 as the Brigade Headquarters for 25th Tank Brigade. Sadly they were lost, along with a large number of Churchills, when the convoy was attacked off the coast of Algeria by I/KG 26. So there's a learning for you there.

    Otherwise, it's not my job to spoon feed you with knowledge that you are clearly unwilling to discover yourself.
     
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  9. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    Oh absolutely. But if the Covenanters had provided an effective last line of defence, we would be rhapsodising about them the same way we do Spitfires.
     
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  10. rick wedlock

    rick wedlock Member

    having an intimate knowledge of the covenanter i'd like to come out and defend it. in my opinion it was a very large leap forward for tank design when compared to it's predecessors. it had the same gun, turret, running gear, gearbox and hull as crusader (but was one road wheel shorter) and it's this short hull that lead to it's problems. it's a miracle they managed to shoe horn all that in such a small hull. there is no room at all in the engine compartment for rads and fans, infact the engine timing case projects into the fighting compartment and forms part of the bulkhead, quite a clever design. it was the short hull that lead to the rads and fan being in the front of the tank and although i don't know for sure i assume this was down to the specification from the tank board. i don't see how they could have done it differently without raising the the height of the engine deck and having rads above the gearbox like cent and cheiftain but this would have ruined the low profile.
    now don't get me wrong, i know it's not perfect, access for maintenance is poor and the steering controls are complicated and require a good level of skill to operate well. it's also a bit of a maintenance heavy tank and the crews would certainly have been busy on their halt parades which might be one reason why it was so unpopular but i can think of worse tanks at the time ie. matilda 1or maybe i'm just a little biased :)
     
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  11. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake All over the place....

    You have not answered the question I asked.

    I forgive your rather rude comment about spoon feeding. Its a face saver. There no cogent reasoned explanation of why the design was a good idea. Fundamentally David Fletcher the RAC centre staff member was right. Covenanter tank enthusiasts are the equivalent of the Austin Allegro fan club.

    I have spend some time working in AFVs in temperate and hot climates. I would not want to go on operations with hot coolant pipes around the fighting compartment and can understand why usually radiators are sited close to the engines they cool and why the separation might cause problems.

    Six tanks looks like a field trial - as mentioned in the HMSO Great Tank Scandal. Covenantor did not serve in North Africa and after the six you mentioned were sunk, no one wanted them enough for any more to be sent.

    Lets face it David Fletcher was right. It was a poor design that crept into full scale production because Britain needed tanks after Dunkirk. There was a lot of pressure to meet the numbers for tank production - even if no one wanted the tanks not even the Russians. Even allowing for the changes to the design that Fletcher mentioned in the video there were flaws with the hatch design, steering and most of all the cooling system. By the time these were even half way rectified this 1938 design was obsolete. It was lunacy to continue the Covenantor in production through 1942.

    Covenantor is a case study in how a bad design gets into service. See also Ross rifle...
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2018
  12. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    At least ONE Covenanter got to Egypt.
    Go to IWM site & the photo is zoomable.

    [​IMG]

    THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA 1942. © IWM (E 22739) IWM Non Commercial License

    Newly-arrived Royal Armoured Corps troops working on a variety of tank types at a training camp near Abbasia in Egypt, 2 March 1943. In the foreground are a Valentine and Stuart tank, with Crusaders and more Valentines behind. On the right is a Covenanter tank, perhaps the only example of its kind to have arrived in North Africa.
     
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  13. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    But this response just outlines why there was no point in wasting energy in giving you a detailed reply. You have made up your mind on the Covenanter. That's fair enough, you are welcome to your opinion. But a debate requires both sides to be open in their views, and I have spent long enough on internet forums to be aware when that situation does not pertain.
     
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  14. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Possibly as many as six shipped out. Certainly 4. (I think... memory.)
    III & IV were approved for front line use, I think?

    That Meadows flat 12 was a beast by contemporary terms, a locally produced beast that would put less stress on air production than most other contemporary high-power engines & promised actual cruiser speed for Cruiser tanks in a low profile (if wide) package.
    Hard to blame anyone for making the attempt as the potential reward was high, & with so many unconventional engineering ideas eventually being successfully worked out I don't see attempting the 'long distance' cooling as that surprising. It was the only way to fit that fat engine into the A13 & if successful would have been a rather useful tank.
    Imagine the dispirited engineer who had to go back to first-war derived Liberty engines for the A15s. Halved speed?, and their own set of persistent issues.

    Covenanter - Indeed, hardly a roaring success, but a far more interesting & complex story than it's perhaps given credit for.
    Everything is complex... imagine!
     
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  15. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    There were actually eleven Covenanters that were sent to the Middle East/North Africa.

    The first was a single Covenanter III which was sent in November 1941 along with a Tetrarch and a Daimler armoured car. These were all intended to be tested by the Mechanization Experimental Establishment (MEE) at Abbassia, but unfortunately the Ministry of Supply did not send any spare parts for any of them, so the testing was quickly curtailed. This is part of the reason why the Covenanter and Tetrach did not serve in that theatre, and the Daimler only entered service comparatively late.

    A further four were sent in July 1942, this consisting of three Covenanter III's and a single Covenanter IV. Two of these undertook reliability trials at the MEE, and did quite well, achieving 1000 miles without any major defects. The Covenanter appears to have been cleared for Middle East use around Sept 1942, as it starts to appear in the speed limit tables that were issued in the theatre.

    The final six (almost certainly Covenanter IV's) were the aforementioned tanks of 25th Tank Brigade, which were burnt out in the ship, but unloaded at Oran.

    It's also the case that one of the brigades of 9th Armoured Division were due to take their Covenanter III's to the Middle East in April 1942, but this was cancelled due to a production shortage of the appropriate square section axle arms that were designed to carry the weight of the Covenanter III, which was about two tons heavier than the Covenanter I. All of this info is in zee book.
     
  16. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Zee book, that I'm now staring at despite having sworn off more books this month. Thanks...

    I'm changing tack a little & asking: KV2 bad?
    Nice pic of one under new management:
    kv-2_a_road_sign-e1370793572305.jpg

    hard to fault the KV chassis, though all that weight crippled even that reliable base, and it might have been fine as simply a mobile artillery piece (apparently as long as you parked it on level ground, as the traverse is said not to have coped with the weight on anything else), but they seem to have envisioned it in that 'assault' mode that the SUs were quite handy at.

    I do try and be reasonable about slagging things off. Most came from serious people with serious intent, but I just can't imagine what the chaps behind the KV2 were thinking. (I do speculate that Stalinist officialdom might play a role in it perhaps being hard to cancel a project without losing face once you realise it's coming out as the size of a small dacha.)
    Trouble is. I usually have to qualify thoughts on Soviet tanks with words like 'might', 'Said not to', 'Seem to have' etc., as I don't really have truly useful reference on anything other than T34 (& even that can get partisan).

    Had it's moments:
    But... As far as I can tell. No.


    T35 will doubtless show it's turrets here soonish as well.
     
  17. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I thought I read somewhere of a KV2's turret falling off while driving up a slope, but I'm probably misremembering.

    As far as the Covenanter goes, I have the book but I have to get to it. However... I'm not sure how useful they would have been in the desert in April 1942. I suppose they might have worked in the reconnaissance role, the way some Crusaders in mixed units were employed, but the 2-pounder gun was not very useful at that point.
     
  18. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake All over the place....

    Tank #5 the Charioteer is interesting. It wasn't well enough armoured to be a good tank. However, it could have met the specification for a British M36 TD. It is an M10 (+) with the recommendations in the anti tank tactical notes Annex C of RA Branch 21 Army Group WD July 1944 (WO171/155 .i.e. overhead cover, a periscope and a coaxial machine gun.

    If we had to fight the Red Army in the late 1940s it would have been a decent equipment for the Anti-tank Regiments
     
  19. idler

    idler GeneralList

    Re: Covenanter: putting aside the route of the pipework, I can't really see why the separation between the engine and the radiators would necessarily be a big deal if it's been designed to work. Once the hot coolant's left the engine does itimatter where it goes as long as it's replaced by cooler coolant?

    Also, would front mounted rads have offered an advantage from drawing cleaner air than at the back?

    You'd think only four potential casualties in a crew and radiators offering more protection than an occasionally-useful bow gunner would have been further selling points.
     
  20. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    The radiator and pipework also functions as an automatic sprinkler system.

    The cooling issues with the Covenanter emerged from the fact that the Covenanter III was supposed to be the initial production model, with the Covenanter I being made obsolete as they couldn't find a production source for the complex Wilson combined gearbox and steering system. However, in the rush after Dunkirk, they had to put the transmission system for the Covenanter III in the body of the Covenanter I just to get tanks out of the factory. It wasn't the location of the radiators that was to blame. That said, I don't think this layout was ever adopted again, so it is a bit of a historical freak.

    I think the choices in that video are a bit odd really. The Charioteer only existed to provide mobile anti-tank guns due to the delays in the Conqueror programme, so it wasn't as if anyone was surprised with what they got. The Black Prince was slow, but not especially slow compared to previous Infantry tanks. The Covenanter was meh, OK. The Valiant was not representative of the production machine, as the version tested was delivered to the FVPE 18 months after the project was cancelled, so there was no incentive for the contractors to do a worthwhile job. Dunno much about the amphibious tank, but if it actually managed to float then it achieved its object. The video should really have been called "5 Tanks That Didn't Really Surprise Anybody."
     

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