British Tank Development.

Discussion in 'Weapons, Technology & Equipment' started by von Poop, Feb 21, 2022.

  1. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    1) There was zero excuse for being surprised by the Germans handling their AT guns in this manner. See this thread: Employment of the armored division. - Axis History Forum "Meanwhile, the motorized antitank guns have been closely following the first echelon, and it is now their mission to take up positions for supporting their own tanks when combat against the enemy’s armoured vehicles is initiated. During the combat between tanks our own artillery is displaced forward." This was from September 1940 and written in a paper that was accessible to British intelligence.

    It is also noteworthy that when the Germans did not bring their AT guns to bear, they could be and were stopped. See e.g. my article on the attack by KG Stephan on 8 Hussars. (the article is far more complete and referenced than the blog entry and has better maps) http://rommelsriposte.com/2022/07/29/8-hussars-against-panzerregiment-5-19-november-1941/ - this is despite Gatehouse making pretty much every mistake in the book and some that weren't even written down. I make the reason for success a mix of 8 Hussars, despite being cavalry, knowning pretty well what they were doing and not needing redlegs to help them, and KG Stephan and higher command levels in Panzergruppe being too full of themselves and wearing blinders.

    2) That didn't happen in CRUSADER, at all. It was a consequence of i) the pretty universal view after Rommel's counteroffensive in January (contrary to popular belief, CRUSADER didn't give rise to this belief, and certainly BATTLEAXE did not) that the 2-pdr had become obsolete, and ii) a lack of 6-pdrs. http://rommelsriposte.com/2015/12/13/2-pdr/

    3) Is of course linked to 2) to an extent, but the argument he presents is skating over the fact that on a battlefield with the extent and nature of combat of the Western Desert, a central artillery command is close to pointless if you are not willing/able to fight a centralised battle, as 8 Army Command clearly wasn't (willing or able). We have a term for that in German "harnessing the horse from the wrong end" and I submit this is what Carver is doing here. The lack of mediums was real however, and a severe artillery weakness of the Allied forces. Maybe more of them would have helped. Maybe not. http://rommelsriposte.com/2011/06/15/8th-army-medium-artillery-stats-12-february-1942/

    Whichever way you turn in this maze, you end up at a failure of doctrine and command, not equipment.

    All the best

    Andreas
     
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  2. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Carver notes and deplores that the (too few, too obsolete) medium guns available to 8th Army at Gazala were distributed to XIII and XXX Corps and "hardly ever brought together to produce an intense concentration of fire." By contrast, Carver says, Rommel kept his heavy stuff together under Artillerie OK 104 and used it en masse. One sees here (I see here) in British artillery tactics exactly the same problem as in British armored and infantry tactics, the tendency to disperse forces and to think too small.
     
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  3. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Yes, but Nelson commanded a force which was superior in command, training, and tactics to the enemy. Davy didn't.
     
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  4. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    There's an element of truth to this, but it's still wrong.

    Rommel's heavy stuff was really what the Royal Artillery would call 'superheavy' later (>5.2"), while a lot of heavy guns/howitzers (>4") were dispersed throughout commands.

    Concentrating them would not have solved the key problem of getting them to where they were needed when they were needed anyway. Longer travel would have made them more vulnerable too, potentially reducing already small numbers further. Swings and roundabouts.

    Carver seems to be using 1944 lessons here to retroactively fix a different battle in his head. Just because this worked in Normandy doesn't mean it would have worked at Gazala.

    All the best

    Andreas
     
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  5. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I didn't mean his comment was a smart one, only echoing Nelson. I think it was a profoundly stupid thing to say, which could easily lead unsupported tanks to get uselessly knocked out and kill who knows how many men.
     
  6. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    I believe his ships were also slightly inferior to the ones he was fighting.
     
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  7. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    I had quite a long discussion with MarkN back in the day about the differences in the employment of German and British anti-tank guns in the purely defensive role. It appears to have been the case that German anti-tank guns were invariably deployed in stopping positions (Pakfronts) that would remain in position until either the British tank force was halted or they themselves were overrun. The British approach seems to have been more about warding off or delaying German armoured attacks rather than stopping or destroying them, such that when things got too "hot" the British anti-tank guns would scoot. Hence the genesis of the 2 pounder portee, which was expressly designed to bugger off in a hurry.

    MarkN thought that the British refusal to employ anti-tank guns as stops was an overlooked component of their failure on the battlefield, and that this had not been investigated anything like as thoroughly as it should have been.
     
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  8. JohnB

    JohnB Junior Member

    Operational Research (WO 291/1186) concluded post-war that in North Africa enemy anti-tank guns caused 40% of British tank losses whilst tanks caused 38% of losses.
    Much less of a difference than I expected.

    I think two of the artillery's failures Carver gave there can fairly be put down to the obsolescence of the main anti-tank gun they had to use.
     
  9. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    Would be interested to see how they figured that out, as the 5cm tank and anti-tank guns punched indistinguishable holes. I don't understand how they would have been able to arrive at any level of certainty post-war when the primary reports did not make a distinction.

    Screen Shot 2022-08-01 at 6.06.55 PM.jpg

    Really only a problem for six months in 1942 - the obsolescence prior wasn't, and after the 6-pdr came in.

    All the best

    Andreas
     
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  10. JeremyC

    JeremyC Well-Known Member

    I thought that while some French ships had better sailing qualities, that was because the Royal Navy built better fighting ships . . . ?? (But it's a while since I read anything on that particular subject).
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2022
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  11. Juha

    Juha Junior Member

    The biggest ships at Trafalgar were Spanish; one with 136 guns and two with 112 guns, the most powerful RN ship present was Nelson's HMS Victory, 104 guns.
     
  12. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    Also don't forget that the Death Star was taken out by a single X-wing fighter.
     
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  13. JeremyC

    JeremyC Well-Known Member

    And this is a thread about British (WW2) Tank Development.
     
  14. BFBSM

    BFBSM Very Senior Member

    I wondered when you would notice!
     
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  15. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    To get back to the subject at hand...

    Some things puzzle me. Granted, a gun of 37mm-40mm bore isn't going to throw a very effective HE round. Nicholas Moran said the typical bursting charge for something like that would be about equivalent to a hand grenade. Still, if you are in a cruiser tank attacking some enemy infantry and/or AT guns, wouldn't you be glad of the opportunity to at least lob some grenades into the enemy foxholes and gun pits? All right, a cruiser tank is supposed to fight enemy tanks. Let's ignore for a moment the possibility that it might have to fight something else too on a real battlefield. In the case of a cruiser tank it might just be possible to make out a case for providing the tank's gun with AP shot or AP-HE only. But an infantry tank? An infantry tank's job is to support infantry against enemy infantry, and in that role an HE round, however light, would surely be useful. What was the thinking here? Was it expected that the co-ax MG would do all that was necessary against enemy infantry and AT guns? Also, did any other armored force issue its tanks with AP ammo only? The Germans didn't, the US Army didn't, and I don't think the French did either.
     
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  16. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    So far as I can tell, the machine gun(s) were intended to be sufficient for the infantry support role.
     
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  17. DogDodger

    DogDodger Active Member

    FWIW, Fletcher says of the thinking during the Matilda's development: "In view of the [A12] tank's proposed role there were some who would have preferred to see it mounting a weapon capable of firing high explosive (HE) rounds. But the official argument was that these tanks were there to protect the infantry from enemy tanks, and at that time the 2-pdr was the best anti-tank gun in the world."

    Of interest is that, in addition to no HE shells, British crews were supplied with no AP ammo for their machine guns, which made AT guns protected by shields that much harder to deal with. Someone named P.M. Knight talks about users' desire for HE the main guns and AP for machine guns in a book about the Crusader.
     
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  18. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    As Chris C notes, the MG was supposed to do the job, which of course it couldn't against armoured AT gun shields. There were calls from the field for HE even for the 2-pdr as pointed out above, and AP-HE (when available) was used for this. There's a lot of production info on the 2-pdr rounds in the comments here: http://rommelsriposte.com/2015/12/10/2-pdr-he-rounds-again/

    But sometimes what's not written down is more interesting, and if you look here at the comparison made to the M3, there's no mention of 'and we really love the M3 37mm gun becomes it comes with HE rounds that enable us to fight soft targets and guns more effectively.' http://rommelsriposte.com/2014/09/29/an-assessment-of-the-m3-stuart-tank/

    All the best

    Andreas
     
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  19. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    Yeah but what does he know? :whistle:

    All the best

    Andreas
     
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  20. Don Juan

    Don Juan Well-Known Member

    There was also the 3" howitzer which was fitted to a proportion of Matildas and Crusaders, but the British prioritised this as a smoke weapon, so the CS tanks carried 2/3 smoke ammunition to 1/3 HE. After 1942 the Soviets stipulated that they would only accept any further Matildas if they had the 3" howitzers, and guess what? The Soviets insisted on carrying an overwhelming majority of HE ammunition.

    This is another path not taken - what if the British had used their CS tanks more widely and aggressively?
     
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