[WW] Re: British Tanks

[Michael Robert Blair <pellinoire@yahoo.com>]

Most British tanks were badly under gunned. The
Matilda II had excellent armour for an early war tank
- it took an 8.8cm Flak to do the job properly but
only a 2-pdr gun.

This continued for a good while, the Churchill had
good armour but again a small gun - a 6-pdr this time
I think and the turret ring was to small to allow an
easy upgrade. It was big and roomy enough to make a
good engineer tank so many 'funnies' were made on
Churchills.

The best thing they did tank wise was to shoehorn the
17-pdr AT gun into a Sherman turret this finally gave
the Western allies a decent AT gun in a tank - the
Americans had cancelled their heavy tank and showed
little interest in upgunning the Sherman from the 75mm
which was by then showing it's age. The 76mm was still
not really enough.

I think this can be blamed on an unrealistic
distinction between tanks and tank destroyers in the
US army (no sillier than the British scheme of Cruiser
and Infantry tanks).

The first really good British tank of WW II was the
Centurion, and only a few made it there in the final
days for testing.


Michael

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