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Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
In late 1944 here is the list of vehicles that had realistic chances of dealing with Panthers and Tigers at decent ranges

Soviet:
*IS tank- lets blow that turrent right off Comrade
*KV/IS 155 - The first cat killer. Lets blow that turret off and send flying high so high, and also wipe out the company surrounding it.
*SU-85. a little aging but still can do the job.
*SU100. Oh yea, as they say on Forged in Fire, This...will KEEEL.
*T34/85. Not as good a punch as the 76mm/777/17 lber, but works.

US/British:
M10: 3 inch predecessor of the 76mm
M4/76mm: bang bang. Later studies support this over both the Firefly and T34/85 based on penetration, rate of fire and accuracy (overall, 17lber more penetrative but less accurate).
17lber Firefly. Not accurate at distant, but 500 yards or under, very lethal with that sabot round.
M36 Jackson. 90mm love comparable to the Tiger I's 88mm.
M18/bulldog. 76mm bang bang if you're ready to shoot and scoot fast.

Allied tanks coming into service last Qtr 1944/early 1945:
*Comet with the 77 (tweaked 17 lber).
*Pershing with 90mm.
*Pershing with 90mm long barrel equal to Tiger II's 88
*Centurion.
*Tortoise heavy heavy heavy assault tank. Britain's answer to all things German.
(The Brits got their act together and weren't messing around yowsa)
Did I miss any?

The Tortoise certainly was not messing about... 32 pounder gun, 90mm with a 250mm armour plan coming in at 80 tons or nearly.

Tested at reliable vs a panther at 1000 yards. They definitely went all out to build a tough tank killer. It's a British JagTiger.

Forgot maybe thr black Prince. A modified Churchill with 17 pounder guns. The 17 pounder could hurt a heavy German tank.

Were the Princes going into production? I thought they had gone with the Comet to be followed with Centurion (which would have been an angry wiener dog among the cats).

 Frazzled wrote:
Were the Princes going into production? I thought they had gone with the Comet to be followed with Centurion (which would have been an angry wiener dog among the cats).

Oh yeah, got replaced by Centurion and the Comet line of tanks.

I misread the wiki page it seems.

Black Prince was just too slow and at the end of the war there were better alternatives. The Tortoise you mentioned earlier also didn’t leave the UK until after the war so never got close to combat.

The tank you missed was the Challenger, fitted with a 17pdr, it was faster than a Firefly and suited to Cromwell units where it could keep up with the same pace. They made a few hundred for D-Day but going onwards in the war it was just easier to refit Shermans as Fireflys than to produce new vehicles.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Black Prince was just too slow and at the end of the war there were better alternatives. The Tortoise you mentioned earlier also didn’t leave the UK until after the war so never got close to combat.

The tank you missed was the Challenger, fitted with a 17pdr, it was faster than a Firefly and suited to Cromwell units where it could keep up with the same pace. They made a few hundred for D-Day but going onwards in the war it was just easier to refit Shermans as Fireflys than to produce new vehicles.

I saw they never used it. Its role never came up..

A super heavy assult gun built to be singleminded heavily armoured and armed sledgehammer against fixed positions.

The line or was meant to attack, like many German lines had been stripped to use on the Eastern, not western fronts.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Black Prince was just too slow and at the end of the war there were better alternatives. The Tortoise you mentioned earlier also didn’t leave the UK until after the war so never got close to combat.

The tank you missed was the Challenger, fitted with a 17pdr, it was faster than a Firefly and suited to Cromwell units where it could keep up with the same pace. They made a few hundred for D-Day but going onwards in the war it was just easier to refit Shermans as Fireflys than to produce new vehicles.

Thanks. I thought there was a British one I missed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can someone help me out. How did the covenant/Challenger tanks relate to the Chu rchill tanks? We're both in service at the same time or how did that work?

Also how does that relate to the later comet/centurion?

 Frazzled wrote:
Sorry typing from phone. Auto correct is brutal

All good

Your scenario is very correct if things go right if they run into a prepared defense.

As the old joke went. Shoot a round at a noise. If you get accurate counterfire it's British. If you get lots of auto it's German. If nothing happens for two minutes and then artillery starts dropping on your position, it's GIs.

That's good, I'll remember that. There needs to be others. 'If they start surrendering to you they're Italian.'


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jhe90 wrote:
The fire fly -17 pounder was flipped on side, and they cut down parts of the recoiil system to make it work in a turret. It was as original form too large and did not have lengh to fully recoil.with modifications it could work, we had to adapt it to use in tanks.

It sacraficed a little power but it also greatly boosted the fore power of a Sherman to dent big cats the 76mm could not.

The point is it didn't. The 17pdr wasn't more potent than the US 76mm. Field test give the advantage to the 76mm in almost all circumstances, with the 17pdr sabot round only being notably superior at ranges where the SABOT was really inaccurate... the result of which is that you basically have to call it a wash - both guns were more than enough at reasonable combat ranges, and if meeting the enemy at very long range both tanks were much better off closing the distance instead of duking it out.

Allied tanks where catching up.

Soviet wise a heavy stalin tank was coming with maybe a 100mm gun in 1945 that scared the allies.

What do you mean 'maybe'? SU-100 was in use for the whole of 1945. In fact I think it might have been before then, in late 1944 the Russians had them. In addition to that, if we look at guns lacking AP rounds, then we can start looking at the host of Russian vehicles carrying 120mm and 155mm guns - when they land on enemy tanks you don't need the AP because the explosion is so huge it does the job anyway.

Anyhow, point is war planning didn't work like you're assuming. People didn't pick single enemy designs with impressive sounding specs and panic. Because those scary sounding mega-tanks were rare and typically focused on specialist tasks.

For instance, the US had 76mm Shermans built and ready for deployment before Normandy. The US field commanders didn't want them, they didn't want so many of their tanks reducing their HE capacity, and they didn't want to logistics issues of running tanks with entirely different ammo. They knew about Panthers, they'd faced them in Italy, but they thought they were just another heavy design rarely seen like the Tiger. You don't redesign the design of your whole armour Such rare designs can be beaten by simply not feeding them tanks, instead you have infantry flank it, or spot artillery on to its head.

It was only when they landed in France and found Panthers a lot more common than expected that they decided to incorporate the 76mm Shermans. And Patton only decided to take Shermans with 76mm after Arracourt, where he inflicted a heavy spanking on the German tanks. So even without a tank able to duke it out with German Panthers and Tigers he still whooped them.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Black Prince was just too slow and at the end of the war there were better alternatives. The Tortoise you mentioned earlier also didn’t leave the UK until after the war so never got close to combat.

The tank you missed was the Challenger, fitted with a 17pdr, it was faster than a Firefly and suited to Cromwell units where it could keep up with the same pace. They made a few hundred for D-Day but going onwards in the war it was just easier to refit Shermans as Fireflys than to produce new vehicles.

Thanks. I thought there was a British one I missed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can someone help me out. How did the covenant/Challenger tanks relate to the Chu rchill tanks? We're both in service at the same time or how did that work?

Also how does that relate to the later comet/centurion?

They’re all part of the cruiser tank series of development. You’ll notice similarities in the chassis of the Cromwell through to Centurion. Churchill wasn’t part of this development series being a heavy tank.

The early cruiser tanks are a bit forgotten about now like the A9 and A10 but their chassis was used in things like the Valentine which was greatly used, and a few other vehicles like the Bishop. The A13 tank chassis led to the famous A15 Crusader. Covenantor tank was contemporary with Crusader but had all sorts of problems and likely saw no action at all and was scrapped after s few hundred made. A9-13 were used early war in France 1940, some made it to the early Africa campaign. Around this time my grandfather was training on Vickers MkII medium tanks built in the 20s.

Africa campaign was a mix of Valentines, Crusaders, Grant, Matilda II and Churchill. My grandfather worked on them all I think. Churchill was introduced mid war and mostly used in Africa and Italy. Also Europe too after D-Day but some were used as AVRE variants and the Crocidile flame thrower. Churchils were used through to the end of the war in all theatres but wouldn’t have shared a combat unit with Cromwells as they were much slower.

A30 Challengers were produced early 1944 onwards in time for D-Day but then replaced by the easier to make Firefly. The Challenger rather resembles an A27 Cromwell tank with a stretched hull and extra wheel. They still had 200 and these joined Cromwell units which they fitted in well with because of their similarities. The much up gunned Comet (A34) was superior again and replaced the Cromwell units, meaning 17pdr support in the form of Challenger/Firefly was redundant. But Comet didn’t appear on battlefields until very late ‘44 so Cromwell units had to work until the end. Comet led to the Centurion.

Cromwell, Comets, Centurions and some Churchill’s saw service in the Korean war.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Covenantor tank was contemporary with Crusader but had all sorts of problems and likely saw no action at all and was scrapped after s few hundred made.

Nearly 1,800 although almost none left the British Isles as they were judged unfit for overseas service and were declared obsolete in 1944, according to Wikipedia.

I like the Matilda II and Char B1bis in addition to all the others mentioned, partly because I have a bit of a soft spot for the earlier tanks which often get overlooked in favour of the later war ones.

Matilda II gave the Germans a bit of a shock in France as they were mostly immune to German guns. Most people think it was always the other way around but early war the Germans were relying on light tanks.

I thought about 300 Covenanters were made not 1800! Another tank we built and never sent abroad was the Cavalier, a Cromwell variant. Another that comes to mind was the Churchill gun tank, turning the Churchill into an assault gun, but redundant when Firefly and Challenger were faster and had turrets. These didn’t leave the UK either and a few rusted hulks are all that remain today.

It seems a lot for a tank that looks like it was pretty flawed from the outset, but as the production started after the collapse of the BEF I'm guessing a good portion of them were ordered in the invasion panic of 1940 when the UK was desperate for anything, although apparently production was continued for some time afterwards which does seem quite a waste of resources to produce so many tanks which were acknowledged to be poor from the start.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Black Prince was just too slow and at the end of the war there were better alternatives. The Tortoise you mentioned earlier also didn’t leave the UK until after the war so never got close to combat.

The tank you missed was the Challenger, fitted with a 17pdr, it was faster than a Firefly and suited to Cromwell units where it could keep up with the same pace. They made a few hundred for D-Day but going onwards in the war it was just easier to refit Shermans as Fireflys than to produce new vehicles.

Thanks. I thought there was a British one I missed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can someone help me out. How did the covenant/Challenger tanks relate to the Chu rchill tanks? We're both in service at the same time or how did that work?

Also how does that relate to the later comet/centurion?

They’re all part of the cruiser tank series of development. You’ll notice similarities in the chassis of the Cromwell through to Centurion. Churchill wasn’t part of this development series being a heavy tank.

The early cruiser tanks are a bit forgotten about now like the A9 and A10 but their chassis was used in things like the Valentine which was greatly used, and a few other vehicles like the Bishop. The A13 tank chassis led to the famous A15 Crusader. Covenantor tank was contemporary with Crusader but had all sorts of problems and likely saw no action at all and was scrapped after s few hundred made. A9-13 were used early war in France 1940, some made it to the early Africa campaign. Around this time my grandfather was training on Vickers MkII medium tanks built in the 20s.

Africa campaign was a mix of Valentines, Crusaders, Grant, Matilda II and Churchill. My grandfather worked on them all I think. Churchill was introduced mid war and mostly used in Africa and Italy. Also Europe too after D-Day but some were used as AVRE variants and the Crocidile flame thrower. Churchils were used through to the end of the war in all theatres but wouldn’t have shared a combat unit with Cromwells as they were much slower.

A30 Challengers were produced early 1944 onwards in time for D-Day but then replaced by the easier to make Firefly. The Challenger rather resembles an A27 Cromwell tank with a stretched hull and extra wheel. They still had 200 and these joined Cromwell units which they fitted in well with because of their similarities. The much up gunned Comet (A34) was superior again and replaced the Cromwell units, meaning 17pdr support in the form of Challenger/Firefly was redundant. But Comet didn’t appear on battlefields until very late ‘44 so Cromwell units had to work until the end. Comet led to the Centurion.

Cromwell, Comets, Centurions and some Churchill’s saw service in the Korean war.

So, correct me if I am wrong, but this is how they were used?
*Cromwell / Challenger / Comet was used in an offensive role (ideally) or more tank to tank -with armored divisions to exploit breakthroughs etc.
*Churchill was an infantry support tank (like the PZ IV and later Tiger I were intended to be used) like the 105mm M4s and Jumbo Shermans ideally, to support infantry or punch a whole-also like the concept of the KV/IS 155s and IS tanks?

I like the look of the Challenger/Comets. Are those massive bolts on the Challenger/Cromwells? Very 40K!

Yes, that’s about right, though the speed and size of the Cromwell lent itself to reconnaissance too. They couldn’t fight the big cats which is why they needed a 17pdr in their unit.

Those are big bolts, something which experience told tankers are not a good thing by that point in the war. The speed of the Cromwell made soldiers more forgiving of it later on.

I saw film of a platoon of them boogeying down the road in Europe. They were motoring all right.

They could do 40mph on good ground, which for WW2 was fast. The Churchill would be eating their dust. Most German tanks couldn’t do 25mph.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
They could do 40mph on good ground, which for WW2 was fast. The Churchill would be eating their dust. Most German tanks couldn’t do 25mph.

Churchill might have been slow, but it had fair armour, and its ability to cross bad and steep terrain was better than alot of its rivals. sure it was slow but it would keep on ploughing up steep routes other tanks not manage.

sure you got there slower, but it would cross barriers other needed help to do so.

IIRC but didn't it have better frontal armor than the Tiger I?

 Frazzled wrote:
IIRC but didn't it have better frontal armor than the Tiger I?

Yep. Tiger had the 88, though.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
IIRC but didn't it have better frontal armor than the Tiger I?

Yep. Tiger had the 88, though.

Yes but it also took them 330,000 manhours to make (seriously).

 Frazzled wrote:
IIRC but didn't it have better frontal armor than the Tiger I?

Original Churchill 102mm,m front, upgraded to 152mm up front and turret.

Tiger 25-120mm

King tiger 25-185mm

Heaviest sherman built, thickest area was 76-90mm, more regular was somthing like 60mm.. Thete was alot of variety and models so its hard to differ between them.

Up front. The Churchill was one tough machine to beat.
Slow. Not prettiest but would chug and chug and could take a few hits angled right.







Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
IIRC but didn't it have better frontal armor than the Tiger I?

Yep. Tiger had the 88, though.

Yes but it also took them 330,000 manhours to make (seriously).

Yeah and needed a full blown workshop and crane for anything but minor repairs. Overlapping Road wheels where pain in ass to replace, and fancy suspension too...

Great when it ran... A complete ass of a job when it did not.

Why the Germans insisted of sticking that system on all of their vehicles baffles me. Sure, overlapping roadwheels does help relieve ground pressure but there are a ton of draw backs.

The campily named 'Flamingo'.



That commander looks so calm for someone watching human barbecue happening a few dozen yards away.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Why the Germans insisted of sticking that system on all of their vehicles baffles me. Sure, overlapping roadwheels does help relieve ground pressure but there are a ton of draw backs.

One even had a great suspension system and tracks. ... Perfect if your making a engineering project but you had to sometimes dismantle one track, and pull a rod out the other side dismantling taking the other track apart at times to replace parts and reassemble...

This on a 50-60 ton tank... In the field.

It gave a good ride for heavy tank, stable etc..

Though try doing that in a muddy field with tools on the tank.

 Frazzled wrote:

M10: 3 inch predecessor of the 76mm
M4/76mm: bang bang. Later studies support this over both the Firefly and T34/85 based on penetration, rate of fire and accuracy (overall, 17lber more penetrative but less accurate).
17lber Firefly. Not accurate at distant, but 500 yards or under, very lethal with that sabot round.
M36 Jackson. 90mm love comparable to the Tiger I's 88mm.
M18/bulldog. 76mm bang bang if you're ready to shoot and scoot fast.

All of the above died horribly if hit. M10 turned to confetti if hit.



This tiger knocked out the Pershing before inadvertently getting stuck and being abandoned,.

In Normandy, two of the three tigers were killed by Shermans, the third took out the Pershing it faced.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
In Normandy, two of the three tigers were killed by Shermans, the third took out the Pershing it faced.

Killed is a bit of a misnomer here, one had the crew bail out when the Sherman hit the drivers view slit and the sparks blinded the driver and set some paper on fire. The other was hit in the ass 17 times (IIRC) since it lost a track. The Nottingham (not sure if remembering this right?) regiment for years had a claim that they killed one with a Duplex Drive but it turned out that tank was lost and the crew re mounted in a Firefly.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
All of the above died horribly if hit. M10 turned to confetti if hit.

Yes, that's true. It's also missing the point that's been made repeatedly in this thread. Heavier tanks are require far more resources, need hundreds of thousands of man hours to build, and have specialist transport needs that place heavy strain on logistics chains. If the result is a heavy tank that can destroy any enemy tank while remaining immune to return fire, then its a weapon that can dominate an area and produce a breakthrough or stop an enemy offensive cold, then that's probably a good investment of resources.

But if the lighter, cheaper, more mobile enemy tanks can penetrate your armour at normal combat ranges, then it's a terrible investment. And that's the reality of the last couple of years of the war. Apart from a brief period in Normandy where US forces were caught not realising they needed the upgunned Sherman they had built and ready waiting to go back in the US, the reality for the late war is that both sides had ample guns that could penetrate all the armour you could put on a conventional tank design (so everything other than the small number of German super heavies).

This meant that through that period the most significant factors weren't armour or gun, but who fired first, and who had better supporting arms. Which is the worst environment for the German strategy of bigger, shootier tanks.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
IIRC but didn't it have better frontal armor than the Tiger I?

Original Churchill 102mm,m front, upgraded to 152mm up front and turret.

I dealt with contagon called "World of tanks" and there it is clearly shown that these 152mm are only in paper characteristics. Really, most of the armor in the forehead is about 76mm at a 90' angle, which does not give any protection against the guns of the Panther and the Tigers. Also, the tank is very poorly maneuvering and does not have high-explosive shells for storming fortifications (target number 1 at the time WW2).

 Freakazoitt wrote:
I dealt with contagon called "World of tanks" and there it is clearly shown that these 152mm are only in paper characteristics. Really, most of the armor in the forehead is about 76mm at a 90' angle, which does not give any protection against the guns of the Panther and the Tigers. Also, the tank is very poorly maneuvering and does not have high-explosive shells for storming fortifications (target number 1 at the time WW2).

Wouldn't a 90' angle be lying the plate on its side? Once you get to 90' it isn't sloped armour, its the roof armour.

I genuinely have no clue where you get the claim the Churchill lacked a HE shell from. I think you might be confused with earlier versions of the Churchill that carried 2pdr and 6pdr guns that had limited use against infantry and fortified positions. But the uparmoured MkVII being discussed here had a 75mm gun, of either UK or US design, which had an excellent HE round, far better than you'd see on any German tank through the war.

 sebster wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:
I dealt with contagon called "World of tanks" and there it is clearly shown that these 152mm are only in paper characteristics. Really, most of the armor in the forehead is about 76mm at a 90' angle, which does not give any protection against the guns of the Panther and the Tigers. Also, the tank is very poorly maneuvering and does not have high-explosive shells for storming fortifications (target number 1 at the time WW2).

Wouldn't a 90' angle be lying the plate on its side? Once you get to 90' it isn't sloped armour, its the roof armour.

I genuinely have no clue where you get the claim the Churchill lacked a HE shell from. I think you might be confused with earlier versions of the Churchill that carried 2pdr and 6pdr guns that had limited use against infantry and fortified positions. But the uparmoured MkVII being discussed here had a 75mm gun, of either UK or US design, which had an excellent HE round, far better than you'd see on any German tank through the war.

Pretty sure he means a 90° angle between incoming shell and the face of the armor plating, so 90° would be vertical in that sense. And I agree, as far as I know the 75mm Churchill version carried HE shells, a job that was done with the hull-mounted howitzer in earlier variants.