fantasy British ww2 tank

[DanJ]

A pretty good and rather depressing analysis of what was wrong with British tanks in WW2 is 'Death by Design: British Tank Development in the Second World War' by Peter Beale. 

[Sunray]

Yes Dan its a depressing but accurate account. The Centurion was the first battle worthy model with really good sloped armour. The qualification to that is that the Matilda II - despite small turret ring - seems to have been on the right track design wise back in 1939. 

But is was a dedicated infantry tank - top speed 15mph.

[DanJ]

I think that the sloped armour issue is sometimes a bit overplayed, only the T34, Panther and Tiger II had it, I don't think the Sherman's front plate was sloped enough to be effective,  just about every one else used vertical or near vertical plates on their tanks.

The problem with the British tanks was the terrible combination of a gun which couln't damage the enemy combined with armour which couldn't keep out enemy fire at the sort of range the Brits had to get to to for their guns to be effective.  For instance the Churchill IV had the same armour as the Tiger I but a gun which had to get much closer than the Tiger's to be effective.  The Firefly was so effective because it could engage the enemy at ranges where return fire although probably quite likely to penetrate the sherman was a lot less likely to hit in the first place.

The Sherman was even worse, a mediocre gun (in 1944) and armour and with ammo storage in places virtually guaranteed to catch fire when the hulll was breached, wet stowage which helped with this problem was introduced by the Americans but I don't think the Brits got any and suffered accordingly.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Sorry - wrong.

The British and US Sherman and after designed to a "basis" value, normally on the turret. So Sherman slope ups the 45-50mm to 76mm of the turret, and how can you say the Crusader is not sloped.

T-34 wastes internal volume with it's side slopes, which adds useless mass, a cardinal sin in tank design.

IanS

[DanJ]

Not sure if this will work

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It's been a long time since I was into the nitty gritty of WW2 tanks but the crusader may have something of a slope on the glasis but the plate above it is vertical as is the whole of the turret, in the unlikley event of anything ricocheting (sp?) off the thin glasis it would hit the inadequate 30mm plates above it.  There were also shot traps under the turret and it had an unfortunate tendancy to catch fire due to poor ammo stowage and protection just like the Sherman.

As for wether the slope of the armour was important this often relies on opinion.  The T34's came as a shock to the early war Germans because it was relatively thick and well sloped, that combination was enough to beat the existing german AT and tank guns while it mounted a gun able to defeat the panzers at relatively long range.

I've never yet found any reference to the slope on the sherman's armour having a pronounced effect on survivability, sloped or not is was too thin to effectively withstand late war german AT rounds.

The Panthers armour was so good because it was sloped and relatively thick while the tank as a whole was superb because it also had a great gun.  The Churchill MkVII probably carried more armour but the gun was inadequate for dealing with the panthers and tigers but was just about ok against the Mk VIs.

[DanJ]

[DanJ]

Weird, I can upload pictures of anything except the crusader mk III - maybe it's too embarrassed.

[Fenton]

[DanJ]

 Thank you so much Fenton

[Fenton]

Not sure what was happening...I just took your image and used the img shortcut from photobucket like you did...very weird

[Sunray]

The debate as to sloped armour - has its fulcrum in the date we are talking about.  If the Brits had a cruiser with sloped armour, Christie suspension and at least  75mm gun in action for 1941/42 they would have had a winner like the T34.  Which is the inspiration for the fantasy. 

The Aussi design - the Sentinel - is a wonderful example of what could have  been  achieved on a budget on the other side of the world.  A decent 17 pdr gun and American running gear.