British tank design in WW2

Long 50mm could.

>They still didn't fare well in 1 on 1 fights with Panzers.
Erm, T-34 was basically invincible against Pz III and IVs in 1941.

England is an island nation. A strong navy is important for them than a strong army. Everyone knows this.

is more important*

>Shermans. they were light tanks
>way heavier than the T-34 or Panzer IV
kek

The most commonly used tank by the British in WW2 was the Lend-Lease Sherman, so at least someone knew how shit their tanks were.

>It was a good tank for 1940-41,
It has no HE shells, which is 90% of ammo a tank fires, on top of being slow as fuck and breakdown prone. It's shitty. The JAPANESE had better tanks than the British for most of the war.

>Sherman
>Light tank

>The JAPANESE had better tanks than the British for most of the war.

Not even memeing. Their tanks could deliver HE and go faster than 2 mph, and go farther than 5 miles without breaking.

>Not even memeing.
No one's saying you're memeing. People are saying you are stupid.

Most of their tanks exploded if you sneezed at them

>Their tanks could deliver HE and go faster than 2 mph, and go farther than 5 miles without breaking.
Yes, but they couldn't overrun a rifle company supported by a handful of armored cars.

It's a good thread though. It's got good information.

Don't be a retarded internet purist, user.

Mostly in the way or armor vs guns.

The T34 had a decent gun and could penetrate the comparatively light German armor regularly. On top of this, the German PaK36s were basically firing spit wads at its armor until under 50ish meters, which is like saying your gun doesn't work on people unless they're within punching distance.

You say this like tankettes were meant to perform the same combat roles as regular Tanks.

Granted, that's exactly the way that they were used by the Japanese, but still. Matilda was absolute garbage and its combat performance is proof enough without going into the various and obvious ones just on paper.

just getting on the "why the fuck did you call an m4 sherman a light tank you bloody mong" train

if it weren't for politics and budgets the centurion would have been deployed by 44.

>Also, understand Britain had a vastly lower industrial capacity as opposed to their allies in the US and russia.

That's not correct.

While yes, the US had far greater industrial capacity, the USSR, despite what people think, did not, and was in certain areas (especially complex manufacturing, such as aircraft and electronics manufacture) was vastly inferior to the UK.

Keep in mind that while USSR produced far more tanks, their domestic production of small arms was about equivalent, and their production of aircraft, ships, electrical equipment (radar, radios, etc) was significantly lower. This last one is very important, as the UK was the premier allied developer in electronic systems and radar, which the USSR had almost zero knowledge of. The USSR also produced very few personnel transport vehicles (such as the US Jeep or the UK Universal Carrier), which they recieved literally millions of under lend lease, and without which, their logistics would not have been able to cope with the scale of their advance once they had stopped the Germans.

The USSR also produced far less raw materials than either the UK or the US, especially in important areas like coal and steel, but also in vital niche areas like refined aircraft fuel, which they produced almost none of. Vast quantities of this also had to be imported from the UK and US.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II

Soviet industrial 'might' is a myth. The GDP of the entire USSR was comparable to that of the UK mainland alone, without including the Empire.

IL2 best plane of war))))

A fuckin thunderbolt could carry more ordnance and that was a fighter

The Great Depression happened. This, combined with the budgetary demands of policing the Empire, forced them to stop experimenting in favour of more cost-effective designs. Tanks were reduced to two-three men crew, powered by bus engines. This severely limited the directions in which their tank designs could develop, both enforcing and sharpening distinctions between the emergent infantry/cruiser paradigms.

When World War II came around, the Brits were stuck with a load of dated tank designs. They were taking steps to resolving the situation with the introduction of newer tanks, but this would take time. That time quickly ran out when the Battle of France was lost and Britain had to make up for losses in equipment on the Continent, delaying the introduction of newer, better weaponry. It didn't help that there was a bit of a kerfuffle around the development of third generation anti-tank weaponry, where the Brits dropped the ball hardest.

The Cromwell, despite its flaws, was a vastly improved design from what came before. It was fast, reasonably protected, and had a decent gun. Part of this was because the British finally went back to a five man crew arrangement, and managed to scrounge up a powerful engine and combine that with a capable of suspension system. It provided the basis for the Comet and the Centurion tanks, arguably the best tanks of the late war/immediate post-war.

Not with standard armoured piercing ammunition and not at usual combat ranges either.

Man, imagine if they had sloped the UFP on the Comet.

I like how even today, you can look at a russian truck and see a studebacker

The issue with the UK is that it didn't matter if they had tanks or not. They need to keep the channel free from Luftwaffe so their navy could keep invasions at bay.

When the Americans joined, the burgers could just make more tanks anyways so they had token forces to make themselves feel better about not doing as much.

>ctrl+f cruiser
>1 result

>so they had token forces to make themselves feel better about not doing as much.

This is such a ridiculous meme, the Brit Army was three million strong by the end of WW2, obviously the US Army was considerably larger but the idea the Brits were a token force that didn't do anything is crazy.

>the Brit Army was three million strong by the end of WW2

The armies of the Empire combined totaled about 8 million.

People don't realise how large the combined forces of the British Empire were because they were dispersed across so many fronts, as it had spent the entire war fighting on all major fronts except the Eastern Front, defending SEA and the south Pacific from the Japs, Africa and the Mediterranean from the Italians/Germans, providing the bulk of the manpower for the invasion of Sicily and Italy, then around half the manpower for the landings in Normandy, all while trying to defend the Atlantic and fight an aerial war against Germany over the British Isles themselves.

Oh shut the fuck up. Commonwealth forces were the majority at Normandy, and were present in force right up until the end of the war. The german forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and north Germany surrendered to Montgomery.

>England is an island nation.

>Island nation
lul

>so they had token forces to make themselves feel better about not doing as much
fucking what, there were 800k people from the Canadian dominion alone who served in ww2, the empire had major contribution
it's just that the size of their empire that they had to defend means they were stretched across basically every front except the USSR/Germany front

Crusader and Matilda were excellent tanks.

Most of their tanks were as well armored as their British equivalents at the time (early cruisers) and more well armored than the Mark VIs and Mark IVs that made up the majority of British tanks in 1939-1940. Only the Matilda infantry tanks were more well armored, at the cost of being inferior in literally everything else that a tank is supposed to do (and as the Germans in the BOF showed us, it's better to have relatively light but well rounded tanks than heavy powerful tanks).
We are talking about the same battle where 450 Soviet tanks and armored cars lost over a third of their strength attacking unsupported light infantry. Japanese armor actually performed better than Soviet in that battle in their engagements against each other (though mostly due to Soviet incompetence), there just weren't enough. The Japanese only brought 73 tanks vs the Soviets bringing well over a thousand tanks and armored cars (in fact they had 1,000 at peak strength once, never mind replacements).

>Most of their tanks were as well armored as their British equivalents at the time (early cruisers)
Early Cruiser tanks were experimental runs made in batches of barely 100. Chi-ha, which is the Japanese counterpart to the Valentine, had 25mm armor at the thickest, while the Valentine had 65mm armor.

>Most of their tanks were as well armored as their British equivalents at the time (early cruisers) and more well armored than the Mark VIs and Mark IVs that made up the majority of British tanks in 1939-1940
Are you an idiot? Japanese tank armour was a joke

>more well armored than the Mark VIs and Mark IVs
25 mm > 45 mm?????

>What happened?

Right off the bat, most of the British money and resources went to the navy and air force but the Brits were also hampered by an insistence on separate “cruiser” and “infantry” tanks with multiple designs within each category, all of which were crippled before they left the drawing board by being limited to British railroad transport restrictions, with the result that they were too narrow to take a large enough turret with a large enough gun.

The Brits wouldn’t get their shit together until literally the last days of the war and if it hadn't been for the U.S supplying half their tank strength, they’d have been fucked.

>>teething problems
top kek

And those early batches were all Britain had until 1941, when the Crusader became more common. And the Crusader is inferior to the Chi-Ha until much later upgrades.
>early war
>Valentine
>first saw combat in limited numbers during Operation Crusader and the follow up, late 1941/early 1942
The Chi-Ha is also not the Japanese counterpart to the Valentine. It's the counterpart to the early war cruisers and the Crusader as a bread and butter tank. The Valentine was again a shitty slow infantry tank with crap reliability and no HE capability (until later versions). The Japanese had no counterpart to that, no one except the French did, because infantry tanks suck shit.
The Mark IV and Mark VI had under 15mm of armor at their thickest. They were 6-ton tankettes in everything but name.

>The Mark IV and Mark VI had under 15mm of armor at their thickest. They were 6-ton tankettes in everything but name.
Cruiser, Mk. IV had 30mm front hull armor.
Cruiser, Mk. IV or the Crusader had 40-50mm front hull armor.

>the Crusader is inferior to the Chi-Ha
Crusader has better gun, better armor, better power/weight ratio, and better operational range. By far.

But it doesn't have the whining autism of a million weebs behind it. You can't underestimate that kind of intangible advantage.

I'm talking about the Light Tank Mark IV-VI, not cruiser. The former was the vast majority of the British tank fleet 1939-1940.
>better gun
The 2 pdr can't deliver HE. It's shit. Even in armor penetration, the Shinhoto (contemporary, first deployed 1941) far outstripped it. While also being able to throw out HE. It's not until later versions circa late 1942 to early 1943 that the 6 pdr became widespread.
>better armor
Nope. The Crusader had 30mm all around (40mm on the mantlet). The Chi-Ha had 33mm on the mantlet and turret front, and about 25-26mm on the sides and hull front. Technically the Crusaders is thicker, but functionally they had identical protection. If 26mm of Steel doesn't protect you, another 4mm won't matter.
>Operational Range
130 vs 146 miles, both cross country. Except the latter is functionally non existent because the Crusader was notoriously prone to breaking down at the drop of a hat, while the Chi Ha was average in that area.
>power/weight
True. But misleading. The Crusader was so overweight that despite requiring twice as much steel and a more expensive engine to build, their speed was basically identical (some books day the Chi Ha was 2 mph faster, some say 2 mph slower, though it hardly matters).

>I'm talking about the Light Tank Mark IV-VI, not cruiser. The former was the vast majority of the British tank fleet 1939-1940.
Oh, so a British light tank is similar to a Japanese medium tank? Got it.

Your post is basically
>technically, Crusader is better in every way, but I'm going to say they are more or less the same

This man right there, he is right.

>reliability
>HE shell
>weight
>lol but it doesn't matter because it's 1 mph faster and has 4mm more armor
Crusader is shit, face it.
The most common British tank vs the most common Japanese one at the time, yes. But you don't even need the Chi-Ha, literally any tank they were using in 1939 was better than the Mark VI/IV, which were shitty tankettes equipped with only a machine gun.

>invent tanks
>shit at it
>invent football
>shit at it

Crusader wasn't a light tank, it was a medium tank, even though British didn't use these terms (they classified it as a cruiser). It was 20 tons, similar to other mediums at that time.
Chi-Ha was actually lighter, at around 15 tons. user is right.

Oh, sorry, I misread, I thought you are talking about Crusader, and not Cruiser Mk. IV. Still, it was functionally a medium tank, and had same weight.

>Chi-Ha was actually lighter, at around 15 tons. user is right.
Chi-Ha wasn't a light tank you imbecile.

He's comparing Light Tank, Mk. VI, an actual tankette, to the Chi-Ha, which was Japan's mainline medium.

No, it was a medium tank, just like Crusader and Mk IV were. Where did I say Chi-Ha is a light tank?

But they made the Centurion in the end so its all good right?

So? Centurion was nothing special. They merely achieved rough parity.
No, I think he's comparing either Mk IV or Crusader with it. He's just saying LT Mk IV-VI were most of British armor.

He was comparing Light Tank, Mk. IV to the Chi-Ha to make the original claim that Japanese tanks had better armor and better gun.

Well I referred to this post

British tank designers didn't get a lot right in WW2 but one thing they did get right was the Churchill. In terms of adaptability it was top class

>Want a minefield cleared, put a flail on it
>Want something burned to a crisp, I give you the Crocodile
>Want a welcome mat layed out on the beach, no fucking worries m8
>Want to recover other busted tanks, piece of piss
>inb4 t. Lindybeige

It's almost like you could do that with any other tank.

>The Valentine was again a shitty slow infantry tank with crap reliability and no HE capability (until later versions).

The Valentine was the UK's most reliable tank throughout the war.

>The 2 pdr can't deliver HE.

No, the British simply never developed a HE round for the 2pdr because their tactical theory was that it was purely for anti-tank work.

There are murmurings here and there that there was an HE shell available. Apparently, it wasn't really widely issued because one or more of the following:

>Low explosive content
>Tank ammunition racks not designed to accommodate HE shells
>Explosive shells exclusively reserved for artillery use only

Can anyone confirm?