Warcop range wrecks

[Adrian Barrell]

Thanks Steve, I've calmed down now.......

 

All this goes to prove that you can't make bold statements from isolated incidents. The Churchill VII had 6" of frontal armour but it was not unknown for a hit on the visor plate to drop the whole plate into the drivers lap. Probably very rare but it did happen.

 

All tanks were being penetrated, the ones that didn't catch fire as readilly were perhaps better for the crew.

[steveo578]

Adrian Barrell

.....it was not unknown for a hit on the visor plate to drop the whole plate into the drivers lap. Probably very rare but it did happen.

 

The dangerous plate on the Churchill 7 was the sloping 60mm plate between the nose plate and the visor plate a hit on the visor plate could dislodge it downward onto the drivers lap/legs and obviously a hit on the plate itself would do the same- it was known before it went into service and again they had to another remedial service on some vehicles that had already got to Normandy. Even on the older lighter armoured Churchills even a "light" hit in this area could cause the driving controls to land on the hapless drivers lap thighs etc -bit of a ***l crusher or what?

 

As you say catching fire was the diffence and one thing that bothers me about British tanks is the placement of things like the ammo for 2inch mortars which tends to defeat efforts to make sure the ammunition is stowed low in the hull.

 

Steve

[Adrian Barrell]

The 2" mortar rounds were only smoke with a tiny propellant charge, not fun to be next to if they caught fire but nothing like a load of HE main armament rounds!

[eddy8men]

hey fella's

what's 15mm between friends, you're right i should have researched it as i was only going off memory of a hull i'd seen with penetration on the glacis, i remember thinking it wasn't the thickest i'd ever seen.sorry adrian guess i owe you a pint.

 

eddy

[steveo578]

Adrian Barrell

........not fun to be next to if they caught fire but nothing like a load of HE main armament rounds!

Hi Adrian

 

Its the composition of the smoke agent that is the problem, in WW2 it was common to have white phosporus smoke bombs and that does not need any further discussion to its effect.

 

But even the common alternative titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) could cause blindness and resperatory failure- especially if ignited in a confined space the exothermic reaction itself is sufficient to cause serious burns.

 

In WW1 TiCl4 was used as a so called none lethal war gas and from the 1920s until the introduction of C/S it was also used as a civil police tear gas, it is very similar to but milder in effect to Lewisite (C2H2AsCl3)- the WW2 cold weather alternative to mustard gas in that it is reactive with water in the eyes lungs and sweat areas of the body producing hydrocloric acid.

 

Assuming a crewman who has ingested-inhailed-absorbed this stuff was revived (and I would baulk at trying to give "kiss of life" to some-one with a lung full of aerosol HCl), the chances are not good, permenant lung and eye damage, skin grafts and de-calicification of bone with a greatly reduced quality of life and probably an early death.

 

While I completely agree with you that nothing is as deadly as a cordite fire in a confined space, the so called blister and tear producing "agents" were just as lethal.

 

steve

[steveo578]

eddy8men

i was only going off memory of a hull i'd seen with penetration on the glacis, i remember thinking it wasn't the thickest i'd ever seen.

Hi eddy

 

you're probably recalling that wreck M10c "Achillies" you saw on Warcop- front armour 38mm side armour 20mm.

 

We all get beaten up:beatenup: from time to time -difference on this forum is that it doesn't get nasty:D

 

Steve

[ajmac]

If you are talking about fires, just look at the location of Loyd Carrier fuel tanks, chest height and arms length either side of the driver, protected by 2mm of mild steel. Is it any wonder that armour protection (only Bullet proof) to the front and side of the fuel tanks was one of the first design changes! I guess being in a position to come under enemy fire wasn't considered in the original design spec.

Edited August 6, 2010 by ajmac

[timbo]

Just reading Robert Kershaw's book 'Tank Men' - don't know how it compares to other texts but certainly very few of the veterans quoted have anything good to say about either British or American tank designs of the period. In fact in one or two cases they even take the view that sending men to war in machines so visibly inferior was tantamount to murder !

 

Emotive stuff but I guess if you've seen enough of your mates brewed up that's going to have an impact..

 

One thing I hadn't realised is that there was a choice for the Americans and that the Sherman was chosen in preference to the Pershing (with a more capable 90mm gun). Presume this was to do with ease of manufacturing..

 

Great book by the way.

[steveo578]

timbo

One thing I hadn't realised is that there was a choice for the Americans and that the Sherman was chosen in preference to the Pershing (with a more capable 90mm gun). Presume this was to do with ease of manufacturing..

 

It is a myth that the huge Sherman production slowed down the availablity of something better the 1st mock ups of the T20 (the M4s successor) was completed in May 1942 and the 1st T20 series pilot vehicle a T23 was available in January 1943 and the T20 pilot was available in July 1943- neither type was developed enough to replace the M4 -both had M4 style suspension at that stage and the 76mm M1 cannons fitted were found to be defective and 1000 produced for use in both T20 series vehicles and M4s all had to be scrapped.

 

The 1st vehicle recognisable as a Pershing -the T25E1/T26E1 were produced as a limited run of 40 T25E1s with 10 heavier T26E1 produced at or about the same time from February to May 1944. Production of the M26 (then designated T26E3) started at Fisher in November 1944 so it took 30months from concept to production -which isn't that long considering how different the M4 and M26 are- in effect the only thing in common is the turret ring diameter.

 

So if the US had waited for the Pershing the US Army in Italy and NWE would have been an infantry only organisation.

 

Steve

[steveo578]

ajmac

If you are talking about fires, just look at the location of Loyd Carrier fuel tanks,

 

Yes a bit remiss but then again consider the A17 tetrarch another Vickers design but after Loyds tenure ended. A light Cruiser tank with fuel tanks in the nose -allbeit with a firewall and automatic drains to prevent explosion. At least as you say the Loyd carrier was not actually seen as a fighting vehicle.

[eddy8men]

i've just read the following text from the churchill book which backs up what steve said about the frontal armour. it concerns the attack on steamroller farm by A sqn 51 RTR in tunisia so these would be the ealier mk's with 4" armour on the glacis.

 

"the shot then ricocheted upwards and damaged the 6 pdr gun which had to be changed. the nose plate was slightly parted from the glacis plate by this shot".

 

must have been a weakness from the start, although i would have thought the mk7 would have addressed this. the pic below shows a mk7 looking from the front, the nose plate is intact but the glacis has been blown in, it's probably not very fair to assume too much from the pic as the army were shooting at it for 60 years so it could have been the first round or the hundredth that did the damage

 

 

eddy

[steveo578]

eddy8men

must have been a weakness from the start, although i would have thought the mk7 would have addressed this.

The contrary is the case the weakness apparent in the Mk1 to 6 got significantly worse in the Mk7. In the earlier Marks the armour was bolted and riveted onto a mild steel welded backing structure and while the armour could be broken away from the adjoining plate and bent out of shape but the flexible m/s backing could prevent it dropping onto the crewmen.

 

In the Mk7 the hull was a single seem welded structure, it was found during tests that some welded test hulls were failing in that when heavy rounds hit the front plates the highly sloping 60mm glacis could be creased by a round bending it and breaking it away from the front,back and sides- it was also found the vertical drivers plate allbeit 6inches thick could be distorted by a hit in the centre for the simple reason that it had two large circular weak points -the drivers door and the machine gun mount. Nothing could be done to fix the latter problem but the 60mm Glacis welds were strengthened- and MK7 already issued to the troops for D-Day were withdrawn to carry out the fix -which must have been good for moral at that sensitive time.

 

It is speculative as so few Churchills now remain for examination that this weakness could have been due to differing welding production techniques by the various companies involved in hull sub assembly- as Alastair (Ajmac) has noted in his recent Loyd restoration posts there was little production standardisation beyond that necessary for the basic design and this may well applied to the Churchill as well as the light loyd vehicle.

 

As a secondary point another fault with the Churchill became apparent during its 1st active operaton at Dieppe on 19-08-42, at least 2 of the 29 vehicles that landed were compromised by damage to the drivers controls which were bolted under the glacis, numerous hits by various weapons on the glacis caused the control bracket to fail - which meant the ability to steer was lost. One tank "Belicose" managed to return to the beach and repair the fault before it became terminal, only to throw a track as it was returning to the promenade. The other tank lost its steering control when hit numerous times as it climbed the sea wall, having lost the ability to turn it was still capable of climbing forward and backward, which is what it did for the rest of the day- climbing the sea wall -firing at targets and dropping back if the return fire became too intense.

Unfortnately as no after battle reports were available from 14CATR (as all but 2 of the survivors became POWs) this fault went un-noticed until the Churchill went into action again in Tunisia.

[Bob Grundy]

Cheiftain, Ex 4RTR, ready for moving to its demise,2003/4