Churchill Infantry Tank

[nev]

Never seen that Churchill Kangaroo before - looks awfully like the "bridging" Churchills they used in Italy - the ones with the turrets removed that were driven into a river and vehicles driven on the top

[dy031101]

And then we come to the question of how the Israelis might have modified or upgunned the Churchills- I mean how long would the 6 pounders (likely original armaments of those from the nations mentioned by Logan) or 75mm guns remain useful for their purposes?

Would it have been possible even that engineering and/or recovery variants might have ended up seeing relatively fewer extensive changes or having their number added to by conversions of gun tanks?

[rickshaw]

Thanks for the info - any idea why I might find some piccies/plans of Churchill Kangaroo?

Fletcher's book on the Churchill - "Mr. Churchill's tank" has some (as it does on all Churchill variants) IIRC.

[rickshaw]

And then we come to the question of how the Israelis might have modified or upgunned the Churchills- I mean how long would the 6 pounders (likely original armaments of those from the nations mentioned by Logan) or 75mm guns remain useful for their purposes?

They would have been useful up till about the 1956 war.  After that, the T-54/55 and then later, T-62 appear and they would be impenetrable to them.  If you were seriously talking about upgunning an Israeli Churchill I'd expect a similar evolution to the Sherman in Israeli service - initially a longer barrelled 75mm and then a 105mm.   The turret would end up with the front, mantlet and rear wall removed and replaced, leaving the turret sides.  A new front wall, mantlet and counter-weighted turret rear wall added.   They might do something more extreme and replace the hull glacis with a single sloping plate of comparable thickness but that might be rather more difficult.

Would it have been possible even that engineering and/or recovery variants might have ended up seeing relatively fewer extensive changes or having their number added to by conversions of gun tanks?

Fewer extensive changes.  One of the interesting things about the Churchill is that all later marks were designed for conversion to specialist tanks when they were built/remanufactured.   All the AVREs which went to Korea were plumbed for conversion to Crocodiles, for example.

[dy031101]

If you were seriously talking about upgunning an Israeli Churchill I'd expect a similar evolution to the Sherman in Israeli service - initially a longer barrelled 75mm and then a 105mm.   The turret would end up with the front, mantlet and rear wall removed and replaced, leaving the turret sides.  A new front wall, mantlet and counter-weighted turret rear wall added.

I couldn't help to wonder if the small-turret-ring problem would come into play again (heh, the most I have thought about is the 90mm gun used by AML-90 and M3 Halftrack).  Or would the space allowance for gun recoil matter more this time around?

=======================================

How big is the T-54/55's engine compared to that of the Black Prince?  (the scenario I'm brainstorming on has various WWII tanks reverse-engineered and then improved with technology gained by studying captured enemy tanks......)

Assuming suitable engines can be found, for how long could the Black Prince's armour remain formidable?  Would slat/cage armour alone have been enough to stand the tank in good stead?

[NARSES2]

Hi, does anyone have any information of the post war APC prototype based on the Churchill - I understand it was "Kangaroo" ?

Kangaroo was the WWII APC based on a RAM/Sherman/Priest chasis without the turret/gun. Not heard of a APC based on the Churchill ?

Developed post-war as a means of replacing the worn-out/clapped-out Ram (non-capitalised as not an acronym but the actual name) chassis (not many Sherman Kangaroos made and only used in the Italian theatre IIRC).  All the Priests were IIRC returned to the Americans or scrapped.  They weren't as good as the Ram chassis for the conversion.  Not many Churchill Kangaroos produced.  I think it wasn't considered a success and more specialist APCs were on the horizon.

Thanks for the info on the Churchill Kangaroo, interesting 

[Logan Hartke]

The British didn't sell much to the nascent Israeli nation.

Except Centurions.  While much of the Israeli fleet was bought second-hand, the sellers had to seek UK permission before they could onsell them (a standard part of most arms sales agreements is that the original manufacturing country has control over who gets to use them).

Even that wasn't until post-Suez, though; 1959 if I recall correctly.

Not true 100%, actually.  Now the underpowered M4 & M4A1 VVSS were no good at hills, but the M4A3 HVSS and later Israeli HVSS Shermans were no slouches.  The M4A3 HVSS tanks in Korea outperformed the M26 Pershing and M46 Patton tanks when it came to the hills in Korea (as did the Centurions).  The Israeli HVSS Shermans outdid the Centurions in 1967 getting up Beit Kika.  Every Centurion there was tracked or stopped on a boulder, but the Shermans went around and made it to the top--at night!

Didn't the Israelis rebuild their Shermans with new engines and transmissions?   My recollection of the poor performance of the Sherman was based on comments from an old WO who I served with who had served in Korea.  He was rather disparaging of US Armour and its vehicles as against the support that 3 RAR received as part of the Commonwealth Brigade from the RAC with their Centurions.   He often commented that the Shermans couldn't climb hills whereas the Centurion could.

Definitely the engines on those M50s in the West Bank, but I've not read that they got new transmissions.  I think the answer for Centurions vs Shermans in the hill climb is: "it depends".  I bet that the Centurion could climb a steeper gradient, but on the goat tracks and nasty hairpin turns on Beit Kika the Sherman was superior.  Shermans and Centurions both acquitted themselves well on the Golan Heights throughout the various conflicts.  Neither was a slouch, but you would be remiss to consider the Shermans in Italy in 1943 to be the same as those of the late series.  As for Korea, I can't say.  I've heard a lot of conflicting first-hand accounts in my time, but official US Army history points out that Shermans were retained in Korea longer than expected specifically because of their superiority in the mountains.

Regardless, I think we can assume the Churchill would have been superior to both in any mountainous terrain since it had all the advantages of either tank and a few more.

Personal preference but I place Fletcher number 1, Zalogia is IMHO very variable.  I've been reading Zaloga since his first articles were published in MAFVA news and have always found his work often lacks substance.  I suspect small works like Osprey are there for a quick buck for him and are often used as a means of funding his more susbtantial books (where most of the information is).

Really?  Zaloga for me is pretty consistent and typically has more new material in his books than what I get when I read Fletcher.  I have a similar gushing view of a lot of Zaloga's Osprey work as Frank De Sisto does.  I particularly like his campaign titles, where the Osprey length and format seem to work better for him than they do in the Fortification and New Vanguard titles.  I agree, however, that his longer works are his best.

And then we come to the question of how the Israelis might have modified or upgunned the Churchills- I mean how long would the 6 pounders (likely original armaments of those from the nations mentioned by Logan) or 75mm guns remain useful for their purposes?

Well, they might have fit the CN 75-50 that was used on the M50 Sherman, but if not, you could always just throw the whole AMX-13 turret on it the way the Egyptians did their Shermans.  Another option that would surely fit is the 90 mm GIAT F1 that the Panhard AML used (which Israel also purchased and used in the West Bank in 1967).


A couple other options for getting Churchills to Israel could be captured Jordanian tanks (Jordan used Churchill VIIs) or you could say that Israel captured them from Egypt.  Egypt was trying to get Churchill tanks from Britain in 1949.

Cheers,

Logan

[dy031101]

Does anyone have the armour statistics of the Black Prince tank turret?

[NARSES2]

Not certain but I thought it was the same as the Churchill ?

[Weaver]

Well, they might have fit the CN 75-50 that was used on the M50 Sherman, but if not, you could always just throw the whole AMX-13 turret on it the way the Egyptians did their Shermans.  Another option that would surely fit is the 90 mm GIAT F1 that the Panhard AML used (which Israel also purchased and used in the West Bank in 1967).

The problem with fitting the AMX-13 turret on a rear-engined tank is that the turret bustle auto-loader only holds 12 rounds which have to be manually replenished from outside. On the front-engined AMX-13 there were more rounds stored in the rear of the hull, and the rear-engined SK-105 was intended more as a tank-destroyer which would disengage to reload, but I'm not sure how practical it would be on an MBT.... I know the Egyptians fitted the turret to Shermans and I've always wondered how they coped with this problem.

Another solution might be the earlier EBR turret, which was still an oscillating design but was manually loaded from inside (only a 75mm though). The other problem with any of these turrets is that they're only armoured to light tank standards, so they make any MBT they're fitted to more vulnerable.

[rickshaw]

Well, they might have fit the CN 75-50 that was used on the M50 Sherman, but if not, you could always just throw the whole AMX-13 turret on it the way the Egyptians did their Shermans.  Another option that would surely fit is the 90 mm GIAT F1 that the Panhard AML used (which Israel also purchased and used in the West Bank in 1967).

The problem with fitting the AMX-13 turret on a rear-engined tank is that the turret bustle auto-loader only holds 12 rounds which have to be manually replenished from outside. On the front-engined AMX-13 there were more rounds stored in the rear of the hull, and the rear-engined SK-105 was intended more as a tank-destroyer which would disengage to reload, but I'm not sure how practical it would be on an MBT.... I know the Egyptians fitted the turret to Shermans and I've always wondered how they coped with this problem.

Another solution might be the earlier EBR turret, which was still an oscillating design but was manually loaded from inside (only a 75mm though). The other problem with any of these turrets is that they're only armoured to light tank standards, so they make any MBT they're fitted to more vulnerable.

He could of course, as this is a WHIFF, utilise the AMX-50's oscillating turret with a 120mm gun. 

My understanding though of the Egyptian effort with the AMX-13 turret on the Sherman was that it was with the earlier 75mm gunned version and not terribly successful because of problems with excessive height.   Reloading would have been difficult because of that, not necessarily because of the location of the engine.

[Weaver]

My understanding though of the Egyptian effort with the AMX-13 turret on the Sherman was that it was with the earlier 75mm gunned version and not terribly successful because of problems with excessive height.   Reloading would have been difficult because of that, not necessarily because of the location of the engine.

It's no so much the engine itself as what it does to the location of the turret and the reserve ammo. On the AMX-13, one man can stand behind the vehicle, take ammo out of rear hull doors, and load it into the turret bustle. It's a quick and covered-enough procedure to do it on the battlefield if you had to, and if you could get some cover for a few minutes.

On the Sherman, or the Churchill, one man would have to stand on the engine deck and have someone else pass the ammo up to him through the turret hatch, only to load it back in through the bustle. This is effectively only possible out of action due to the exposure of the men.

[rickshaw]

My understanding though of the Egyptian effort with the AMX-13 turret on the Sherman was that it was with the earlier 75mm gunned version and not terribly successful because of problems with excessive height.   Reloading would have been difficult because of that, not necessarily because of the location of the engine.

It's no so much the engine itself as what it does to the location of the turret and the reserve ammo. On the AMX-13, one man can stand behind the vehicle, take ammo out of rear hull doors, and load it into the turret bustle. It's a quick and covered-enough procedure to do it on the battlefield if you had to, and if you could get some cover for a few minutes.

On the Sherman, or the Churchill, one man would have to stand on the engine deck and have someone else pass the ammo up to him through the turret hatch, only to load it back in through the bustle. This is effectively only possible out of action due to the exposure of the men.

No one reloads on the battlefield.  SOP is to withdraw to resup.   I think we are though in basic agreement although, I suspect the excessive height also told against the Sherman hull in tactical employment.

[Weaver]

I'm not suggesting you'd choose to reload an AMX-13 on the battlefield: if you had the option to get somewhere safe/safer you absolutely WOULD take it. However with only 12 rounds ready to fire, you're going to have to make your choice fairly often and circumstances may not always allow you to make the ideal one. Particularly if you're advancing, you're going to have to find a relatively safe spot to move ammo from the hull to the turret fairly often and you may not have the choice of going back in those circumstances.

I completely agree with you that the AMX-13/Sherman combo was excessively high, to it's tactical disadvantage.

[Logan Hartke]

Agree with the above, but I do think it would be possible with the Churchill and safer than the AMX-13, too.  The Churchill has the great advantage of having those side hatches.  Just turn the vehicle 45-90 degrees, get out the side, turn the turret to the side, begin reloading with the entire bulk of the hull and turret between you and the enemy.  Pass the rounds through the side hatch, too.  Reload, voila.

Cheers,

Logan