Quote:
Originally Posted by Juha
Tony
a) British even had a separate category for the slow and heavily armoured tank, Infantry tank. Have you never heard on Infantry Tank Mk II Matilda? First use in combat in May 40. Max armour thickness was 78mm when the German tanks at that time had max armour thickness of 30mm. Now Cruisers main problem was poor reliability and a gun which had optimized for anti-armour work but Cruisers armour protection was usually in same order than the German tanks they met, that means before Tiger and Panther and Panther's side armour was weak. But those late German tanks were much heavier and much more complicated than British and so needed much more materials and working hours to produce. It's true that between 1940 and late 44, so between A13 and Comet British Cruiser thanks were not as good as the best German tanks but majority of German tanks were not Tigers and Panthers during that time and with Tigers and Panthers one could not have made the dash through France and Belgium in August and Sept. 44, they were too unreliable for that.
Juha
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Spot on. The Matilda must be high up in any analysis of what saved the BEF. The 37-mm Pak's shells bouncing off its 4-inch glacis panicked the Germans in the Arras counterattack and led to the halting of the Panzer divisions. It was also the key to destroying the Italian army in North Africa.
The problem was this. From D-Day onwards the Allies were attacking German defences equipped with the Dual Purpose 88-mm, as well as the 50-mm Pak. For the 50-mm Pak the army needed a tank with about 7-inches of frontal armour. The Churchill VII provided this, but almost all of them were removed from the Tank Brigades for turning into flamethrowing tanks, leaving them with Churchill IV with only six inches. For the 88-mm a tank was needed with 12-inches of vertical armour or less if sloped. This was never produced for two reasons. The armoured divisions were fixated on speed over armour (exactly the same discussion as the Typhoon versus the IL-2) and persuaded Montgomery to scrap the Churchill (which WSC refused to allow); and because the RAF took roughly half of all the resources in their abortive campaign to bomb German civilians to force Hitler to surrender there were never the resources to develop a decent infantry tank. Forget the armoured divisions - they were only interested in exploiting the mythical hole in the line to be punched by the infantry with their infantry tanks. (All numbers are from memory. Only the realationships are vouched for).