Impact of Allied fighter-bombers

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Juha

Sorry to say but Churchill VII had six inch frontal armour.
British army had armoured divisions but they also had army tank brigades for infantry support. No army had in service during the WWII tanks which were immune to 88mm L/71, so were all top military commnders idiots or were they able to see that some 78 - 100 tons monsters would have been impractical?

I thought you'd say that - hence my disclaimer on the actual but not the relative values.
Churchill VII kept out the 50-mm Pak which killed cruiser tanks - Sherman, Cromwell, and Crusader.
The frontal armour needed to keep out the 88-mm could have been fitted on an upgraded Churchill. Take my word for it, or work it out for yourself; it was not impractical. I think I worked it out once that 10-inches or a foot was needed. A Churchill upgrade would have needed more hp (the Merlin would have done nicely) and it would have needed the beefed-up suspension system designed for the Black Prince. It was all possible, and if Montgomery had not been in command would probably have happened.
Tanks in the attack surrounded by infantry do not need heavy side and rear armour - just adequately thick frontal armour. An 88-mm in enfilade shooting through the thin side armour would then have been killed at leisure by the remaining oncoming Churchills.
The point you were making was the British had the Matilda. This point is worth making, surely, only because this slow Infantry tank was immune to the common Pak of the day - the 37-mm 'doorknocker'.
Using your own argument, the British army could have been expected to maintain its tank design so the infantry tank continued its invulnerability to the common Pak of the day, which in 1945 was the 88-mm. That was the gun all tankers feared. The Germans could not have fielded anything of larger calibre because they lacked the resources.
The 88-mm was a large target for a CAS aircraft. But in the battles I have studied, 2TAF's Typhoons did not go after it. The 88-mm was usually on a flank behind a building, invisible from the British front line. In 1918, one of the main tasks of CAS was to take out anti-tank guns. Not so in 1945. An RP Typhoon in any case had difficulty hitting a building let alone an 88-mm even if it could find it. An MG-42 could and did down a Typhoon, and there were always plenty of those (MG-42s).
Were all top commanders idiots? The British invented the tank and always had the best ones in WWI. Were they idiots then? Or were they rather fools in WWII for having the worst tanks?