richard g

A lot of the design of the Australian cruisers dates from 1941, when Australia was fighting Italians and Germans in North Africa. The Japanese were more of an impediment to the production of Australian tanks rather than the cause of it. That's right. An armoured division was formed specifically as a result of NA experience, at the time it was thought that it could be used as part of a corps to fight the Germans. Really the Japanese were a nuisance although not viewed as such at the time, due to their proximity their threat was real but it soon was shown to be a bit of a paper tiger. There is no doubt that the Australian army would have preferred to fight the Germans as they had found them to be worthy but beatable opponents. Which resulted in the continued development of the Sentinel and particularly it's constant upgunning until the US effectively put a stop to that. The Sherman as a result of tests was never accepted which probably was the problem as far as the US was concerned. As far as fighting the Germans goes, reading about Clive Killer Caldwell who really enjoyed fighting the Germans in NA, aces and all, much more than the Japanese. Nothing better than knocking off a Me109 or two

A lot of the design of the Australian cruisers dates from 1941, when Australia was fighting Italians and Germans in North Africa. The Japanese were more of an impediment to the production of Australian tanks rather than the cause of it. That's right. An armoured division was formed specifically as a result of NA experience, at the time it was thought that it could be used as part of a corps to fight the Germans. Really the Japanese were a nuisance although not viewed as such at the time, due to their proximity their threat was real but it soon was shown to be a bit of a paper tiger. There is no doubt that the Australian army would have preferred to fight the Germans as they had found them to be worthy but beatable opponents. Which resulted in the continued development of the Sentinel and particularly it's constant upgunning until the US effectively put a stop to that. The Sherman as a result of tests was never accepted which probably was the problem as far as the US was concerned.

On the one hand I get accused of not responding to posts that are claimed to show I talk shit, on the other when I did here noone has the guts to respond. This forum has declined into a little comfortable club which is great at pretending it's agenda is safe and real but when challenged has nothing other than personal keyboard warrior abuse. Pathetic.

Really? Instead of trolling the internet for 'facts' how about reading a couple of books on the subject that quote primary sources forever, like the disappointing but somewhat useful Fallen Sentinel and the very good Armed and Ready. Perhaps you can recommend poor ignorant me some others as well lol. Long ago I learnt that it was pointless to argue on the internet when the bandwagon is against you which is why I don't post often on contentious subjects. However occasionally I can't resist pointing out facts that may be uncomfortable for some to read and who typically react in a personal way against the messenger. I'm just not going to engage in what should be respectful discussions but which invariably turn personal when the going gets tough. In case anyone is really interested in the topic the final version of the Sentinel was designed to carry either the 17pdr or the 25pdr, a field workshop conversion. Actual battlefield experience against the Germans clearly showed early on that you mounted the biggest gun available, you could never have too much firepower against the Germans, particularly direct firepower. When you did they quickly folded, saved a lot of casualties, particularly infantry, that way.

Amazing how people get all excited about a trivial point, perhaps they can see that already with the Mk1 we have a superior AFV but don't want to think about that. Or perhaps they don't have a clue about what's important with tank design. Anyway, the US certainly did nothing to help with supplying an ally with suitable components over the life of the Sentinel, all this at a time when they were in turn being very well supported in return in the Pacific with everything from uniforms to maintenance and repair facilities and everything in between. In fact at the end they forced the abandonment of the AC project by threatening to cut off all component supply, perhaps because by then it was mounting the 17pdr gun which sort of showed up certain people across the Pacific in a negative light. Part 2 of the review?

The op raises a lot more issues than all out quality vs just good enough, for one thing comparing WW2 with what happens now in 2016 may appear on tomorrows TV is really unrealistic. Can you imagine having images of brewed up Shermans and their deceased occupants on tonight's news? The simple if incomplete answer to the op's proposition is that today's democracies can not tolerate high casualty rates while other forms of government eg North Korea, will not care so much. The worst aspect of WW2 for the West was, or should have been, the lack of realisation that the inferiority of their weapons compared with Germany's was costing them excessive casualties. But that inferiority was buried beneath an avalanche of Western propaganda which still persists today for some strange reason.

This clicked the other day, way before Lend Lease GB had to pay cash for the equipment they bought from the US, so much in fact that they basically went broke. Now lets think about that. On the the one hand you have a country making big bucks out of another country that was desperately trying to survive and at the same time counter evil relevant to the entire world. And being assisted to the max by it's dominions as best they could but the US, nah, we'll take your money but otherwise no, political considerations you know. Then we should look at the big post war picture to see how this panned out. GB basically worn out but still having to shoulder it's responsibilities like in Palestine while the US was playing it's world games which just happened to be in effect anti British. Not hard to work out from that how the US was in a prefect position post WW2 to virtually have and do whatever they wanted to. Considering the damage that the USSR had suffered with their resulting problems.

................................. Last time nitwit. The Medium Tank M4 was planned from the get go to have a 3" Gun. That proved impractical because of the size and weight of the gun, which led to development of the 76mm Gun. However, when tested in spring 1942 it was unacceptable to the Armored Force. Further design work resulted in an acceptable design in summer 1943 with production in January 1944. ............................................. Which sums up a pathetic effort, thankyou. If the M4 was 'planned' (designed?) to have a 3" gun how come the 'planned' for 3" gun could not be fitted? Why the failure involving something so obvious? And then we have the timeline. No need to hurry here chaps, take your time, doesn't matter if the 76mm is not up to scratch you can try again. Bugger me This little quote sums it all up for me, Ike according to Bradley. "You mean our 76 won't knock these Panthers out? Why, I thought it was going to be the wonder gun of the war.... Why is it that I am always the last to hear about this stuff? Ordnance told me this 76 would take care of anything the Germans had. Now I find you can't knock out a damn thing with it." But the revisionist intraweb experts know better than those who were actually there running the war. Like 'There were hardly any Panthers there so a bigger gun was not needed'.

The point that seems to be always missed here is that those actually involved in battle and not directly involved knew from experience that the Sherman, like other modestly gunned tanks during the WW2 arms race, needed a bigger gun. Oh no, ammo too heavy to load or something? But the Sherman is perfect as is? The Sherman was just another modestly gunned tank (despite it being US) so more firepower should always have been on the agenda. The simple fact is that US Ordinance were not able to compete in gun development and so, to preserve their empire, they became part of the problem and failed to upgun the Sherman in a timely fashion. From that simple fact and apparently to preserve' Murrica yeah' we now have an industry of excuses. Which range from the unrealistic 'it was not needed' to fudging penetrating figures by manipulating ammo performance while at the same time denigrating the 17pdr's performance. It really is boring to listen to and read this sort of apologist rubbish. Wake up.

There was only one way to carry out objective and accurate tests between the 17pdr and it's US competitors and that was to hold impartial tests involving both parties which never happened. But of course we had two completely different agendas involved, the British had decided to go with the 17pdr and they were at full capacity making their own conversions and really had no reason to care what the US did while US Ordinance on the other hand was under pressure to produce a gun which would, in effect, do a comparable job to the 17. To underestimate or ignore the above facts simply leads to a Ordinance favoured conclusion because, if you have not caught on yet, they were the ones under the pump, not the British, they were the ones who in their own interests were trying to justify their own existence. Interesting background on all this from a, gasp, non US source is The Business of Tanks which as always when you are truly looking for a potential unbiased and agenda less source is worth considering. I particularly like Bradley's recollection of Ike's comment about the failure of Ordinance's final effort To put it bluntly, Americans need to realise that they usually have this 'Murrica is best' thing where they have this inbuilt bias favouring their own and excluding others, unless they are German of course. Strange.

Let's have more of a practical tanker's opinion of the T55 in some detail please. Stefan K.

Back to the OP, the 231 was an obsolete 30's design so it should be disadvantaged when being compared with something designed in the 40's at a time when the design of combat vehicles was progressing significantly. Like a lot of US vehicles the Greyhound was about a decade behind, particularly in regard to high speed offroad capability.

No German, no interest.

It did not take long for the US, once they had entered WW2, to start using their industrial might to use what they were best at to attempt to control what their allies produced. A good example of this is the Sherman tank which they tried to in effect to use to reduce the capacity of their Western allies to make such vehicles by pushing Shermans as the tank to have, providing it was US spec. In other words, leave tank manufacturing to the US, you go and so something else. The more specialising, the greater the volume the more profit. Same but different with aircraft, the US had such a capacity to produce multiple quality aircraft that other countries, which already had been scratching to catch up and supply suitable aircraft under wartime conditions, were overwhelmed. Being in the privileged position of not being directly threatened, being able to learn in the calm of relative peace, gave the US an advantage which they were able to exploit primarily because they had the industry which did everything and was able to turn it's talents to making the equipment of war with the same efficiency they had done in previously making vacuum cleaners and tractors. Once the war ended, with industry in good financial shape the US was able to switch over to peace time production of consumer goods all ready for those who had saved up during the war and were ready to let loose on the consumption front. Being basically self sufficient meant there were no shortages once industry began to crank up for peace time.

Aw, and we all thought this cosy little get together would solve everything and change the reality of the situation