British Experimental Tanks

Here are some Brit Experimental Tanks that you didn’t see yet. :wink:

Super Heavy Tank A1E1

???

British Light Tank A4EM

This one is designed and manufactured in New Zealand

New Zealand Schofield01 Light Tank

British TOG II

The “Very Funny” Sherman Lulu! :))

Vickers Aleckto

Again. Credits to the guys who uploaded it somewhere in the Web! :smiley:

2nd. picture from top - Vickers Armstrong Wheel cum Track

Vickers took a Mark 1 Medium Tank and built a solid tyre retractable wheel assembly at each end. The engine, using a power takeoff from the gearbox, could lower the wheels to lift the tracks just clear of the road. The system worked but the crew considered the ride to be unpleasant. The vehicle pitched for and aft on the suspension. All the external devices on the vehicle were considered vulnerable to hostile fire.

http: //mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/GreatBritain/GB-VickersArmstrongWheel-cum-Track.jpg

Picture 4 is a “Bob Semple” Tank, pretty much state of the art, for NZ armoured vehicles in 1940.
If ever the horrid thing had gone into combat, it would have lasted about 7 seconds.
It was basically a Caterpillar tractor (bulldozer, some half-ton in weight) clad in boilerplate, then fitted with corrugated plates to the exterior, and the space between the two filled with gravel and concrete. Basically, concrete boxing on tracks.
Armament was 3 Lewis guns, ex WW1 MMG’s, with about 250 rounds each.
Some 6 were actually built, but even the Army, and the “HomeGuard” didn’t like, nor want them, despite being “desperate” for Armoured Vehicles of any kind.

The Schofield Tank, picture 5, was almost worthwhile, but was only ever made as a prototype, as far as I recall.

Kind Regards, Uyraell.

I’m 99.99% sure there’s a Super Heavy Tank A1E1 in the Bovington tank museum. Good excuse for a visit to find out! :smiley:

There is, and it is the only survivor of its’ class outside Russia.
The T35 at Kublinka is pretty much the stepson, if not outright son, of the A1E1, because the Russians obtained the plans and data for the A1E1 through espionage and built the T35 based on the A1E1 “Independant” information.
To all intents, you may as well call the British vehicle and the Russian copy father and son.

Kind Regards, Uyraell.

In fact I have a photo of it!

And here I thought it was a tactical agriculture machine for use in Oz, so a farmer would be able to defend his fields from the Rabbits.

Interesting that “over and under” tank. The Black Prince was always my favorite in this matter.

British TOG II and more added in the first post! :wink:

:smiley:
The funny part about that was, that Australia did actually produce a series of indigenous armoured vehicles, based on M3 medium components, particularly chassis and drivetrain. The best to emerge was a beasty called AC1 Sentinel, versions of which eventually carried a 75mm cannon as in the M4 Sherman, and a 76.2 mm cannon as in 17-pdr Firefly in a later incarnation of the same Sentinel. There was a Fire Support Version made as well, which at one stage carried a 25pdr, and at another stage carried a 105mm howitzer. The Fire Support version retained the rotating turret of the original Sentinel.
In addition, there was an Australian “home-grown” equivalent of both M7 Priest and Sexton, also based on the M3 medium chassis. Further to that, there was also an Australian “home-grown” BARV based on the M3 medium chassis, which unique vehicle still exists to this day.

Taken over-all the Aussies did a damn fine job of designing and producing the tank family they did, considering there was no history of such production in Australia prior to 1939.

By shameful contrast, New Zealand had nothing comparable, nor made any effort of note to do so.

Kind and Respectful Regards, Uyraell.

The Black Prince was always my favorite in this matter.

Me too. But the bad news is, it didn’t got to war. Hope it’s still is used by the UK until 1950.

I’m not certain more than one example of the Black Prince (A43) tank survives. Memory insists that the trials series of vehicles/protoypes had all been scrapped by 1952 at the very latest.
The A43 was, despite being a relatively good design, over-weight and underpowered, as it had been produced (unfortunately) prior to the availability of the Rolls Royce Meteor engine (RR Merlin adapted as a tank motor, mass-produced by Rover, and employed in the Cromwell, Comet, and Centurion) which was a thirsty but more than adequate powerplant. Memory says that the Black Prince was not able to accept the Meteor powerplant because unlike the Cromwell it had not been designed to accept a replacement powerplant once one became available.
I admit I’m open to correction as regards this last point, above.

Kind and Respectful Regards, Uyraell.

A image of the TOG I, with a Matilda II turret. The superheavy tank an diesel-electric drive, not unlike some Mr Porsche designs.

A image of the TOG I, with a Matilda II turret. The superheavy tank an diesel-electric drive, not unlike some Mr Porsche designs.

That British TOG I Tank looks more alike to a Mark 1 Tank of WW1.

I think it was designed by a group that was invoved in WW1 tank design.The acronym TOG stood for The Old Gang.

You are completely correct.

As with the “Nellie” Trench (digging) Machine, Churchill thought it worth calling on the surviving members of the Landships Committee and the surviving men that had worked with Swinton and others, to see if the ideas those men had had in 1915/1916 could be applied to 1940.
The results were (chiefly, though there were many ideas generated, some of which did come to fruition in Hobart’s Funnies) Nellie, and TOG I and TOG II.

Not surprisingly, both TOG vehicles bear more than a passing resemblance to the WW1 rhomboidal Tanks the same men had designed, albeit considerably updated in metallurgical terms, along with powerplant and drivetrain.
In effect, the TOG team got to do in 1940 what they had been unable to achieve fully in 1916: design and build the tank(s) they had both foreseen as necessary and wanted to build.

Whether either vehicle would in fact have had any use on the battlefields of post-1940 is problematical to say the least, because the vehicles lacked in speed and adequate armament, and later fell into that horrifying spiral/triangular circumstance wherein the gun(s) need to be better, the armour is adequate (but needs reinforcing with more armour) , but the engine needs to be more powerful.

I’m certain one TOG vehicle survives at Bovington, though offhand do not recall whether it be TOG I or TOG II.

Kind and Respectful Regards Boyne_Water, Uyraell.

I tought I was going to be able to answer that one for you, as their website used to have a list of exhibits, but they’ve changed the format (terrible) and no longer list exhibits.
I have to say, that apart form the number of tanks on display, which goes up & up, the museum as an attraction for the devotee is not as good as it was say 30 years ago.

A Beasty looking Sentinal AC IV (Prototype) to test if the AC III/IV could take the recoil of a 17 pounder

Twin 25 pounder field guns

Many Thanks for trying to find out, DavidW. :slight_smile:
I’ve a vague memory of both TOG vehicles being listed on documents/histories at Bovington, but of only one ever being on display. Then again, I’ve only ever had online access, it being that I’m marooned down here in bloody NZ.

One day, I’d like to see Bovington and Saumur, and the new Museum in Germany, as well as the Tanks that will be at Fort Benning, and those at Kublinka.

Kind and Respectful Regards DavidW, Uyraell.

That was one of the versions I was thinking of, Leccy.
Thank you for posting that. :slight_smile:

All in all, the Sentinel series vehicles represent a prodigious effort on the part of Australia, and one that many histories of AFV’s tend to either overlook or skim across lightly at best.

Had I been in the Pacific theater, ground-pounding against the Japanese, I’d have been giving Thanks regularly for the availability of the Sentinels and other Aussie Armoured Fighting Vehicles had they gone into production.
They were formidable vehicles, in my humble opinion.
I’m certain the Sentinels III and IV would have outperformed any but the last generation of Japanese tanks, and those never left the Home Islands.

Kind and Respectful Regards Leccy, Uyraell.