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British Battle Tanks: Post-War Tanks 1946-2016 PDF

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colour H BATTLE S I T TANKS I R B POST-WAR TANKS 1946–2016 SIMON DUNSTAN GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 1 18/09/2019 13:39 OSPREY PUBLISHING Bloomsbury Publishing Plc PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK 1385 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA E-mail: [email protected] www.ospreypublishing.com OSPREY is a trademark of Osprey Publishing Ltd First published in Great Britain in 2020 This electronic edition published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc © Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2020 For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. XX constitute an extension of this copyright page. Some of the material in this book has been previously published as: NVG 23: Challenger Main Battle Tank 1982– 97; NVG 68: Centurion Universal Tank 1943–2003; NVG 80: Chieftain Main Battle Tank 1965–2003; NVG 112: Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank 1987–2006. Artwork on pages 29, 43. 47, 51, 53, 54, 67, 69, 77, 81, 85, 86, 131, 140, 145, 148, 149, 155, 163, 167, 179, 185, 189, 191, 193, 213, 214, 220 by Peter Sarson, © Osprey Publishing Ltd. Artwork on pages 233, 239, 247, 251, 267, 271, 272, 275, 281 by Tony Bryan © Osprey Publishing Ltd. Photos on pages 195, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 236 top and bottom, 240, 243, 246, 249, 250, 253 top and bottom, 254, 255 top, 260, 285 bottom, 287, 294 are reproduced under the MOD Open Government Licence. Photos on pages 57, 59 top and bottom, 60, 61 top and bottom, 62, 92, 97, 95, 100, 103, 106, 109, 112 are reproduced courtesy of the Israeli Government Press Office. All other photos unless otherwise credited are courtesy of the author’s collection. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 9781472833365; eBook: 9781472833358; ePDF: 9781472833341; XML: 9781472833372 Index by Sandra Shotter Front cover: Author’s collection (top); MOD Open Government Licence (bottom) Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.ospreypublishing.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletter. DEDICATION Dedicated to Samuel GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 2 18/09/2019 13:39 CONTENTS FOREWORD 4 INTRODUCTION 6 Chapter 1. CENTURION 10 Chapter 2. VICKERS BATTLE TANKS 114 Chapter 3. CHIEFTAIN 128 Chapter 4. CHALLENGER 174 Chapter 5. CHALLENGER 2 226 AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 291 INDEX 296 GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 3 18/09/2019 13:39 FOREWORD BY MAJOR GENERAL PATRICK CORDINGLEY DSO OBE D.S . FRGS c As a cavalryman, it has always intrigued me that the British should twice in their history have produced the weapon that diminished and finally eliminated the role of the horse on the battlefield. At Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, English archers caused slaughter among the French mounted knights; then gunpowder superseded the longbow on the battlefield. During World War I, at the Somme, Cambrai and Amiens, the appearance of the tank consigned cavalry to history. In the 1930s, the British Army successfully undertook the transition to mechanization but tragically did not have sufficient tanks to create a coherent armoured doctrine to thwart the Blitzkrieg tactics of the German Panzers during the campaigns in France and North Africa. In the early war years, British tanks were woefully lacking in firepower, armour protection and reliability until the arrival of the American Sherman medium tank in 1942. Warfare in North-West Europe in 1944–45 was determined by the mass of materiel from West and East leading to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, there emerged a tank that was to epitomise the very ethos of British tank design after six years of bitter conflict. Centurion served the British Army with distinction and was the progenitor of the main battle tank concept, which emerged with Chieftain and its powerful L11 120mm main armament. Thereafter the British adopted a policy of evolution rather than revolution with Challenger and Challenger 2, which fought in two Gulf Wars. On both occasions the British concept of tank design, with the emphasis on armour protection and firepower over high-speed mobility, was successful in the particular circumstances that prevailed. Within days of arriving in Saudi Arabia with the 7th Armoured Brigade Group in October 1990, I decided to command it from a tank. My Challenger was crewed by members of the Royal Scots Dragoons Guards and a Royal Anglian officer, and we named it ‘Bazoft’s Revenge’. For nearly six months, I lived, worked and slept either in or near to the tank. It became a reliable friend but I cannot ever claim it was comfortable. On 25 February 1991, we crossed the line of departure into Iraq leading the US VII Corps, the largest Corps in the history of warfare. It was a cold overcast day and we were nervous because none of us had done such a thing before. But we felt GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 4 18/09/2019 13:39 5 confident in our tanks and this was not misplaced. Challenger was exceptional. Its firepower was devastating, with enemy tanks quite commonly being destroyed at F 3,000m range. We advanced 302km in four days and destroyed some 350 Iraqi tanks o and APCs. As we arrived north of Kuwait City 92 per cent of my 117 Challengers r e were fully fit – and that figure is remarkable. I am proud that I lived for six months w and then fought for a brief time in my tank. I always thought that Challenger was o built for war and not competitions. r d This volume by Simon Dunstan describes in considerable detail the design route from Centurion to Challenger 2. Despite serving for many years in Chieftain, being involved with the termination of MBT 80 and then the requirement for Challenger 1, I learnt fascinating aspects about these ‘workhorses’ of the Royal Armoured Corps. The stories of their deployments in wars since 1945 are also remarkable. They have fought with the British Army in Korea, Suez, the Rafan, Kuwait and Iraq. With other armies they have been used extremely successfully in the Indo-Pakistan Wars, the Arab-Israeli Wars, in Vietnam with the Australians and in Angola by the South Africans. Their stories are told here by many of the participants in a truly engrossing way. This excellent and most readable volume makes one feel proud of our tanks and their designers and above all of the men who served in them. As Colonel Commandant of The Royal Dragoon Guards, Major General Patrick Cordingley poses in front of a Chieftain Mark 5C with a Guard of Honour and the Regimental Colours. GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 5 18/09/2019 13:39 INTRODUCTION BY MAJOR GENERAL SIR LAURENCE NEW CB CBE I first met Simon Dunstan on 16 February 1978, when I was Colonel (OR) 17 in Whitehall. At the time he was undertaking research into the Centurion tank for an excellent book that was published in 1980. To this day, it remains the standard reference on that exceptional British tank. It is thus some 41 years almost to the day as I write the introduction to this thoroughly researched book on British battle tanks since 1945. I identify with it closely, having been intimately involved with the events and tanks described for most of the years from 1952 to 1985; latterly as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operational Requirements) Land Systems and as a Colonel Commandant Royal Tank Regiment from 1986 to 1992. It was axiomatic that the failures of British tank designs during World War II, of inferior firepower and inadequate armour protection, would not be repeated in any British post-war tank. This review of the development of our main battle tanks from Centurion to Challenger pinpoints many of our successes and equally some failures. The former explains our achievements in battle, notably in the Gulf; the latter go some way to explaining our poor showing in international competitions and our failure recently to sell our tanks abroad, while the German Leopard 1 and 2 have been sold to numerous nations. By contrast Chieftain, despite its excellent protection, firepower and cross-country mobility, was sold to just six nations, the principal reason being its mechanical unreliability. The inclusion of an untried and inadequately developed horizontally-opposed two-stroke multi-fuel L60 powertrain was disastrous. In August 1968, I was stationed in Germany as Brigade Major of 20 Armoured Brigade. We had three armoured regiments including the recently amalgamated Blues and Royals that was the only one equipped with Chieftain. On their first foray to the Soltau Training Area they suffered the breakdown of 40 tanks in ten days, eventually leaving only three operational. If it was not cylinder liners, piston failure, overheating of the TN12 gearbox or failing air cleaners, it was something as simple as stripping fan belts. In 1972, as the CO of 4 Royal Tank Regiment, I commanded the first Battle Group to train on the extensive BATUS live firing and manoeuvre training area in Canada. The sick joke emerging from the subsequent Medicine Hat exercises was that they were not so much to benefit armoured battle group training as for the REME to refine their sustenance of Chieftain. GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 6 18/09/2019 13:39 7 A tank must have a balance of protection, firepower and mobility, but none of these qualities matter if it does not also have availability. Mechanical unreliability, as I Simon makes clear, has been our Achilles heel for most of the period under review. It n was not always so; we produced some 4,423 Centurions in the years 1946 to 1962, t r with almost half being sold to the USA, Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, o From the 1960s onwards, d Sweden, Switzerland, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, New Zealand and most notably the Royal Armoured Corps u Israel. One of the additional features of Simon’s book is his explicit description of retained its faith in the c how the Centurions sold to Israel were upgraded into their spectacularly successful concept of rifled tank guns ti o Shot Cal. In 1973 these tanks enabled the IDF to defeat a Syrian armada on the in the belief that they could n Golan Heights equipped with some 1,200 Soviet-made main battle tanks, including fire a wider range of ammunition than the latest T-62. Initially there were some 50 Syrian tanks for every Shot Cal and at no smoothbore weapons. In stage less than 15 to one. I spent three years in Israel as Defence Attaché immediately particular, the British after the Yom Kippur War and I can assert with some authority that Simon’s favoured the High Explosive explanation of those extraordinary events is the most comprehensive in print. The Squash Head (HESH) round that remains a highly IDF enhancement of these Centurions, reminiscent of the Soviet practice of making effective battlefield HE incremental improvements, is surely worthy of this study. projectile against troops in Fundamental to the IDF success on the battlefield was the standard of gunnery the open and under cover; within the Israeli Armoured Corps; a legacy of General Israel Tal. This superiority field fortifications; was in large part due to the superlative L7 105mm gun that was one of Britain’s finest soft-skinnned targets; as well as having a useful contributions to armoured warfare in the late 20th century. Indeed, the 105mm gun capability against AFVs. remains in frontline service to this day; some 60 years after its introduction. Another Here, a Challenger 2 MBT was the development of Chobham armour that has markedly improved survivability of 1st Royal Tank Regiment of MBTs on the battlefield. The lead engineer on that project was Julian Walker at engages targets during a Firepower Demonstration MVEE whom I had got to know and he impressed me greatly. However, the on Salisbury Plain in April FV4030/4 Shir 2 did not meet the General Staff Requirement for our new main 2009: the Chinese Eye battle tank, notably in protection and reliability, both being thought to be capable of symbol on the turret side enhancement. In the event they remained a weakness in Challenger 1 but were solved originated in the Great War in Challenger 2. Commercially it would provide employment for the Royal Ordnance and became the insignia of 4th Royal Tank Regiment: Factories which had lost the Shir contract through no fault of their own. There was the regiment commanded significant reluctance to abandon years of work on MBT-80 and there was an by Lt Col (later Maj Gen) informal lobby within the Royal Armoured Corps to purchase Leopard 2. We in OR Laurence New GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 7 18/09/2019 13:39 17 and the RAC hierarchy were against the foreign buy for predictable reasons, not least that we would have lost the British L11 120mm rifled gun which optimised a HESH round and had a higher chance of a kill at longer range than the smoothbore- type gun fitted to German and American MBTs. The government was against a foreign buy for commercial and ‘national’ reasons. The hitherto time-consuming insistence that we should work with our allies to produce a multi-national tank was mercifully abandoned because the Americans, French and the Germans were now beyond that point in their MBT development cycle. Very significantly the brilliant Master General of the Ordnance, General Sir Hugh Beach, (in effect the military Head of Procurement) could see how a tank based on Shir 2, but heavily modified, could be procured effectively and speedily. The decision was taken in July 1979 to commit to the newly named Challenger programme. Even so, both the Americans and Germans fielded an MBT protected by a variation of Chobham armour before the British Army. One of my lasting memories was the acquisition of thermal imaging or TI for Challenger. Over the years, Royal Tank Regiment has produced several technical geniuses such as Major Ralph Bagnall-Wild who was the guru on gun control systems. In the summer of 1978, we were comparing the GSR for MBT 80 with that for Shir/ Challenger. Ralph had by then been lured from the Army by the leading optical manufacturer, Barr & Stroud. One evening we both happened to be at Bovington at HQ DRAC for a planning meeting. At that stage almost all night-vision equipment relied on image-intensification technology and we were committed to that for MBT 80. Ralph asked me to see a project that he was working on; he had set up a demonstration model on the roof of the building to demonstrate his idea of a thermal imager incorporated into the gun sight. It was very impressive, and I recall dragging DRAC out of his office to come up and see it. The cost would be huge but it was so superior that we persuaded DRAC there and then to put his weight behind it. To cut a long story short, once we had come to terms with the likely cost it was included in our stated requirement for Challenger and in due course became the Thermal Observation and Gunnery System or TOGS. In December 1982, I was promoted to major general and went back to the fraught world of operational requirements as ACGS (OR) and later ACDS (OR) Land Systems. It was said to be one of the most grindingly difficult jobs in the MOD, with a budget that was ever-decreasing and an imposition to talk constantly with our allies, especially the French, Germans and Americans, in the pious belief that we could thereby secure economies of scale. The irony for me personally was that I was confronted inter alia by each of the programmes I had struggled with as Colonel (OR) 17. Challenger was brought into service in 1983 prematurely, following a dangerously brief trials programme and consequently suffered some unreliability problems, compounded by insufficient spares backing. It had a good power-to- weight ratio derived from its Rolls-Royce Condor CV12 TCA turbocharged diesel engine, developing 1,200hp. It also had significant improvement in protection from its Chobham armour. It had the extremely accurate L11A5 rifled gun with an excellent laser rangefinder giving a high first-round chance of a kill with APFSDS ammunition out to well over 3,000m and a very effective HESH round out to 5,000m. During Operation Granby a Challenger destroyed a Russian-built tank at 4,100m. Only 420 Challengers were built and it was phased out of service in 2000. Its successor Challenger 2 was procured in even fewer numbers, yet it represents the culmination of British tank design, a lineage that stretches from the first Mark Is GNM_Battle Tanks.Vol4.layouts_v10.indd 8 18/09/2019 13:39

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