The US Army's Christie Tanks, and why they failed to take hold.
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- čas přidán 31. 07. 2020
- The unique Christie suspension system took the tank world by storm in the early 1930s, and tanks equipped with it remained in production until the very end of WW2. Yet, his home nation, the USA, entered the war with bogie wheeled volute sprung tanks, not the big-wheeled coil-sprung speed demons that Christie was building.
This was the result of a multi-year testing process, comprising more Christie-type vehicles than not, while Christie wrote himself out of the picture for most of it. By reference to test reports, we can see what happened.
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"Driver! The track fell off!"
Eurobeat intensifies
"DO YOU LIKE
MY TANK?"
*Running in the 90's starts playing*
*Säkkijärven Polkka intensifies*
GAS GAS GAS
N-Nani!!!?
Kansas Dorifto!?
He sold the Army all his patents, including the ones that weren’t even patents yet...
That’s a hungry man. I expect his personal life was as interesting as his designs.
Christie failed to read all of the fine print before he signed his first contract with Ordnance.
Speaking strictly as a scale modeler, I'm downright drooling over some of those failed tank designs.
Well, there's always scratchbuilding
Kitbash time baby
I know what you mean. I'm totally digging the Combat Car T-2!
You could try checking out the Smithsonian Museum to see if they sell the blueprints for Christies designs, those designed by others and Ordnance.
You can never have enough daka, you always need more
But did they paint it red and yellow tho?
Anything else is heresy
@@le_travie7724 Soviets sure did.
cirian75 Lots of dakka is great, but when you can only fire for 30 seconds due to a lack of ammo...
Huh, Darjeeling is now front and center..
Glorious if I say so myself.
was about to say that too, but checked if someone else said it first :D
LOL
The Chieftain has confirmed with this video...Darjeeling best girl
@@borderwardoomer6465 Is there any competition? Her elegance is immeasurable.
@@borderwardoomer6465 the abrams is literally aiming at her
If you want to know what ' Gumbo Mud ' is, imagine the heaviest, thickest, gooiest, stickiest clay type mud you have ever encountered mixed in a one to one ratio with Gel Type Super Glue. Oh, yeah - it is also so wet that if you drive or walk or ride a horse into it, you sink right down into it and ARE NEVER GETTING OUT !
paulrward does it have something to do with the Cajun dish?
There is a case in russia. where a german infantry man was walking in this type of mud. It riped his boots of his feet.
@@CAP198462 it's mostly found in the deep South of the US, same places where gumbo stew is found.
@@ScottKenny1978 im from montana..... we have a lot of bentonite and alkali in our ground
this makes for NASTY gumbo mud.
.
and ya, i thought all mud pulls your boots off...... thats just how it is around here
(you eventually develop a style of walking where you "tip" your feet, to break the suction)
.
like, the alkali is REALLY bad around here.
it pools in low lying areas..... and turns the ground white.
.
say you have 10 tanks
the first 8 may be able to drive over it just fine
but the 9th will INSTANTLY sink 5 feet down.
.
or.... the first tank will sink 5 feet down
ya just never know..... so its best avoided by a WIDE margin
.
and ya..... gumbo mud will turn your "super swamper" mud tires on your 400HP truck into slime.
it just sticks.... even if you spin your wheels at 120mph.....
.
so you end up with a slime covered tire.... that is PERFECTLY smooth.......AKA, you arnt going ANYWHERE!.
.
even tractors in this area.... with big "bar lug" tires..... (and even the REALLY big ones with tracks) will get stuck
GUP Dargeeling just standing there enjoying her tea
As always
You are killing me with the Darjeeling Nendoroid Mini!
Sowme tawk owf Awexawndew awnd some owf Hewcuwese,
I was wondering what a random chibi doll I bought from Goodwill was. Nendoroid pointed me in the right direction. :)
The Darjeeling Show, with special guest, The Chieftain!
When he started talking about "convertible" tanks I imagined ones where the top comes down....
Only if you are Telly Savalas in the Battle of th Bulge you can have a convertible Cadillac tank. ;-)
you can see the stuart and lee tank designs evolving with these...
Yeah and it feels weird
It does seem to validate the need for the MPF, too. We made such a platform then and we'd like one now.
The US Arsenal was working up the Stuart design at the same time which made the US Army realize that it's vertical volute suspension was superior to the Christie suspension due to being less complicated, didn't take up interior space and was easier to repair or replace. The one holdover from the combat car design was using the radial aircraft engine since the crews and mechanics like it plus those were cheap and plentiful as obsolete engines stored in the warehouses of commercial aircraft operators.
@@cheyannei5983 perhaps we will see a convertible tank and related vehicles again soon.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis Not convertible, just an armored, self-moving field gun you can move via jet... aka a tank.
Darjeeling is Chieftains waifu and not Yukari? Color me surprised.
What the fuck are you talking about
@@samsonthemighty9254 the figure in front of his hands blind lil man
Chibi Darjeeling took center focus at last.
I’m a Riko “Erwin” Matsumoto fan myself, but if Darjeeling is the Major’s preference, that’s fine.
Should have been Kay, or better yet Alisa
Personally, the best part of this whole amazing video is the photo at 17:00 It is just inspiring to see a bunch of old Army men, some with uniforms dating back to the 1880s, greeting the latest generation of their service in the late 1930s. We need more of our old veterans talking to and showing our recruits just what a mountain of Human achievement they are standing on.
The picture of the M1 tank reminded me of a 30's movie I saw with a young Phil Silvers. He ends up driving an M1 in a chaotic manner. It was mean to overawe the movie house audience of the day with the might of the U.S. Army but to viewers who know what's coming . . . a faintly amused smile suffices.
Is it the same one as the one Bob Hope was in
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caught_in_the_Draft
Phil Silvers
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_in_the_Army_Now
@@mpetersen6 "In The Army Now" is the one. I remembered it as late 30's but obviously it was 1941.
Hey Nick.
I just wanted to show some level of thanks for teaching me enough about thanks and armored warfare. I've made the decision to join the Service and enlist in the army, and you had a hand in my choice to try for 19K.
Good day and God speed, Chieftain.
Did it work
Are we just gonna ignore the cute anime figure or have I been blind for a few episodes now?
What anime figure?
Never mind I saw it now
Don't know what the hell that's from, but I imagine GuP to be a good bet.
@@DarknessInferno15 Yup, Darjeeling from GuP. And it's hardly a bet considering The Chieftain worked on GuP.
Yeah, it's always in the background somewhere
@@strangerakari2836 Source on that?
@7:13: The American LaFrance company of Elmira primary product throughout its history was firefighting equipment, especially fire engines, including pumpers. So you might say it already had experience with "tanks" (groan). At least heavy vehicles. I grew up in the area and memory of the attempt at producing tanks was not even a blip in the company's history, understandably.
Right now I'm sitting about a mile from one of their former competitors. Peter Pirsch. Pirsch was more into the custom tailored trucks
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pirsch_and_Sons
American LaFrance only produced 5 combat cars in 1932/1933 which took them nearly 18 months due to changes made by Ordnance. They also made a few turreted wheeled armored cars in 1933 that were exported to Iran.
The company probably didn't care to mention the project since they pissed off the US Army and the Ordnance Department by producing only 5 combat cars after going thru the $200,000 given them to manufacture 15 or 20.
yeah, if every damn turn is a significant emotional event for the crew, you can see why the tank didn't stay
It looks like the Christie suspension was an idea that would have very good in the 20's to mid 30's given the reliability of tracked vehicles at the time. As tracked vehicles became more reliable in the mid to late 30's it was superseded by other designs. Also, as armies world wide gained more experience with armor certain design criteria became standard such as the 3 man turret. These tended to impose a minimum working volume within the hull. Suspension systems that took up less space would obviously be given a good hard look as they might make for a smaller overall vehicle.
It seems like much of the criticism of the US Army not adopting the Christie suspension is based solely on the speeds the designs were capable of not on a holistic assessment of the vehicle as fighting vehicle. If other designs are just as effective as fighting vehicles but are cheaper it does make sense to adopt the cheaper design even if the top speed is not as fast.
I think it depends on where you're willing to spend your money and resources. Both the British and Soviets had great success using the Christie suspension on tanks, right up until the end of the war. Both the British Comet and late-model Russian T-34 tanks were still using it, though it tends to get forgotten about as vehicles pass the 40 ton mark.
@@Senbei01 To be fair though, the Russians were trying to get rid of the Christie suspension and make the T-34M with torsion bars instead, but with the war breaking out it seemed pointless making such a radical production change and endure a drop in production numbers while the Germans were coming right at them.
The brits on the other hand still went with some variation of coil springs for almost everything, and once they got to Centurion, which is without a doubt just too heavy, went with Horstmann bogies. British suspension design generally seems to be a bizarre struggle of using everything and anything as long as its not torsion bars.
While the 3 man turret did eventually become standard, it did take a while for the French and the Russians to adopt the concept.
@@Riceball01 to be fair its rather hard to change design philosophy when occupying powers won't let you play with tanks.
Concur, it is low speed high torque acceleration that counts
Soil is primarily made of three particles from largest to smallest : sand, silt, clay...... Gumbo is composed of an overwhelming amount of clay.....clay has exceptional water retention....so when wet gumbo has about the same supportive capabilities as water.....making bottoming out a vehicle exceptionally easy.
They say that my aunt Christie is built like a tank, but from what I've seen, she's not very combat effective.
The writing and presentation of these are always fantastic. Really interesting history!
All that suspension has to go somewhere. The Army decided to put it inside the tracks, so it's external of the tank. Christie's design had it internal, thus taking up valuable crew room. It's one reason the T-34 was so cramped. Not to mention the sloped side armor.
Excellent analysis. I was always interested in Christy's ideas and wondered why the US did not use them. Now I know. I still think the idea of having a vehicle able to shed its tracks so it can drive on roads easier was a great idea. But I never thought about the need for a differential.
It is so interesting to think about an era when they still had to invent everything and converge towards the best possible result ... I think by now we have figured out almost everything a tank needs to be and it took us a world war and a long cold war to do it ... in the 20s and the 30s they were in so much unknown territory ...
Yes, very much do. I like to say "We are reading history; they were the ones making that history."
After WW1 the US Army bought tanks made in foreign countries to test and examine. Patton and Ike worked together tearing them completely down to examine all the system components then put them back together to get an idea on how hard those were to repair.
Thanks for some real history, Chieftain! Excellent!
Another informative and interesting video. I never get tired of your easygoing and methodical explanations Mr Moran.
Outstanding video and information. Thank you!
Gumbo mud is a mix of fine clay and sand that once it's wet is really hard to navigate
Interesting and well presented, as always.
Very interesting, sir. And informative. Thanks for the video.
And I thought I knew about Christie suspensions.
The Chieftain can spark interest and amaze anyone, even a "Tank Suspension" expert! Oh No "The Tank is on Fire" but don't jump out we are on road wheels only and running 50 mph... "Chieftain" is rolling in the dust ...long gone as you look back at him, while the tank fire starts to consume you! LoL
Always interesting, thank you.
Best unwinding of the Christie legend that I've ever seen. Really interesting!
Excellent sir, thank you very very interesting
As I understand the British also at first missed the mark with this design since they only started to develop tanks based on Christies design after British military delegation had witnessed demonstration of the Soviet BT tanks in Soviet Union in mid 1930s. This meant that the British started developing these tanks only in late 1930s and had no significant number of such tanks before the fall of France 1940.
Christie sold the same tank blueprints to the British and Soviets at the same time.
@@billwilson3609 Not true. The British only started development after a British military delegation had seen the effectiveness of the BT tanks in a Soviet military exercise.
Yes. Thanks Nick. A very well expressed discussion of the US Army's involvement with the Christie suspension. One thing that would have been interesting was an expansion contrasting the Russian and British experience - since they did go on and produce the design.
.
Russians did it first though. Russians absolutely loved the design and had followed through with it since the 1930 , improving it's design gradually, first n the BT series tanks which later changed to A series , which later became a T34 tank in 1940. The soviets had contacted Christie in 1930, in 1931 first tank designs were shipped to the USSR, and in 1932 they were made domestically and started improving it's design each year after that.
Thanks for the info. over the years I have wondered about Christie and what happened.
looking at the early abominations you can see why the standard tank (2 tracks sloped armour and turret) and the multi-wheeled baby-turret vehicles became the way they were. Different compromises but also not trying to do all the things in one vehicle.
Mr Moran presents his in-depth scholarship in his chatty, informal style that makes an intricate developmental odyssey fascinating.
"Gumbo mud"... brings back memories. I don't remember such mud at Fort Riley. What I do remember is 6" of packed dust covering a sheet of rock we needed dynamite to blast through. But Fort Hood and Fort Polk had 6" of sod covering the clay. When you add water to the clay, it takes on the swirling colors of gumbo. Left to dry on the tracks of a tank, it became 'concrete'. There was much 'fun' to be had at the wash-rack after time in the field; tanker-bars and fire-hoses, then shovels to get it out of the concrete run-off ditches. And to Paul R. Ward's "...you sink right down into it and ARE NEVER GETTING OUT !..." "Sir, this bridge-layer is top-heavy and weighs more than you think. It will get stuck in the mud." "Sergeant, it is only two inches of mud. I'm ordering you to not hold up the column." The only thing more dangerous than the ignorance of a 2LT is the know-it-all arrogance of a 1LT.
18:39 smooth deflection there
Watched this when it was first aired and in following days watched a video of the army's exercise in 1940 and there was a clip of a Christie type vehicle participating
The US Army accepted the Arsenal's combat car for use in 1939 then declared it obsolete before the year was over.
SWEET! chieftains a Brave Creator! tip tip tip.
Kind of amazing how the Soviet Army made exact copies of Christine tank, track and suspension designs! The Red Army even based the entire T34 on the exact same engine and suspension gear!
Gumbo mud at Ft Riley (14:15)
- from the Wikipedia entry on “Gumbo (soil)”: Although gumbo soils are exceptional at water retention, they can be difficult to farm, as precipitation will turn gumbo into a unique muddy fiasco that is challenging to work using large commercial farming equipment. Avoiding tillage of this type of soil, thru "no-till" farming, appears strongly correlated to higher yields versus more traditional tilling practices.
Pretty cool, you can see the outlines of the T-34 in the early Christie tanks. People call any tank with that type of suspension a "Christie tank", but in the case of the T-34, it is a direct descendant of the entire machine he built. Particularly the later improvements, look at the rear view at 7:45. it has the same slopes, the same twin exhaust, same overall shape as T-34. T-34 is a direct descendant of the BT series, and the BT is directly taken from the 1920s US designs.
Also understandable that Christie resisted turrets. Seems wrongheaded to us today, but remember this was only a decade or so after the first WWI tanks rolled out, so what a 'tank'ought to look like was not established, nor was it clear that turrets were going to be a primary attribute of a 'tank' later.
Christie never bothered to design weapon systems for his military vehicles and left that to the Ordnance Department. He did design gun motor carriages to hold certain guns supplied by the Army and one tank that had an Ordnance supplied turret with gun.
John Walter Christie was an interesting if brilliant engineer whose designs were heavily influenced by his initial experience of automobile racing, to include the French Grand Prix in 1907. Although history tends to be a strange bedfellow when considering that Christie's designs found success in the Soviet Union and the U.K., rather than America. The man was ahead of his time, and yet never truly understood the basic doctrine of speed, armour and firepower.
"Greetings All!" Made my day
NEEDS MOAR DAKKA!!!!, almost die when the chief said that
Oh! Thanks so much for clearing this up for me and so many others! I also wonder about the development of the T-34 now, it essentially looking like a widened bt-5 or 7. I also wonder why that as there was more weight and less space; the additional protection to the sides with the spaced armor and springs and such weren't considered as a wanted feature. Even with Torison bars however, you lose floor space, and don't really gain protection for that loss. Though this was played out in crusaider in which you had to take off so much to change a spring. That combined with doctorine, no real reason for them to be overly fast to get isolated from support anyway. Good stuff.
Is that a mini Sofilein on your desk?
Flying Tanks - Checkmate, Chieftain!!
The twin trumpets on the front of the tank at 12:45 are hilarious. I can imagine it going *AUGHAH*
"MOAR DAKA" i can't stop watching that bit
That Combat Car T2 looks awesome
That torsion bar sherman looks awesome.
Darjeeling
Yesssss
y e s
Y E E E E S S S S
That 70 mph tank in the 20s is terrifying. Probably not for the enemy, but holy shit can you imagine an accident in steering in a steel death trap at such a speed? They'd have to pressure wash you out in hell...
One of us! One of us!
She's getting closer o_O
Interestingly enough the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer's original specifications called for a Christie suspension. Instead Buick engineer's went with their innovative torsion bar suspension which provided a much more stable ride at speeds approaching 50 MPH. The Hellcat was considered the "Hot Rod" of WWII while capable of reaching speeds of 60 MHP.
Buick's first Hellcats could do 60 mph since those used two Buick V8's. Ordnance decided it would be better if it used the same R975 radial as the M4's.
Gumbo mud refers to heavy clay loamy soil that is super sticky and clumpy
...and you never work it wet, unless it's flooded (like rice farmers). Turns to bricks. We farm the stuff in SW Indiana.
"Gumbo mud" is the super thick extremely sticky mud that will adhere nearly permanently to any surface, jam any machine, and suck the boot straight off of your foot or failing that the foot off of your leg
Yup, almost sucked my bots off several times while frogging with a friend.
Would love to see a review/walkthrough of an M60 Patton.
Gumbo is thick wet clay mud that’s similar to plasticine mixed with oatmeal, slime and water and smelling of rusted metal. It’s Louisiana’s ultimate vehicle barrier.
@19:35 Are you saying the front fell off? It's not meant to do that!
Ft. Riley has local access to gypsum rock and at the time happily used it to "improve" their unpaved roads on the base. But gypsum breaks pretty easily, and when you have trucks and equipment running over gypsum rock, you get gypsum powder, which is finer than flour. When gypsum powder gets wet you have gumbo mud.
If you get a half-inch of rain it's a quarter-inch layer of grease on a hard road and you helplessly slide all over the place. Your steering is irrelevant and so is the direction your wheels are turning. If you get five inches of rain, you can sink up to your axles in it, and no matter how you spin your wheels you don't budge. Gumbo mud may refer to different things in other places but around Ft. Riley it literally has the texture of 120-wt grease.
19:28 for some reason all i can think of now is a striker or a lav-25 with Kégresse tracks ...
It almost seems that through all the testing. They found it better to separate the track vehicles from the vehicles with tires. Look at the Greyhound and the M18 Hellcat??
I think if you want speed. A wheeled vehicle is a better option than tracked vehicles. But of course its going to be down to what your looking for and what capabilities you want.
Tucker had a movie, "Carbine" Williams had a movie; it's about time that J. Walter Christie had his movie!! Chieftain, you would make a great technical advisor, too!
Question:
Where you get that Darjeeling?
And where can I get one of those
>Liking the video before you watch it cause you know you're gonna like it
Does the chieftain have a Waifu? I see that Darjeeling figure
4:10 is that your tummy, a dog hidden somewhere, or are you possessed by invisible growling demons? lol great video! 👍
So the Christie suspension took up too much internal pace which led to small turrets was heavier and cost more for no real appreciable advantage.
Yes, it's a bad suspention, yet everyone seems to think it's an amazing thing because.... t-34 i guess. Even the soviets stoped using it as soon as they could, the t-34 being the only tank in production using the christie suspention and it was more because they had to than because they wanted to, when germany launches barbarossa the were testing the torsion bar on the t-34 but the decided to not make it enter production because they needed something NOW and changing the suspention would have caused huge production issues and slow downs, only the british continued to use it past WWII, but hey it's the british, they designed a partially bolted vertical armored tank when even the germans decided to use sloped armour.
Even if the US army had adopted it I feel they'd have completely dropped it once they got sucked into WW2. Everything that went into the Lee, Sherman, and Stuart was to make them as easy to use and fix as possible on the troops over seas. The Christie just doesn't fit that design requirement.
@@85blutch That's t-34 being the only tank in *soviet* production using the christie suspension *at that time*.
The suspension isn't terrible, it allows for large wheels with a wide range of motion which means a smoother ride, and large helical springs seem to be easier to produce than torsion bars. Curiously enough, the israelis seem to be using a derivative helical spring-bell crank combo on the merkavas, so it can't be that bad...
The Citoen 2CV had an interesting suspension which I wonder how it would preform on an armored vehicle
Do you think the iconic ridged soft helmet, used by Russians, is a good compromise between the British beret and US hard shell? Have you had a chance to use one?
Modern US crescendo helmets have that type as an inner layer under the removable kevlar. It’s decent on its own but I always wore the hard shell. Armoured vehicles are hard and surprisingly pointy on the inside.
Considering they still use them, the "Shlemofon", They're probably good enouth.
When it comes down to it, if the tank is penetrated there's problems anyway, helmets may or may not do much depending on how its penetrated.
Might be a little cheaper to.
But that's not to say more substantial helmets aren't better, good enouth does not mean best.
Always wondered why Congress ( I've been told) wouldn't allow the Cavalry to have tanks? A waste of money? ??
Notice the T3 and T4 ... does it remind you of a famous tank?
US wanted tank development, which as Chieftain pointed out was very limited intra-war, to be unified rather than diluted in different directions -- sensible enough. While the cavalry wanted tanks, the Infantry _needed_ tanks, so they were given control of tank development. But, as Chieftain noted, the cavalry just called the tanks they wanted "armored cars", so the army-only restriction didn't have much actual effect.
Yep. Turns out if you are going to make a proper medium tank with Christie suspension, the T-34 is the logical outcome.
it was not the congress who forbade the cavalry to have tanks, but rather military thinking and WWI experience
there were armoured cars in WWI, most of which were crewed by cavalry once the horse proved to soft to charge under machine gun fire, the vehicles were light and (relatively) fast which was perfect for the usual roles of the cavalry (recon, skirmishing and exploitation).
the tanks on the other hand were slow, lumbering giants, heavy beasts of steel with guns poking out of every side and provide a hail of fire to help the crunchies cross the no man's land, there adapted to the infantry style of fighting of the time, which could be (overly) simplified to facing the enemy and locking horns with him.
this experience influenced the interwar naming conventions in some countries, thus the cavalry had combat cars while the tanks were reserved to the infantry, France was in the same boat, the most famous french medium tank of WWII, the S35, was in nomenclature a cavalry combat car, a pretty weird combat car if you ask me, but one none the less
@@quentintin1 Thanks for the comment..but the Army was giving the Cavalry tanks..just calling them Combat Cars...so that wasn't fooling the Army..or anyone.
@@od1452 it affected only the naming conventions, early in the interwar the distinction stood has the tanks were unreliable compared to wheeled vehicles but the lines blurred as the reliability increased to the point that the distinction existed in name only.
it was the same for france, where by the mid 30's only the Panhard 178 was really an armoured car, the others (AMC 35S, ACG1, AMR 35) were fully tracked vehicles, but the naming conventions stood because there was a meaning attached, a tank is heavy and slow while an armoured car is light and fast,
today we know this isn't true, but that was how they named things before
it was the same for firearms, today an automatic rifle is a machine gun, back then it was just an autoloader
in short, the name wasn't referring about the way the vehicle moved about, but about the service branch, the capabilities and the intended role of the vehicle
Very interesting video mate, also nice Darjeeling figure you have in the middle of the table there...
Is there a good book you could recomend that covers in detail most it not all American tank design and development and testing between the wars? Most books I have read just briefly mention the Christie, and Combat Cars and others before going into more details about the M2 Light and Medium tanks and forward.
The US Army didn't bother with designing tanks after WW1 and instead purchased tanks made in other countries to test and examine. Patton and Eisenhower got acquainted at the new Army Armor School where the two would completely disassemble purchased tanks to study their operating systems then put those back together to determine the difficulty of their repair in the field. The US Army didn't have much money after WW1 so used J. Walter Christie to build prototypes of their designs since they used his services earlier which earned him $100,000. There's plenty of online information about J. Walter Christie.
Greater or same performance with thicker armor at lower cost will always win.
Is that a Sofilein action figure on your desk between the two tanks?
"Gumbo mud" Gumbo is a famous Louisiana soup characterized by its great thickness en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumbo. In reference to soil or mud it is "a tough, dark-colored mass in a high degree plastic and clay-like, yet sometimes consisting chiefly of silt or very fine sand. It is very sticky and difficult to till when wet, and when dry breaks into hard cuboidal lumps. See gumbo clay." www.finedictionary.com/gumbo.html. Keep learning American, my friend. We are honored to have you here! Thanks for another great presentation!
Hey chieftan, you should react to the red effect video on the shortcomings of the m1.
i see smol darjeey
The Army always had problems with Christie not building what Ordnance designed to their specifications. Christie did make the few 1928 models for the Army but without turrets or machines since he didn't design ordinance systems. The Army gave American -LaFrance a contract to build 5 for $200,000 then got pissed off after the company ran out of money after completing 2 or 3. The Army paid more to get the full 5 then stopped doing business with them until the US entered the war.
So after some digging on the Cartridge, 120mm, Advanced Multi-Purpose (AMP), XM1147, High Explosive Multi-Purpose with Trader (HEMP-T) it says no where what it really is (HEAT, HEP/HESH, HE-FS) is there anything that you can tell us about the actual type of round that it is, becayse my original thought was a type of AP-HE or APCBC.
That shows the US army wasnt irrational passing on the Christie, but to evaluate if they made a mistake, I think you would need to do another video comparing the US T5 to the equivalent Russian and British designs. I'll guess no as ultimately we know torsion bar wins in the end. But it would be an interesting comparison.
Richard J Stuart I would like a comparison between the T 34 , Sherman and the Panzer 4 all are about equal ish on paper and none are perfect and all underwent upgrades and modifications during production. They also represent the thinking of the respective regimes military ordinance officials and the limitations of their manufacturing and supply chain.
Seems rather odd to me that the criticism is that they took their time testing & developing various options to determine the most ideal solution - instead of just blindly accepting the extraordinarily compromised Christie design
Also, history yet again proving that convertible "do everything" designs are a complete and utter waste of everyone's time - often times, it REALLY IS worth designing and producing two different ideas to cover two different needs, instead of trying to make one that can be converted to do either. Or, just accepting that one of these needs(high speed cross country travel - just haul the damn things there if it's really such a distance) isn't actually legitimate in the first place... ...the convertible tank, a solution looking for a problem...
RyTrapp0 we have the benefit of hindsight but at the time there were a lot of “good ideas” going about from multiple turreted land battleships to two man tankettes which would swarm all over the battlefield. The wheel/tracked idea was quite common as the tank could be driven to where it was to fight then changed to tracks rather than rely on rail or lorries that weren’t that large at the time.
@@johnludmon7419 The US Army got excited over Christie's 1929 design due to being blazingly fast when everyone else has low speed tanks. Christie never bothered to design weapon systems or turrets for his tanks yet did suggest a forward firing hull mounted cannon in the front of the 1929 by fitting a section of pipe with bins for ammo stowage inside for the gunner with the driver sitting behind him. Walter said the low profile tank (was under 6 feet in height) would be hard to see and hit as it raced around behind enemy lines shooting things up. The Army had him make some more that Ordnance fitted with a turret holding a gun to put thru rigorous testing. The crews liked them because those were fast even when going up long slopes so the Army hired American-LaFrance to build some more using a design worked up by the Ordnance engineers. A-F was given $200,000 to build around a dozen and after two years, had only made 5 before running out of money. In the end, the Army decided it would be best to use a simple suspension like the vertical volute bogie in combat since it was more robust, easier and faster to repair and could still support weight with broken springs.
I have a rather specific question, there are a few pictures kicking around of M4's and Sherman Firefly's pressed into German service, is there any info kicking around on the Germans opinion of these given their crews probably had experience with Panzer IVs or Panthers. I'd be interested to know which the crew actually prefered.
You know, if they could be folded into a Firefly turret in the first place... ;)
Darjeeling is nice, but Yukari is best girl.
Well, the us army on the inter war period was basically a more inteligente kind of Orks by the looks of things lol, the only thing missing was the red paint to goo faster.
More Dakka humy!!!!!!!
Gumbo mud is mud if a particular consistency which makes it easy to get stuck in for wheeled vehicles.
When it rains near the hell creek formation in northern Montana you'd better hope that you've got enough food and water for a week if you're out there because you aren't going anywhere with all that gumbo.
You are welcomed in the red army !
7:40 more dakka
I have always thought the Sherman with torsion bar suspension was a nice looking tank
I quite like the idea of mixed suspension. The long travel Christie suspension on the front road wheel would give good step climbing and less space consuming suspension on the rest would not significantly reduce obstacle crossing ability.
I am a little surprised the cavalry did not go for armoured cars. Using large wheels with all or at least most driven would have nearly as good cross-country performance without all the messing around adding or removing tracks.
@ALEX HUANG That is why they called their tanks “Combat Cars.”
I am saying that a proper armoured car might have been better. Ideally something like the M38 Wolfhound, granted that is 10 years more modern but how difficult was that technology the the mid 1930s?
@ALEX HUANG Sure, but what price are they paying on roads and level ground?
They were considering using the wheel/track system primarily on wheels, despite only 2 of the wheels being powered.
The M1 armoured car was bad cross country, but that was just an armoured truck with unpowered front wheels and small wheels. Bigger, or at least more, wheels and all powered would be almost as good as tracks in difficult going and dramatically better on good going. Retractable metal wheels like the Panhard EBR would have been interesting.
Gumbo mud is a heavy, extremely sticky clay based mud, usually found in old lake beds.
wow T4 looks pretty modern for its time.
I know this sounds crazy, but would it be useful to tankers if using “virtual reality” technology , and a multitude of sensors, to make the armor of the tank appear transparent to the commander etc be useful? Especially in a urban environment?