Tank Chats #35 Centurion

Another installment of the Tank Chats series from the Tank Museum at Bovington.

The thirty-fifth Tank Chat, presented David Fletcher MBE, is the first of the videos on the Centurion series of tanks.

The Centurion is one of the most important tanks in the history of the British AFV and is one of the most significant post-war Western tanks. Introduced in the spring of 1945, a small number of the Beach Armoured Recovery Version (BARV) served with the British forces during the Iraq war of 2003, 58 years later.

Inside the Tanks: The Centurion

Wargaming Europe has released a new video featuring Richard “The Challenger” Cutland and his team at Bovington Tank Museum where they take a closer look at the British Centurion Tank.

Video of the Day: “Latest Tanks on Show “

An old British newsreel showing a demonstration of British post-WW2 armor.  tanks featured include the 33-ton Comet,  Centurions, the 20 ton Charioteer, the US Pershing tank and the Caernarvon.

WoT’s Chieftain posts new article: US Centurion Part 4

chieftains hatchWorld of Tanks researcher Nicholas Moran, aka “The Chieftain” has published part 4 of his article on US testing of the Centurion III tank.  Part one dealt with the US assessment of the Centurion III’s fighting compartment.  Part 2 dealt with automotive tests.  Part three covered the gun control systems.  Part four examines the fire on the move capability of the Centurion.

All the Chieftain’s articles can be read at The Chieftain’s Hatch.

Article excerpt:

This is the last in the series of articles stemming from the US Army’s testing of Centurions II and III in late 1949/early 1950. We’ve already seen that they concluded that Centurion was a fairly competent vehicle, albeit that it was expected that the next generation of American tank would be no worse than equal in various characteristics, but they were particularly curious about the stabilization system as up until that point, nothing had been put into service on a tank which was claimed to provide a true fire-on-the-move capability. The gyrostabilised guns on American tanks in WWII, being single-axis only, could not make such a claim. As we go through the observations below, I suspect that even in the M4 the Americans had already started noticing such things, but it is still interesting to see how they are officially reporting them below. Anyway, I’ll let you read the observations, and will come back to you afterwards.

WoT’s Chieftain posts new article: US Centurion Part 3

chieftains hatchWorld of Tanks researcher Nicholas Moran, aka “The Chieftain” has published part 3 of his article on US testing of the Centurion III tank.  Part one dealt with the US assessment of the Centurion III’s fighting compartment.  Part 2 dealt with automotive tests.  Part three covers the gun control systems.  The Chieftain summaries the report saying: “So, overall, the US generally liked Centurion. They appear to have considered it to be inferior to the new generation of tanks they were designing, but quite competent for an already-extant vehicle. Some features, like the tracks and transmission, they didn’t like. Some, like the stabilisation system and general capability, they did. The engine power they deemed insufficient for the future tank. The entire evaluation process was more of a learning experience, learning some lessons, both good and bad, from the tank the British had built, it was never an attempt to comparatively rate the tank in order of preference.”

Read the entire post at the Chieftain’s Hatch

WoT’s Chieftain posts new article: US Centurion Part 2

chieftains hatchWorld of Tanks researcher Nicholas Moran, aka “The Chieftain” has published part 2 of his article on US testing of the Centurion III tank.  Part one dealt with the US assessment of the Centurion III’s fighting compartment.  Part 2 deals with automotive tests.  This picture of “damaged parts of clutch assembly” should give the reader a hint of how the tests went.

centiiiclutch

The full article is available to read at The Chieftain’s Hatch.

WoT’s Chieftain posts new article: US Centurion Part 1

chieftains hatchOver at The Chieftain’s Hatch section of the World of Tanks forum, the Chieftain has published a new article.  The beginning of the article is posted below, please follow the link at the bottom to read the entire piece.

US Centurion Part 1 – You will recall that some time ago I covered the US Army’s evaluation of the Sherman Firefly in three parts comparing it to the M4(76) and the M26. Frankly, Firefly didn’t fare all that well. The Cruisers didn’t do all that well against Sherman in either British or American tests either. Well, a couple of years later, a similar, albeit less rigid, set of tests was conducted, comparing Centurion to M26 and T29. 

These tests were a little more generic, as they were more focused on the tank as a whole rather than, as in the Firefly’s case, the weapon installation effectiveness. I’ve come across three Centurion reports so far, and I’ll go over then over, again, a period of articles. Interestingly, they are not in the sequence you might expect: The first two reports were filed on the Centurion III in the first half of 1950, the third was of the Centurion II in the second half of the year.

Click here to read the full article at The Chieftain’s Hatch.