The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod

[asl3d]

Sub-standard armour

Many of the horribly-vulnerable Light Tank Mk VICs went to France in 1940 largely with-out armament, with the holes in their turret fronts plugged with plywood, and with their crews armed only with pistols and rifles. Some met the Panzers in this condition. Like the Sherman, the Covenanter and early Cromwells had hatches for the driver and co-driver that could not be opened when the turret was turned to certain angles. This greatly reduced a hull crewman's survival chances if the vehicle caught fire. Also, the auxiliary MG turrets fitted to some early British cruisers and Crusaders were officially condemned as being "unfit for human habitation" even in cooler European conditions, let alone the desert heat, especially as the British BESA MG produced more (toxic) fumes than other types in use. In addition, many early Crusaders had armour of very poor quality compared to US armour plate. There is evidence that some Churchills had poor quality armour, and in Tunisia cases of the steel flaking badly when penetrated were reported. Although some Churchill VIIs were available by D-Day, they were comparatively rare outside Crocodile units not just because of slow output and a desire to use up older types first, but because a number had to be withdrawn for field modifications in July 1944 due to the poorly secured glacis plate armour that could fall inwards under the shock of impact. Some Cromwells too suffered from sub-standard armour made by an inexperienced manufacturer, though this batch of vehicles at least saw no action.

[asl3d]

Good points of British tanks

In comparing the Sherman and British tanks from a mechanical standpoint, the latter's lower silhouettes (in at least some instances) and off-road mobility were superior; the Churchill in particular often surprised the enemy by appearing unexpectedly in apparently 'tank-proof terrain like the steep Tunisian and Italian. The Churchill was under-powered, slow and most, later, versions had only a five-speed gear-box but with closely-spaced gear ratios. The engine moreover had the high-torque characteristics at low speed normally found only in diesel engines. In addition, it was very sure-footed thanks to heavily-ribbed and wide steel tracks with a long ground contact length, hence Churchills has a slightly lower ground pressure than many contemporary allied tanks but still plenty of grip, with the ability to make a "neutral turn" (spin on their axis). All this gave Churchill crews immense confidence to tackle rough terrain.
Given that the British made only little use of the Culin Hedgerow Device since it was not available to them until the end of August 1944, the Churchill's ability to cope with Normandy's bocage better than other tanks was very welcome. In fact two separate British reports contradicted each other on the effectiveness of Culin's device, but the Churchill in particular was deemed to perform better without it. In comparison, the Sherman fitted with only standard-width tracks needed good roads to be really effective when conditions were muddy or "soft". The best automotive feature of British tanks was the British Merritt-Brown transmission which gave the Churchill, Centaur, Cromwell, Comet and Centurion the unique ability to spin on their axis, whereas the Stuart, Lee/ Grant and Sherman had the cruder Cletrak system that often gave an insufficient turning circle for Europe's narrow lanes or Burma's and Italy's many hair-pin bends, even in bot-tom gear.

[asl3d]

British criticism

Nor were the British blind to these faults in foreign designs, though British criticism sometimes went too far, to the point of being churlish. While the Stuart was adequate in the desert, by 1944 it was outdated and less well regarded; in Normandy it was described as an "atrocity on tracks" with a gun incapable of harming "anything tougher than a water-truck" and too tall and conspicuous even for the intercommunication, let alone recce, roles now assigned to it. The Lee/Grant were described with justification as standing out "like a fairy on a rock cake, visible for miles around" and "as high as the Tower of Babel." In July 1943 the Sherman was unwisely dismissed as "... less reliable than the Valentine [doubtful], more vulnerable than the Matilda [probably untrue], slower and more conspicuous than the Crusader" [true, assuming the latter had not broken down], and had "... a proneness to catch fire [true], [an] indifferent gun-sight [true], inferior secondary armament [true, no decent sights on the hull MG], vulnerable hatches and louvres". The reliability of the radialengined Shermans was also deemed inferior to the Cromwell, but all other sources disagree, and at the end of the day these US vehicles did the job asked of them.
One British official even had the nerve to tell an American counterpart that the UK resented the USA "forcing Shermans on them" after alleged over-production led them to push the surplus off onto Britain and, as self-appointed spokesman, alleged that no more were want-ed. He failed to explain how Britain could have managed without them, and may not have known (but should have done) of the great efforts by British officials in the USA to get a share of these tanks, and to have their national preferences incorporated into the design!

[asl3d]

Hydraulic turret turn

Britain developed an hydraulic turret traverse system based on power turrets fitted to RAF bombers, and later also an electrical system, both having a specification demanding 3602 traverse in 20 seconds (though this time varied, depending on the size and weight of the turret). The hydraulic system was first tested on an A9 cruiser in 1938 but the War Office specification of a full rotation in only 8 seconds proved to be over-ambitious and a slower speed had to be accepted—after a lot of work. These systems gave a range of creep speeds so that power could actually be used for the fine laying of the gun, which speeded-up the firing process in situations where a split second could mean the difference between life and death. In comparison German, Soviet and early US systems were less effective, the former being dismissed in a British post-war report as "exceedingly cumbersome and inefficient. Training by power was never attempted, possibly because German turrets were usually wildly out of balance." Hydraulic traverse systems in the British army (at least) gave way to electric gear because of the with to avoid oil leakage, and to lessen the fire risk if a vehicle was penetrated. The German hydraulic systems were directly dependent on engine speed, while the PzKfw IV used a crude electrical system. Another German disadvantage was that their better but more complicated sighting equipment took a little longer to operate and this could give allied vehicles an edge in a gun duel. One advantage of US traverse systems over British equipment was that they were run from batteries, and so could be used "silently" with the tank's engine turned off.

[asl3d]

17-Pounder gun in AFVs

The mounting of the 17-pdr in AFVs also allowed the British to engage and defeat the German armour in Normandy (most of which was concentrated against them) more effectively than the US army's less potent AFVs. It is also one aspect of the tank war that the British were and still are very self-righteous about. The USA at first ignored British offers of 200 17-pdr barrels per month if Uncle Sam would build his own Sherman Firefly turrets and US forces were never to use this "shot-gun wedding of a British gun to American reliability." It has been customary to blame the US army's initial indifference to the Firefly on a "Not Invented Here" policy. A lower threat perception of continuing German AFV development, partly due to a lack of combat experience compared to the British, making the USA complacent. British military opinion was widely held in contempt in the USA concerning tank technology; so hostile to anything British were certain "patriotic" US officers that when the British suggestion for comparative trials against US weapons was finally granted, the 90mm gun had its performance secretly boosted by the addition of propellant taken from British 17-pdr rounds . National pride, it seems, counted for more than American lives. Ironically, the M10 had been designed to mount the 17-pdr, but none were so used by US forces. The 17-pdr's fierce muzzle blast and an alarming flashback at the breech end suggested design problems—with hindsight, unfounded—though the British at one stage considered issuing crews with naval-style anti-flash clothing. When the fighting in Europe revealed the 76mm gun's shortcomings, even with APCR, the wishes of US field commanders were ignored, or frustrated, and many American tank crews were condemned to a needless death by this policy.

[asl3d]

Firefly tanks

Contrary to the myths, the British actually built far more Fireflies than the 600 previously asserted by authors-who ignored primary sources; at least 2139 and possibly 2239 were produced, including those latterly earmarked for the US army. Despite being regarded as only a temporary expedient, the British were very fastidious about which versions of the Sherman were used, and rejected diesel-engined and other "minority" types because of their smaller interior space (M4A1 and M4A2) and perhaps because there would be long-term spare parts problems (M4A3). Only the M4 and M4A4 appear to have been used, though trials were conducted on other types. Many Fireflies previously thought to be on the M4A1 hull are in fact late-production M4s (i.e. with cast and rolled hull sides forward of the turrets) and thus very similar in appearance at first glance to the M4A1, especially as the amount of out-side stowage hung on many British tanks make it hard to tell many Sherman types apart, especially if their engine decks are obscured from view. The British also insisted that only the Oilgear traverse gear was used in Fireflies for reasons already explained and because, of the three otherwise interchangeable types used in Shermans, it was also the most compact. Because only late-production 105 Shermans had power traverse and it was a minority type in British service anyway, they were not used for conversions.

[asl3d]

Funnies

Other British successes included the "Funnies", and the British excelled in producing such specialised armour, notably the DD tank, the Crab mine clearing flail tank, the Crocodile flame-thrower, the AVRE assault vehicle and a host of bridge-layers. Again the US army was offered equal shares but initially took only DD tanks on the grounds of crew unfamiliarity with British equipment—and so suffered terribly on D-Day; the US used small numbers of Crabs later. In Tunisia British infantry battalions would often march across anti-personnel minefields in line abreast with-out losses but later mine technology, especially the use of wooden or concrete casings, rendered mine detectors less effective, and made this a suicidal business in Europe. The early Crab had a 65% mine-destruction rate, while the contour-following Crab II had a 90% rate—at least until the chains were all blown off, but the wily Germans often sowed their devilish anti-personnel "S" mines in ground too soft for Crabs to negotiate. The Churchill's roomy hull interior (one veteran told this writer "you could play football in one") and its good off-road capability made it ideal as a beast of burden for assault engineers and their volatile baggage. The formidable Churchill Crocodile was feared and hated by the Germans to the extent that captured Crocodile crews were often shot; one captured German officer expressed surprise that the British would stoop to use such an "un-British weapon."

[asl3d]

Wheeled vehicles

Britain and the Commonwealth also produced thousands of nimble, low-slung, and silent recce vehicles used with great dash and success by the army and RAF in all theatres. If British tanks were often under-gunned, British armoured cars were veritable eggshells armed with sledgehammers in comparison, and carried welded armour from an early date. The exceptions included the Morris CS9 used in France and the early desert war; their crews dubbed them "suicide boxes", and while the massive AEC was outstandingly reliable, it was under-powered, slow, very tiring to drive and essentially road-bound due to its bulk, 'crash' gearbox and leaf-spring suspension (revealing the truck ancestry of the chassis); it possessed "great potential for blocking the roadway".
Technical development of wheeled vehicles was not really spectacular although the Daimler armoured cars were something of an exception here and the supply of these superb machines never met demand. As a result the inferior Humber scout and armoured cars were produced as substitutes, despite barely meeting official specifications on account of their commercial chasses being incapable of taking heavier loads. Most British AFVs suffered from this problem as long as they were regarded as tanks on wheels, but once the General Staff lost interest in light tanks after Dunkirk, because tougher vehicles were needed to resist the expected German invasion, wheeled vehicles gradually usurped the recce role. These vehicles sacrificed armament and armour for accommodation, speed and range and the British enthusiasm reflects not only their lower unit cost but also the greater need for fresh information by senior officers who, in the early was years at least, were far happier to let their subordinates run the war up front without the sort of unannounced visits and interference that many German generals were famous for. In addition, the British infatuation with these vehicles was rooted in their tradition of horsemanship.

[asl3d]

Trucks

The Loyd carrier appears to have been very unreliable; its weak steering compromised further by towing too heavy a load like the 6-pdr gun and its ammunition, and the catalogue of woes included unreliability, poor tractive power, a weak suspension and rear axle and brake fading—all attributed to "abuse" through over-loading. Its cousin, the Universal Carrier was similarly overloaded and abused. The wheeled tractors used to tow field guns were plagued by a poor cross-country performance and were hard and tiring to drive, so that carrying the 25-pdr en portee was even mooted. In North Africa the British first encountered jeeps when they found many abandoned by US forces (along with 16 Stuart tanks) after the Kasserine debacle and "adopted" them, but they had a poor reputation for reliability since many troops drove them much too fast and over-loaded them in preference to using their own mediocre 15 cwt trucks. Most but not all British trucks were generally reliable, if not sparkling performers; again these were commercial adaptations rather than purpose-built vehicles and they lacked the rugged construction and higher performance of US vehicles. General Horrocks commented favourably on the high speed of the US 6-wheeled trucks of the "Redball Express" compared to the slower British convoys with their smaller 4-wheelers. Truck standardisation was, again, poor and pre-war tax regimes had encouraged manufacturers to produce less powerful lighter, two-wheel drive, trucks at the expense of heavier and more powerful types. Although they were better suited to the desert than their foreign equivalents, the reliability of British trucks, and hence the performance of armoured and motorised units in the desert, was not helped by a failure to produce sufficient spare parts during late 1941 and early 1942.

[asl3d]

Omitted vehicles

In Heroes and Leaders mod many vehicles have had to be omitted for historical reasons. The "rattle-trap" Light Tanks Mk I to VIB are all pretty similar in game terms (all were death-traps in real life). The Cavalier's only use in action was as an (unarmed) OP tank in Normandy, while the venerable but vulnerable Medium Mk H saw little or no action (which was just as well for its unfortunate crewmen). The US M8 Greyhound only saw limited action because the British refused to issue it until something was done to improve the protection against mines (special additional belly plates were made), though crews issued with them in September 1944 praised their cross-country performance and ability to cross light bridges. Apart from the thin flooring, they also disliked the difficulty experienced in reversing it—a bad feature for a recce vehicle—and British troops also found that the middle set of wheels flicked spent cartridges lying on the road into the upright position, and these then punctured the rear wheels. The M24 Chaffee saw only limited British service, just two being lost in action, as did the Valentine DD tank (just 75 Mk IXs were used operationally in Italy when Sherman DDs were scarce).
It is doubtful whether the Covenanter, the Staghound III, Valentine X, or Sherman III (L) saw combat; certainly the Sentinel and the Centurion did not, while the Fordson armoured car was visually similar to the Rolls Royce and is indistinguishable in game terms. The Churchill IX to XI "reworks" with appliqué armour to roughly Mk VII standards and either early 8 AF, or with later 14 AF Mk VII, turrets, were apparently built so late in the war and in only very small numbers; none saw any action. The SOD (Sawn off Daimler), an armoured car with the turret removed and capable of 70 mph on roads, was a minority and strictly unofficial type used during the Normandy breakout but deemed too vulnerable for recce after the Rhine crossing. Various Churchill Bridge-layers, the Matilda Frog flame-thrower used so effectively by the Australians against the Japanese, and a host of hastily-improvised AFVs of dubious value hurriedly converted to resist the expected German invasion of Britain in 1940 and the captured tanks have also been excluded.

[asl3d]

Tank doctrine

Britain's handling of armour suffered for far too long from a lack of commanders who really understood how to use it properly; one junior officer testified that he had received almost no training in this subject as an officer cadet in the 1920s and was discouraged from joining tank units as their officers were "not very nice people." As late as 1935 Staff College courses barely mentioned the subject in what this same officer, now promoted, described as "disgraceful" teaching. This phobia was also partly a symptom of the long-overdue and often unpopular mechanisation of the cavalry from 1937 onwards. Pre-war interest in tanks was seen by most officers as unhealthy, freakish and fanatic, and there was a dearth of pre-war exercises (most of which bordered on farce), at least until after Dunkirk, while the shortage of land in the overcrowded wartime British Isles made it difficult for larger British and US formations to train and practice as a body. Simulating the harsher but more open and flatter desert conditions was impossible. The pre-war pioneers like Fuller and Liddell-Hart had left the army and could only influence events by writing, or had been moved to positions in the army where they had little influence; Hobart's many talents were unceremoniously discarded in 1938 after he had worked very hard to make British mechanised units in the desert so efficient, and he languished as a corporal in the Home Guard until Winston Churchill rescued him to raise new armoured divisions, including the 79th Armoured Division of specialised assault vehicles. When British generals admitted that their own forces were "...still an army of amateurs fighting professionals" it was as much a confession of the poor handling of armoured units, as it was an indictment of bad small-unit tactics.

[asl3d]

Armored divisions

When the British armour was then reorganised on a divisional basis, it was for much of the war a tank-heavy organization with inadequate infantry support and hence without flexibility, "pure in race" as the Germans (who preferred mixed battle-groups containing all elements). British commanders eventually knew how to command tanks but for far too long afterwards still not how to handle the infantry and artillery elements that all armoured divisions needed to function. effectively. The separation of tanks and regiments into "infantry" types did nothing to improve tactical doctrine by con-fusing things with over-specialisation. Each, separate, role was executed in a rigid manner while the different performance characteristics of the vehicles concerned caused headaches for commanders like the early mixtures of T-34s and KV-I s did in the Red Army. The "I" tanks downgraded mobility (at least until the Churchill arrived), surprise and flanking movements while the cruiser units, confident that their speed was a substitute for thinner armour and reassured by official statements that their 2-pdrs would pierce German armour at under 500 yards range, would trundle or charge, respectively, unsupported and with their pennants flying into enemy killing-grounds like French medieval knights, and just as slow to learn the lessons. Small wonder that one British officer, disillusioned at the way so many Crusaders had been shot out from under him in the desert, attempted to lead his tank platoon from a 3-ton truck in order to improve the survival chances of his crew; he was quietly sent to the rear for psychiatric treatment. There he met a "shell-shocked" officer who had survived nine such losses; while another crew survived seven knock outs and yet another had ten tanks destroyed under them in just 30 days.

[asl3d]

Armored divisions

When the British armour was then reorganised on a divisional basis, it was for much of the war a tank-heavy organization with inadequate infantry support and hence without flexibility, "pure in race" as the Germans (who preferred mixed battle-groups containing all elements). British commanders eventually knew how to command tanks but for far too long afterwards still not how to handle the infantry and artillery elements that all armoured divisions needed to function. effectively. The separation of tanks and regiments into "infantry" types did nothing to improve tactical doctrine by con-fusing things with over-specialisation. Each, separate, role was executed in a rigid manner while the different performance characteristics of the vehicles concerned caused headaches for commanders like the early mixtures of T-34s and KV-I s did in the Red Army. The "I" tanks downgraded mobility (at least until the Churchill arrived), surprise and flanking movements while the cruiser units, confident that their speed was a substitute for thinner armour and reassured by official statements that their 2-pdrs would pierce German armour at under 500 yards range, would trundle or charge, respectively, unsupported and with their pennants flying into enemy killing-grounds like French medieval knights, and just as slow to learn the lessons. Small wonder that one British officer, disillusioned at the way so many Crusaders had been shot out from under him in the desert, attempted to lead his tank platoon from a 3-ton truck in order to improve the survival chances of his crew; he was quietly sent to the rear for psychiatric treatment. There he met a "shell-shocked" officer who had survived nine such losses; while another crew survived seven knock outs and yet another had ten tanks destroyed under them in just 30 days.

[asl3d]

Aggressiveness of British armor

Even in Normandy, where common sense should have prevailed, and where the British could afford to lose 6 tanks for every Panzer destroyed, they initially 'charged' German defences. Having then been painfully bitten, British armour quickly became very shy and the lack of training in aggressive tactics of the sort practised routinely by German, Soviet and US armour became very evident during the liberation of Europe. That said, the British were probably better-suited temperamentally than the Americans to the bloody, grinding, attrition of the Normandy battlefields and they possessed, initially, more tanks (deemed "expendable") than the US forces landed on D-Day for that very purpose, though it must be said that casualties were proportionally at least as high in US units. In Normandy the British faced 7 Panzer Divisions and lost about 1530 tanks, the US army faced 2 Panzer Divisions and lost about 875 tanks. But the British did systematically destroy the German armour embroiled there as planned, albeit at terrible cost; the self-sacrifice of the British, Canadian and Polish troops allowed a rather over-critical, ungrateful, and boastful Patton to race across France largely unopposed. One US historian says of Patton, "Principally, he occupied ground rather than destroying armies".
Events after the attrition and break-out showed that men like Horrocks, Roberts and even the ultra-cautious Montgomery could handle armour with the dash and skill shown by O'Connor in the early desert battles and by German or US commanders; for example the British 2nd Army achieved an average rate of advance of 66.6 miles per day, compared to Patton's best of 14.6 miles per day. The handling of British and Commonwealth armour in Burma and the PTO became both aggressive and inspired, especially in the later stages of the war, and infantry-tank co-operation was of a much higher standard than in the ETO. Here, Stuarts and even Lees and Grants were driven, or dragged and/or winched by bull-dozers up steep slopes to catch the Japanese with their proverbial trousers down and demolish their formidable bunkers in terrain thought by them to be safe from tank attack.

[asl3d]

British army's critics

It is ironic, if typical, that some of the British army's severest critics are fellow-countrymen. Writing of the 8th Army the historian Corelli Barnett described it as "a cumbersome and inferior fighting instrument, capable of winning against German troops only in a carefully rehearsed, tightly controlled set piece operation with ample margins of numerical and material superiority." The historian Max Hastings writing about "Overlord" makes similar comments. The historian Stephen Ashley Hart cites the analysis of others who describe it as being "not very good" in the war and he ranks its performance in NW Europe as "relatively unimpressive" by German standards but makes the point that this is all that could be expected from a mass conscript army, given its limitations. Hitler for his part was more generous, melodramatic and prophetic when he observed that the spirit of the British people was such that the army would struggle on for however long it took, and by whatever means was necessary, to victory "even though the actual equipment at hand may be utterly inadequate when compared with that of other nations". There was more than a grain of truth in all these observations.

[asl3d]

British army strengths

The British are a very self-critical and self-disparaging people who tend to dwell more on the negative than the positive, and usually love to deflate their own heroes. But for all its many faults the British army also had strengths; while it could not accept casualties like the Soviets, Germans or even Americans it was nonetheless filled with men determined enough to fight on in dogged fashion without any allies for nearly 12 months. Tommy and his country were prepared to "muddle through"—if not to victory, at least to impoverished national survival, sustained by a wry and very cynical sense of humour. Equipped with a mix of good and bad weapons "Tommy" was eventually able to take on his opponents on more or less equal terms once his confidence, dented by earlier defeats, was restored. The, traditionally, small and neglected army was greatly expanded to play a far more vital role than most people had fore-seen; never as professional as the Germans nor as lavishly-equipped with military hardware as the US army, it was not decisive in itself and could never have been mistaken for a more genteel version of the Red Army.
If its overall, strategic, contribution to the land war against Germany was only marginal, it still made an important contribution to victory by taking the heat off Britain's allies at critical times. It also inflicted stunning defeats on all its enemies at times, especially against the Italians and Germans in North Africa, and in Burma where, after being defeated and chased out by the Japanese, a mixed force of predominantly Indian troops was reorganised, retrained and reequipped to later return and give Japan the worst drubbing suffered in any of her land campaigns.

[asl3d]

British Boys .55 ATR Team