If it had been fielded in, say, early 1944, it would have been a good tank. If it had been fielded in early 1944 with a decent engine, it would have been an outstanding tank. But instead, Centurion beat it to deployment, and as soon as Centurion was around, every other tank was obsolete.

@Werrf1

2 жыл бұрын

@@abellseaman4114 Incorrect in just about every respect. Neville Chamberlain - the 'appeaser in chief' - was a member of the Conservative party. Allied industry was producing superior tanks from the beginning of the war. Tigers and Panthers, like all heavy tanks, were dead-end designs. They were too heavy, too slow, and too unreliable

@Werrf1

2 жыл бұрын

@@abellseaman4114 Okay, honest question....do you really think that random capitalisation and the ridiculous exclamation marks makes your nonsensical babble look better? Because I hate to break it to you...it really doesn't. It just means I'm not going to take anything you say seriously.

@fatdaddy1996

2 жыл бұрын

Werrf is correct. A bell your prejudice is showing. Stop embarrassing yourself.

@davidmcintyre8145

2 жыл бұрын

@@abellseaman4114 If I recall it was Churchill who was in a combined government with Clem Attlee as his extremely able deputy

@mikemccarthy4765

2 жыл бұрын

@@davidmcintyre8145 now now, don't go bringing facts to this. Abell must be correct, look at all then ! he used!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like many British projects of the era, "1 year too late" comes to mind. It's a wonder to think how things might have differed if that "dead year" of armoured development and production caused by the rearmament rush after France to Dunkirk had not occurred like it did.

@miketaylor5212

3 жыл бұрын

the problem was england kept building at guns and other equipment after dunkirks because it was already ordered instead of canceling weapons that were no longer suitable the 37mm antitank gun was almost worthless at dunkirk but it was still the main anti tank gun in north africa.

@mattbowden4996

2 жыл бұрын

@@miketaylor5212 That not at all true. For starters, the 2pdr was 40mm, not 37mm and also it was adequate at least until the end of 1941.

@CZ350tuner

2 жыл бұрын

@@miketaylor5212 The only 37mm. AT gun that the UK had in service, after Dunkirk, was the Swedish Bofors AT gun that was bought to build up stocks when invasion was expected. their performance was inferior to the 2 Pounder gun. The 40mm. L.52 2 Pounder AT gun was still a lethal weapon versus German & Italian tanks as late as 1942, when the 6 Pounder replaced it. 40mm. L.52 2 Pounder: AP/T = Up to 77mm. RHA @ 0 degrees @ 100 yards. APCBC/T = Up to 84mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 yards.

@mattbowden4996

2 жыл бұрын

@@CZ350tuner Absolutely. None of this is to say that ideally the 6 pdr shouldn't have been fitted in a tank much, much sooner - but to characterize the 2 pdr as worthless in 1940-41 is way off base.

@jimtaylor294

2 жыл бұрын

QF-2 Pounder was notably better than the German, Italian & Japanese guns in the same size range & role, with the best A/P round of them all. Not having a useful H/E round was an issue though, as countering infantry and soft targets was much harder without one. Oddly no Canister round seems to have been tried, which ironically the Japanese had measurable success with (once they repurposed their equivilant gun as an anti-infantry weapon).

I don't get the hate for the Black Prince concept. Had (a) the tank been ready by D-Day and (b) it had had a decent engine it would have been exactly what we needed - a heavy tank with a gun capable of taking on the heavier German tanks. It was just incredible that they did not plan to upgrade the engine from the beginning of this project. Such a heavy tank could have been very useful in the set-piece, close range, slugging battles of Normandy.

Good looking machine. They almost had a Pre-Centurion on their hands. I imagine that this tank with 6 or 7 hundred horses under the hood would have been epic.

@lonesurvivalist3147

Жыл бұрын

Imagine that and with a sloped hull... Woulda been a beast

@dwwolf4636

Жыл бұрын

@@lonesurvivalist3147 sloped armor is not a panacea.

@LtNurse

Жыл бұрын

It really isn't a pre centurion, it's more like a super Churchill

Stunningly handsome, balanced lines and victim of British hubris. Centurion remains the best looker, ever.

My Dad was a Tank Commander of an M4 Sherman Powered by a Ford 18 Litre GAA V8 which was specifically Designed as a Tank Engine. He was in the 20th Armored Regiment of the New Zealand Army and fought through Italy. He had previously fought with the New Zealand 20th Battalion in Greece, Crete and North Africa where he fought as a foot slogger alongside the Cromwells and Matildas. He was very thankful that New Zealand could afford to buy the tanks it wanted as we economically had lots of reserves; he was very pleased we didn't buy any British Tanks, the M4 Sherman with the Ford Engine (550 hp) and its 75 mm gun was a great tank compared to the British. Of course there was the Sherman Firefly which had the famous British 17 pounder fitted just incase you ran into a Tiger, but my dad's tank just had the standard 75mm. However my dad survived, met my mum and that is why I'm alive! Dear Dad drove Fords to the day he died, he said the Ford GAA V8 was such a reliable and powerful engine ! I've got a photo of him and his crew sitting on the front of the Beast! I think he liked something that was faster than the troops when you ran into a Panzer Mk4, Stug etc. He told me that he never saw a Tiger or a Panther in Italy; probably just as well.

It had potential if they'd started the project at the same time as the A30 Challenger (December 1941) or even as late as summer 1942, maybe as an alternative to the A30. As it happened they simply started it far too late. The basic idea would have been handy in summer 1944 for fighting in Normandy though not so great for the subsequent advance across northern France or Operation Market Garden due to the low speed.

@6:15 "Oi! Blasted squaddies, moind moiy tree" Mind my tree!

The Churchill tank served in north-west Africa - where Allied forces encountered the Tiger for the first time. while the Churchill's cross country and hill climbing performance were praised, he contrast between it and the Tiger should have made the British - 'sit up and take notice'. It is therefore plausible to have a requirement for both a Cruiser and Infantry tank with a bigger gun capable of dealing with the new German tanks. OTL design of the Comet started in July '43, and the Black Prince in the autumn of 1943, so we gain three months on the Comet and six months for the B-P. If the B-P was designed have a similar speed or better than the Churchill it was replacing - it wouldn't get th Bedford. Comet may not be in time for D-Day, but could make Falaise, and B.P. could make then Rhine crossing.

Great video again. A cool name, cool looks but as with many British projects too much too late..

Even though it seems to be a pointless construction but still I love the design!

Infanrty Tanks were almost always fitted with Anti-Tank guns - 2Pounder and 6 Pounder rather tan a howizer type weapon of more use in infantry support. Black Prince was just following the establisher practice.

Did you know that a Churchill MK IV of the post-war Irish army was successfully tested with a more powerful Rolls-Royce V12 Merlin engine mod? Anyway, Fletcher's book on the Churchill notes the swift re-work development of the A20 into A22 program was quite a remarkable war effort by Vauxhall motors. It also surprised me to see how much autonomy such contractors had, in designing these tanks; with both good and bad consequences. I think it's safe to say they did an excellent job given the specs and constraints as laid out by the war office and of course, having to work off the A20 prototype as produced by Harland & Wolff. So, they actually made the outdated WW1 spec A20 into a "workable" WW2 design. The few things which we can fault them for is their stubborn reluctance to omit sloped frontal armor design. Supposedly this was due to the Besa hull machine gun port/mount somehow not being compatible with a sloped armor design. Fletcher notes they were aware of how the American M4 Sherman solved the ball mount on sloped armor issue and they should have just opted for Browning machine guns. Regarding the engine: Vauxhall was very well aware of the minimum horsepower output requirement - and although things can never be powerful enough, the engine itself was actually a really solid design due to its excellent torque band regardless of RPM - despite the seemingly low power to weight ratio. This torque was so strong that the Churchill driver's manual warned the driver to not try out sudden sharp turns due to the strength of engine torque possibly causing to toss the crew around inside. Finally, Fletcher notes how Vauxhall waa reluctant to even start design on this Black Prince project, since they had their hands full on the Churchill rework program (basically after the Dieppe incident) and production & logistics of these updated MK IV's and the MK VII's in the last stages of the war.

What a brilliant channel this is, very informative and well presented

@armouredarchives8867

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you kindly!

It's amazing how often it just comes down to how much reliable power you can jam into a hull. The British having to step back in 1940 put them on the wrong foot for engine design for the whole war and as such constantly had to make decisions worn by the men in the field. I've always found it odd that Canada never produced a powerful engine as they seemed to have the infrastructure requirements to create one.

fabulous as ever. Best tanks video's on the tube.

@armouredarchives8867

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you think so!

@princeofcupspoc9073

2 жыл бұрын

We shall see. I'm waiting for: Fiat L6/40, Japanese Type 89, Hungarian Turan, Polish 7TP, and the Dutch used Marmon Herrington.

Official design goal ; As many road wheels as possible !.

Taking into consideration outstanding front armor, and one of the best gun of WW2, then if it had proper engine and reasonable speed, then Black Prince would be a great tank. Probably one of the best during WW2.

@stanisawszczypua9076

3 жыл бұрын

Also excellent video as always. Thumb up from me.

@tankolad

3 жыл бұрын

Could the armour really be considered outstanding? Six inches is a lot, but not when it's completely flat. It just barely stops a short 88 round, and it's completely insufficient against long 75 and 88 guns that the Germans had standardized on late in the war. And this is ignoring the weakened zones created by the driver's view port plug and the bow machine gun.

@Akm72

3 жыл бұрын

@@tankolad Sure, but you're never going to develop a tank that is 100% protected against everything the enemy can bring to bear and that isn't really the objective. 6 inches gives you protection from the majority of the enemies' anti-tank weapons and worked well enough on the Churchill VII/VIII in the late war.

@matthiuskoenig3378

3 жыл бұрын

@@tankolad the short 88 round (according to British tests) fired from the Flak41 could penetrate 6inches of armour at 1km. the short 88 would have been good enough at most combat ranges (800m was the average engagement range of the western front), most german divisions had around 8 of these guns (or similar Flak36) by 1944, in adition they had independant flak korps which could be assigned to various parts of the front (in normandy the 3rd flak korps destroyed atleast (ie confirmed) 80 tanks and 14 armoured cars with its 50 flak41s and flak36s, and claimed over 100 tank kills), the panzer divisions in normandy also each had a battalion of pak43 long 88s with them. the panzer faust, which is believed to have destroyed half of the tanks lost by the western allies starting from normandy, could penatrate over 6inches of armour. at best the blackprince would have faired similarly to matildas in 1940 (initial success but destroyed fairly easily by 88s), but more likely would have faired aswell as matildas in the desert when they faced units with 88s (as most german units had 88s in normandy)

@stevenbreach2561

3 жыл бұрын

So......The Centurion then?

The Churchill was early fitted with a hull mounted large boar gun. It's deleation released quite some volume.

Nice content. This tank indeed entered late in production. I always believe that regular churchills had a relatively poor main armament as compared to the armour that it possessed. Black prince was a solution to that

@kgs42

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, that 17-pound gun could have equalized things with German tanks. Why was the Bedford engine even considered when it was plainly inadequate for BP to be used in any role. Not keen on the plan-shape of the turret.

*Well done video production. I sure like it, good job!!!*

I have always considered the Black Prince to WW2 tank doctrine, as the TOG II* was to WW1 doctrine - that being the ultimate iteration of an obsolete (or at least obsolescent) concept. For the future of British tank design it was probably a good think that a Meteor propelled variant wasn't produced as it would have left the British Army lumbered with new out of date equipment rather than embracing the Centurion and the 'modern' MBT concept.

@HanSolo__

2 жыл бұрын

But at least it is not so utterly ugly! And it worked.

Engine development didn't catch up with the weight until late 50s. Tanks were a lot like ships in the pre war and early war years, a built weight and used for training and a combat weight, sometimes 20 percent more.

well done

Maybe if it appeared early to mid 1944 it could have been of use if it didn't put additional strain on the logistics. But still a fairly big maybe.

@jonsouth1545

3 жыл бұрын

it would have been very useful fighting in the Bocage in summer 1944

Who doesn't love giving the French a 'Thick ear'! :)

It was a huge mistake not to fit the meteor engine and a sloped hull front, Fletcher commented in his book “The Great tank scandal “ said that the 17 pounder could be adapted to take the 32pounder (3.7” 94mm) ammunition giving a better armour penetration than the later 20 pounder

It would certainly have been a useful design in Normandy a year or so earlier. A German tank killer, a good mount for a flamethrower, it would have brought the infantry to better successes in some of the slogging matches with the Wehrmacht around Caen. It would have earned the epithet "Super Churchill" for sure. It was just too late.

@armouredarchives8867

3 жыл бұрын

i dunno, with its short endurance and logistic issues, it would have been pretty much carried to and from from every area.

I'm greatly impressed by your knowledge I am fascinated by the development of significant features and was wondering where I can find out about them.

Great looking tank. Cool name.

@armouredarchives8867

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks 👍

Excelent video.

Damn it's handsome tank!

Many years ago I heard the black Prince was intended to go into production with the new centurion turret. Does this match anything you have found?

From side on , as shown in this vid , the Prince appears to resemble a Jgd Tiger .

it would have been a good infantry support tank with a 105 or the 140mm as you mentioned otherwise it was outdated and outclassed by the end of the war by the comet so tldr great in intended role as infantry support, poor use if used an general tank role

You have 934 Subs, I expect to see this channel with several Hundred Thousand in a year or two.

@cryohellinc

3 жыл бұрын

Would be great indeed, I really like their content 👍

So, three feathers stood for gallantry and excellence on the battlefield, while four white feathers stood for cowardice. Interesting.

And again another great video. I'm a fresh subscriber. It's a pity so few people come here.

@armouredarchives8867

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the sub!

@tommygun333

3 жыл бұрын

@@armouredarchives8867 My pleasure!

Shame they never invested in the alterations for the Meteor engine, would have been outstanding.

cheers for another fine vid! hm, for today's suggestion, how about the italian semoventes? thanks!

@edfrancis712

3 жыл бұрын

still workign on waffentragers lol

@CthulhuInc

3 жыл бұрын

@@edfrancis712 looking forward to that one, cheers!

Any development that fails is still a success. I know that sounds odd but lessons are learned from failed developments, and better ways of doing things come out of failures, or at least they should :)

When I was about 12/13 years old, about 60 years ago, there was a comic that had a serial about the one Black Prince that got to Europe and caused havoc amongst the Nazis. Fiction of course, but at least the artist got paid. I cannot find the comic name!! Anyone know?

A good tank at the wrong time . It seemed that that the British began to get their act together too late in the war . The A43 design begins to mark the lines of the future British AFV . I can’t help but think of British tank crews immediately post war in Europe hearing about such tanks ( Centurión included ) they must have felt terribly angry .

I Love this this thing on WT

Am I allowed a yes? The only campaign it was suited to was bocage - where the heavy gun and armour would have been useful, and the speed was relatively unimportant. However in retrospect any effort expended on other projects can be seen as diverted from centurion, and by the time they built one there was no use for it.

If we had just mass produced challenger we would have needed no other tank till 50

2:05 the tank at the bottom right what is it called?

@Akm72

3 жыл бұрын

That's the A30SP Avenger. It's a tank destroyer based on the A30 Challenger hull with return rollers like the A34 Comet and a new open turret for the 17 pdr gun. I think Armoured Archives has a video on it.

Oh so it's a Churchill but the kind you would not suffer after 1h inside, and it is low and wide so any modernizeation would fit inside/outside perfectly. Cut the ball gun off gunner as well and the vertical heavy plate. I mean all this stairs in the front needs to go. Switch it with a single, sloped (bent a bit) frontal upper plate. Turret and hull fit with lighter but spaced armor (maybe). Scrap the old heavy engine and use the light weight unit from a plane. I like how the turrets of British WW2 tanks look like medieval riveted pot helmets.😀

@br-sb6vu

2 жыл бұрын

Plane engines don't work on tanks

If they'd started work on re-engine-ing the vehicle at the beginning of the A43 project, instead of continuing with the Bedford, only to be rejected, and only then start work on the engine, then they might have had an acceptable tank before the end of the war. As it was they had to completely redesign the turret, and heavily modify the hull, so running a new engine program in parallel would a more efficient use of itme.

It might have been a functional failure but even a failure is truly not a failure because it teaches you what will not work

As an Infantry Tank goes it was good but let down by it's powertrain. As a weapon it was obsolete during development and it should never have gotten past the "You what would be a good idea?" phase.

@friedyzostas9998

2 жыл бұрын

The Swordfish plane would beg to differ.

Could've worked with a 5-600hp engine, sort of a pseudo-MBT for its time.

Its biggest failing was its design initially taking a very obviously underpowered engine Had it been designed around a more powerful power plant it might have been ready much earlier (ie before Centurion) and seen combat in Europe. Based off how the Mk VII Churchill did it would have been rather successful as essentially a stronger Churchill, destroying fixed positions being its speciality. The vehicle would have very much been a match for the heaviest German tanks and resistant to 88mm flak and 75mm AT weapons too. But that’s all a pipe dream. As designed with that power plant it would have been horribly unreliable and tactically very inflexible, by the time they redesigned it to fit an actually useful engine the Centurion had rendered it (and every other tank) obsolete

@RoadRunnerdn

Жыл бұрын

It wasn't just the engine, the suspension too was not suitable. But the reason the design existed and re-used those components in the first place was because they wanted a tank that was quick to develop. The tank was simply never going to be.

Whatever stupidity one might assign to the British tank designs of WW2, and I emphasize the word "might," I credit British tank designers for continuing to think for themselves and not simply give up their job to the Americans, however good the American tanks were. It was always an unsung strength of the Anglo-American Alliance that there was always a British alternative to every American asset, ensuring that if convoys failed to bring the American weapons, there was a British weapon to to do the job if needed until the convoys were restored. Even if the Germans had managed to sink every convoy for weeks, it would be be weeks before the British factories churning out Cromwells and Churchills ran out of steam, ensuring the Germans could never really strangle the Allies.

I stand for centurion.

I keep getting Batdance stuck in my head for some reason.

Yes, but... the UK could only make well armoured but slow or fast but thin, so since one was going to be slow anyhow it might as well support the infantry. Their industry just wasn't capable of it for the first few years of the war.

@matthiuskoenig3378

3 жыл бұрын

the meteor engine could (and eventually was, in the form of early centurions) put into well armoured tanks, and the meteor was available for the cromwell, and thus could have been put in say the black prince always them to be used with said engines in normandy.

In my opinion heavy tanks could have worked better in ww2 if they were used as reserve tanks in a unit to be used against heavy fortifications with a larger amount of medium and light tanks and infantry to support it

17 pdr since 1941... no mention of TOG.

@edfrancis712

3 жыл бұрын

tog will get its own vid

Prince Edward Land Torpedo? Is that like a Goliath tracked mine?

Black Prince: a Churchill aspiring to be a Tiger 1

If Black prince was upgraded with a Meteor engine, and used in the Korean war, a war that required tanks capable of bunkering down. This may have actually been a quite effective tank, *but in only that scenario.* Overall however this is a bad tank given the fact that the centurion could do everything the Black prince could and some more. With the Centurion having the ability of being upgraded being a key crucial difference.

We seem to be always playing catch up with our tanks, back then and now. Why don’t we just buy the latest Leopard instead of waiting years to upgrade the Challengers?

@friedyzostas9998

2 жыл бұрын

Both Chally and Leo are trash without add-ons. Chally, like any other MBT, can become the best in the world as soon as money isn't a problem. That's the exact reason why Chally is currently the best for UK: it is competitive against Leo while being the cheaper, yet just as efficient choice for the UK government

@tonyjedioftheforest1364

2 жыл бұрын

@@friedyzostas9998 my point is the waiting time to upgrade, we could have modern Leopards very quickly.

@friedyzostas9998

2 жыл бұрын

@@tonyjedioftheforest1364 Just copy-paste whatever you want from Leo lmao. As I said, Leo is worthless without add-ons.

Tiger versus Churchill. If you were a boxer; would you rather be a weak puncher, but able to take a lot of damage without falling to the mat? Or would you rather hit really hard (and bicycle a bit faster)? I'd say the answer lies in notoriety. A lot of us know what the Churchill was. After all, 5000 were built. Contrasting that, ALL of us know what a Tiger was, even though only 1300 were built. A la Prince noir? For an all mechanized force she/he (accounts vary) reduces road movement to its lowest common P:W denominator. A bad trend. By 1944, slow and steady no longer won the race. Better overall to mount the Aussie 25pdr in a standard Churchill and use it to brush infantry off your AVREs.

@noldo3837

2 жыл бұрын

I would say that "Tiger vs. Churchill" is incorrect PoV, possibly influenced by Tank vs. Tank games. I think the question is 1 Heavy (slow, unreliable, expensive) or 5 mediums, which each do same or even better servise than the heavy in 90% of cases.

The Sherman, when introduced in numbers to the British in July 1942, it gave them their first "universal" tank. It was as mobile as most British cruiser tanks, more reliable, better armored and better armed, while not as heavily armored, the Sherman had a dual-purpose 75mm gun able to handle all German tanks encountered to that point while superior as a support gun to the 2pdr and 6pdr.

@jimtaylor294

2 жыл бұрын

Nope. The Sherman wasn't a "universial tank" by any measure. It was also inferior to domestic tanks in several ways: • 75mm A/P proved inferior to that of the 6 Pounder in combat, with rounds bouncing / shattering on impact when they shouldn't have. • As mentioned the armour was too thin and spread out, especially compared to Infantry Tanks like A22, which had a level of frontal protection desired in a Universial Tank, if not the mobility. Some german 75mm & above rounds even went straight through the M4's frontal gearbox. • The M4 had inferior cross country mobility to all domestic Cruiser Tanks, and a harsher ride that crews pointed out when switching over to other vehicles. • The drivetrain layout rendered the Tank much taller and slab sided than was desired, as well as spread the drivetrain components everywhere which made mantainance harder. (this being a feature US and other user nations Tanks wouldn't carry over postwar) M4 was a major improvement over the mess that was M3 Medium, but still only a stopgap that wasn't what the Army really wanted. The two features that did make a difference to British doctrine postwar were: • Having a fighting compartment large enough to wear helmets within. (as hitting one's head on the interior fittings while in a battle situation proved a common & thus serious issue) • Having a suspension system with the relative simplicity and lack of lower hull intrusion of the M4's volute setup, but with the comfort of Christie & Torsion Bar. (the result being CR2 has the best suspension on a Tank today relative to complexity)

Obselete by the time it would have come into service I suspect.

@armouredarchives8867

3 жыл бұрын

very much so

@gordonmcinnes8328

3 жыл бұрын

@@armouredarchives8867 love the channel btw. Well done.

The concept of two different types of tanks was a waste of time money and resources IMO. Other countries worked this out much earlier than the British.

Sounds like thy were trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Monstrous failure. /argument :)

@jasontrauger8515

3 жыл бұрын

Begrudgingly, you are correct. Outdated doctrinal project that, due to overly rigid requirements, never got to see action and probably would have been too slow to see it, anyway.

@teodor9975

3 жыл бұрын

the engine and the 5 speed gearbox was a let down. otherwise it was a good tank. so a late project that had more chances of succeeding than any german latewar projects

@stevenbreach2561

3 жыл бұрын

Black Prince,or Centurion?...........no contest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Centurion is the best British Tank in our History

@mikecimerian6913

2 жыл бұрын

The British were hard pressed for stop gap solutions. The first tank they designed with time and room to spare was the Centurion and we all know how successful it was. Twin Meteor engine and stronger tracks and this would have been a monster. I know it's silly.

@firsteerr

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikecimerian6913 didn't the Israelis repulse Arab combined forces with centurions ?? honest question

British Army: give us a 17pdr Churchill but keep everything you can including the engine Vauxhall: * keeps the engine * British Army: good heavens why is it so slow you should have put in a bigger engine

"English currency",really?Love your stuff,but thats a shocker!!!

eh chapess's too

Just needed a better engine

To little to late

Always the same story with British tanks, to some extent, even to this day, a failure to appreciate the need for adequate engine power and vehicle speed.

replace the ugly turret and it turned into a Prince!

Far too slow for WWII