OK, then let's go with 14" that ought to take care of the issue...
Alternative History Armoured Fighting Vehicles Part 3
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This sounds like it could actually work [1] provided it was used as a mobile AT gun to provide overwatch rather than as a makeshift tank. A bit of long-range bunker busting would also work.
The limited ammo capacity should help keep it out of tank-like roles, and an accompanying ammo carrier would make sense.
Note 1. I'm almost completely certain my previous proposals would either not have worked at all or would have been very impractical.
I have a question maybe it was asked before here but how do you guys think armoured fighting vehicles would develop without world war 1 ?
Great fan of the threat !!
Great fan of the threat !!
The first armored cars were built and used operationally before WWI, so their continued use & development was assured. They might be seen as a replacement for cavalry. As for tanks, there were theories and novels involving armed tracked vehicles before WWI, so I think someone, probably an european power (the UK being more interested in naval power and the US not being interested in large military equipment) would start experimenting with something. No trenches means that some points of the basic design would probably be changed: one of the reasons for the Mark 1's lenght was the need to cross trenches of X width. So, maybe something closer to the french FT17 on a larger scale: a way to more around a 75mm, with 2-4 MGs to back it up.
For Big guns to kill tanks (whether mounted on tanks or not) the British have two contenders, one is the 3.7"mobile AA gun the second is you really need more oomph is the QF Mark II 4.5" AA gun and if you want to go 'all in' then you modify it to this (from Wikki),
'Colonel Probert of the Armaments Research Department developed rifling with tapered groove depth, and with the last few inches of the barrel being smoothbore. This was used with a 4.5 barrel lined down to 3.7 inches, but retaining the large chamber, allowing a large propelling charge to be employed. Ordnance, QF 3.7 inch Mk 6, only on a static mounting, entered service in 1943'
Now give this beast an effective APDS round and count how many Tigers a single shot will pas through.
'Colonel Probert of the Armaments Research Department developed rifling with tapered groove depth, and with the last few inches of the barrel being smoothbore. This was used with a 4.5 barrel lined down to 3.7 inches, but retaining the large chamber, allowing a large propelling charge to be employed. Ordnance, QF 3.7 inch Mk 6, only on a static mounting, entered service in 1943'
Now give this beast an effective APDS round and count how many Tigers a single shot will pas through.
Not for that specific purpose, no, but sidemounted MGs would should up, I think. Or maybe mounted on turrets, like some mid 30s tanks did.
Yes, lightly armoured cars and personnel carriers, with some portee- mounted artillery. Maybe half-tracks. Tanks proper will only come when a major conflict drives the gun/armour race.
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Adolphe Kegresse was making a few pre-war half-tracks for the Tsar, mostly for winter use. That still puts the half-track in frequent use by key decision makers, so yes. Plus, they were appearing in commercial use in the US - Lombard Steam Tractor and as "shade tree mechanic" builds of Ford Model T's - but I'm not sure where or when the idea for them came up.
One of the prewar armored cars that most interests me was the Schneider Brille- built by Schneider in France for Spain and originally designed as an armored troop carrying vehicle, although the limits of the cooling technology of the day and the Spanish main theater of operations being the Moroccan desert means it was never used as such.
I would expect continuing development of armored vehicles without WW1 to focus initially on a vehicle designed to mount an artillery piece and operate largely like the artillery of the day; and a vehicle intended as an APC designed to transport troops to the front lines- probably with plenty of rifle ports. These concepts would be intuitive to military planners of the time and fit neatly into preexisting military hierarchies in a way that designing a tank as a breakthrough vehicle (or an MG carrier) did not- an artillery piece can go to the Royal Artillery, an APC to the infantry, and a scout car to the cavalry. Tanks on the other hand were awkward things that in country after country kept ending up in their own formations- not at all what a prewar military leader would want.
the T-ford halftrack conversion kit was already available pre-ww1
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Has anyone ever drawn an Abbot SPG armed with a Garrington Gun (the improved 25pdr that the UK was working on before NATO standardized on the 105mm calibre)?
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The US Rock Island Arsenal created the M1921 Medium Tank, following WW1. It suffered from two negatives: not enough engine power and post-war budget cuts.
So, the US armor soldiered on into the next decade and and a half with a sparse quantity of retread M1917 Renault Light Tank copies, some Christie experiments, before eventually alighting on the path that lead to the M3 and M4 of WW2
What might have appeared IF the M1921 designs were approved and allowed to work the bugs out and move on to a real second generation follow-on?
Photo from Warspot.net
So, the US armor soldiered on into the next decade and and a half with a sparse quantity of retread M1917 Renault Light Tank copies, some Christie experiments, before eventually alighting on the path that lead to the M3 and M4 of WW2
What might have appeared IF the M1921 designs were approved and allowed to work the bugs out and move on to a real second generation follow-on?
Photo from Warspot.net
That looks like it would be a very workable and modern design. Pity it was not kept on. It would certainly help cure the "stick to cavalry" that seemed to fill much of the US army.The US Rock Island Arsenal created the M1921 Medium Tank, following WW1. It suffered from two negatives: not enough engine power and post-war budget cuts.
So, the US armor soldiered on into the next decade and and a half with a sparse quantity of retread M1917 Renault Light Tank copies, some Christie experiments, before eventually alighting on the path that lead to the M3 and M4 of WW2
What might have appeared IF the M1921 designs were approved and allowed to work the bugs out and move on to a real second generation follow-on?
Photo from Warspot.net
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