Centurion - Tiger Tank's Nemesis

[Music] centurion versus tiger sounds like a made-up scenario doesn't it but in reality it was supposed to have happened this episode is brought to you by curiosity stream a subscription streaming service created by the founder of the discovery channel that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers including exclusive originals like adolf hitler the itinerary an immense study of hitler's movements from childhood to the end of his life and d-day hidden traces that uses archaeology to uncover what was left behind in normandy by allied and axis troops from helmets to bunkers get unlimited access starting at just 2.99 a month or 19.99 a year and for my audience the first 30 days are completely free if you sign up at curiositystream.com forward slash mark felton and use the promo code mark felton during the sign up process curiosity stream the best streaming service for lovers of history the centurion was the tank that served british and commonwealth forces very well indeed serving in 13 different marks and many specialist vehicles between 1946 and as recently as 2003. incredibly it remains in service in 2020 in south africa as the olefin tank and in modified form in israel and jordan it is widely considered one of the best tank designs ever and saw action with british commonwealth forces in korea the suez crisis vietnam northern ireland the falklands and the first gulf war in a previous video i told the story of how one centurion even withstood the close blast of an atomic bomb in australia with no ill effects link in the end screen but what you may not know about this iconic cold war tank is that it actually dated from world war ii and very nearly saw action in the battle for germany in 1945 or that it was designed with a specific opponent in mind not soviet tanks but the most famous armored fighting vehicle of all the german tiger tank the centurion was to have been the allied tank that leveled the playing field in north west europe against germany's much-feared tiger in this video we will see just how close the two came to actually meeting on the field of battle the introduction of the tiger 1 in 1942 followed by the panther medium tank in 1943 demonstrated that british tanks of the period were outclassed and in many respects inadequate in the case of the tiger its 88 millimeter gun could penetrate british tanks with relative ease whereas the main gun of most british tanks couldn't penetrate a tiger's thick frontal armor and the panthers sloped armor also afforded excellent protection a working tiger 1 was captured by the british in tunisia in 1943 and extensively tested and studied you can still see this tank today at the bovington tank museum the only working tiger in the world one weapon that was effective against the tiger and the panther was the british 17 pounder or 76.2 millimeter anti-tank gun initially this gun was mounted on its side in an enlarged turret on the sherman tank creating the sherman firefly the firefly was to have been a stop-gap measure until a holy british-made tank could be designed the firefly proved extremely formidable in action in normandy and the drive into northwestern europe but the basic sherman design meant the tank was very tall cramped and its armor apart from an extra 13 millimeters on the gun mantlet was the same as the standard sherman leaving it very vulnerable to the tiger panther and panzer iv not to mention german anti-tank guns and shape charge weapons like the panzerfaust the british had not been idle and in 1943 a decision had been taken to develop a new tank mounting the 17-pounder with at least three inches or just over 76 millimeters of shaped armor to help deflect rounds from the tiger and panthers main gun the result was the a-41 tank in may 1944 20 prototypes were ordered 10 with the 17-pounder main gun and a 20-millimeter pulston cannon mounted coaxially in the turret the latter weapon designed for use against lightly armored german scout cars and half-tracks the other 10 prototypes were divided into two groups of five the first group had the main gun and a co-axial baser machine gun and an escape door and the second group of five vehicles the quick firing 77 millimeter main gun and a driver operated machine gun the centurion as the tank would be named was heavy at depending on the mark around 42 to 47 tons and its armor was sloped like the panther for increased protection it was slightly faster than the firefly with a maximum speed of 22 miles per hour and it was very maneuverable outperforming the british comet tank in most tests because priority had been given to building existing british tanks the first 20 prototypes were not finished until april 1945. they were dispatched to the fighting vehicles proving establishment at chertsey in surrey the decision was taken to test the new tank in actual combat conditions but time was running out by april 1945 the third reich was on its knees on the western front the allies had already crossed the rhine river and were pushing forward on a wide frontage army group b the last significant german army on the western front became encircled in the rural pocket in early april and surrendered on the 18th with 317 000 troops captured the remaining german armies in the west fought isolated battles often centered on major cities and towns field marshals have been at montgomery's 21st army group was on the left flank of the anglo-american advance the canadian first army gradually isolated the german army group h in a pocket in northwest netherlands while the german first parachute army tried to stop the british second army's advance into northern germany on the 14th of april the british second army began to encounter elements the german 12th army then in retreat the british reached the elba river on the 19th of april capturing bremen by the 26th the canadians began operations to liberate the netherlands the final british thrust was to be aimed at capturing hamburg and preventing the soviets from occupying denmark by capturing an occupying schleswig holstein and reaching the baltic hamburg would fall to the british in early may 1945. the decision was therefore taken in april 1945 to dispatch six of the new centurion tanks to germany originally they were to have been crewed by a composite force of men from the grenadier cold stream welsh and irish guards from the guard's armour division under the command of captain samartin beckett a baronet serving in the welsh guards however the germans surrendered on the 8th of may 1945 ceasing all active operations at 1101 pm central european time the centurions were still being prepared for shipment to europe and the decision was taken to send them anyway but to give them to a different unit the vehicles were assigned to the fifth royal inner skilling dragoon guards an irish cavalry regiment in the 22nd armoured brigade which was stationed at griberm germany at war's end the journey out from england was exceptionally slow leaving southampton aboard landing ship tanks on the 14th of may 1945 the centurions arrived at the belgian port of antwerp five days later they were then driven nearly 400 miles under their own power across belgium and the netherlands to gribaum in schleswig-holstein and delivered to the inner skillings the six centurions entered field trials under operation sentry they were carefully compared to the sherman and cromwell tanks then outfitting british armoured regiments looking at both road and cross-country conditions swampy crossing trials were held against the cromwell and the american m26 chaffee as well as other allied types the centurion proved superior on road and cross country but inferior to the cromwell and chaffee in swampy conditions the centurions then moved to a gunnery training range at lommel in limburg province belgium close to the german border site of a famous bridge battle during operation market garden in 1944. the centurion 17-pounder gun performed very well against various targets including derelict german tanks thereafter the six centurions were toured around british bases introducing armoured regiments to the new type in july the centurions drove to calais in france and was shipped back to britain overall their performance had been fantastic suffering only one engine failure and three gearbox failures in a lot of road miles and rough testing the crew said that the centurion was reliable and it was popular with crews the extensive trials under operation sentry had shown the centurion to be trouble free and very capable negative comments from the crews concerning the co-axial 20 millimeter cannon saw it deleted from the production model and the type entered british army service in december 1946 by which time the cold war with the soviet union was fully on the centurion first saw combat just four years later in korea the type's first kill would turn out to be a captured cromwell tank being used by the north koreans i've made a video about this link in the end screen but we can't help but wonder how the centurion would have fared against the tiger one or even its bigger cousin the tiger ii if the war had dragged on a few weeks longer or the british had managed to get the centurion into the field earlier i'll leave you chaps to argue that one out in the comments section below many thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 985,304

Rating: 4.9291492 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Tiger Tank, Centurion Tank

Id: 0AnoySTfvFM

Length: 11min 49sec (709 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Thebunkerparodie]

new level of plagiarism would be better

[u/Anon4567895]

The Centurion never fought the Tiger tank though.

[u/2Wombat2]

Since when does that thief have almost 1 million subs!?

Edit: How do people not fall asleep when watching his videos? Even Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles is better, because he always goes of onto another interesting tangent

[u/AliveRich40]

It was meant to fight the Tiger!

Show pictures of the Tiger 1

There was only two or three verifiable instances of (American) allied forces encountering Tiger 1's in Europe. After a very particular engagement with the concentration of German heavy armor in France, IIRC Commonwealth forces didn't run into many either.

[u/SnapshillBot]

Snapshots:

1. New level of wehraboo-ing? - archive.org, archive.today*

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