The British Tank Meme

hi there can I help you folks yeah my daughter's looking for a car that goes with her personality I love it dad this is the car hey hey hang on a second Meg what can you tell me about this one oh that's just an old tank I use for those commercials where I declare war on the high prices yeah hang on this like now I see your game now I demand you tell me more about this tank did I mention the tank is at MPT told this video is sponsored by Norva PN the 2018 best VPN for your personal online information in history check out the link in the description box for 75% off a special cyber deal more on that later British tank designs in World War two sit in a weird area as far as historical discussion goes there often vehemently defended but often not looked into to the same extent as many other countries designs when discussing the war in Europe and I believe the reason for this is due to them feeling fairly average with a lot of them being almost extremely capable but being held back by intentional design that is highly influenced by doctrine which is fairly different from the other three big nations in the European war that were more deeply influenced by industrial or grand strategic needs the construction of the tank even by British standards at that time and that's not saying much before you start commenting let me explain myself in my opinion for all intents and purposes the British are the pioneers of the tank and I know that's a fairly controversial subject and you can pull all sorts of designs from earlier time periods that weren't developed and focused on who came up with the concept you could argue the French as they developed at similar times and created the first conventional tank layout with the FT but the British were the first ones to shoot at anybody with a tank so for that they're first in my book and with this development in World War one they began thinking of ways to best use it their new ideas were set to be rolled out in full in the offensives of 1919 unfortunately though or more likely fortunately guess it just depends on how you look at it the war ended before this took place but the basic idea stayed with the British military afterwards that being that you would have two types of Tanks working together in an assault infantry tanks that were heavier and slower to break holes in the enemy line and lighter faster Cruiser tanks to then go through these holes and exploit the breakthroughs causing problems behind the enemy lines in the 1920s the British experimented with this in very much committed to this military doctrine you see this reflected in their tank design and what ultimately makes them so mediocre in the eyes of many now the British went through a lot of designs before they settled on some of their better ones a few such as the Vickers 6-ton although not adopted by the British Army were exported to other countries or heavily influenced designs the infantry tanks are typically what people think of when they picture British tanks in World War two especially in North Africa including both Matilda variants and the Churchill for what it's worth the Matilda two and Churchill were excellent designs the Matilda had very strong armor an excellent crew layout in the two pounder gun that it and many other British tanks were armed with was a very effective anti-tank gun in the early part of the war in France in 1940 a group of Matilda's counter-attacks some of Rommels forces causing a panic as the Germans couldn't figure out how to kill them and nearly caused her a tree they were also very effective at many points in the North Africa campaign earning its title the queen of the desert and it was the only tank besides the Sherman used on all three major fronts of the entire war also being used by the Soviets and in Southeast Asia the church will remain in service throughout the whole war and shared many of the same key features becoming the most survivable tank of the war thanks to its armor and being able to have its gown upgraded due to a larger and later on upgraded turret the cruiser tanks were slightly less successful but still not bad although having reliability problems more often the Crusader designs were well liked by their crews when they worked and had some impressive top speeds in their later variants so the tanks themselves were not awful their drawbacks such as slow speed for the infantry tanks and thin armor for the cruiser tanks were consciously made design choices in armaments for the most part were very effective as the models were being created and were upgraded whenever possible the problem with British tanks is that the design philosophy for their intended use and the industrial base that created them ran headlong into reality once the war began proper British planners had a hard time embracing combined arms warfare but unlike the Japanese who wrote it off out of poor understanding and later refusal to use it general Haig in World War one seemed to grasp the concept fairly solidly mentioning that the new forces of mechanization would not be of any use without the other arms of the military but between 1918 in the early North Africa campaigns this seems to have been lost resulting in some ridiculous tank losses in battles most often against well-placed German anti-tank gun positions because the tanks would often go in the unsupported to these attacks the Germans could often pick them off fairly easily using their eighty eight's on the heavier tanks and other anti-tank weapons along with their tanks to take out the cruisers the effect of this was compounded by the rather poor production system the British had in place unlike many of the countries in the war that attempted to standardize as many parts in their war industry as possible such as the United States in the Soviet Union the British tank designs often shared absolutely nothing in common with each other outside of maybe the gun with different engines suspension systems and types of armor being used that limited the number of tanks able to be produced as they're also different which is strange because the opposite is true for the RAF they standardized a lot in their aircraft manufacturing luckily the Americans joined the war just in time and provided tanks for the British before the conflict hit its disaster point and I know that sounds jingoistic and I can hear the angry British comments already and there were other factors such as a change in command and a change in tactics but as far as tanks go the m3 Lee was designed and rushed out as a stopgap and given to the British improved vital also the first consignments of sherman tanks were literally ripped out of the hands of the US tank divisions training with them to be sent overseas so although I creamed somewhat at that statement - given the evidence I think it's a fairly honest representation of what happened at least on the armour side of things and this is where the assessment of British vehicles begins to get a little muddy as the British continued to use American vehicles heavily for the remainder of the war however the British did continue to innovate and design on their own models and improve on the American models as well creating conversions of the Lees into the grant that eliminated the radioman improving the ergonomics of the tank and the conversion of the Sherman to a Firefly adding a 17 pounder gun that eventually became one of the more famous Sherman variants in the war although I don't think it's the best one as the gun breech was so comically large for the turret it really affected the fighting capability of the tank with very poor ergonomics inside [Music] it was also attempt number two of three to successfully put a 17 pounder in a tank the previous being the archer whatever that was supposed to be the third one we'll talk about in a minute the British continued developing their own tanks roughly keeping to their doctor and in fitting the American vehicles in where they thought they should I eat treating the Sherman is a cruiser tank and Stuart's his reconnaissance vehicles eventually designing and producing the next cruiser tank the Cromwell this is a fan favorite but suffered him performance from its long development time being designed in 1942 and sing battle in 1944 that made it fairly outclassed in its debut and some mechanical problems that plagued it in its earlier runs the thing was very fast though and was used quite effectively as of scouting vehicle and it's towards the end of the war that the British began to get this idea of a universal tank as the Sherman was for the Americans and the t-34 was the Soviets and although they were fairly late to the concept they're really the first ones to knock it out of the park and Ford to the main battle tank idea [ __ ] [ __ ] derivative that I love I absolutely love the first of these was the comet the final and in my opinion first practical move to put a 17 pounder on a tank since you actually had space for it in this one this tank saw the very end of the war and although it lacks sloping armor something that was pretty much Universal at this point it proved very capable in the first step in the right direction with the British and the war with the Centurion a very well put together all-around tank in the first real main battle tank although missing World War two it's all use in Korea innumerable other conflicts in the decades to come and had an extremely long service life with all this said I don't really know where this leaves us with British tanks none of the designs that were used heavily are really particularly bad with the exception of a sole few which will happen with any country they perform their job well when they were in their role it's just that the Second World War wasn't what the British predicted and what they planned for and as a result their designs say for the last view we're very kind of so I'm not sure that there's a big statement to be made about this country's tanks but more rather that the war you find yourself in may or may not be the war you plan for and to be careful where you specialized because you could spend all your effort in the wrong area I hope this video is worth the wait since the best tank of World War two video way back in Jesus that was a long time ago when I first started seeing requests to talk about British tanks but I'm interested to know what your thoughts are as well and let me know down below thank you to nord VPN for sponsoring this video nord VPN is the world's leading VPN in the winner of the 2018 best VPN by VPN monitor I know there's a million of these things out here and it's good to go with an accredited one it works on any device that needs protecting with double data encryption for increased anonymity it runs from an easy-to-use and lightweight Chrome extension that starts working immediately and with unlimited bandwidth and over 4,800 servers it even comes with a bonus ad blocker it runs on most operating systems and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee use my link in the description box in the code word potential history for 75% off Nord VPN only $2.99 a month plus you get an additional month free thank you to all my patrons especially those at the five and ten dollar levels whose names you'll see here on the screen without you guys none of this would be possible thank you to everyone for watching the next video in this series will be on the German tanks and I hope to see you all there [Music]

Channel: Potential History

Views: 1,980,012

Rating: 4.912838 out of 5

Keywords: ww2, british tanks, valentine tank, comet tank, matilda tank, churchill tank, north africa, sherman firefly, satire, cromwell, mbt, crusader tank, tank museum, battle for france, ww1, british tank program, centurion, tank factory

Id: TFJ_YqnlElY

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/howdyallitsbenoof]

Potential history is great

[u/Info123456987]

You can actually get a civilian tank licence in the UK, the gun on the tank must be deactivated but otherwise, with a licence, you can go anywhere (with rubber on the tracks) that you can fit.

[u/ShaggyGotSauce]

GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS TOG IIs

[u/ShaggyGotSauce]

GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS TOG IIs