Īround June 1943, a colleague of Brighty, Lt. In a rather desperate move, Brighty removed the recoil system and locked the gun in place, thus forcing the entire tank to absorb the recoil, but this was a far from ideal situation and there was no telling how long the tank would have been able to handle such a set-up. However he was stymied by the turret of the Sherman, which was too small to allow for the very long recoil of the gun. Despite the fact the A30 Challenger was undergoing initial trials at Lulworth, Brighty was convinced that the Sherman was a better mount for the 17-pounder. The earliest attempt can be credited to Major George Brighty of the Royal Tank Regiment while he was at Lulworth Armoured Fighting School in early 1943. Nonetheless several unofficial attempts were made to upgun the Sherman. These two tanks - and their successors, the Comet and the Centurion, which were already on the drawing board - were to have replaced the Sherman in British service, and so the prospect of spending time and money mounting a 17-pounder on the Sherman was not seen as desirable. The second was the A30 Challenger which was based on the Cromwell but with the even more powerful 17-pounder gun. First there was the Cromwell tank, which was expected to use the Vickers High Velocity 75 mm gun this gun would have had superior anti-tank performance to the US 75 mm and 76mm guns that were mounted in the Sherman. Although the British Army had made extensive use of the American-built Sherman tank, it was intended that a new generation of British tanks would replace it in the anti-tank role. The concept of fitting a 17-pounder gun into a Sherman tank had initially been rejected by the Ministry of Supply's Tank Decision Board. Between 2,100 and 2,200 were manufactured before production wound down in 1945. In recognition of this, German tank and anti-tank gun crews were instructed to attack Fireflies first. It soon became highly valued as the only British tank capable of defeating the Panther and Tiger tanks it faced in Normandy at standard combat ranges. This proved fortunate, as both the Challenger and Cromwell tank designs experienced difficulties and delays.Īfter the problem of getting the gun to fit in the Sherman's turret was solved, the Firefly was put into production in early 1944, in time to equip Field Marshal Montgomery's forces for the Normandy landings. With the help of Lieutenant Colonel Witheridge and despite official disapproval, he managed to get the concept accepted. Though the British expected to have their own new tank models developed soon, British Major George Brighty championed the already-rejected idea of mounting the 17-pounder in the existing Sherman. Originally conceived as a stopgap until future British tank designs came into service, the Sherman Firefly became the most common vehicle with the 17-pounder in the war. The Sherman Firefly was a Second World War British variant of the American Sherman tank, fitted with the powerful British 17-pounder anti-tank gun as its main weapon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |