why did the american arms industry refuse to produce british tank designs prior to and under the lend lease programme?

when the british war department asked for military assistance, they wanted the huge, efficient US tank factories to produce our own designs as german bombing was limiting the factories that could be used.

im not sure if it was the US government or the industry itself, but this request was refused. instead we were supplied with grants, shermans etc.

however, some vehicles were produced to british specifications and design plans, the staghound was one.

was it that the factories could not retool to produce the more complex and hard to make british designs, or was it a political decision?

cheers

joe

Your last statement was correct - it was more efficient for the US to build US designs and supply them to the allies. I also believe that US and Imperial measurements were different, meaning that US bench stock (nuts, bolts, screws, etc.) could not be used to build British designs. British tanks also used drive trains built by British automotive industry, where the US used differnt drive trains.

Just about every single component would have to have been designed, tooling constructed and completely assembly lines developed to build foreign designs.

Anyway - US designs were better!! Just teasing. :-)

ranger, you are correct in saying the measurements are different, i didnt think of that.

i would disagree about american tanks being better though, many were but not all.

certainly grants and shermans were better than most cruiser tank designs, but in my opinion, our armoured cars, infantry tanks and later cruisers were far better, their designs benifitting from lessons learned in combat.

dont forget many peices of equipment were built to british requirements and specifications and taken on by the US, the P-51 for example.

cheers

joe

I was just pulling your leg on whose equipment was better. My Dad has a book titled, "The Rude Mechanicals", written by a British author that decries the poor state fo early British armor. The early british tanks were mostly powered by truck and bus engines and transmissions, and did very poorly in the desert. Some British armor was still using the American Liberty engine, first designed during WW1 for aircraft use!! However, later tanks like the Cromwell and Centurion made up for it.

Probably the best single piece of British equipment used by the Americans was the Roll Royce Merlin aircraft engine. As you know it was built by Packard for use in the later model P-51s.

After reading your initial post, I looked up in a book from the WW2 collection published by the US Army Center for Military History. The major reason the US refused to build British equipment was that there was insufficient machine tools to continue US military expansion in 1939-40 and meet British demands after the Battle of France. The US did provide to Britain the French orders that could not be delivered before the fall of France and tens of thousands of Enfield rifles they had as excess. One major problem with small arms was that the US used .30 cal light machines and the British used .303. The US had tons of .30 caliber ammo that the UK could not use. Later when the Commonwealth starting using .30 cal Brownings the US was their sole supplier of this ammo.

It was finally agreed in 1940 that the US would supply all the equipment, except personal gear, for ten British divisions.

ranger dont worry about it i know!

you are right about the truck/ bus components. most of the early tanks (especially cruisers) were woefully unreliable in combat conditions. and the liberty engines were also useless for tanks, the cavalier/centaur tanks (forunners of the cromwell) were used for training only as the liberty engines would shake themselves to peices at high revolutions!

one point to note is the almost limitless supply of US gear, hence why british produced tanks came to be armed with the 75mm. the 6-pdr they originally had was better for tank killing than the 75mm but the US could supply ammo far more quickly than our own factories could.

cheers

joe

The 75mm also had an outstanding HE round.

Sorry to highjack this post but can I ask a question in roughly the same vein.Why didnt the Americans take on Hobarts 'funnies for D'day

dont take this as gospel, but everything ive read or heard points to a bit of snobbery in the high circles of the US military.

they seemed to write off the funnies as a bit of a crackpot idea,and were only interested in the sherman DDs. i think history has proved them wrong, and i believe many lives could have been saved, particularly on omaha, if tanks such as the churchill AVRE had been landed.

cheers

joe

Joe-- on a practical level, we did alter the shape of the M3 Lee tank to accomodate the British radio systems. Thus, the creation of the Grant. The armament of the Matilda and Valentine rendered, IMHO, them less than ideal systems to operate, let alone manufacturer. Overall, the United States was hardly the arsenal of democracy until about 1943. The adjustment of the manufacturing effort would have been sorely strained by a switch to British designs as my good friend Jeff pointed out earlier. As to the Hobart altered tanks, I can only speculate that the alteration of various American chassis (I can think of only the Sherman here) to the various designs would have been a challenge deemed unnecessary at that stage of the invasion planning. How many Hobart vehicles were based on American tanks? I can only think of the dozer tank. Anyone else think of others?
DJ

The Crab Flail was based on the M4A4. The M4A4 was not used by US forces, but could, eventually was coverted to other M4 chasis. As a side note, I saw an add in a military-related professional journal for a new "Flail" for mine clearing. It has been mobified for new technology, but is essentially the same as 1944.

One of the main reasons the British armor wasn't built here has to be the tooling production and its cost. My grandfather worked in a steel foundry where they cast Sherman transmission covers and turrets. Just the pattern equipment and core equipment used to cast these two parts out of molten steel had to be outrageously expensive. And that is only 2 out of literally thousands of castings it took to put a tank together. High production tooling to cast relatively small parts (25-50 pounds) out of molten iron and steel can easily cost $60,000 now. Lead times typically run 6 to 8 weeks now, with CAD CAM and computer controlled machining centers.

Just standing up for us boot droolin' foundrymen...
Shaun

"Atlas Foundry Company won't make a man of of ya. You gotta be one when you get here."

So, it seems to me that the flail and the dozer tanks were adaptable to the Sherman. Any others?
DJ

DJ,

most of the other designs were based on the churchill, AVRE, fascine carriers etc, but i dont see how designs could not be adapted to a sheman chassis(far more versitile)

cheers

joe

Joe-- that is the thought I am trying to appreciate. The universality of the designs should have appealed to the Americans. Apparently, the American armored force did not adapt these (Flail, AVRE and fascine). We certaily modified the Sherman to become a recovery vehicle and artillery weapon, but there appears to be few engineer type vehicles. Can someone venture some comments on this situation or correct anything I said that is inaccurate?
DJ

There were engineer vehicles built on the Sherman chassis, several different mine rollers, some line charge systems, all for mine field clearing, and flame thrower tanks, especially in the Pacific. I believe the British built a version of their BARV on a Sherman chassis.

Of course you have already mentioned artillery and recovery vehicles, both a self propelled arty in 105 and 155mm, plus the 105mm howitzer used in cannon companies (with modified gun-tank turret), and several different types of rocket launchers.

Maybe one reason the Sherman was not used for more engineer vehicles, as oppossed to the Churchill is the difference in armor protection. The Sherman just did not carry the armor to survive in a way they were to be used on Normancy beaches.

As an aside, I wonder how effective Hobart's funnies would have been on Omaha Beach. Not many of the gun tanks, DDs or regular, susrvived from the first waves. Anti-tank fire and obstacles on Omaha Beach were much more deadly than Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno Beaches, because of the bluffs and restricted exits, which allowed the Germans to concentrate kill zones. Could they really have achieved much at Omaha Beach?

Jeff-- I am glad you brought up Omaha Beach. The DD tanks failed to achieve the desired level of success on 6 June due to two factors: they were launched too far from the shore (some 6000 yards out) and the sea state far exceeded the free board limits of the vehicle. The Shermans with waders and those DD tanks brought to the shore by boat guys who saw the problem and went in to the shore with the tanks. So, Hobart's vehicles (which were not universally accepted by the Brits) would have, IMHO, contributed little to the fight on the beach. The one vehicle that shot the dustbin would have contributed to destroying several bunkers....what do you think?
DJ

A demolition vehicle could have been useful on Omaha to take out bunkers and to clear the concrete barriers blocking the few beach exits. The combat engineers had to approach these barriers on foot and attach conventional explosives to open routes for armor to exit the beaches. I just don't how long they could have survived on the open beaches. The British had the advantage on landing on relatively flat terrain and were into a built area out of line of sight for AT guns. It was the open beaches at Omaha where Germans were on the high ground and also able to enfilade the beaches that was so deadly.

Maybe more smoke (smoke grenades and smoke pots) should have been available and/or used. Smoke grandes could have provided some concealment while not obstructing vision of fire support from ship and gunboats shooting at cliffs above.

Getting back to the original question, I think it is important to remember that Lend-Lease began before the United States declared war on the Axis. It's interesting to note that all but about 800 of the 4,900 M3 Medium Tanks went to the U.K. or the U.S.S.R. Providing Lend-Lease aid was a provocative move for a supposedly "neutral" country. If the U.S. had started building British or Soviet designs, it would have been a blatant backing of one side. Engaging in free enterprise, however ... well, that's part of what America is about.

Once the U.S. was in the war, tank production could not stop for total re-tooling. That's why changes in the Sherman series were gradual. It stayed with the same basic components through the war, even though a total retool might have allowed a more survivable, lower and heavier armored tank with improved performance. Someone made the decision to keep production up while sacrificing other things.

Bob-- I fully support your position on the issue. Regardless of our political sentiment, we had to maintain our neutrality. I am amazed at the numbers you cite regarding the M-3 series. The aircraft numbers I know are just as impressive in terms of what we provided the Allies.
DJ

Pulled right out of Hunnicutt's Sherman, so I assume they are correct (I rounded the numbers down, too). I don't have the Stuart book handy to check those numbers. Also, no telling how many of them ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic.

I know the a/c numbers were also high -- probably much higher.

I know a lot of people don't buy the "Arsenal of Democracy" line, but we built a lot of stuff. When I lived in Wisconsin, I was surprised to find out that Kimberly-Clark -- the same paper-making folks who make Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine products and Huggies diapers, as well as many other paper-ish things -- made quad-.50 machine gun mounts during the war.

Bob-- truly amazing. Maybe this Country is not as bad as some people would like us to believe. Self-flagellation drills seem to be the order of the day. If we survive this political season, maybe we can continue to make the world a better place.
DJ

Regarding Lend Lease, I have read many times how the USSR claimed to have fought alone and with no help. I thought that their soldiers were driving Studebakers, Dodge Trucks and wearing American boots.

No, I'm not trying to incite an arguement here. I'm just reading "Total War" at the moment and its quite interesting.