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Subject: How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks
oldbutnotwise    4/26/2005 6:16:48 AM
To have a view of another option, whilst the T34 has heavily influenced soviet tank design, do the west's tanks owe more to the centurion?
 
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AussieEngineer    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   4/26/2005 7:46:03 AM
It was really the first MBT I suppose.
 
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Librarian    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   4/26/2005 4:01:08 PM
I would disagree on the "first". What about the Pershing? IS-2? Or for that matter the Panther and the Tiger? It was however, much more adaptable than the any of the others, though partly because it evolved under it's own name whereas the Pershing evolved into the Patton series. It did, however, bring together any number of lessons learned during WWII and did so in a decent package. However, the Pershing and the IS-2 suggest that other designers also were thinking along similar lines.
 
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Yimmy    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   4/26/2005 6:14:38 PM
The Centurian was an evolution of the Cromwell and Comet.
 
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AlbanyRifles    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   4/26/2005 11:09:45 PM
I would agree the M1 has more in common with the Centurion series than the Patton/M60 series....
 
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AussieEngineer    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   4/26/2005 11:43:45 PM
You might be right about the Pershing I suppose, but I don't think panther, tiger or king tigers were really MBT. The closest to a MBT of those three would probably be the panther, but it was really a medium tank in a medium-heavy tank mix. Wheras a centurion was just as mobile as a medium tank and had the firepower and armour of a heavy tank. Honestly though, I don't know that much about Pershing or IS2, but I suspect that the IS2 was more of a heavy tank as apposed to a MBT.
 
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Yimmy    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   4/27/2005 9:23:05 AM
I believe the IS-2 only weighed a bit over 40 tonnes.
 
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AussieEngineer    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   4/28/2005 9:26:03 AM
I don't know enough about the IS2 to really talk about it but was it as mobile as the centurion?
 
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Librarian    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/2/2005 2:20:48 PM
I have been doing a bit of reading, since my earlier post. The IS-2 was roughly equal to the Centurion in terms of armour and power-to-weight ratios. The initial armament was superior in the IS-2 (122mm gun). I suspect that the later 105mm Centurion gun would be about equal. One very important difference was that the IS-2 was classified as a heavy tank (the same as the Pershing was, though the latter was later qualified as a medium tank). I suspect that such a label would affect how the tank would fit into the military structure (force structure, tactics, procurement, etc.) The IS-2 also scared the Americans and the British into building their own heavy tanks (the M103 and the Conqueror) which were relative disasters. However, in design and concept, the IS-2 has any number of features which suggest the modern MBT to the casual observer. It lacked the longevity of the Centurion, however. I suspect this can be explained by the fact it's design did not sufficiently allow for improvements. This latter facet is one of the Centurion's hallmark having gone from the 17-pounder gun to the L7. This in and of itself might be one of the Centurion's influences, i.e. that in the lifetime of a tank's design, considerable changes will occur and if you build a design that will allow for that, your sales will be better. Alternatively, you could be cynical and say the Centurion was popular among many users because it had the best armour/price ratio of Western MBT's of it's era. Certainly, that seems to have been a consideration for Israel when it chose the Centurion over the AMX-30. ;-)
 
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shawn    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/3/2005 1:13:33 PM
Errr... the IS-2 had a few flaws, one of which was its slow rate of fire, 2-3 rounds per minute (common on all further IS tanks). IS-3 was the tank which pioneered 'clamshell' armour, but: "suffered from many serious problems related to design flaws. The most serious were: an unreliable engine, and extremely unreliable gear-box, and defective hull elements." link IS-4 to T-10 tanks: link I believe that the IS-3 and T-10 served in combat with Egypt and Syria, where the Israelis did not seem to have any significant problems dealing with them.
 
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Librarian    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/3/2005 3:32:07 PM
I had not been aware of slow rate of fire and poor reliability of the IS-2. Doubtless that contributed to that line's poor reputation. However, that does not mean it and it's successors could have influenced other tank designs. In your interesting links, I was struck by the Western surprise at seeing the IS-3 at the Berlin victory parade. This could have lead Western designers to change their plans in favour of beefier tanks. As side note, many Western tanks of that era suffered from unreliable engines, including the Western responses to the IS-2 line.
 
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oldbutnotwise    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/4/2005 9:19:16 AM
must disagree a bit with the IS2 these were fitted with a 122 artiliary piece, one that was a poor anti tank weapon its performance was pretty similar to the 90mm gin fitted to US tank destroyers etc. it was inefior to the 17pndr fitted to both the comet and the centurion or the 88mm fitted to the king tigers (both these are judges to be about equal). late in 45 the best gun to have n your tank was the 17pnd with tungsten shells ( the germans had designed similar ammo but due to lack of raw materials could not afford to use up valueabole tungsten on tank ammo). as for reliablity by the 44 the Us were using shermans which had a excelent reliabilty record (even the russian guards regiments who recived them were please with this aspect) the british had churchills (whose problems had been sort by this time) the comets were fitted with the meteor (merlin) engine an engin that proved to be one of the best tank engines of its era. a point of note is that both the comet and the centurion were design to perform "off road" in that its max off road speed was only 4mph slower than its road speed
 
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Librarian    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/4/2005 2:39:01 PM
The reliability issue I was referring to involved the Conqueror and the M103, both of which suffered from engine problems. Also, weren't there problems with Meteor engines? At the very least, the Centurion suffered from insufficient range. The Centurion has a very good reputation for all-terrain mobility, (i.e. getting from A to B no matter what the terrain). I seem to recall comments about how good it was in the mountains of Korea. While it wasn't fast, it could handle rough terrain with relative ease.
 
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shawn    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/5/2005 8:03:34 AM
The Conqueror used that same Meteor engine that was used in the Cromwell, Comet and Centurion. The problem was that it was overstressed for the Conqueror's weight. This was not uncommon in many heavy tank designs, such as the Tiger II. The M103's engine wasn't particularly great as well, but its main problems stemmed from its electrical system. A total shift to diesel engines for AFVs did not occur in Western armies until the early 1960s. For example, the M48A3, with a diesel engine, was first introduced in 1959.
 
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RetiredCdnTanker    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/5/2005 10:57:42 AM
The Centurion was the my first tank, but I never really looked at it as a breakthrough design. So, I went out and had a good hard look at one that is being used as a monument. Of course, the obvious was there, the well sloped armour, the well designed suspension and so on. However, I think that the Centurion made its mark because, for once, the designers incorporated a huge amount of over-engineering. The turret ring, for example, was much larger than a Sherman, and much larger than the 17 pounder required. The suspension as well, was much more robust than was required. This foresight by the engineers allowed the Centurion to gain over fifteen tons of weight from the earlier marks to the latest marks, and also allowed for two changes to the calibre of the main gun, from 17 pounder to 20 pounder to 105mm. The robustness of the platform also allowed many support vehicles to be built on the same basic platform. Previously, most western tanks were designed with the bare minimum requirement. It was difficult to upgun the Sherman, for example, and the Firefly version had to incorporate a few compromises to allow the mounting of a similar calibre but much more powerful gun. So, while in many cases the Centurion seems to be evolutionary, in some ways, it was indeed revolutionary.
 
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oldbutnotwise    RE:How Centurion dominated and affected the designs of tanks   5/6/2005 10:49:41 AM
one of the biggest problem of the centurion was politics, the tank itself was on the drawing board in 1940 but was rejected because of the rule at the time that all british tanks had to fit in a standard rail tunnel, the centurion didnt.
 
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