Author Topic: A34 Comet  (Read 28330 times)

Offline dy031101

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Re: Cruiser Tanks
« Reply #25 on: June 20, 2014, 10:47:02 AM »
Interesting combo. 8)


Now with sideview and a sloped glacis:



From what I have gathered on Google, track return rollers seem to be beneficial to faster tanks.  Alright, I'll keep the return rollers then......
« Last Edit: January 20, 2015, 11:49:42 AM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline dy031101

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #26 on: June 22, 2014, 05:21:13 AM »
Logan Hartke's comment actually got me thinking of mounting an US 90mm gun into an existing Comet turret:



Looks do-able if I once again move the trunnion forward (although the comparison is made by aligning the front end of their turret bustles since I don't know the recoil distances of both guns).  Gun elevation/depression is probably gonna suffer greatly though (my untrained intellectual exercise puts it within +10°/-4°)......

Or would a 90mm-gun-armed version of the Charioteer turret be a better way to go?
« Last Edit: June 22, 2014, 06:30:58 AM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #27 on: June 22, 2014, 09:38:14 AM »
As they felt they had to build a completely new turret to put a 20 Pdr on a Cromwell hull, to create the Charioteer, I think you'd have to do the same if you want to put a 90mm on a Comet hull.  While the Comet is slightly wider than the Cromwell,  it'd still be a very tight fit.  As it was with the Charioteer, they also lost a crew man (loader) in the process.   The Comet turret was pretty cramped even with just a 77mm in there.

Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #28 on: December 25, 2014, 01:26:20 AM »
Sorry about the old thread resurrection but in light of some recent reading and you tubing it came to me that I can't actually think of any reason why the Comet couldn't have been built instead of the Cromwell, or more to the point why the Cromwell couldn't have basically been everything the Comet was.  For that matter all the pieces needed were in place in time to have produced something like the Cavalier instead of the Crusader, such as the 6pdr gun and the recognized need to retain a three man turret.  Also, a HE round existed for the 6pdr but for some reason wasn't issued (but was used by the RN in the Molins gun) so if issued would have removed the need for the 75mm gun.  The 95mm CS was still available to support 6pdr gunned troops, although I  have never understood why, what was basically a cut down 3.7" AAgun barrel and a 25pdr breech, was fitted with a counter weight on the barrel, because it was breach heavy, when the weapon suffered from inaccuracy, poor dispersion and a lack of range, when lengthening the barrel would likely have addressed all these issues.

Basically all that was needed to fix the UKs cruiser tank problems was a bit of vision to skip one generation of cruisers in light of the actual opposition they were facing and likely to face, rather than always playing catchup and hoping the enemy weren't also improving their vehicles.

Also what AGRA and I have been discussing was two different procurements that were proposed at different times for the RAAC. The first was a mid 40s proposal to equip ten CMF regiments in support of five regular army Regiments of Centurions.  These vehicles, had they been acquired, would have been due upgrade or replacement by the late 50s.  The other proposal was from the late 50s early 60s was for a squadron of light tanks to support alliance operations in the far east. 

Offline dy031101

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #29 on: January 20, 2015, 11:48:18 AM »
Irish trial with 90mm recoilless rifle replacing the 77mm HV turret.

Lack of funds led to this seemingly-simplistic trial going nowhere...... but I do wonder if the project was started with the intention of keeping Irish Comets functioning as a tank (as opposed to tank destroyers that recoilless rifles tend to be associated with)......

If it was...... perhaps we'd have seen some armoured setup on the "finished" products?
« Last Edit: January 21, 2015, 04:51:20 AM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #30 on: January 21, 2015, 02:30:16 AM »
Interesting.
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Offline dy031101

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #31 on: January 21, 2015, 02:25:13 PM »
COMRES-75, a experimental Comet variant armed with externally-mounted QF 20-pounder.

It doesn't look like there is a bustle-mounted magazine à la AMX-13...... or does it?

For a more COTS combination, perhaps the turret of AMX-13/90 or AMX-13/105 with applique armours?
« Last Edit: January 21, 2015, 08:55:59 PM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline dy031101

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #32 on: January 24, 2015, 01:10:28 PM »
A slightly larger version, permitting a loader to be added to the crew, would have been ideal to upgrade the Comet with a ful bore 17pdr then a 20pdr and finally an L7 105mm.

Though one thing about relocating magazine to the hull and adding a loader is the question as to how big the turret ring will get.


For whatever it's worth, here is my attempt at visualizing an American-style oscillating turret on the Comet:



The turret ring will have to be able accommodate all that...... and I don't think that it can.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 04:48:20 AM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #33 on: May 07, 2015, 10:08:34 PM »
Just a thought, well totally improbable what if to be honest.  How about a hypothetical AC5 Sentinel is developed based on the Cromwell while the original AC1, 3 and 4 were evolved from the original cruiser concept and in particular (as I understand it) the Covenanter.  They are ordered into production but the planned automotive components are never delivered leading to the cancellation of the project after a couple (or even several) of hundred improved hulls (or hull front segments) have been cast. 

Post war the plan to equip two CMF brigades with Comets goes ahead but Korea raises concerns that the Comets armour in insufficient but the design of the hull makes increasing it problematic, at this point it is realised that not only do the AC5 hulls have significantly greater protection than the standard Comet glacis but that they were designed to use the automotive components of the Cromwell, Comet, Challenger etc. 

A hybrid Comet / AC5 is built and tested, proving very successful and affordable resulting in the entire Comet fleet being rebuilt using the Comet sized AC5 hulls, Comet turrets, drive trains suspensions and tracks. 

This could be modelled buy applying plastic card and putty over a Comet hull to make it look like a cast hull.

Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #34 on: June 15, 2015, 11:08:35 PM »
Post WWII Australia was quite committed to building new and further developing existing strategic capabilities deemed necessary from war experience, both for defence but even more importantly for economic development.
In this situation it is quite conceivable that a local tank production capability could have been determined to be critical to national defence, in particular if the proposed armoured force, of no less than fifteen tank regiments in one regular and two reserve brigades, was adopted. 

The Sentinel program had proven that Australia was capable of designing and building tanks, even with extremely limited resources available during the war, a post war industry would have been a much simpler, less urgent undertaking.  At the time there was also limited foreign exchange and the Centurion was very expensive, as well as being considered by some (incorrectly as it turns out) too large and heavy for operations in South East Asia and the Pacific.  A perfectly good enough medium tank designed to equip an army that never expected to have to fight the latest and greatest Soviet designs without the support of great and powerful allies, better armed and protected than the M-4, smaller, lighter, more mobile and cheaper (to buy and own) than the Centurion, more reliable and durable than previous British designs as well as the not so successful M-26/46.

In this situation it is not so much of a stretch to imagine Australia developing and producing an evolved Comet as much to build a strategically desired industrial capability, as to boost the capability for the army.  It would use common automotive components, suspension tracks etc. perhaps even the same turret and main armament but a modified / modernised hull constructed from newly developed armour production infrastructure.  The main visual difference would be a sloped nose and rearranged drivers position with periscopes, swivelling hatch and height adjustable seat.  A 20pdr would be nice but difficult and the 77mm HV would do until the T54/55 series was identified in the late 50s. 

Such a vehicle would progressively replace all of the WWII vintage and hopelessly obsolete Matilda IIs and Grants in the Militia / CMF as well as the not much better Churchills equipping the new regular army.  A full fifteen regiments, plus additional vehicles for training and strategic reserves, exports to NZ and other suitable customers (Israel?) would easily see about 1000 basic tanks being built, perhaps in multiple batches / improved marks, through the 50s.

A series of upgrades could be undertaken in the 60s and 70s, maybe even the 80s for reserve vehicles, giving all sort of fun configuration options.  Vietnam, Six Day War, Yom Kippur, even Lebanon in 82 with Blazer RA, perhaps an extreme version in Desert Shield / Storm.  New drive train, turbo diesel (MTU V10?) new gun, 105mm L7 probably too big, how about a 76/62 similar to what South Africa did with the Rooicat, or a 75mm ARES or even the 60mm HV gun?  Starts with Browning M1919, ends up with MAG58 and Browning M-2.  Could be evolved and retained as a cavalry tank with the latest surveillance systems in addition to updated optics and fire controls.

Thinking a Revell (Matchbox) 1/76 kitbash and if it looks good try a Bronco 1/35.

Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #35 on: December 13, 2015, 09:38:57 PM »
Just a thought, how about the IDF manages to secure large numbers of Comets, could they have upgraded them instead of the Shermans?

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #36 on: December 14, 2015, 08:36:58 AM »
Just a thought, how about the IDF manages to secure large numbers of Comets, could they have upgraded them instead of the Shermans?

Anything can be "upgraded".  Whether or not that upgrade is worth the effort and lucre is another matter.   The Sherman was upgradeable because it was cheap and readily available, not necessarily because it was a superior design.  The Comet, if as cheap and as available would be worth upgrading but it would have more limitations than the Sherman IMHO.  The flat plates of the glacis would render it more vulnerable in combat.  It's turret design would make it easier to accept a bigger gun but you'd need to cut away the corresponding area on the rear of the turret to allow it to be more easily loaded and fought.   Perhaps a French 105mm?

Offline jcf

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #37 on: December 14, 2015, 09:37:57 AM »
Just a thought, how about the IDF manages to secure large numbers of Comets, could they have upgraded them instead of the Shermans?

Anything can be "upgraded".  Whether or not that upgrade is worth the effort and lucre is another matter.   The Sherman was upgradeable because it was cheap and readily available, not necessarily because it was a superior design.  The Comet, if as cheap and as available would be worth upgrading but it would have more limitations than the Sherman IMHO.  The flat plates of the glacis would render it more vulnerable in combat.  It's turret design would make it easier to accept a bigger gun but you'd need to cut away the corresponding area on the rear of the turret to allow it to be more easily loaded and fought.   Perhaps a French 105mm?

... and due to the original emphasis on design for production and maintainability the Sherman was relatively easy to upgrade.
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Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #38 on: December 14, 2015, 12:08:34 PM »
I could see there would still be a place for the M51 with its 105mm but if there were sufficient Comets would they not have been a suitable alternative to the M50?  Throw in the logistic advantages of a common drive train with the Centurion, lower profile than the Sherman they would have been useful without being a logistic or technical burden. 

It is actually conceivable that Israel could have made a deliberate decision to acquire as many Comets as they could to supplement the Centurions, they could maybe even have moved to obtain as many Avengers, Challengers and even Cromwells as possible, as worst for parts and possibly as a pool for a full modernised FOV.

Just an idea, basically if anyone was going to modify, upgrade and operate the Comet in numbers, it would have to have been the Israelis.  The Sherman was to obvious vehicle for them to use and upgrade this is just a whiff that they some how managed to get large numbers of late type cruisers instead of Shermans and decided to make the best the could of them.

What, in the light of their other extensive and successful upgrades of other types of tank, would the Israelis have done with Comets, (or even Challengers, Avengers and Cromwell)?  Also just imagine if they acquired Conquerors. ;)

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #39 on: December 14, 2015, 01:59:20 PM »
Just a thought, how about the IDF manages to secure large numbers of Comets, could they have upgraded them instead of the Shermans?

Anything can be "upgraded".  Whether or not that upgrade is worth the effort and lucre is another matter.   The Sherman was upgradeable because it was cheap and readily available, not necessarily because it was a superior design.  The Comet, if as cheap and as available would be worth upgrading but it would have more limitations than the Sherman IMHO.  The flat plates of the glacis would render it more vulnerable in combat.  It's turret design would make it easier to accept a bigger gun but you'd need to cut away the corresponding area on the rear of the turret to allow it to be more easily loaded and fought.   Perhaps a French 105mm?

... and due to the original emphasis on design for production and maintainability the Sherman was relatively easy to upgrade.

I would say that was more by accident than design, Jon.  The M4 is not a magic design.  Without the massive stores availability, the M4 would have been as difficult as any vehicle to upgrade.

Offline jcf

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #40 on: December 15, 2015, 05:22:45 AM »
Never said it was a magic design, Brian and the design for mass production is one of things that allowed easy mass
production (55,000+) and field maintainability, thus the massive post-war stores availability.
“Conspiracy theory’s got to be simple.
Sense doesn’t come into it. People are
more scared of how complicated shit
actually is than they ever are about
whatever’s supposed to be behind the
conspiracy.”
-The Peripheral, William Gibson 2014

Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #41 on: December 15, 2015, 07:16:21 PM »
One thing I don't get about the Comet, or the entire A24/27/30/34 family is their vertical glacis and turret armour surfaces when the preceding A13 Covenanter and A15 Crusader both specifically specified sloped armour to increase its effective thickness for a given weight.  Logically the same principle should have applied to the Cromwell, irrespective of any other changes, or rather improvements, yes there may have been justification in terms of turret volume, but why take the retrograde step on the hull?

As an improvement on the things that worked on previous designs a sloped glacis (also present on the Matilda and Valentine) would have made sense.  Conceivably the Cromwell and definitely the Comet could have been designed with sloped armour and a bigger gun from the start (the Cromwell was apparently specified with a 17pdr before they worked out it wouldn't fit) making it a much better vehicle.  Then again it was never bad, it was reliable, fast, well protected and had a low profile (an advantage in open country but not so much in the hedgerows.

Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #42 on: February 23, 2017, 07:05:06 PM »
Just reread this topic because I now have a Bronco 1/35 Comet to play with (or to be honest keep in my stash and occasionally look at it).   Rereading my Antipodean Armour Fest topic too, getting lots of ideas and inspirations at the moment, just need to turn it into actual model building.

Offline tankmodeler

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #43 on: February 24, 2017, 05:15:06 AM »
Just reread this topic because I now have a Bronco 1/35 Comet to play with (or to be honest keep in my stash and occasionally look at it).   Rereading my Antipodean Armour Fest topic too, getting lots of ideas and inspirations at the moment, just need to turn it into actual model building.
Given the reliability of the Meteor in the Comet, I can't see it being replaced until the mid 60s if the vehicle was still in service and then a nice 650-700 hp diesel package like the readily available AVDS-1790 would keep the spring in its step. The extra power and torque would also allow for significant upgrades.

- Replace the 77mm with a low pressure French 105 or the Cockrill LP 90mm or the HP French 75
- add a modern (for the 60s ) fire control system
- replace co-driver with more ammo, especially if 105 used.
- add applique spaced armour

Lots of power means lots of "scoot" with the enhanced "shoot".

Paul

Offline Volkodav

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #44 on: February 24, 2017, 05:02:42 PM »
If enough of them were in service in the 60s perhaps a common automotive upgrade could have been undertaken on the Comets and the Centurions.

Offline dy031101

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #45 on: June 14, 2018, 06:26:13 AM »
More info on the "Headless Coachman"
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #46 on: June 14, 2018, 03:07:00 PM »
Kind of surprised they didn't go for the L2 BAT or L6 WOMBAT 120mm versions.
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

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Offline tankmodeler

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #47 on: June 14, 2018, 11:46:11 PM »
Kind of surprised they didn't go for the L2 BAT or L6 WOMBAT 120mm versions.
Reading the article and the permanently broke status of the Irish Defence Forces, I'm guessing that the Bofors 90mm was in stock and, as it says in the article, went back to the infantry. There was no money to buy _anything_ for the Comets, including any HE ammo once a fault had been found in the existing stocks.

Offline dy031101

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #48 on: June 15, 2018, 04:38:13 AM »
Kind of surprised they didn't go for the L2 BAT or L6 WOMBAT 120mm versions.

If the BAT series was an option, I kinda would have liked the BAT or MoBAT better than the WOMBAT as the former's vertically-sliding breech might make gun crew space planning simpler.

I would actually have, for this idea, liked the fact that the American 106mm is prolific enough that new ammunition is still being marketed, but not only does the American 106mm use a horizontally-hinged breech, it also lacks the back blast chute extension (which, as I recently start to suspect since we would want to make it as difficult for the recoilless rifle's back blast to enter the turret ring opening as possible without placing the breech out of reach from the designated loader, might be important)......
« Last Edit: June 15, 2018, 09:00:43 AM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: A34 Comet
« Reply #49 on: June 15, 2018, 02:17:42 PM »
There are significant differences between how the US 106mm RCL and the British 120mm RCL operate.  The 106mm has numerous holes drilled in the sides of it's cartridge case.  Into the case is placed a "liner" made of thin brass or plastic. When the round fires, it blasts holes through the liner and the gases exhaust sideways and then it is redirected rearwards.  The 120mm has a frangible base in the cartridge case, which fractures and disintegrates (it is usually made of plastic) and is blasted to the rear.

The first type - the 106mm - is simpler to build but it requires a stronger breech structure and it makes an autoloader hellishly more complex.   The second type requires a simpler breech mechanism and a longer breech exit.  Autoloaders are much simpler.

I've fired both styles of weapon (106mm and the 84mm Carl Gustav) and personally I prefer the British (actually German - Rheinmetall) system - it tends to be easier to reload.