Covenanter - Tank Design & Development
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- A look at the Covenanter tank - its history, design, and development. Additionally, we explore its role and why it's not quite as bad as people think.
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Topics:
0:00 - Introduction
0:20 - Covenanter - Cruiser tank Mk V
Sources:
Covenanter PM Knight
Bovington Museum
Workshops Manuals
Covenanter Facebook Restoration Group ( / 1024243844391302 )
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#Covenanter #WW2 #Tanks #MilitaryVehicles
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The Covenanter, probably the most aesthetically pleasing tank
For a blind person :)
If it weren't for those rivets. But I agree.
@@dalejmobiledalej6361 it looks so symmetrical, if only it wasn't riveted
I AM partial to the Matilda Tank. Such a beauty!
@@GC-Jo Matilda 2 Is definitely a beauty, don't like the rivets on the Matilda 1 tho.
I had never considered these benefits of the Covenanter. Very good points. Still to produce over a thousand examples of a tank that would never see combat was a massive waste no matter how you look at it.
Hats off to the cunning people who made the most of what could have been a boondoggle.
Worth remembering that the production scale of such vehicles was different then; we had tens of thousands of Tanks in WWII (and needed them), while by the 1980's we had about 1,000 combined (Chieftain, Challenger 1, Centurion AVRE 165), and then downscaled to 600 Challenger 2's (intended, vs about 420 actual) after the USSR went >poof< .
Come to think of it the Germans had various counterpart fiascos, like the Porsche Tiger. Smaller numbers but much heavier and more expensive (in money & strategic materials) by far.
It's not totally wasted as you'd still be developing a well-oiled team for tank production for future use. As well-oiled as the Covenanter probably needed to be.
@@wbertie2604 Amen. I think there's only one user in the comments' that's consistantly claiming Covvie was a complete waste; and only because he's an anglophobe who's ilk supported the germans during the war XD.
The tiger moth was produced in large numbers at a time when we were short of resources, but it was a vital aircraft in the training of pilots, a dedicated training vehicle is very rarely a waste of time and resources, we still have such vehicles in the tank corps, but in significantly less numbers as we are not looking to train the numbers they were at the time.
I always thought the Covenanter was the best looking of the British tanks and this tutorial taught me that while it was not suitable for combat conditions it still played a very important role. Thanks for sharing this.
Another interesting video, nice to see a fair assessment of the flaws and highlighting the positive role it played in the war overall.
Always loved the Covenanter's sleek sporty lines.
Like a few others there seems to be a shot trap at the turret ring where the turret slopes inward
Some very good points about the positive uses of the Covenanter. Unglamorous roles that we seldom think about. Still, it's a shame they didn't catch the problems early and resolve them (if that was even possible).
It would have been possible, with a bit of effort
The Covenanter is one of the most clear examples of a fundamentally good, if slightly inflexible design, being ruined by rushed development and panicked mission creep.
Although I had never realised its benefit as a dedicated training vehicle - an idea which could have much merit today.
Sorry, but the "benefit as a dedicated training vehicle" line sounds like a load of crap.
Having a specific type with specific (and non compatible) spares "just for training" is beyond stupid in all the possible ways. The factories and ressources could have very well been used to produce "frontline" vehicles instead, who could themselves have been used in a in a much more coherent, practical and efficient training (learnig to fight in the machine you will fight i, imagine that!) Not to mention the stramlining of logistics (especially spare parts)...
It's funny how the Brits always try to spin their failures into "great things".
^ Sounds like copium to me XD.
(not least because it's an insubstantial whine'fest)
If you *already have* a vehicle that isn't combat fit but uses a lot of parts of and similar features to those that do, and the thing looks similar to the Tank that you *are* going to use; why not make use of them as training mules & obfuscation fodder?.
Only a fool would *not* make use of a readily available asset, and as the video stated: why use Tanks that are combat fit to do training, when you need them out in the field killing Germans?.
There are NO advantages in a bad vehicle.
Being able to use it for training is barely a mitigating factor of an otherwise utter and shameful failure and waste of resources, especialy when better projects were in the pipeline at the same time.
Lots of part? What parts? The oh-so unreliable engine, was a one-off... Great parts commonality indeed
The fact no one had the courage (or honesty) to call a stop to this ever downward-spiraling train-wreck of a project is the issue that should be discussed.
Interestingly, one could see a lot of similarities with the Brexit thingy... A dog's breakfast through and through, but "look at this minor detail that propaganda can spin into a great thing!" :D
Oh so British. :D
^ *Britain hating Remoaner confirmed* XD.
The Covvie Tanks already existed: if we - if taking your ""logic"" to its conclusion - had scrapped them instead, we would've needed something else to do the same jobs, that we *didn't* have to spare.
Now if you had been saying we should have cobbled together a batch of A15 lookalike faux Tanks out of mild steel and non-military grade materials for the training & misdirection duties... you'd have had *A* point... but not much of one, as already having the Covvies' to do it made such an option moot.
And seriously: Have you even seen the Covenanter & Crusader?: They were derived from the same Tank (A13 Cruiser III/IV), and used similar components (from road wheels to light fixtures), the same turret and the same gun. This made the Covvie ideal for A15 training, and - as AA pointed out - by training on a Tank worse than the real thing, often has a positive result.
Clearly worked too; as between D Day and VE Day the British Army and her allies enjoyed a track record of always having the Germans on the retreat somewhere along the front; even during the battle of the bulge.
@@jimtaylor294 you obviously do not understand my point at all.
The only reason they existed was because they got built in blind panic (production only started after the Dunkirk debacle).
While the urgency is understandable, it is very poor planning and ressource management of the project that led to its abject failure. For instance, and despite what Mr Fisher says, the change in construction technique was actually not the fault of "unweldable material", but a purely economical one, as welders were paid more, and the constructer tried "save pennies", not to mention the interference of the RAF for material allotment, as stated in this video.
All this to say that no, sorry, the argument of "a great training tank" is just silly, as is all the story concerning the covenanter, but hey, after Dunkirk, on had to make Britain look a little less silly...
Love the mythbusting!
I was sent to recover the covvy for Bovington , it was in a terrible state with only one free wheel but the paint was ok . I saw it many years later and was surprised to see it repaired so well , just shows a good bash with a knocking stick , a lick of paint and a couple of years faffing about fixes most kit.
Just finished all your videos and they were really interesting , Perhaps you could take a leaf out of Drachinfels (The ship guy) book videos of 2-3 hours would be good. Also as a proud NZer I vote for the Bob Semple tank to be added to your list. Keep up the awesome content.
Thank you for this wonderful and positive feedback. This really motivates us to continues producing content for you. Stay tuned for more, and "Bob" tank is in our pipeline.
Excellent as always, thank you.
thank you, one of the best looking tanks.
i'm glad you've done something to up it's reputation.
cheers :)
More entertaining and interesting information - thanks Ed.
I have multiple photo's of Covenanters being used in training by 1st Polish Armoured Div. prior to D Day which were part of a late friend's estate & contemporary to his parents' generation (he was born in Poland in 1942, with them being part of the Home Army).
indeed, the lil covvys served until 45 as training aids, those which were beyond repair were used us as testing vehicles for engineers and demolition training etc.
An idea for the Radiators - What about fitting them at the top inside the track well above the tracks - you would need 2 or 3 return wheels under the radiators to stop the tracks pounding them to oblivion. The distance to the engine would be much shorter and they would get some protection from enemy fire.
Thank you for sharing.
Really impressive video. Thank you
The LMS Also made a large contribution to the war effort in they're 8F locomotives, which were for 4 years the war department's standard locomotive.
I don't know the specifics but one of my old long gone relatives was a commander in one of these tanks, I think for mine clearance. Story was it went over a mine, caught fire and burned up, He and another crewman were the only ones to survive. There was also a film called "Tawny Pippet" where he's in the top of one, just a little story my nan told me.
I had the self-same cooling issue on my Holman Imp, many years ago.
Wonderful look into it! The Covenantor is one of the most beautiful vehicles around.
Is it me but there's a bit of a Dalek about them - low and menacing
Agree. It's about time a model company produced a 1.35 scale of the Covenanter. A good one for any collection.
Excellent stuff bro
Another tank that gets a bum rap is the Crusader. Hopefully we will get a video on it as well.
Crusader is an odd one, it has many good features but was terribly unreliable, but not design flaw, more Leyland and Nuffield cutting a few corners, once fixed it was a good machine more or less.
@@edfrancis712 The problem with both Covenanter and Crusader (and Valentine for that matter) is that they wern't sufficiently better than the tanks that preceeded them (Cruiser IV and Matilda) to justify the 2 year development period. They were only half way through their development by the Battle of France and their existance delayed work from starting work on better designs by about a year, with the result that those tanks had to be rushed as well.
@@Akm72 the advantage of the Valentine was that it was cheaper to build, if initially at the cost of efficiency with a two man turret. The significant advantage of the Crusader was somewhat heavier armour, although again the turret wasn't big enough and the early sub turret was a mistake, as was leaving a shot trap when removed.
@@wbertie2604 Sure. I'm not saying that there wern't any advantages. Only that those advantages did not (IMO) justify the amount of time needed to develop them.
With the benefit of hindsight I'd suggest that the A13 Mk. III should have been an evolution of the A13 Mk. II with 10mm extra armour on the front and whatever modest improvements could be implemented in months rather than years without increasing the weight of the tank to more than ~18 tons (equivalent to the Covenanter). Such a tank would have been obsolete by the end of 1941 but would have served the British Army in North Africa better than the Cruiser tanks I/II/III/IV and VIs they used in 1941 historically. On the downside it would probably not have been possible to upgrade the protection and firepower to equal the Crusader Mk. II and IIIs of 1942 so a better tank would have been desperately needed, but it becomes a lot easier to develop such a tank (based on experience gained during the Battle of France) if the designers are not working on Covenanter and Crusader which were essentially new designs or at least took almost as long to develop as new designs.
I agree on Valentine, however the problem with Valentine is that it started development in 1938 to 1939, during a time when the A12 Matilda project was having problems, but didn't end up being ready to field until late 1941 by which time the Matilda was doing fine (if still being a heavy and complicated design that was sailing gracefully towards obsolescence in 1942). Consider an alternative use of Vickers in that time period; instead of a tank that is designed to fulfill the same specification as Matilda in a smaller lighter design, Vickers is invited to submit a new design for a heavy cruiser tank as alternatives to the failed A14 and A16 designs. Imagine a Valentine that is designed for a three-man crew from the outset and uses the slow-motion suspension system to its full potential to provide a road speed in the 30 to 40 kph range while being better protected than the cruiser tanks of 1941 and 1942. Such a tank might take longer to develop than the historic Valentine but IMO not by much and it would probably end up being a more useful mid-war tank than Crusader or Valentine did historically.
@@Akm72 An A13 Mk. III might have had some merit. Given that the Covenanter kept the same four roadwheels per side, it was sort of trying to be that, just lower, but ended up a bit botched. But then the original suggestions for the Cromwell was as much similarity with the Cromwell, and the projected ended up splitting three ways, and the Cromwell was probably obsolete by 18 months by the time it was fielded in Normandy, so I am not sure that an A13 Mk. III wouldn't have got compromised too. The Comet is what the UK should have had in early 1944, and the Centurion not long after. I have always loved the Cromwell, but it was almost criminally late due to a dogs-breakfast of project splintering, in-fighting, etc. The UK's second worst enemy in WW2 after Germany seemed to be itself sometimes! But it did finally get to the Centurion after trying all the ways to make indifferent tanks first, it seems sometimes.
On the Valentine - it saw production and service for quite a long time, so it doesn't seem to have been that bad, although a lot of production went to the USSR, although you have to wonder why given the USSR had the T-34. The T-34 (76) did have a lot of issues, partly due to a two-man turret and poor vision devices, but half the time Valentines only had a two-man turret too, although the vision devices were a bit better.
Often Valentines were used as cruiser substitutes in North Africa as although it was no faster than the A10 and a lot slower than the A15, but it at least could get there without breaking down! A Valentine with thinner armour and faster speed - that might have been a good option - a true cruiser that was capable of getting to the battlefield.
Good history, interesting tank and it served a purpose, thank you.
Nice to see I'm not the only one rather sympathetic to this Tank, and out to insure some useful lessons on what *not* to do are learned from :D .
(a bit like what was done with the Valiant prototype)
I've found though that A15 Crusader's reliability issues can mostly be grouped into:
• Issues with the Nuffield Liberty Engine.
• Issues with the Cooling System.
• Issues with Logistics.
Of those; only one is really the fault of the A15 herself; as bad logistics were also the cause of the A15 being deployed desert'side without a C/S update or even proper preperation after being unloaded at the port.
I think it's fair to say that A15 was chiefly the most obvious victim of a larger issue, that thankfully improved as time went on.
One could chastize the turret ring size or the lack of a larger armament; but that was an issue of numerous Tanks in WWII.
On A22 Churchill though: It's always worth noting that she was rushed into service so quickly; that Vauxhall sent out technicians with the Tanks, as they *knew* they hadn't had time to iron out all the issues.
One fix that was made swiftly was to add Water Drains in the lower hull, because heavy rain tended to flood the interior... and crewmen prefer not to have water sloshing around their feet.
Unlike A15 though the Churchill had a bombproof engine, a better (Merrit Brown) transmission, and by the MK.VII iteration thicker frontal armour than a Tiger I :D .
(albeit on a Tank with a wholly sorted running gear, and an uncanny vertical slope capability)
yeah all vehicles rushed are problematic for sure, tho its odd cos covvy was fixed very quickly, by the Mk 3&4 shes marked as the most relible vehicle we have, and whiel crusader is faded out by italy, covvy carries on training until 1945. - its a shame as 95% of all the bad press comes from one source who never bothered to look beyond his own bias :(
@@armouredarchives8867 I admit I thought that the Covvies were retired around the same time as the Crusader was, and for the same reason.
(the debut of the A27M Cromwell, who's Meteor engine Crusader had a hand in developing [the government having finally had enough of trying and failing to get Nuffield to make something other than the Liberty engine])
Come to think of it: I recall reading that one reason for Covvie being riveted instead of welded, was the available factory tooling and lack of time to change this due the Tank being ordered for production. This would fit with how our Shipyards were slow to fully adopt welding in WWII, as the temporary dip in production capacity was not an option early in the war.
Similarly: Our Tanks had largely angular hulls up until the Exelsior & Centurion; because such a hull form was less complex & swifter to manufacture, and less internal volume in the fighting compartment was lost compared to a hull with sloped armour.
@@jimtaylor294 this is true, angled artmour take up a lot more volume, is heavier oddly, as as we now know behaves poorly when overmatched. but the covvies were still in training till the wars end, albiet in much smaller numbers as parts ran out and were used up in mine trials or floating tests etc, all usefull info
Delighted viewing
Interesting video, nice
Thank you for the interesting and different view of the role of the convenanter tank.😃
Glad you enjoyed it
My favourite tank which first in a b/w movie on talking pictures , can’t remember the name but story line was about tanks disturbing rare birds nests in which they used the coventar
The British invent the armoured sauna... and at the same time gained a lot of knowledge in how to design and produce tanks. A good point to this video is to explain how British industry adapted to war. I would also have thought that if the internal cooling pipes were such a fatal issue they could have been re-routed externally, but for UK service these tanks would have been fine.
yeah, they played there own part, fightign tansk could be sent where needed,, while covvys were used for a lot of training, not just tankers,, but anti tank, demolitions and mine testings etc.
An interesting video, with a thoughtful and well constructed analysis that the Covenanter fulfilled an important role for training, and propaganda home and abroad whilst the better fighting vehicles were sent to the Middle East during the Battle of Britain. Interestingly a certain Brigadier Slims, 10th Indian Brigade for the East Africa campaign were supported by A13 Mark III cruiser tanks with Mark VI light tanks from Egypt.
Umm, no. Slim's 10th Indian Brigade was supported by B Squadron, 6 RTR with 7 A9s (Cruiser Mk I) and seven Light Tanks.
David Carr - I don't appear to be able to reply to your reply, so I'm doing it this way. Glover has made a mistake. 4 RTR had Matilda IIs at that time and their B Squadron was in Eritrea. However, it was 6 RTR's B squadron (with A9s and Vickers Light Tanks) that supported Slim's 10th Indian Brigade. No A13s in the East African campaign.
Not withstanding the mere fact that the Germans were just over the channel and invasion was always a threat, even if a decreasing one over time. Having a standing force of UK 'home' tanks to defend Blighty whenever necessary, was utterly essential. The Covenanter was there, it was available if needed.
That is a question I have, how important would this tank have been had the Germans invaded?
@@bunchlead Well, it depends when. If they had invaded in 1940 there weren't any Covenanters except pilot models. If they had tried again in 1941 there would have been a few hundred extant and they would have performed well enough in the UK, certainly as well as the Crusader. The 2pdr was still an effective weapon in 1941 and with the Germans not being able to field many tanks on mainland UK they would have proven useful if not superior to enemy designs.
@@yereverluvinuncleber Yes, that’s what I was thinking too. So this tank could have proved invaluable had the Germans invaded? I suppose, that is what I like to think and it’s the irony that people called this tank useless when in fact it may have proved the opposite given the desperation of the time.
@@bunchlead The thing that people forget is that ALL tanks are useless when launched and they almost all require 1-2 years of improvements to perfect. The PzIII/IV had all their faults rectified before the war started. The covvie had a useful gun, decent armour, would have fought well but would have required significant maintenance. Same with all British designs at that time.
@@yereverluvinuncleber Funny enough, was just reading an article which said Covenanter fared well against other Brit tanks on maintenance issues. The findings was that the Covenanter was in a similar bracket the other tanks. No one doubts that fitting radiator pipes through the drivers compartment was a bad idea (except on a cold winters day and night lol) but saying that, there is nothing stopping this tank putting up a decent fight had the Germans invaded. Like you say, the Germans lacking heavy amour would have been anhilated by this tank.me thinks, this tank is getting a bad-rap. It’s a better tank ( at that desperate time) than it’s made out to be. PS, this tank was the fastest of all British tanks I hear?
Thanks for that video. I have a certain amount of experience with British vehicles that have an excellent basic design but, shall we say, optimistic thermal assumptions based on UK weather patterns. Given enough love and attention, problems like these can be fixed and many happy hours of adventure in the high desert can be had. But when Jerry is at the doorstep, I can understand why it was probably better to just move along to a proven design.
To be fair, I think they were expecting to fight the Hun in equally rainy Flanders with it, not Italy in the desert.
For a tank I’ve always hated this really shows it in a new light and has given it some good reasons to respect it. Wonderful work.
thankyou!
Not forgetting their roll as armoured dozers, maybe not the most glamorous but vital for opening up the future supply lines.
I always thought a relatively obvious fix for the cooling problems would be to rip out the meadows altogether and retrofit liberty engines or even another engine like the Napier, the rear hull might need a box-like upward extension at the rear (as we saw in Challenger MkIs), to mount radiators and make space for the taller engine. With the liberty re-inserted, the Covenanter becomes in effect an upgrade to the A13, a Cruiser MKIII+ with a common turret.
But the whole point of the Covenanter was to be as low as possible. That's why they commissioned a brand-new flat engine from Meadows. Fitting a Liberty would have meant raising the whole rear decking, as you say, so they would have had to raise the turret to allow the gun depression they wanted -and there still wouldn't have been room for the radiators in the engine compartment - that's basically the reason why the Crusader has a longer hull and five roadwheels each side.
What you're arguing for would have meant a complete abandonment of the Covenanter programme and a switch to all-Crusader production.
@@jeremychurchill9489 they modified the Liberty to make it flatter for the Crusader and somewhat screwed up the cooling system in that as well.
@@wbertie2604 They managed to lower the height of the Liberty by 6 3/8 inches to 36 inches.Still a tall engine (the RRMeteor was 31 inches high). And, yes, they certainly did cock it up!!
@@jeremychurchill9489 Still an easier fix and one that would work. Simply take the A13 hull design that has the Liberty engine and use that. It was probably still in production and all the tooling/expertise already existed. New Turret on old A13 hull and all Covvies woes are fixed. The tank board designing a whole tank to meet the one criteria, height, was such a mistake.
I'm also frequently mentioning Ed's videos in my own ones and supplying links to them to prompt people to come and find out where I got my facts from.
much appreciated mate!
@@edfrancis712 Here's a link to the latest one.
ruclips.net/video/rU73uO6pwto/видео.html
You're in the end credits and the Description
British tanks get such a bad rap for being substandard, while everything German is just so top drawer.
It is nice to see a more balanced assessment.
Aye. A pity the video didn't touch on the specifics of *why* A15 Crusader had reliability problems; because most of those had little to do with the Tank herself.
8:48 - Anyone notice the frame from Dad's Army? 😁
well spotted!
@@armouredarchives8867 Gurgle gurgle! 😁 ( That was my favorite episode.. putting helmets on the sheep was genius.. 😂)
nice vid
Great video of the Covenanter. Where did you get the detailed photo of the rear and front of the tank 1.37 minutes in the video.
most of the good high res ones are Kew or IWM
Lastly...
Should operation sealion have happened, the Covenanter would be find close-armored support or even as static support.
would have been interesting if they had been sent to Malaya as although not great and with many issues they were certainly better than anything the Japanese had although I think that all of the issues could have been solved and if it had been made to it's original design it probably would have done quite well especially in the Far East.
Malaya was a cluster **** from the beginning. They needed a competent general officer, not more tanks. Almost as bad as MacArthur in the Philippines. Let's throw away our aircraft and disperse the land forces to try to defend every beach, unlike the existing plan.
Its issue was overheating, so probably not the best pick for service in SE Asia. Better used how it was, for basic tank training in the UK.
"Admittingly much of that material was also useless..." I have come to the conclusion that there must be something in the tank museum archives, that fills you up with dry british humor once you have studied their for a while.
Interesting Video.
The Points you make about the usefullnes of Covenanter certainly are valid. But it would have been possible to do all that with another vehicle which at the same time was good and could have been produced at the same time.
It would be another story if the covenanter was less resource intensive then other frontline vehicles our was produced at plants which could not have produced anything else more usefull to the war effort.
I feel like with just a few changes it could've been one of the best tanks of the war
I suspect it would done ok to repel any invasion attempt, as any German forces that were able to land would have barely any armour or AT guns and likley 37mm PAK and Pz II and 37mm armed PzIII at best.
At worst though, it would've faced 50mm armed PzIII and 75mm gun PzIV tanks.
@@BHuang92 I suspect the Germans could get very few of those over and sustain them. More likely Pz II as they were smaller and lighter. The Germans had no real experience at amphibious operations and likely it would have been a disaster even without the RAF or RN intervening.
@@BHuang92 any circa 1941 German tank was vulnerable to the two pounder. The PAK 36 would have been a credible threat, though, if charging AT guns had been used as in North Africa, but UK terrain is very different. Being surprised by PAK 36s would be more the concern.
Fantastic great video again mate! Loved that comment " what was done was done"! Exactly! David fletcher needs to think like this more, with a war being on and not much research on AFVs of the time there going to make mistakes here n there they Can't be faulted for that! I love the covvy stunning we tank and hope it comes out next as one of my models! We just got a new cruser mk3 model kit in the armour model community is reaching the UK at end Feb can't wait for it!
Indeed! David Fletcher, has no offical engineering training nor Hisorical education and so a lot of information is his own personal views which can get muddled and biased but passed off as truth, I will only use the orignal source material in these vids where possible. Covvy played an important role, if only to help train people, provide a moral boost or test new ideas on, but has sadly been turned into a meme tank online.
@@armouredarchives8867 had Germany invaded I am sure they would have provided some level of defence too, assuming the Germans had picked a wet August bank holiday :)
@@wbertie2604 are there any there kind!!! 😊.
As a descendant of a Covenanter family, I can assure you that the signatories of the National League and Covenant were not a break away religious group. They were decidedly main stream Presbyterian.
Well said - the Covenanters were very much the mainstream Church of Scotland!!
A case of the enemy not knowing exactly how bad your gear is. All they knew there were a lot of tanks rolling around the countryside and they had guns that worked.
Well good point on it an not being the Disaster it was being reckoned on , I still like it but for its vital innards being on the outside .good Vid great pics.
I would of loved too see a covenantor built as intended.
Good shots of these at speed in the movie 'the way ahead'. They look like an impressive tank albeit for training.
they are indeed, the odd paralel is nobody would say to an old training instuctor circa 40-45 he didnt do anything to contribute in the war, yet say the same thing for this vehicle..
This is another example of, during WW2, RAF Shot-Callers bullying their way through the halls of government. The amount of aluminum it would’ve taken to properly manufacture the first production runs of Conventor was minuscule compared to the tons used in, at the time, UK military aircraft construction. Another example of an uncontrolled RAF administration was Bomber Harris’ refusal to release a single long range aircraft to the British Maritime Coastal Command in order to close the Mid-Atlantic U-Boat gap where allied cargo vessels were going down at an alarming rate….
General Harris’ campaign of area bombing of Axis civilian centers never produced the effects on German morale that the bombing campaign was supposed to accomplish anyway.
Question for you that I haven't found fully answered elsewhere. The common turret that was shared between Crusader and Covenanter was supposedly designed from the outset to potentially take an upgrade to the 6pdr gun (that was at the same time being developed to replace the 2pdr). My question is : Do you think that the Covvie could have mounted a 6pdr as an expediency measure (on UK invasion) taking into account that I have an unconfirmed perception that the Covenanter's turret ring was slightly smaller, despite the turret overall being the same? So, could it have mounted the 6pdr?
i think so yes, but as the gun was in short supply its unlikley, at thhe time invasion was an threat thhe 2pdr gun was still very capable
Something that strikes me about the design of many pre-war and wartime military equipment procurement is that the ministry’s procurement department issue a requirement for “X- piece of equipment and when they get a design that they want they then go and completely re-design it, and what they eventually put into production bares no resemblance to the original design, and turns what should have been a good piece of equipment into a complete frankantank, typical, and is still happens to this day, stupidity knows no bounds. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴
A very interesting video, I got a good giggle out of sending train loads of these machines up and down the line. My only criticism is that I had to use my earbuds at full volume to hear the audio track, please increase your audio levels for future videos.
yup working on that, its tricky to guage with youtube which nerfs volume, i have to over amplify my end, to get normal results it seems
I have a pair of main wheels from one of these on my oil bowser!
thanks for another fine vid! hm, today's suggestion - let me think - how about flakpanzers? cheers!
Keep the ideas coming. ;) The next video we are working on will be based on one of your suggested topics! Stay tuned ✌️
@@armouredarchives8867 nice! looking forward to it! :D
One bridge layer exists at Puckapunayl, Seymour, Victoria, Australia, at The Armoured Museum. Surprisingly small, being no bigger than a Camry. It doesn’t run, tragically. The launching equipment clearly was prototype for scissors type found on Centurion, being all hydraulic. Observation told me how short the driver had to be. Tight quarters. One point missed. Along with the same on Crusader turret, the horizontal hatch was deadly to the commander, when encountering stumps or ditches, it would slam shut. This isn’t anything new to crews, I have yet to meet a M113 driver who has his own front teeth. Not nice, however, being slammed in the back of the noggin by a plate of steel.
yes, was gonna cover that more in crusader - but well spotted
Don't hate this tank. I always thought it was at least the second handsomest British tank, next to the Crusader (another tank that has a bad reputation).
sadly they do have abad rep, but not all of it is deserved
I think part of the problem is the attitude that anything British was/is crap and foreign stuff is brilliant, people forget that by the time it gets here the home market has had the development phase, our press is very guilty of this and will harp on negatively for years about something they would either overlook or even praise on a foreign product.
I remembered this video when I did a video on the Covenanter recently. I came to exactly the same conclusions as Ed. The Convenanter may have been a very poor tank - but the enemy never knew that. All they saw was long lines of them and for all they knew - this tank might have been as good as the T-34. If they had captured one, they probably would have fallen over laughing, but they were not laughing in German Intelligence when they saw the photos that the spies must have taken or seen in the newspapers. Even the radiator faults can be forgiven in rainy Britain and might have been appreciated by crews in the winter. I have to believe that the lessons the Guards and Poles learned from exercises in the Covenanter must have taught them to take care of their tanks to keep them operating and to appreciate the roomier tanks that they took into combat.
Winter? September to June...
@@wbertie2604 Considering that British weather normally means rain, rain and more rain, with the occasional snow during the winter. The Covernanter would have kept the crews warm. Even if the cooling system did leak, there would be water available to top it up - something that would have been sadly lacking in the desert.
@@TheGeneralWorldofTanksReplays The smart move would have been routing rainwater through the radiator louvres, ensuring it reached boiling point when on the move, and into a teapot.
@@wbertie2604 Our tank doesn't have "thermal dissipation issues"! It comes equipped, at no extra charge, with a fully automated crew comfort system; including both internal heating and boiling vessel!
The Covernantor tank did not serve outside the UK except for test purposes in the North African desert and as bridge layers in Normandy. The were used as training tanks.
Never heard of this tank before! It resembles the US M-24 Chaffee. This tank would have made mincemeat of all German panzer 1, 2, 3 and 4 (short barelled 75 mm).
Cheftain sent me. May stay. Consider subscribing.
5:55 No. Wrong. You CAN weld face hardened steel. It's just tricky. Explanation thanks to google:
Hardened steel is a form of high carbon steel that has been tempered through a heating process to make the metal more durable. Welding hardened steel can be tricky because the heat used in the welding process may cause the metal surrounding the weld joint to become brittle if proper heating and cooling methods are not used to prepare the metal. However, by utilizing appropriate post-welding heat treatments and choosing weld joints that evenly distribute stress on the metal, you can successfully weld hardened steel.
hmm interesting, they said they couldnt at the time, perhaps in regard to armour to be struck with rounds as opposd to elswhere?
Strange about the plate heat treatment to make armour, just why didnt these muppets weld components like turrets without framing, then heat treat the thing an an improvised oven. Likewise the radiator issues when all these things of heat transfer would have been well understood by manufacturers of trains, and had been for 100 years. They seem to repeatedly design themselves into a corner with no path to a future in all but the Valentine which was ultimately to receive all it deserved, and at least lessons were learned by someone somewhere and we did have viable tank designs when they were really needed in 44.
It's much more efficient in production terms to make the plates rather than treat the whole turret. QC would be easier too - screw up one plate, not a big deal, screw up a turret and that's a lot of time wasted. See the video on German tank metallurgy.
I read in a book, back in the 1980's, that a couple of Covenanter bridge laying tanks were sent out to New Guinea and were used. Anyway of confirming this??
they were used by NZ and i think there is still one there
Interesting the amount of deception and psychological warfare that happened in WW2. I'm sure German planes would have seen and photoed these tanks moving. Changing the markings and moving the same tanks around is really brilliant.
yup, add in the shadow static covvys made out of canvas , which were picked up and moved about and its paints a very confusing picture
The amphibious version seems like the perfect fix? How can you overheat your engine and crew if you're in the freezing seas?! And it looks mental
Did have the exact same turret as the Crusader? I was wondering if their turrets ended up on other tanks and armoured cars
The Staghound armoured car did receive a tank turret supposedly from a Crusader but it could equally well be transplanted from a Covvie. I believe the turret rings for the two tanks were slightly different, the covvie's being smaller by an inch and a half. This may have been beneficial for fitting on an a/c. The gun in the Staghound was a 75mm QF which shows that the same gun that went into the Cromwell could have been fitted in the Covvie, with a bit of a squeeze. That would have given the Covvie the same punch as a Sherman.
The cooling system. There is no problem with having radiators higher than a flat (boxer) engine or any engine for that matter. I can't understand why the radiators were not mounted flat above the engine or else vertically behind it, pumps would have taken care of moving the water as required just like they did with the radiators at the front.
I suspect that the cooling problem was more to do with the engine's design not type.
As I understand it, there wasn't enough space to get the radiators and fans above the engine in the low profile. Behind the engine was the final drive, so you'd then need additional space compared to a boxy engine to allow airflow, and IIRC, there was a length restriction imposed for easy train transport. I believe the Liberty in the Crusader also got butchered to make it flatter which caused issues too.
The post talks about the pipes not being a large enough bore for the distance the water travelled, no matter how good your radiators are, if flow is restricted you will have a problem, as the pipes would have been built into the shell they would be very difficult to change, as they went into production almost straight away significant numbers would have been made before the problem would have been resolved, these are the ones that would have give the tank its reputation, remember it is easy for us to sit back and judge with hindsight, not so easy when your on point and someone needs an answer yesterday.
1337. Old school. Nice.
So was it better or worse than crusader?
Great looking, but it was the tank version of the Triumph Stag, shame cos as with the Stag, a little modification, patience and iron out could have made it a great tank.
Another great report, so if the changes had not of been made would this of been a good tank?
well its argued that ther term good or bad tank isnt a thing, but would it have been a capable vehicle, i beleive so yes
@@armouredarchives8867 that is true to me a good tank performs the role it was designed and better whereas a bad tank is the opposite but as you said the Covenanter made up for it by being used for training, deception and r&d
Nice looking tank but the rivets would have frightened the crap out of me.😱
Rear engine front radiator, a problem only covenanter and fiero owners deal with
Still a very pretty tank
Love the look big this vehicle. Nice video. Not so sure that in the middle of war that is an existential threat wasting resources building 1700 essentially useless tanks that are shuffled around on trains is in any way a positive. But a cool tank, wish it had of been more reliable and seen combat. Thanks.
it ended up very relaible by 43, and several at the time wanted to use them in situ of stuarts for recce work, that said they served their purpose in training so that fightign tansk could be where you needed them most.
Juicy government contracts. I'd research the money trail to see how they were able to build 1700 useless tanks. I'm sure the builders made money hand over fist.
My Covenanter always blows up with only 1 hit on World of Tanks, so I should probably just stay in the rear areas to bolster moral obviously!
covvy is amaze in WOT if used right, try the pom pom as a fast hittign vehicle (its not a real gun, but wot is wot)
They could have redone the cooling system but the overweight was built in.. however we had plenty of better tanks by the time that this was possible.. well plenty of valentine anyway.. which was a real war emergency tank..
they did, the fan in the tubing was improved, and the cooling sorted, by mk3/4 shes very capable vehicle, but also outdated for needs, hence crusader is also pulled by italy. - the covvy served on till wars end as a training vehicle.
I think you present the cooling system in too positive light. Even if the pipes were wider, they would still pose a problem with heating up the inside of the tank and the front mounted radiators were vulnerable to enemy fire. You could disable this tank frontally with machine gun fire, that's not something to be desired. This is not just the execution, this is a serious design flaw.
And when people say this tank was bad, you can't just say it wasn't that bad because the design wasn't that bad, because when people say the tank was bad, they are talking about the final product and not the design and the final product was bad.
If the original metarial was used would it have been a good tank,
It looked the part and maybe ahead of its time.
The engine and radiator were the things that were terrible. The Crusader is really the replacement.
I’ve yet to have a direct answer to how important this tank would have been had the Germans invaded Britain 1939-40? Obviously this tank despite it flaws, would not have been asked to travel far as Britain is a small country and major battles would have been confined to the SouthEast and South costs of England. Not travelling far, may have offset this tanks radiator and cooling deficiencies. Could the Covenanter have be used on a limited but successful scale to push the invader back into the sea? Also how would Covenanter have faired, entrenched in city and town centres and in defensive positions in the countryside? this in itself could have been vital? Seems to me, this rickety tank may have had the means to repel an invasion. If so this tank may have not been such a duffer after all given the circumstances.
Some of the comments below are ridiculous and obviously ignorant. The Covenantor was used as a training tank in the UK and did not serve outside the Uk except for trials in the North African desert and as bridgelayers in Normandy. I can only assume that most of the comments are from children game players.
3:20 The phrasing is not quite right. The Brits constantly designed their tanks to fight the current, for that time, German tanks. The problem is, by the time a tank model was actually built and fielded, they were fighting against tanks that were one or two generations more modern, and that 40mm 2lbr was no longer up to the task. Really talking about the Crusader here, since the Covenanter was pretty much still born.
well that applies to all, we didnt know what was beign developed until it appeared, once tiger and later panther showed up we designed to beat those, bu even at very fast speeds a tank take about a min of 1 year to go from start to finsih, longer if u want it to work
Hmm, what other names were considered and rejected. Glencoe, Culloden, Roundhead, Sassenach . . .
I rather like the Covenanter, it is in the great tradition of heroic failures?
Wider tracks would have been more beneficial, as well !
Adding greater weight, rolling resistance, and so making the engine work harder and run hotter, no problems there then🤔.
The video lasts 13:37.
The advantage of the Covenanter - we built a bad tank so the one you get for battle will at least be better than this.
poor thing really wasnt all that bad, from mk2 onwards most stuff is fixed, oddly by mk4 its marked as the most reliable tank in british service! -
It would be easy to see some benefits in these sub standard, basically crap products, if it were not for the fact that there would have been heavy losses of personal given the unenviable task of having to use them. The bravery of those crews who knowingly had to fight in them is beyond belief. May they rest in peace.
Very incisive report on the practicalities of the time. Of course, hindsight and ideal factories could have made it a perfect tank. Committees always father an animal that is unbalanced and bears little resemblance to its original concept.
having many thousands of tanks, however poor, at a point in history when a German invasion was still possible is better than having the perfect tank available only on paper.
Having the larger air force (depending what is counted) and a navy eight times the size helps too ~_^ .
Again, it came LATER, after the threat of invasion had passed.
Carlsberg don't make tanks; but if they did.......
Those tracks look about as wide as a waffle.
The tracks are to narrow
Very nice looking tank. The bolts could turn into lethal missiles internally after a hit, which I why everything became cast or welded. A two pounder gun doesn’t sound much. Why didn't tank designers OVER-GUN their vehicles rather than provide what would penetrate peacetime armour? We invented the bloody things and threw away our lead, ignoring the works of British authors on tank warfare while the Germans studied and put their theories into practice. We didn’t produce a world-beating tank until after the war ended. Just not good enough. The Sherman was definitely not a good tank, it wasn’t called a Tommy cooker for nothing. When you know you have to sacrifice four or five Shermans to knock out a Panther or Tiger, how do you feel about that? A lot of brave men died because it wasn’t up to scratch. The only tank the Germans feared was the Firefly. Why didn’t the Americans with their much vaunted mass manufacturing skills arm later Shermans with that 17 pounder? It was still too tall and liable to burn but it would have kept the Tigers at arms length, say 2,000 yards.
Ah the Covenanter - The Everton of tanks. Widely disliked, underperforming and ugly.
To be fair to the beast, its nowhere near as Ugly as Everton.
@@Boric78 😂
I disagree entirely . I think that it s quite clear that the fundamental problem with the design, the fact that the radiator was at the front and the engine was at the back , was irredeemable. It is obvious, as it should have been obvious at the time, that this arrangement would cook the crew. The engine doesn"t have to ''run hot '' in order for this to happen , nor does an increase in weight ''put strain on the engine''. The power to weight ratio was still very high indeed. Moreover, in order to talk of ''putting strain on an engine'' you would have to be talking about having a too high a gear ratio, rather than a lack of motive power.
Propaganda, moral , and deceit. So, these ''roles'' simply mean the the British made the best of a very bad job. The tank , which was otherwise useless, was used as a propaganda tool, to bolster the moral of the home front who were never told the truth. Obviously. This does not in any way make up for the fact that, at the height of the war , when the army was desperate for tanks to fight in the middle and far east, they received 1700 machines that were , quite literally , useless. They literally couldn't be used in combat! Which makes this the worst tank ever built.
no, it’s really not, in fact by the mk4 she’s deemed one of the most reliable vehicles we have, below Sherman and above the others. (See notes of Brigadier Blagden) the radiator at the front is not an issue at all, and is found on many current vehicles. the problem was and remains how to move the cooling between both, and this was not satisfactory with the pump being too small. It was quickly fixed.
The army was not short of 1700 tanks, its not like they were all made at once then sat there, they continued to make them over the next 2 years. If they were that truly terrible, they wouldn’t have. They were used primarily as training vehicles which meant that other vehicles could be sent where needed. And for the record both Churchill and crusader had far more problems when first introduced.
Perhaps you should stop adhering to outdated, incorrect, and biased views like fletcher and actually read the reports from the MOS, WO, as well as training material an those who worked with them, the information is all there, in the archives.
@@armouredarchives8867 I did watch you video , so there is no need to repeat yourself. nor is there any need to be snide.
However, .. as you have repeated yourself, and as I am capable of spotting poor thinking , Let us deal with what you have written.
The radiator is found on the front of many modern vehicles. Irrelevant. As you , yourself, pointed out , these are vehicles with front mounted engines. Engines at front , radiator at front , simples. Put Engine at back , radiator at front, pump the coolant around the fighting compartment , what have you done ? You've used the entire hull as an engine bay.
If the pump was the only problem and quickly fixed , the tank would have been used in combat. But the problem was intrinsic to the design and could never be fixed.
As regards reliability,.. these Covenanters were conspicuously absent from the desert fighting. They were at home , doing low mileages , and with plenty of access to maintenance facilities and regular , scheduled , preventative maintenance. Of course they had a good reliability record !
And Of course the army was short of 1700 tanks. This was 1941 and the need for tanks was desperate. The fact that they continued to produce these tanks was a scandal and raised huge questions about the MOD procurement methods. I strongly recommend ''The Great Tank Scandal'' as a good read on the subject.
But, more than that I recommend putting a little thought into some of your statements. Crusader was a mechanical disaster , true enough, but with only a little clear thought you will realise that this only goes to further raise the question of why all these covenanters stayed at home when they were desperately needed aboard.
At the end of the day , this was a tank that could not be sent to the front in the middle of the most intense tank conflict in history and at a time when britain was in absolutely dire need of tanks. That makes it the worst tank ever built.
@@andrewwoodhead3141 great tank scandal by fletcher! this is where the issue arises, is that that book is full of mistakes. It’s like quoting Belton coopers death-traps. It was written a long time ago, and since then a good deal more of the archives have been sorted and stuff found.
they do consider covvy it for north Africa, by the time they have the issue fixed on mk.2 but at the same time they are also going to have to up gun it to a 6Pdr, and those were already in very short supply. and at the same time both it and crusader were subpar on protection, hence crusader is faded out very quickly after Africa. so, no need to send a tank with a 2 pdr and relatively weak armour, while you have better vehicles. They do send 2 out for testing nut no other details on those 2 have survived.
As for the radiator. That isn’t the issue. The engine issue the issue, the complaints were the heat exchange between them, the piping running though the left hull, with a weak fan it was overheating. - they fixed this very quickly by largening the pipe and fan, and cladding the pipes. Covenanter being terrible/worst tank ever etc, is up there with ronsons, tommycookers and kruppstahl etc.
@@armouredarchives8867 Oh you're a ''revisionist'' LOL. Ok.
Gotta be said, mind, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way , but David Fletcher is a well published author with some thirty books to his credit.
I'm sure he could be wrong about a few things but in this case you are stuck making a series of highly unlikely rationalizations to cover for a tank design that was produced in considerable numbers and declared unfit for service., never to be deployed operationally despite there being an over ridding requirement for battle tanks at the front. That fact alone qualifies this tank as the worst tank ever built.
As for the Radiator not being the problem , ..clearly it was. Name one other tank with a similar layout , in all of history...? If you lack any comprehension of the heat generated by an engine cooling system and how that would work if you piped the coolant around the fighting compartment in a small metal box of a tank,.. simply ask yourself why no one has ever tried to replicate just a disastrous layout.
In Fact , that is usually a good giveaway all by itself, if something has been tried once and then never again.
As for the ''Ronsons'' ,.. There's a lot of self confirmation bias out there on tinternet. ''No evidence that this slogan was ever used before such and such a date'',....and so on.
Except that the veterans are on record as remembering using the nickname very clearly. Except that far from everything got recorded when we went computerised. Except that a lack of evidence uncovered when someone did a google search is not the same as evidence that an entire generation of British tank soldiers remembered the war wrong. And so on, and so on...
I'm not saying that there isn't new and interesting stuff to be uncovered by researching the archives, but an obsession with ''debunking'' myths can lead you straight up the garden path.
@@armouredarchives8867 Hey, is there any chance of you de bunking the myth of the Japanese super heavy tank , the so called ''OI'' ? This is a modern myth if ever there was one , and with some serious backing .... that would one would be well worth doing !
The Covenanter was the low point of perhaps Britain's weakest performing area in WW2: tank design and production. The design was total, amateurish crap. To waste all these precious resources building nearly 1,800 of these tanks is just criminal. Just look at it and compare it to what was being built in Germany or Russia at the time. Britain built loads of fantastic kit in WW2, but generally tanks were not a high point.
We produced more tanks than the Germans. There were several reasons for that. Victor Davis Hansen sets the record straight. He is very impressed by how British industry out performed large swathes of Germany’s. He admires the British war effort and the way we were in at the beginning and still there at the end. No one else did. And we went to war to keep a promise, like we did in 1914, we were never attacked first. Out produced fighter planes too. And that was before the German factories had been bombed back to the Bronze Age.
@@badgerostripey-one6734 Overall the British industrial war effort was much better than many people think, and the German industrial war effort was considerably worse than many people think. Britain produced a huge range of really top class kit - fighter aircraft, bombers, planes of all sorts, ships, artillery pieces, anti-tanks guns, trucks and universal carriers, small arms etc. But tanks were for some reason a really weak spot, although we did produce a lot of them. Germany also produced a wide range of really top quality kit, but almost always in inadequate quantities. Germany also wasted an enormous amount of industrial effort on weapons that were never going to change the war, like the V1 and V2. They were also hugely short of raw materials, most obviously oil.
I can't agree with you on the advantages of the Covenanter. Any other tank could the job you mentioned so it's not something that's only Covenanter provided. It's not something that Covenanter brought to the table.