Was the Christie suspension good?

I saw a documentary were a US tanker during ww2 said we should have used the Christie suspension on the m4. What were its pluses and minuses vs the vvss?

 

The Christie design peaked with the British Cromwell and Comet tanks where it was superb. After that, something else was needed that could support more weight and that resulted in the Horstmann design used initially on the British Centurion....arguably the most successful and versatile tank design ever seen, serving in many configurations and Mks over many years with some even having a role in the Gulf Wars....not bad for a design started in 1943-4! Of course even that has now given way to 'modern' designs.

 

Yeah it was good.

 

The Soviets used it on the T-34 from Stalingrad to Berlin. The Germans tried it on the Panzer2 but didn't like it's cross country performance so they switched to leaf spring. Overall it must have been pretty good as Cromwell and T-34 tanks used it well.

 

The gentleman interviewed saw extensive combat as a tank platoon commander though he doesn't seem like a technician. He didn't have many flattering things to say about the US ordinance department during the war. The interview is pretty long here's a link.
https://youtu.be/ba7e2DuVDYY

 

The British actually soon found out that "true" Christie suspension wasn't all it was cracked...sic...up to be, and the version used on the later heavier cruisers was well modified and strengthened - at the cost of overall movement. It had severely limited the all-up weight allowed to designers of the Cruiser MkIII and IV, and they had to trade armour thickness for crosscountry performance.

it was IIRC Basil Liddell Hart who first reported the difficulties the Soviets were having with the Christie system, as an observer at some of the annual Red Army exercises in the last years of the 1930s. After another day of watching BT5s leaping off tall walls and across wide ditches at full speed....he came across them being rebuilt and repaired for the NEXT day's demonstrations to the world's visiting press. The Christie suspension really was not up to the aerobatics th Soviets put their tanks through...

Martel however, as official British government observer, took entirely the wrong lesson from those exercises and persuaded the British down the Christie path.

 

France adopted the Christie suspension? The Germans adopted the Christie suspension? The Pershing had a Christie suspension?
I think his bias against Ordnance clouds his better judgement.

The Soviets abandoned the Christie suspension and went with torsion bars in the T-34/85 and post-war T-54/55.

The Horstmann suspension had been around since the very early 1920's and had undergone several improvements over that time.

IIRC, the American HVSS was a variation of Horstmann's design.

 

Yes, unfortunately he makes a number of mistakes, understandable given much of his recollection is of events that occurred over 70 years ago. Furthermore, like all memoir, it is also colored by his experience and reading since the war, including no doubt Belton Cooper's memoir.

For example, he states the 9th Armored Division was formed from the 9th Mechanized Division, but it was not, it was formed from the 2d Cavalry Division. That is a simple error in his recollection.

OTOH, his errors with regard to the suspension are directly from Cooper, who apparently never understood the technical differences in the designs and who confused the "Christy suspension [sic]" with torsion bars. The Soviets adopted the Christie system for the BT-series of tanks and its offshoot, the T34 (both the 76mm and 85mm variants) before using a torsion bar system in the T34M, which became the T44, and then its successors the T54-55 and the T62, before returning to the Christie in the T64. The British used the Christie suspension in all cruiser tanks without serious modification until Comet, which added return rollers and then returned to a Horstmann suspension in Centurion. The Germans used torsion bars and leaf spring suspensions of various designs, but never used a Christie suspension...neither did the French...and neither did American Ordnance after the Combat Car T7 was cancelled on 19 October 1939 (although a modified Christie system was proposed in the 37mm GMC T42 and the 57mm GMC T49 of December 1941-April 1942). Arguably, the American torsion bar system came to fruition via the Buick-designed 76mm GMC T67, but also had antecedents in German and French car designs of the early 1930s and the 1936 Barnes/Preston patent.

Horstmann used coil springs and one or more wheels mounted on a common swing arm forming a bell crank. The US Ordnance designed Vertical Volute Suspension used volute springs and paired wheels on a single suspension arm, but each wheel pivoted independently and had its own spring, which was mounted vertically. The Ordnance designed Horizontal Volute Suspension used paired wheels pivoting independently on a single suspension systems with a volute spring mounted horizontally between them. They are all similar in general concept and even appearance, but are very different mechanically.

In any case, no the Christie system was not workable on the Medium Tank M4. In its classic format, the lack of return rollers "[SIZE=12pt]limited travel of the road wheels in the vertical plane and created higher unsprung masses. Excessive sag in the track also increased the tendency to shed tracks, especially when turning at higher speeds, while increasing the track tension to reduce that problem created a new one by increasing the rolling resistance of the track." Combined with the loss of interior hull volume, the Christie system simply wasn't a good choice for large medium tanks.[/SIZE]