Why was Britain so reluctant to copy and use the successful weapons, either of its allies (T34) or of its enemy (88mm gun)?

That's a good question.

My opinion is that this was due to lack of industrial capacity under wartime conditions, or more accurately the lack of flexibility in adapting to quick changes in tooling and design.

There were also ingrained administrative 'blocks', such as the inability to quickly realize the potential benefits of the 3.7'' AA gun as a tank-killer. True, the mounting was cumbersome but that brings us back to design/manufacturing adaptability.

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Agreed with Martin.

As well I think alot of "military pride" as well. I guess in WW2 the fastest copy was the Panther tank of T-34 and the first versions were very much the same but according to what I read
( maybe ) the German engineers were not willing to put out a "Russian" design... So they made some changes in the design.But anyone can see where it came from!

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I don't fully agree, England had a large and adaptable production capacity in Canada. Also they were not completly xenophobic when it came to weapons systems, the BREN was after all a Czech design

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Ain't no rocket scientists in the firehall

Britain seemed OK on smaller weapons ( and the 17-pr Sherman Firefly was a truly inspired idea ) and aircraft - but the Bren was just-in-time and during the 'Blitz' was being totally produced in one location - if only the Germans had known !

But the tanks were a scandal for which the foundations were laid pre-war - I'm sure there must be an interesting story as to why they were generally so outclassed.

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

I was interested in this question primarily due to the relatively poorer quality of British tanks and arnti-tank guns during the desert war, Italian and northern Europe campaigns - but why did the British (and Americans) fail to provide their troops with appropriate weaponry by the summer of 1944, particularly as the best tank of the war is considered to be Russian, and was no doubt simple and cheap to manufacture. All that was needed was the blueprints. The Sherman was a decent light tank but no match for a heavy tank unless modified as a Firefly, and even then the US did not upgrade its tanks - though maybe they were under less pressure than the Brits and Canadians in 44-45 who appear to have had stiffer opposition. Also, the allies never seem to have wanted to use captured 88mms despite their proven qualities, though admittedly the allies used jerry tanks, LOL.

I was interested in this question primarily due to the relatively poorer quality of British tanks and arnti-tank guns during the desert war, Italian and northern Europe campaigns - but why did the British (and Americans) fail to provide their troops with appropriate weaponry by the summer of 1944, particularly as the best tank of the war is considered to be Russian, and was no doubt simple and cheap to manufacture. All that was needed was the blueprints. The Sherman was a decent light tank but no match for a heavy tank unless modified as a Firefly, and even then the US did not upgrade its tanks - though maybe they were under less pressure than the Brits and Canadians in 44-45 who appear to have had stiffer opposition. Also, the allies never seem to have wanted to use captured 88mms despite their proven qualities, though admittedly the allies used jerry tanks, LOL.

The main problem with all types of captured weaponry was availability of parts and ammunition in sufficient quantities. Captured weapons were often turned against their former owners in the field, but only until the ammo ran out....

On the subject of Russiam capacity, it was, to be sure, unsophisticated but just look at the comparative sizes of Russia and Britain ! And as for exchanges of blueprints, I'm pretty sure that that particular traffic was all one way during WW2....

[ 15. October 2003, 12:27 PM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Some info I had found some time ago for the Forums
concerning the Sherman and its replacement with something new:

Some interesting info I found:

"In early 1944, the US Army faced a critical decision regarding its armored forces: should it retain the M4 Sherman as its primary tank or accelerate production of the new M26 Pershing heavy tank? Although many armored commanders favored the Pershing, the tank debate continued until Lt Gen George S. Patton, the Army’s leading tank "expert," entered the fray. Patton favored the smaller (and supposedly more mobile) Sherman, noting that "tanks were not supposed to fight other tanks, but bypass them if possible, and attack enemy objectives in the rear." Ultimately, senior Allied commanders—including Gen Dwight Eisenhower—backed Patton and decided to increase production of the Sherman.

Belton Cooper served in the legendary Third Armored Division ("Spearhead"), Cooper was charged with the critical task of locating damaged Shermans, directing their recovery, and ensuring the flow of new or repaired tanks to frontline units.From the Normandy invasion to V-E day, Cooper witnessed the folly of Patton’s logic firsthand. The author calculates (with only a touch of irony) that he "has seen more knocked out tanks than any other living American."

Over the next 11 months, the Third Armored Division, which began the Normandy campaign with 232 M4 tanks, would see 648 of its Shermans destroyed in combat, with another 700 knocked out of commission before being repaired and returned to service—a cumulative loss rate of 580 percent. Casualties among tank crews also skyrocketed, producing an acute shortage of qualified personnel. By late 1944, Cooper recalls, the Army was sending newly arrived infantrymen into combat as replacement tank crews. Some of these recruits received only one day of armor training before being dispatched to the front in their M4s.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...ev/cooper.html

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I think, to the thematic question there is quite a simple answer: It is not so simple to copy foreign weapons well... using them as animation, yes. But you need exactly the same resources, exactly the same techniques to develop a copy that works as well as the original, and this is *not* an easy task.

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