Does anyone know the turret ring diameter of Comet? I've seen a figure of 57" which can't be correct since Cromwell was 60 inches ( I know, I have a copy of the drawings that say so). So if Comet really was 3" smaller than Cromwell, why didn't we put the 77 mm in Cromwell?
Yeah but apparently it had an enlarged turret ring compared to the basic Cromwell. AFAIK Challenger wasn't too bad, I think (IIRC) the Canadians were reasonably happy with it - as a tank destroyer rather than a battle tank.
You have to be a bit careful with how you measure the diameter and not all measurements are the same. Some refer to the actual ball bearing race, others to the hole the whole assembly drops into. For instance the ring race on the Sherman is 6' or 72 inches, usually though the diameter is give as 69" because that's the maximum usable internal diameter available for the crew, and gun recoil etc. So to answer your question: I don't know.
Well I would very mch like to see some technical drawings of the Comet like these Challenger drawings I found recently (I thk i was from 'Universal tank') - can anyone help ?
And this one: I'm currently turning it back into a "real" drawing with a raster-to-vector package and then "tarting" it up using AutoCAD
Thanks Oli - I really like the Cromwell and Comet tanks but I dis-like the Challenger ( It's turret looks like a beaten up dust-bin). That said I wonder if the Challenger could have been developed into a more effecient tank-killer, say they wet for at 4 man crew and a better (lower) turret ? It must have been an improvement over the Archer which seems have been quite succesfull ? By the way Oli, Do you have similar drawings of the Comet ? informtation regarding that tank seems to be quite scarce
I'm not sure what I've got on Comet - will have a look. The really annoying thing is that I've had the Cromwell drawings on my hard disk for ages, and I can't for the life of me remember where I got them. Somwhere on the net that posted drawings from the Public Records Office. But I'm still searching... Re: Challenger, IIRC one of the problems was that (apart from the turret armour being thin so as not to add too much traversing weight), it was a lengthened Cromwell, but not any wider. So it messsd up the L/C ratio and made steering difficult. BTW literally just found a 64" figure for Comet's turret ring, which makes more sense. Just noticed - I misread your post - you asked for Comet and I read Cromwell somehow. Sorry
Hi Oli don't bother - I've enjoyed the Cromwell drawings, which I haven't seen them before. Regarding the Challenger, I know it was too long and narrow for succesull operation, but It seems it was used with some success as an AT weapon ? Does anyone know a good site or book about the Archer tank destroyer
