Came accross a refernece to this tank on another board - the poster says it was abandoned in favour of US supplied tanks - how did it compare to other tanks of the period? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Sentinel_(tank)
http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3551 Very favourably. Good armour, ok performance, and capable of serious upgunning (1st batch had 2pdrs, later models were tested in 25pdr, 17pdr, and even 2 x 25pdr!) Their big drawback was a dodgy cooling system, which would need rectifying before it could be properly employed.
It was abandoned for a number of reasons, US Lend-Lease wasn't especially happy with the diversion of labour from railway works to tank production (to be fair, they were probably right about that), there was an agreement of sorts to build and use a standard tank - which the AC programme clearly violated, and the tanks produced did have problems although perhaps no worse than other tanks of the era which did prove battleworthy. An ex-patriot Australian working for Lend-Lease compiled a report on the tanks and the entire programme and rated the AC1 and AC3 as inferior to the M4 (which was a bit of a joke as Australia didn't have any M4s, only M3 mediums and lights) and the AC4 as superior in some areas. There was a proposal to replace the 775 ACs on order with 310 M4s at around A£11 million but it was never followed through. My personal opinion: The AC3 at least would give a basic 75mm Sherman a run for it's money, even if it's crew ergonomics were not as good as the Sherman's. The AC4 would compare well with most 76mm or 17 pounder armed M4 variants. Of course this is just speculation on my part. Going by the numbers, the 65mm armour puts any AC on par with the Valentine, not as difficult to destroy as a Matilda but still a tough nut to crack. Range is fairly good. Drivers who had previously trained on radial engined Grants found the Caddilacs had a far grater torque range, and in tests the AC1 hit 40mph, so it had speed. The 2 pounder of the AC1 is a little light for anything other than armoured cars or Japanese tanks, the 25 pounder is an unusual tank gun but armour penetration is comparable to the US or British 75mm guns, and ideal for bunker busting.
