"Do British Tanks have AA MGs?" Topic

I am about to build a pair of HaT Armourfast Cromwells and got to wondering do British Tanks have AA MGs? I don't have a lot of British tank reference at home, but what I have shows zero Cromwells with a MG on top of the turret for the TC to fire. Do any British made tanks have AA MGs? The pics of LL Shermans in British service havnig 50 cals up top.

Thanks All

Amalric

For the most part, no. I cannot remember any pictures or references to matildas, various cruiser tanks, valantines, churchills, comets and cromwells having AA mountings as a standard fit. Even the Shermans did not have them that much

I can't recall seeing any either, but there really wasn't much need for them…..

From mid 1943, when the western allies had air superiority, I would agree that there was a limited need for AA on tanks.
Add to that the fact that getting out of your nice protective armour shell to use it on encroaching infantry when you already had two mg that could be fired from inside!

However before mid 1943 enemy aircraft were a real threat. I suspect they did not have them because of the fixed mentality that a tank was for destroying tanks. For the same reason the early British anti tank guns had no HE capacity.

Er, actually they did have them, when they were available. However there was a distinct priority for infantry to get LMG's first.

The 'standard' seems to have been a Bren gun, if possible with the 'High Speed' kit, which included a flat pan magazine which had a superficial resemblance to a Lewis magazine (4-in-a-box, with extra bits to up the RoF). This was mounted on a weird crane like mount, so you could fire at high elevations without getting out of your nice warm turret.

Particularly in the Western Desert, crews would 'acquire' extra gear from wrecks, both friendly and enemy, and mount them where there was room, so Vickers 'K' or GO' guns, much beloved of LRDG, were salvaged from RAF wrecks – again, it is a stripped Lewis gun.

In the Lebanon the first tanks delivered to the regiment my father was with (Yorkshire Hussars) were fitted with them. After a being bombed and strafed by the Vichy air force my father and the other mechanics had the task of removing them and remounting them on auxiliary vehicles or ground mounts. The conclusion from the raid was that the tank mounted ones were a greater danger to tank crews than the aircraft.

All through fathers war notes there is descriptions of commander operated tank AA guns being stripped off newly delivered vehicles for use elsewhere. I think it was believed that they were ineffective and better used elsewhere.

x42

It was also a doctrine issue; outside of the desert (where it wasn't really an option) British doctrine was to make yourself inconspicuous under air attack; get 'em under cover and wait for the planes to disappear. It was felt that AAMGs were a liability, as they did more in the way of drawing pilots' attention than putting him off or shooting him down. In the desert AAMGs were more popular as you were pretty much definitionally going to get spotted, so you mgith as well shoot back….

Dom.

Which tallies neatly with what x42 posted while I was typing…. ;-) In NW Europe there are a good few instances of Shermans (which were delivered with AAMGs already fitted) promptly having them stripped off on arrival with units; they frequently ended up on the infantry's Universal Carriers instead.

Dom.

In the ETO I have seen very few pictures of Shermans with .50cals (two in maybe a couple of hudret pictures), but I have have never seen any on a Cromwell!

Cheers,

Burkhard

'For the same reason the early British anti tank guns had no HE capacity.'

As far as I remember, there was an HE shell available for the 2 pounder, it's just that the amount of explosive it carried was so small it wasn't worth the effort.

2 pdr HE didn't come in until the end of 1942 – by which time the gun was largely obselete

I thought that the Cromwell in particular would very rarely have retained its AA weapon.
There is one picture that I've seen (I think in Concord's British Tanks – Holland and Belgium ) that shows a Cromwell that has retained it's twin-vickers. This was so rare that it is remarked on in the pictures caption. They were described as 'very unpopular!

The Sherman tank Five-Ohs were notorious in Italy for catching on low-hanging branches and vines and bashing the commanders in the noggin – they were not sorry to see them removed.

a) 2pdr HE.

Yes, there was 2pdr HE available during the Battle of France, it was also manufactured locally by the Australians. I have the total production figures somewhere, it was hundreds of thousand of rounds, although the bulk was produced later in the war.

The main problem with it was that it wasn't very effective in such a high velocity small calibre round.

The full story is a bit more complex than that (as the HE rounds were actually APHE) but anyway…

b) AAMGs

Yes, British tanks had AAMGs, I have come across personal accounts and war diary entries were tank crews have engaged enemy aircraft with them. They were predominantly Bren guns with drum mags.

As noted above, these were frequently stripped off and used on ground mounts of various types, and by 1944 were conspicuous by their absence.

AA guns on British armored vehicles were rare. Unlike in the US army where they were standard issue, in the British army they were the exception, not the rule.

Martin…massivley surprised about the 2pdr HE…interested to see the source..although more interested to know if any of it was ever issued in France (or N.Africa prior to late 42)

xheers chris

I'm not sure I said it clearly. I case I didn't.

The removal of the AAMGs from the Yorkshire Hussars tanks in the Lebanon was because the tankers wanted them off their tanks. The use of them elsewhere was secondary. The experience of the air raid apparently decided the unit that they were worse than useless.

That was 1941.

x42

Have a look at last time we talked about 2pdr HE:

TMP link

Thanks for the info Gents.

Amalric

I have read that the Aussies used the bofors projectile on 2 pounder to create HE rounds.

Commonwealth Sherman crews often removed the .50 cals as they interferred with 3 crew members trying to get through a single hatch if the tank was "brewed up". They had 10-15 seconds before ammo would start cooking off inside the tank. Most pictures of Shermans with .50 cals are soon after landing on D-Day. They were soon removed. The Cromwell crews, if they had previous experience with Shermans, would probably have removed the AAMG as a matter of course.

I've also seen it said that the earlier AA mounting for the Bren was also unpopular because it was cumbersome & got in the way of a quick bail out too – it looked a bit like an anglepoise light with the gun mounted where the bulb would go. Although the fittings existed photos of them in service are few & far between.

There's a mention in "64 days of a Normandy summer" of the AA Bren on a Cromwell tank. It wasn't set up on an AA mount, the author wrote he asked for it to be set up on the bipod after one wave of ME109s screeched overhead because he knew there was a second coming. He squeezed the trigger but nothing happened, worked the bolt and tried again with the same result. His version of the conversation is too good to paraphrase –

"Who filled this magazine?"

"I did," said Stanley. "I expect."

"How many rounds do you put in a Bren mag?"

"As many as it'll take. I reckon I got near 30 into most of them."

"Did you fire a Bren gun course?"

"No, I only ever learned tank Besas, fill the belt."

"Did no one ever say to you don't put more than 21 in a Bren magazine, especially if it's going to be sometime before you fire them?"

"Not that I can recall. Why is that then?"

"The spring isn't up to more. That's why this lot just jammed. If our lives had depended on that gun firing, we'd all be dead."

"Oh dear! I'm sorry. Had I better reload all the others and refill 'em with 21 apiece?"

"Yes please, Stanley."

Despite this failing Stanley was a good tanker and made it through Normandy at least. There are only a few pictures of Cromwells in the book, one shows a Bren standing on its bipod on the turret, between the hatches, but that's the only glimpse. Feel free to leave them off your Armourfast Cromwells, as all things considered they don't seem to have featured strongly in Cromwell crew training!

The only other mention I can think of for the AA Bren was a crew who had to spend the night by their disabled tank and set it up for ground defence until morning (Op Totalize).

There's a Bren visible on a Churchill (with a drum mag) on the back of "the British Soldier, 1944-45, Volume", the same picture being on the front cover of "Decision in Normandy". Never been able to figure out the formation badge the Tommy with the Sten gun is wearing.

Gary

That should be Volume 2 for the pic of the Churchill…