Quote:
Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke
Yes. The Sentinel was mostly inferior to tanks like the Sherman, and even the Grant and Lee in some ways. At the same time, any country that wanted tanks in 1946 could pretty much get as many Shermans as they liked, thereby also benefitting from the large amounts of spare parts available for them, unlike for the Sentinel. So, Australia had no need of Sentinels itself and no countries to sell them to either. Might as well just about give them away to anyone who thinks they have a use for them.
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You would think the Govt. could have put the Cruisers in storage or used them for training rather than scrapping them so quickly. The drawings for the manufacture of spare parts would have been available . I guess spares for the Cadillac engines would have been an issue ? Another thing is the small number that were built was probably why they decided to declare the type as surplus to needs. The Grant/Lee was thought of as being obsolete in some circles but they kept the diesel powered version in service until the mid 1950s I think.