Canadian Centurion tanks question

[Dan Martel]

Originally Posted by Dan Martel

According to the Centurion information available on Clive Law's Ram Tank website (which I wish someone would resurrect), all of Canada's 334 gun tank Centurions were obtained from 1952 to 1954.

I've managed to get a way-back machine version of Ram Tank online. If you're interested in the Centurion CAR numbers and other details, it's worth a look.

Ramtank.ca

Cheers,
Dan.

[jdmcm]

I would like to have Barry's book, but at $120 US plus shipping, I will wait for the movie!

John

[Dan Martel]

I have a document dated April 5, 1962, which lists all of the equipment held by the Canadian Army at that time. It contains some interesting (to me, anyway) information on Centurion holdings. In early 1962 the Army had 334 Centurion gun tanks and 9 Centurion armoured recovery vehicles. Of these 58 and 3 were in Germany, 90 and 3 were allocated to units in Canada, 64 and 2 were being used by schools, and the remaining 109 and 1 were in depot stock. The 58 gun tanks in Germany represents both unit holdings and war reserve.

(For those interested, the Army was also operating 270 Sherman tanks.)

Of the 334 gun tanks, 290 are identified as tank medium, 32 as tank control and 12 as tank command.

The document states that 5 Centurion bridgelayers and 3 Centurion AVRE were expected to be in the hands of troops by 1963. In fact, only 4 bridgelayers were obtained, and that was in 1966. No AVRE's were ever acquired.

Under missiles it shows that the SS11 was also expected in 1963. Twenty-two are shown as going to be tank mounted. Sixteen of the tank-mounted missiles would be located in Germany. While the SS11B1 was acquired, none were ever mounted on a tank in Canadian service, although I have seen a schematic of such an animal.

Finally, under electronics, by the end of 1962 the Army expected to have 80 Centurion infra-red equipment sets. Fifty-eight sets were allocated to Germany, one per gun tank.

The Army also had 1,986 AFV mounted .30-cal MMG's. Fifty-nine were allocated to Germany, or one per gun tank and a spare.

FYI for those of you as interested in these things as I am.

Cheers,
Dan.

[Ed Storey]

Those are some interesting statistics, here is a 1960 artist's concept drawing of the SS11 B1 mounted on a Centurion.

Figure 5 - Centurion Tank Fitted with SS 11B1 (Artist's Concept).jpg

[Dan Martel]

Originally Posted by Ed Storey

... here is a 1960 artist's concept drawing of the SS11 B1 mounted on a Centurion.

Yes, that is just like the profile schematic I saw. The missile launchers were mounted on the mantlet.

I read in the Armour Profile (Remember those?)on the Centurion 5 that at one point the Brits thought to mount a Swingfire missile on the mantlet, but that never went forward.

Personally I think its a bad idea to have two main weapon systems on a large vehicle crewed by four. They're busy enough driving, shooting and communicating.

Cheers,
Dan.