Museums Victoria photo archive

[Mike K]

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.

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.

[Mike Cecil]

The 'as new' Cadillacs must have been those taken out of the tanks the Baker Motors purchased. They also advertised engines at 100 pounds each. Since they purchased over 30 AC1 tanks, that's more than 90 engines to sell. Crating the engines for interim storage and sale makes sense.

The new, unused Cadillacs were sold by the CDC for the flat rate of 150 pounds each.

Not one AC1 tank was ever completed to the staqe of being a reliable, combat-ready tank.

My take on the story of the development and demise of the Aust Cruiser tank is in the book design phase with Trackpad Publishing at the moment. Should be available in the next couple of months.

Mike

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

The 'as new' Cadillacs must have been those taken out of the tanks the Baker Motors purchased. They also advertised engines at 100 pounds each. Since they purchased over 30 AC1 tanks, that's more than 90 engines to sell. Crating the engines for interim storage and sale makes sense.

The new, unused Cadillacs were sold by the CDC for the flat rate of 150 pounds each.

Not one AC1 tank was ever completed to the staqe of being a reliable, combat-ready tank.

My take on the story of the development and demise of the Aust Cruiser tank is in the book design phase with Trackpad Publishing at the moment. Should be available in the next couple of months.

Mike

Great , should be a good read !

I was mislead by this film of the AC1 tanks actually driving around. The army or somebody must have cobbled a few AC1 tanks into running condition for the Dept. of Information movie cameras and the visiting 'dignitaries' including Bob Menzies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzJ8mflCXQU

[Mike Cecil]

Nice piece of footage. Several famous faces. Those are two of the Experimental series tanks, E1 with the big fake barrel and E2 with a 2-pdr, being demonstrated for the big wigs at Fisherman's Bend in early 1942. E1 retired hurt with a broken track. There were three AC-E series tanks built before the production run of 65 AC1 tanks.

Most of the 65 production AC tanks were assembled and drivable by the close of the project, but far from reliable or combat-ready. I'd like to think the book covers the subject in sufficient detail - it's about 100,000 words supported by 430-odd images. The ultimate judgement of that will be the readers, of course, but I've done my best.

Interesting to see a camouflaged Mortar carrier amongst the swarm of AFVs.

Mike

[Mike K]

Sad end to WW1 aircraft.

Can anybody ID the 4 bladed aircraft in the background ?

https://collections.museumsvictoria..../items/1602920

[michaelkoudstaal]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Nice piece of footage. Several famous faces. Those are two of the Experimental series tanks, E1 with the big fake barrel and E2 with a 2-pdr, being demonstrated for the big wigs at Fisherman's Bend in early 1942. E1 retired hurt with a broken track. There were three AC-E series tanks built before the production run of 65 AC1 tanks.

All three if you look closely. Most of the footage is E1 and likely an incomplete E3, the one right at the end with no antennas or tool bins is probably the E2 being babied a bit as it was supposed to be sent of for gunnery trials the next day so you wouldn't want to break it.

[Mike Cecil]

Cannot agree, Michael: check the driver's hatch design for verification. This is E1 and E2. E3 was still being built at Eveleigh when this demo took place.

Mike

[Mike K]

https://collections.museumsvictoria..../items/1469617

https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/775817

A side note: I spotted somebody selling four of these 4.2 inch Mortar rounds at the swap meet I was at recently , they were packed in their shipping box. The seller had a sign explaining how they were first used at El Alamein

[michaelkoudstaal]

That is what the records say, E3 wasn't complete on that day. But there's three different looking tanks being driven around. You might explain away the loss of the partial sand shields, and the track guard toolbins, as simply "bits falling off" over the course of the run, but the antennas too? It's not like they're driving under trees or anything. I think they've been told to put on a show and while E3 wasn't finished it might have been drivable and that's what's in the film. I don't know that I'd put money on it, but that's what it looks like.
E1.JPGE2.JPG

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

You would think the Govt. could have put the Cruisers in storage or used them for training rather than scrapping them so quickly.

I suspect they felt that storing tanks costs even more money, while selling them for scrap metal at least brings back some of the investments. Never underestimate beancounters …

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

The drawings for the manufacture of spare parts would have been available

But who would want to tool up to make those parts if there are warehouses full of Sherman spares in the USA and elsewhere?