VICKERS MK6B's resto

[David Herbert]

Colin,
That is a seriously impressive piece of work ! I hate to think how many man hours went into it but it is hard to see how you could have done it better. I really like the roller support for the part of the ring that you are actually cutting.

Am I right that this turret ring only uses the ball race to support the turret, like a giant thrust race. If so how are sideways forces resisted ? I know that the Vickers just has a machine gun but when tanks started to have proper guns with significant recoil forces, turret ring design quickly standardised into a three piece arangement which has been normal ever since.

This 'standard' design has the part that bolts to the hull as the heaviest piece. It has the lower, outer quarter of the ball track and the rack below it, sometimes as a seperate bolt on part. The inner half of the ball track is in the outside face of the part that the turret is bolted to and then the outer upper quarter of the ball track is a much lighter piece that bolts down to the top of the lower outer piece, acting as a retainer for the balls and resisting upward forces.

Given the speed of the Vickers light tanks I would have thought that there must be quite good provison for holding the turret down to the hull and resisting sideways forces ?

David