AC I Sentinel | Australian Masterclass?

in order to understand the history of the sentinel we need to go back to the first world war, where the Australian Imperial Force got a lot of experience working with tanks, this is because 3 significant battles were supported by the British tanks, in the first battle of Bullecourt 12 British tanks and the 1st Anzac corps tried to attack the German defences, when the operation went ahead several tanks broke down, and others went of course. The Australians lost about 3.200 men in that battle suffering a defeat, this lead to a lot of bitterness and distrust towards tanks. It took over a year for the Australians to re-attempt another attack including tanks, this was according to Peter Beale Superbly planned and executed using infantry, tanks, artillery and aircraft to secure everything in just half an hour, so of course this was a allied victory.
After several attacks with tanks the Australians were actually knowledgeable and enthusiastic about tanks, even though having NO tanks of their own.
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[@dougstubbs9637]

Firstly, Sentinel was designed to use the same undercarriage wear parts, ( wheels, track, bearings) as US M3, as they were invisioned being deployed together. The Sentinel had enough inside clearance designed between track and hull to deploy a row of standard grousers, which when matched with an outside pair, nearly doubled track width. Some NE Europe campaign photos show Sherman with an outer layer of track grousers, they could have used inners as well. When France rebuild M10 for use in the Indo China jungles, they widened the undercarriage to achieve this effect. Sentinel was designed to have a one piece nose casting, housing the transmission. The M3 and early M4 had a three piece bolted housing, wiht very obvious weaknesses. The Americans learnt the Australians had designed this transmission to be assembled from the sides, where the final drives bolt on, and directly copied it to M4 production. Sentinel production was ended as, it was being built at Chollora Railway Workshops, and the manpower and resources were sorely needed to build and maintain railstock, Australian population was just 7.5 million, manpower shortages plagued the nation, the new Government taking the word of American Representation, including General McArthur, that American medium tanks would be delivered by September 1942. This never happened as Australia and New Zealand had zero priority to a Germany First obsessed Washington. The Aussies decided to continue developing the vehicle, which I shall return to. The Overall Plan of the Americans was to utilise Australia and NZ for training Americans, both Nations training a total of seven of McArthurs divisions, the industrial facilities being used to maintain US assets at the expense of local production. Sentinel was developed into The Thunderbolt, redesigning the knob like hull gun out, bigger hatches, better vision, larger turret ring, 69”, same as Sherman, and a Twenty Five Pounder gun, 88mm, to increase firepower. Thr engine units were rearranged. Only one prototype made. Next, the Sentinel Mark Four, where the suspension was changed to independent swingarms sprung by volutes, and, famously, the fitting of the Seventeen Pounder AT gun by laying it on it’s side to facilitate loading, a full twelve months before the British said it couldn’t be fitted into a Sherman turret. So, much alike the story of production of the Boomerang fighter, indigenous production was a story of make and make do, some real talents solving some overwhelming production and technical issues at a time of absolute necessity, when the Northern Hemisphere centric Nations decided to throw away the free nations of the South, treating Australia, New Zealand as unimportant replaceable colonies. One more thing, the Produce and Industrial output of these two tiny, in world terms, nations was so important to the United States that at war’s end, these were the only two Nations in Credit with the US Lend Lease. Australia gave over it’s US credit to Britain so the brits could continue to import Oil once lend lease ended. This arrangement meant Australia paid inflated prices for Oil, but the arrangement was between a Labor Government in both Britain and Australia, ending when a new right wing government in Australia decided to slash petrol costs for Aussies to kick start sales for a new local motorcar industry, which sadly ended in 2018, with the loss of around 330,000 jobs.

[@seanlander9321]

Interesting that the only country that repaid American and British war loans in full from the two world wars is Australia.

[@seanlander9321]

The Sentinel was very adaptable, being capable of being fitted with different guns without modifying the turret mount. The water cooled vickers though would have been devastating against infantry. The suspension was very advanced, particularly at such speeds the tank achieved,and the ergonomics of the side sitting gunner aligned with the commander was a novelty not found elsewhere but made for far better communication between the two. Additionally the incorporation of a water boiling unit for tea and grilled vents for smoking were appreciated by the crews. Quite a decent tank, and vastly superior to anything Japan produced for which it was designed to fight against.

[@MegaBloggs1]

turrets and hull were poured into sand molds at waratah steel at 5 dock sydney

[@victorreznov6320]

Awesome video loved your analysis I’ve always loved this tank and it was great to see a video about it.

[@vwgermanlookerbeetle4123]

Love this video 👍

[@MegaBloggs1]

the armour and artillery museum in cairns nth queensland has a mark 1, 2 and 4 sentinel-excellent museum -well worth a visit

[@LearningHistoryTogether]

Would be cool to visit it one day, sadly Australia is (almost) exactly on the otherside of the world for me😅

[@3idraven714]

Cool looking tank, it might make a nice display piece (plastic model), this is the first I've ever seen of this model. Didn't know Aus even produced their own tank. Nice Vid, great info as always!!!!

[@williamhadley8486]

Yeah I reckon that you should create the second channel

[@MegaBloggs1]

mark 1v sentinel featured a 17pdr

[@williamromine5715]

What is it with the bow machine gun design? Sure looks like a male appendage.