British World War 2 SPGs That Need Adding to War Thunder

Toreno

In this 17th episode of my series looking at World War 2 Tanks That Need Adding to War Thunder, we take a look at British SPGs!  So join me as we take a look at a few well known British SPGs that have been long awaited for War Thunder, some conversions of existing vehicles and many wacky and unusual prototype SPGs!  Support me at ⬇️ ☕Buy me a Coffee➡️ buymeacoffee.com/Toreno  Social Media ⬇️ 🦋Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/toreno.bsky.social 🌍Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Toreno4 📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toreno170 🐘Mastodon: Toreno17@mastodon.social 🧵Threads: https://www.threads.net/@toreno170  Sources ⬇️ Chamberlain, P. and Ellis, C. (1969) British and American Tanks of World War II: The Complete Illustrated History of British, American, and Commonwealth Tanks, Gun Motor Carriages, and Special Purpose Vehicles, 1939–1945.  Jaeger Platoon. Artillery. Available at: https://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY3.htm.  RA39-45. 18-Pdr Gun. Available at: https://ra39-45.co.uk/guns-equipment/18-pdr-gun.  RA39-45. 25-Pdr Gun Self-Propelled Bishop. Available at: https://ra39-45.co.uk/guns-equipment/25-pdr-gun-self-propelled-bishop.  Royal Canadian Artillery Association. (2022) 25-Pounder Quick Reference. Available at: https://rca-arc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/25-Pounder-Quick-Reference.pdf.  Tank Encyclopedia. Available at: https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/.  Songs used⬇️  Sun Machine One by Loopop  🎮 Game: War Thunder  ⬅️  Vehicles in this episode⬇️  Bishop/Ordnance QF 25-pdr on Carrier Valentine 25-pdr Mk I  T51 Sexton (Ram based and Grizzly based variants) Foden DG/6/10 with BL 4 inch Mark VII gun Loyd Carrier with 25 pounder gun/Carrier, 25pdr Gun/Howitzer Experimental, Loyd Crusader with BL 5.5 inch gun Archer with 25 pounder gun/SP 17-PR Valentine I with a 25-pounder gun Stuart fitted with 18 pounder gun 40RBL78 MA Field Gun  #warthundertanks #spg #foden #british #sexton #bishop #ww2

Transcript

00:00Today in my series looking at World War II tanks that need adding to War Thunder,

00:04we take a look at British SPGs and artillery vehicles, and we will start off by looking at

00:10probably one of the better known British SPGs, the Bishop, or to give it its full name,

00:15Ordnance Quick-Firing 25-Pounder on Carrier, Valentine 25-Pounder Mark I, which is a bit

00:21of a mouthful so we'll stick with Bishop, and visually it gives the appearance of a British

00:25KV-2. So the story of the Bishop begins in 1941, when fighting in the North African Desert showed

00:32a need for the 25-Pounder gun to be more mobile, which could be fixed by creating an SPG.

00:39So in June 1941, the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company was given the task of creating

00:45an SPG out of the Valentine Infantry tank, with the prototype ready by August 1941.

00:51So the main armament was the 25-Pounder, and those of you who have watched my video on

00:57Australian World War II tanks will remember that I rather confidently stated the 25-Pounder

01:02was not in-game, which as it turns out was incorrect, as it is placed on the L9T-59,

01:08which is a French coastal craft, which does give us some basic stats to work from.

01:13But before we get to them, in real life the 25-Pounder could use free propellants,

01:17a Standard Charge, Super Charge, and a Super Charge Plus.

01:21And looking at the 25-Pounder in-game, we can see that its APC shell has a muzzle velocity

01:27of 573 metres a second. So we can deduce this is probably being fired with a Super Charge,

01:33and in-game this shell is capable of penetrating 69 millimetres at a 30 degree angle at 100 metres,

01:40or 52 millimetres at 1000 metres, making this a decent weapon for against enemy tanks,

01:45especially in the low tiers. But interestingly, this is actually different from the real life

01:50figures I've found that give a penetration of 87 millimetres at 100 metres at a 30 degree angle,

01:57or 64 millimetres at 1000 metres. So the in-game 25-Pounder seems to perform worse at closer

02:02ranges, but better at longer ranges than the real life gun. The 25-Pounder can also fight a HE shell,

02:09and this has a penetration of 12 millimetres in-game. So again, pretty decent in the low tiers,

02:14compared to other tanks' HE shells, while a Heschel was developed in the post-war period,

02:19but the Bishop had been retired by this point, and let's be honest, Heschels don't perform

02:24particularly well in-game anyway. Unfortunately, while the gun's performance is pretty good,

02:29its placement is not, with its horizontal traverse being limited to just 4 degrees right and left,

02:35which is not great if targeting moving enemy tanks, while its elevation is minus 5 to plus 15 degrees,

02:41which isn't the best in-game, and in real life was far less than the towed 25-Pounder.

02:46And this lack of elevation restricted its max range on the Bishop to just 5.8 kilometres,

02:52necessitating crews to create earth ramps for the vehicle to drive up, to boost its elevation and

02:57thus range. However, plenty of shells could be carried, with 32 carried within the Bishop itself,

03:03and more could be towed behind the vehicle on a limber, much like the Spanish Vardasia SPG that

03:09we looked at last episode, and a Bren machine gun could also be carried for local defence.

03:14Then of course there is the vehicle the Bishop is based on, the Valentine II, which is a bit of

03:19a

03:19mixed blessing, as the tank itself has a maximum armour thickness of 60mm all around for the hull,

03:25making it very well protected. While the fighting compartment is also fully enclosed,

03:29and the armour of the compartment seems to be thicker than that of contemporary SPGs,

03:35with the armour itself maxing out at around 30mm, with some sources suggesting it actually goes up

03:41to 40mm for the front, but even 30mm would make this a pretty well protected SPG compared to other

03:48designs. Unfortunately we then come to the top speed, which due to being based on the Valentine tank,

03:54is a rather paltry 15mph of 24kmh, so not particularly great, and makes repositioning a slow process.

04:03While the crew carried was four, with a driver in the hull, while I've seen one source stating that

04:09there was only room for two crew in the superstructure, with the commander placed outside,

04:13which perhaps will be the case in game, or maybe Gaijin will just try and squeeze the commander

04:17inside the compartment for simplicity. In game I would suggest adding the Bishop at 2.3 between the

04:24Daimler Mark II and Archer Tank Destroyer, with this having an effective main gun and decent amount

04:30of armour, while being let down by the limited traverse and elevation for aiming the gun and its

04:36low mobility. But I could see this being very effective in the low tiers, and would be a sort

04:41of British KV2 equivalent, albeit far less armoured. In real life the Bishop would enter service in 1942,

04:48seeing its first combat in the second battle of El Alamein in October 1942, and would continue to

04:56see service during the early stages of the Italian campaign. But while these vehicles did provide some

05:01mobile firepower, the problems with the lack of range for the main gun and the Bishop's slow speed

05:07meant that it was not a popular vehicle. Despite this, 80 were built and a further 20 were under construction,

05:13when an additional order for 50 was made, with the option for another additional 200 on top of this.

05:20But by now the American M7 HMC was available, so the Bishop would be phased out, with some sold to

05:26Turkey and the rest used for training, and about 149 were built in total. So the Bishop had given the

05:33British Army some experience with SPGs, even if the vehicle itself wasn't the best, and now effective

05:39American M7 HMC's were available for use. However this vehicle used a 105mm gun that wasn't used by

05:46Britain, who really wanted a vehicle with the 25 pounder to simplify logistics. Initially this would

05:53lead to a request for the United States to produce a version of the M7 Priest, armed with the 25

05:59pounder,

06:00which would become the T51, which mounted a 25 pounder Mark II onto the second of the T32 chassis,

06:06the T32 being the prototype of the M7 Priest, and this initially used a riveted gun cradle,

06:12but this failed in testing, and so was replaced by a welded one. And the vehicle itself also used rivets,

06:19which you can see at the rear here. While 12.7mm of armour was used for the casemate,

06:24and 25-108mm for the rest of the vehicle, though of course being open topped it will remain extremely

06:30vulnerable, while the top speed is 26mph or 42kmh, and presumably 7 crew would be carried like on the

06:37M7 Priest. The T51 could ultimately be placed in the US or British tech tree, the latter as they were

06:45the intended recipient, but I think it would make for a good premium SPG regardless. In real life the

06:51T51 would be undergoing testing until March 1943, but this would be cancelled due to the success of

06:57another vehicle, the Sexton, a Canadian SPG based on the Canadian Ram tank. Now I'm not going to go into

07:03the full history of the Sexton here, as it deserves to have more of a spotlight in a dedicated Canadian

07:09World War II tanks video, but basically this was a Canadian designed SPG, armed with the 25 pounder,

07:15with the chassis initially being based on the Ram tank for the Mark I, but for the Mark II this

07:21was

07:21switched to the Grizzly chassis, which was basically a Canadian built M4A1 tank, and the Sexton fixes many

07:28of the problems with the Bishop, having better elevation at plus 4 to minus 9, which is far

07:33better than that of the Bishop, while the horizontal traverse was 25 degrees left and 15 degrees right,

07:39again making this far better for engaging moving targets, while 105 shells could be carried and two

07:45Bren guns were available for local defence. Armour was variable depending on the variant, with the

07:51initial Mark I variant on the Ram chassis having 15 to 32mm of armour, and the later Mark IIs on

07:57the

07:57Grizzly chassis having 38mm of side armour and 50mm frontal armour, so decent if not spectacular amounts

08:05of armour, but again it is open topped, making it very vulnerable to enemy aircraft, while the top

08:10speed was 25mph or 40.2kmh and 6 crew were carried. In game I would suggest adding the Sexton at

08:183.0,

08:19with the 25 pounder firing its shells with the supercharge plus propellant, giving a penetration

08:25of 95mm at 100m or 81mm at 1000m at a 30 degree angle, which is far superior to the Bishop's

08:3425

08:34pounder gun if using just the regular supercharge, and if the two Sexton marks were added separately,

08:40I would also suggest giving the Mark II access to the Heschel just to boost its uniqueness in War

08:46Thunder, and I think it would be great for one of the most important Canadian and British SPGs to be

08:52represented in War Thunder. In real life the Sexton would enter service in 1943, with 124 Sexton 1s built,

09:00and 2026 Sexton 2s built, for a total of 2150 being built until 1945. With these serving successfully,

09:10with both British and Canadian forces, with these replacing the M7 priest in the British Army during

09:16the Normandy invasion, with the British and Canadian M7s being converted to armoured personnel carriers,

09:22and the Sexton would stay in British Army service until the 1950s, showing how successful the design

09:28was. So the Bishop and Sexton covered the British Army's SPG needs later in the war, but there would be

09:35some attempts to mount larger weapons onto trucks. Which brings us to the Foden DG610 with a breech

09:42loading 4 inch Mark VII gun mounted upon it, and this was brought to my attention by Axel Julian 5096,

09:50and this conversion allowed for heavy guns to be transported easily around the UK for home defence,

09:56and doesn't appear to have been deployed overseas. The 4 inch gun itself is already in the game,

10:02and is quite the powerful weapon, with its HE shell containing 700 grams of explosive,

10:08and able to penetrate 19 millimetres of armour at 1000 metres, while its semi armour piercing ballistic

10:14capped shell contains 420 grams of explosive, and with a muzzle velocity of 873 metres a second,

10:22is able to penetrate 96 millimetres of armour at 1000 metres, making this a very potent weapon.

10:29While the ammunition is carried on the truck itself, removing the need for a separate vehicle,

10:34though unfortunately my source doesn't say exactly how many shells were carried. As for the truck itself,

10:40it is obviously unarmoured beside the gun shield, and not particularly fast, with a top speed of

10:46perhaps 20mph 32kmh, while it appears 7-9 crew are present depending on the picture. I could see this

10:53being added at 3.7-4.0, as the British equivalent to the Italian Breeder 9053 and German Flak 37

11:02SFL,

11:03though the British gun is worse performing, but it would still be nice to see this little known

11:08mobile artillery truck added in game. Unfortunately that is about it for British SPGs that made it

11:15into large scale service, with just one British design, an American testbed, and a Canadian

11:20designed and built SPG, along with a lesser known truck conversion. But there were also a few

11:26prototypes and vehicles converted in the field, with the first of these being this example of the

11:32Lloyd Carrier fitted with the 25-pounder, with the gun mounted at the front of the vehicle,

11:36with this having a massive advantage of a small silhouette, making it easy to hide this vehicle and

11:42lane ambush for enemies. It is also an extremely fast vehicle, with a top speed of 30mph or 48kmh,

11:50letting this vehicle quickly reposition after ambushing enemies. However, if the enemy does

11:54spot the Lloyd Carrier, they will be able to deal with it very quickly, with the vehicle being open

11:59topped, and the armour that is present maxing out at just 10mm. While obviously if it gets flanked,

12:05it will be unlikely to be able to turn in time to face the threat, and it's likely that 3

12:10-4 crew would

12:11be needed to man this vehicle. I could see this being added at 2.0 to 2.3, as it's

12:16possible that

12:17the 25-pounder Carrier is the Mark 1, which can't use the supercharged propellant, limiting its muzzle

12:23velocity to just 475m a second, and the penetration to 72mm at 100m at a 30 degree angle. Which would

12:32make this fit in very well at early tier 2, though maybe it could be added a little higher if

12:37supercharged

12:37propellant could be used, but either way this would be a great small speedy SPG to have in War Thunder.

12:44In real life this seems to have just been a one-off prototype, as I've not really seen much other

12:49information on this vehicle, but there would be other prototypes created, such as this prototype

12:54of the Crusader tank fitted with a BL 5.5 inch gun, which as you might have noticed is facing

13:01rearwards,

13:02much like on the Archer Tank Destroyer, and this vehicle was intended more of a testbed for the

13:06post-war FV305, rather than as an actual combat vehicle. However, this wouldn't stop it being

13:13added to War Thunder, with the 5.5 inch gun being a pretty good weapon that can fire at least

13:19two HE

13:19shells. The first being the standard Mark 1D, which weighs 100 pounds or 45.3 kilograms, with 10.5 pounds

13:27or 4.76 kilograms of explosive filler, giving it a penetration of around 45 to 50 millimeters,

13:35and this can be fired at a muzzle velocity of about 510 meters a second, making it reasonably

13:40easy to aim at medium distances. However, there would be an improved HE shell, the Mark 3D,

13:47which actually weighed less at 80 pounds or 36.2 kilograms, but actually carries more explosive

13:53filler at 12 pounds or 5.44 kilograms, giving a penetration of around 50 to 55 millimeters,

14:00and this can be fired with a supercharge, bringing its muzzle velocity up to 595 meters a second,

14:07making it far easier to aim at longer distance targets. Unfortunately, I haven't found an elevation

14:13figure for the gun when mounted to the Crusader, though when unmounted it was minus 5 to plus 45 degrees,

14:19so it might be similar on the Crusader, while horizontal traverse when unmounted was 30 degrees

14:25right and left. Though again, I'm not sure if this is the same when mounted on the Crusader.

14:29There was also the problem of ammunition, as I haven't found anything relating to where or how

14:34many shells were carried, though I can't imagine it would be possible to carry that many. Then of

14:39course there is the problem of the gun facing rearwards, which means if an enemy pops up in

14:43front of the vehicle, you would have to turn around pretty damn quick. That does make it easier to use

14:48when setting ambushes, and although in theory you could just advance by going into reverse,

14:53which would eliminate the problem of the gun facing rearwards, the slow reverse speed of just

14:584 miles per hour does make this rather impractical. Then moving on to the chassis itself, obviously it's

15:04extremely vulnerable to enemies, with the gun and crew completely unprotected, so even machine gun fire

15:11will be able to deal with them rather easily. While the whole armor maxes out at 20 millimeters for the

15:16front and 14 millimeters for the sides and rear, unfortunately it does have a decent top speed

15:21of 26 miles per hour or 42 kilometers an hour, allowing it to get around the battlefield or escape

15:26enemies after firing the initial shots. Unfortunately the crew count is also unknown, as on the unmounted

15:32gun it is 10, which is obviously rather impractical, so I would suggest 4 to 5, with a driver in

15:39the hole,

15:39and the gunner, commander and one or two loaders manning the gun. I could see the Crusader 5.5 inch

15:45being added at 2.3 to 2.7, probably as an event vehicle, having a decent artillery weapon mounted

15:52to a fast moving albeit vulnerable chassis, and while it would be hard to use for some players due

15:58to its rearward firing weapon, I think it could find a place in War Thunder. In real life this was

16:04just

16:05used as a test bed for the FV305, and presumably was scrapped after testing, and ultimately the FV305

16:12didn't go anywhere anyway. But sticking to rear mounted guns, and again credit to Axel Julian

16:195096 for this one, we have an example of an Archer tank destroyer that was tested with a rear mounted

16:2625 pounder gun, which would be a decent armament in the low tiers, albeit facing rearwards and mated to

16:33a chassis that is not particularly well armoured or massively mobile, making it hard to turn and to face

16:39enemies, while four crew would be carried. And while not adopted in real life, it could work in

16:45War Thunder at around 2.0 to 2.3, and it would be an interesting SPG. Which brings us to

16:51the end of

16:52the purpose built SPGs, but there was at least one field conversion where an early Stuart light tank

16:58had an 18 pounder mounted in place of the turret. The 84mm 18 pounder is a rather interesting weapon,

17:05as it actually dates back to before World War 1, but was still in surface at the start of World

17:10War 2,

17:10though it would be replaced by more modern weapons as the war dragged on. And this would carry a wide

17:16variety of shells, including HE shells, though these only had around 368 grams of explosive filler,

17:24making their performance against enemy armour rather anemic, but an AP shell was also available.

17:29Now I haven't got exact penetration figures for this shell, but the 18 pounder was used by Finland,

17:34who had an AP shell named the 84 PSA-VJ4, which may be the British shell or perhaps a Finnish

17:42made shell.

17:44And this weighed 8.32 kilograms and had a muzzle velocity of 583 meters a second,

17:50which in Gaijin's penetration calculator gives us a penetration of around 90 millimeters at point blank

17:56range, which isn't too bad of a performance for such an old gun, and would make this deadly against

18:01many enemy tanks, while smoke and shrapnel shells will also be available. Then moving on to the

18:07traverse, this is a little hard to tell because the traverse and elevation changes depending on

18:12what variant of the gun is mounted. I've seen references to the one mounted on the Stuart tank

18:17being a Mark II, but I haven't been able to confirm this. But either way, the horizontal traverse is

18:21either 4.5 or 25 degrees either way, depending on which variant is fitted, while the elevation was

18:27minus 5 to at least 16 degrees, with later variants going up to 30 or 37 degrees. Though of course

18:34being

18:34mounted to the tank may affect the elevation and traverse, though it's unknown if this is actually

18:39the case. As for the vehicle itself, its hull armor should max out at 44.4 millimeters for the

18:46front lower hull, and 38.1 millimeters for the upper hull, and 25.4 millimeters for the sides and rear,

18:53while the gun shield will probably protect against light machine gun fire and shrapnel, but not much

18:58else, while also being completely exposed to enemy aircraft and flanking enemies. Lastly, the top speed

19:04should be around 31 miles per hour, which is pretty good for getting around the map, and I suspect a

19:08crew

19:09of 3 to 5 would be carried, with the driver and possibly the bow machine gunner in the hull, and

19:142 to 3 crew

19:15for the 18 pounder. In game, this 18 pounder stuart could be added at around 1.7 to 2.0,

19:21giving us a rather unusual looking vehicle with a decent artillery weapon that can be used to great

19:27effect against soft and hard targets while remaining mobile, and it would be great to see this SPG in

19:33game. In real life this was a one-off conversion, and presumably was only kept around until it was

19:38either destroyed, broke down, or replaced by something better, and presumably it wasn't a massive

19:43success, as it was never looked into for a purpose-built conversion. But this conversion

19:49did at least give a new lease of life to a presumably already damaged tank.

19:53So that's almost it for this episode, but I would like to briefly draw your attention to this weird

19:58as hell design, the 40RBL78MA field gun, which we only have a sketch of, and this came about in the

20:06aftermath of the Dunkirk evacuation, where much of the British Army's heavy equipment had been lost,

20:12and this was basically an attempt to create an SPG out of the 10RB grab crane, which was used in

20:18the

20:19civilian market and was being used for earth moving duties in the British Army in 1940.

20:24Unfortunately, while it seems like a prototype of some sort was built, this wasn't completely outfitted,

20:30as according to Tank Encyclopedia, they did get around to adjusting the gear ratios, increasing

20:36the top speed from 2.5mph to 15mph, which is a massive increase in speed that made the vehicle

20:43almost impossible to steer. However, the article also mentions that adding the armoured body and

20:48armament wouldn't help with the issue, and would actually cause it to be unstable on slopes.

20:53So presumably they didn't actually progress as far as fitting all of those components,

20:58and ultimately the armoured crew and armament to be fitted are all unknown, and the prototype would

21:04be returned to its regular duties, but I thought it was interesting to show what sort of projects

21:09were being pursued in the desperate months after the Dunkirk evacuation. So that's it for this episode

21:15looking at British SPGs, and I'd be interested to hear your views on these vehicles and any others

21:20you would like me to cover in the comments below. As for the next episode, I would like to look

21:25at an

21:25allied nation, maybe Canada, Yugoslavia or the United States, and I have started researching

21:31Canadian tanks, but it turns out there's quite a lot more there than I expected, and so we'll just

21:36have to see how things shake out. Anyway, that's it for this episode, hopefully you've enjoyed it,

21:41I've been Toreno, and I'll see you next time.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended