The Tank Factory: British Military Vehicle Development and the Chobham Establishment by William Suttie

Author:William Suttie [Suttie, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750963510
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2015-03-14T22:00:00+00:00

Conqueror tank (from the rear with the turret reversed). (Crown Copyright-MOD)

There remained a requirement to defeat heavy Soviet tanks at range as the Centurion was viewed as being ‘out-gunned’ by the Joseph Stalin III tank. Following the 1949 RAC conference work started on developing requirements and concepts for the new heavy tank and consideration was given to reducing the turret crew to two men with the commander also acting as the gunner. In 1951 it was agreed that the FV201 would be used as the basis for this heavy tank and would mount the US L1 120mm gun. The result was the FV214 Conqueror tank. The hull required limited changes, the main one being an increase in the power of the Meteor engine from 650hp to 810hp to cope with the increased weight – which was eventually 65 tons. The increased power was achieved through the use of direct fuel injection. More challenging was the design of a completely new turret to mount the 120mm gun and stowage to carry enough of the bulky ammunition. In order to demonstrate and prove the new engine and give the army experience of operating such a heavy vehicle while the turret was developed, it was agreed that a small number of FV214 hulls would be fitted with an adaptor ring to take a Centurion Mark III turret; the resulting vehicle was the FV221 Caernarvon. This was called the ‘Interim Tank’ by FVRDE and four prototypes and ten pre-production vehicles were running by June 1953. Following extensive testing of four Conqueror prototypes at FVRDE twenty Mark Is were issued to the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) early in April 1955. The Conqueror was the first tank to use the concept of a ‘Hunter-Killer’ mode where the Commander could acquire a target, then automatically hand it over to the gunner to engage, while he then searched for the next target. FVRDE then developed the Mark II, which had a simplified crew interface for the gun and fire-control system.

A total of 180 Conquerors were built. A number of variants were planned including the FV215, intended as a super-heavy self-propelled anti-tank gun mounting a 180mm gun to defeat the expected successor to the Soviet Joseph Stalin III and T10 tanks; it only reached the wooden mock-up stage before work on it stopped in 1957. The only variant to reach production was the FV219 Armoured Recovery Vehicle (ARV).

In light of the threat from Soviet heavy tanks one variant of Centurion that reached prototype stage, but did not enter production, was the FV4004, called the Conway. This had a tall turret mounting the L1 120mm gun and was developed as a potential stopgap while the Conqueror was being developed. In support of the proposed FV215 super-heavy Self Propelled (SP) anti-tank gun the chosen weapon, the 180mm L4, was mounted on a Centurion hull in 1955 for trials. Although the resulting vehicle, the FV4005, was never intended to go into production, it can still lay claim to being the largest-calibre self-propelled anti-tank weapon ever made.

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