Are you certain that it was even the meteor from a comet? Also the irish got the comet in 1958 which is after this mod
The ones that installed a meteor on a churchill chasis were the british on the FV3902, but it was an m120 not the one from a comet with a new transmission.
The Irish Meteor Churchill is shrouded in alot of Mystery.
But there is no way in HELL, the Churchills transmission would have stood up to the Meteor’s Power. Something had to be changed there, its entirely possible they got hold of a merrit Brown from the Brits.
But that isn’t really important to MY post.
Either way the Irish Stuffed a Rolls Royce 27L v12 in the Churchill.
And the British planned to do the same to the Black Prince, with the Merritt Brown Gearbox from the Centurion.
The point of me bringing that up wasn’t to debate about it, it was to show that the Conversion for the Black Prince had merit, because the Irish managed it in a much smaller engine bay.
Still your hole analogy with the sla doesnt make sense, it wastn a meteor which was the engine “proposed” for the bp and you have no evidence that it was used an already existing transmission. Also the it would likely need a completely different transmission as the irish Churchill due to the much higher mass of the bp
The Black Prince DID have a different Transmission than the Churchill already. It had a 5 speed with 2 reverse gears, AKA the Merritt Brown H 52
Also yes, the Analogy does make sense. because the SLA-16 is a fake tank. they never fitted the SLA-16 engine to a Tiger II. the only vehicle that ever had the engine mounted was the Jagdtiger, There were PLANS to put it in Normal production Tiger IIs. but the war ended before it could happen.
The Black Prince never got the Meteor, but it was planned.
For the 350 hp engine…
It doesnt, sure the sla is fake, but being tested on the jag makes it compatible with the tiger 2 as they use the same trasmission… this is the part that you seem to keep avoiding.
why not just add the prototype 3 as a tech tree vehicle?
A Notoriously overloaded transmission that could barely do 50 miles before exploding, But that didn’t matter because they never had that much fuel.
The Black Prince’s had a transmission upgrade, Prototype #1 was originally built with the same 4 speed as the Churchills, but got upgraded to the 5 speed later on. And all other prototypes were built with the 5 speed.
Said 5 speed was also the same EXACT dimensions as the Merrit-Brown Z51R gearbox used in the Centurion. Which would have made it a direct swap over if they ever did the Meteor conversion.
Irrelevant for the topic…
Was it ever tested on on de black prince… no, another layer of incompatibility, as i said it is not the same case as on the tiger 2 sla.
Also i would love to see your evidence that the Merrit-Brown Z51R is comparable with the black prince.
Do you not know what direct swap means…?
is English not your first language?
I have seen the actual reports on the Meteor conversion for the Black Prince. The ONLY pain point in the entire project, was the need to lean the engine over slightly, so one of its Valve covers was parallel to the Engine deck, due to the short height of the engine deck.
EVERYTHING else was going be a simple process of just swapping parts over, or just keeping what was already there. The entire engine bay had drawings made. HELL the Black prince in game is MODELED as the Meteor conversion, it has the Conversions Layout for the Radiators and Fuel tanks.
Has there been a direct swap of a meteor engine with a centurion transmission on a churchill, becaus the only one that was proposed was with the cronwell engine/tramission assembly not with any centurion trasnmission? Since english is your fist language im sure that you can answer this.
Again the simil with the tiger is completely moronic as they share the same hull and transmission, none of this is shared on bullshit that youre proposing.
Also can you show me your proof of that the transmissions of the shares the same dimensions because until now you have just been making bogus claims over and over while shifting the goalpost?
> C90105 TML
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They have done that though? The Cv90105 was initially released with the TML turret, despite the TML turret not having stabs or thermals.
Gaijin removed it from sale for a while then re added it with the correct turret replacing the one people bought, And only 2 patches ago they re-added the cv90105 TML as a TT tank?
You are confusing Gaijins stance with WeeGee who have explicitly stated that they wouldnt change premium vehicles because legal stuff and refunds.
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This is true, but this is the opposite of what’s proposed here.
The TML was implemented as a stabilized, thermal equipped vehicle, when it was revealed that IRL it had neither of those features. They then swapped the model to the XC-8 turret which had those features, which effectively played the same as the previous TML version.
Here, the proposal is to take a current premium vehicle that has seen no changes or modifications made to it, and swapping it out with one with slightly different characteristics.
The TML and XC-8 are also very obviously different in capabilities, to the point that reintroducing a historically accurate TML isn’t going to meaningfully impact the sales of the XC-8 version.
Here, if Gaijin gives everyone a free Black Prince, then tries to sell a slightly improved version at a higher BR, I don’t see many people buying it.
Can you share the evidence that this conversion was actually started? I have primary documentation only giving hypothetical performance, nothing saying the work was carried out.
I’ll find them and post them here.
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From what i understand Prototype #3 was only in the VERY early stages of the conversion with the Black Prince was canceled.
Likely not even to the point of the original engine being removed.
What’s the sources of that though? I’d love to see it.
Ed Francis shared these two primary sources, there’s likely more to the file but someone will have to ask him nicely. Text on first page says:
“access to the gear box, which could be used as an inspection hole and covered by a detachable plate.”
“A suitable opening in the hull roof plate must be made for engine access and the floor plate made suitable for receiving the new engine (something). Repositioning of inspection holes in the floor plate will also be necessary.”
“The rear bulkhead will have to be designed to suit the new installation.”
So it does sound like David Fletchers whole “it was incredibly simple, the engine just needed to be tilted X degrees” is wrong and far more work was required.
Id still say that fits with the Tiger II SLA-16.
As it needed a full redesign of the engine bay and engine deck for the SLA-16 to work in the Tiger II hull.
Creating new Engine mountings, and redoing a few hull openings wouldn’t be that time consuming, especially since the Centurion could be used a template (Minus the mountings, due to the Black Prince’s shorter hull Height, and the whole engine tilt thing)
that proposal was also made in June 1944, the Black Prince program wasn’t discontinued until mid 45, POST WAR. Even as the Centurion started rolling off the production lines, they were still looking into the Black Prince as a Option for a Infantry tank before that whole idea died off.
They even wanted to put the Stabilized Centurion MK2 Turret on the Black Prince before the FV201 became a thing.
So i think, and not just think KNOW, the Meteor Black Prince program got farther than just a few papers on the feasbility. Like i said, ive seen atleast basic engineering drawings for the Meteor engine bay in a book at SOME point. Sadly no idea when or where.
Also, random fun fact while im here.
The Surviving Black Prince is actually a Fully Functional Vehicle, it just has transmission issues that need attention, and its last Run was in 2012, when the issues finally got bad enough for the Tank Museum to put it away until they can get the engine bay cleaned of all its Asbestos, and get it back running.
The Image bellow is of it in 2012, at its last tank fest appearance, being towed back to storage after transmission issues.
(it also is reportedly a utter pain in the ass to drive, due to the Gear reduction they had to do with the final drives, to get the 350hp engine to even be able to move the thing, which makes it exceptionally hard to change gears without stalling, even before the Transmission issues.)
As advocatus diaboli, the M60A1 DC was nerfed significantly while the suggestion for the Black Prince is likely to improve it quite significantly.
Shouldn’t forget CV90 105 TML to CV90 105 XC-8 are more or less the same sort of suggestion as this where an existing prem is replaced with an improvement and the old prem is added as a TT vehicle later.