Black Prince - Technical Data and Discussion

Machinery of War Discussion
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A discussion area for the Black Prince I (A43), the final and unsuccessful model in the Churchill tank series consisting of six prototypes, of which only one remains at The Tank Museum, Bovington (one hull is privately owned in a state of progressive disrepair, and one mantlet & gun is presumably still held by Imperial War Museum Duxford).

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Bearing the name of one of England’s most renowned military commanders, Black Prince was the final design in the otherwise successful Churchill infantry tank series. Let down by its low mobility, high weight, and slab-faced armour, it could have been a formidable opponent to the German Tiger in 1942 or 1943. Unfortunately for Black Prince the year was 1945, and it was quickly shelved in favour of the far more efficient and adaptable Centurion.

Adored by dozens and returning annually every Black Friday sale, Black Prince struggles in the War Thunder of 2026 due to its raised BR and now-dated, non-volumetric armour model.

That said I do enjoy using it and believe that with a little research and relatively few bug reports, this unique and rare British heavy tank has a lot of potential, and will able to rival the most formidable enemy vehicles around BR 6.0.

Bug reports;
Black Prince currently missing its ESS smoke dischargers [accepted]
Black Prince armoured ammo bins missing
Black Prince mantlet incorrect [accepted]
Black Prince gunner’s sight magnification incorrect [fixed]
Black Prince smoke launcher cover fitted
Black Prince smoke launcher does not rotate
Black Prince ammo stowage order incorrect
Black Prince turret internal panels missing
British tanks - Incorrect machine gun cover armor models & more
Black Prince - incorrect number of gears and incorrect top speed [accepted, seems to have been implemented]
Black Prince engine incorrect

Resources;

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Topic of discussion;

what is this… spall liner-looking thing

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Will done and very great information !
hopefully it fixed maybe with model rework !?

Hopefully tog II armor get fixed to !
bug report was denined for having small amount of sources
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here before a certain forum member starts complaining

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Anyway I found out what these are, and they’re steel panels for mounting internal stowage onto;

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Would look rather like these panels inside the new Tiger 2 model.
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Further to the mantlet report, Black Prince’s armament mounting seems very similar to that seen on Comet, some decent pictures of which can be seen in the Comet Workshop Handbook;

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Major elements such as the mantlet, rotor, gun cradle, splash guard, and trunnion bearing caps are similar to those on Black Prince.

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I’m glad to report that the mantlet report has changed status to accepted, I do hope that it coincides with a general update of the BP model.

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Quick (bad) sketch of the rotor & right hand trunnion cap, which is currently modelled as 10 mm CHA.

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Basics of the rotor, these are machined parts so should all be RHA. The BESA shroud should be 1 in (25.4 mm) CHA as it is on later models such as the Churchill III AVRE (see below).

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