Exports of the centurion.
Right after ww2 the tankproduction declained and fell almost completely to a halt in 1947.
The allies of the superpowers where supplied with free shermans and t34’s
With the outbreak of the korean war tension grew and in 1951 the us decidet to equip their allies with newer weapons.
At this time there were two main country’s wich produced tanks.
The us and gb.
Althought the material would be loaned, free of charge, every country tried to get their hands on the expensive and modern us tanks.
Although the us army thought of this as a good idea, becaus of logistical reasons. Every country same ammo, petrol parts etc, congres decidet to make us of brittish capacity.
So the us ordered the centurion from the brittish to give to the allies wich where thought of as less capable in military terms. Such as the netherlands and denmark.
Country’s with a bigger and better army receaved the m47, such as france, italy, Spain and belgium.
Also country’s wich purchased their own tanks had to buy the centurion as the us couldn’t deliver more tanks.
Such as canada, south africa and new zealand, but also neutral states such as sweden and switserland.
So the export succes of the centurion wasn’t becaus it was such a good tank. Becaus in many country’s the centurion was the second choise… but it was the only thing for sale.
With the exeption of Australia wich was the First country to buy the centurion.
The uk also gave the centurion to their own old colony’s such as jordan, egypt, irak, India Singapore, and kuweit.
Israel also became an important export country.
In Total around 3400 centurions were exported.
As this was goin on, the centurion was becoming obsolite.
So all the above country’s tried to sell them to third World country’s such as africa and the rest of the middle east.
Dutch centurions,
The netherlands First got their First centurions in 1953 as a loan. Until 1956 they would get 591 tanks.
The Dutch would have wantet the m47 but where happy with the centurion as it was a big update over the sherman and ram tanks.
Everyone of the 4 divisions got one armoured brigade with two bataljons, and there would be a tank bataljon at HQ, making a Total of 9 times 53 tanks.
For modern standarts this wasn’t much but the Dutch worked with mechanized or motorized infantery divisions so from that point of vieuw it was a big deal if you could equip 2 bataljons with modern tanks, as good armoured as the feared german king tiger.
A disadvandage was the high patrol use and is was more difficult to maintain as expected. Replacing an engine would tanke a full day.
The Dutch also receaved 44 centurion arv mkII, later they would buy another 22.
In the 60’s the brits announced that there would be no spare parts produced. This was a unplasend surprise, bus as a compenstation the brits offered 67 new mk7’s for loan, (of course still payd for by the americans) this would mean that the newer tanks would be in service and the older tanks canibalised for parts.
This solution didn’t please the Dutch and when the First 33 arrived they where send back saying that the parts weren’t interchangeble.
This was only to put preasure on the brittish to not make this deal.
As a result of this the mk7’s where delivered to switserland.
But in the meanwhile the Dutch had to face the possibillaty that their entire tank fleet had to be replaced, a special Dutch/belgium comite was formded to look for a new tank together.
This way they hoped to keep the kosts as low as possible.
The former brittish deal with the mk7’s was thought of to make the Dutch buy the new chieftain in the future.
But the low country’s had more ambitions and joined the german-american attemt to make a super tank.
But this would fail as the mbt-70.
There where at this time newspaper messages that the centurion was completely obsolite in 1966.
There where problems with introducing the chieftain in the brittish army and as a result of this parts for the centurion where manufactured until 1972.
The Dutch decidet that their centurions needet a bigger gun to compete with the t54, but is was difficult to find a budget for this.
The economy grew hard in this period so the us stopped funding the Dutch army.because of this they only upgradet some 275 tanks in 1967.
So that 2 tanks in every squad where upgradet.
Of course in combat this would give logistical problems with the ammo.
In the late 60’s the structure in the Dutch army was chanched and the motorized troops where now mechanised forces. But the tank battaljons remained the same.
Only they where distributed different among the new army.
The relative slow centurion was not suited for this kind of warfare so the Dutch retrofitted the patrol engines for more efficiënt diesel engines and automatic gear boxes. The mobilitie was up, but it wasn’t enough.
In 1968 the Dutch ordered 415 leopard 1 tanks
And with the tensions in prague they ordered 53 more.
The centurion remained in active duti until mid 80’s