Praying Mantis - Tank Encyclopedia (2024)

FAQs

What was the most common British tank in ww2? ›

The vast majority of tanks delivered were the virtually useless Light Tank Mk VI. The newly established Royal Armoured Corps had only 143 infantry tanks and cruisers available in September 1939. They lacked spares and equipment, and very few crews had been trained to fight with them.

The Praying Mantis was an experimental machine gun carrier designed by a private developer for the British Army during the Second World War. It is in competition with the Kugelpanzer as one of the strangest armored vehicle designs ever produced. It could be said that it is 'typically British' in its eccentricity.

But most of all, the future “Desert Rats” were now led by a soon iconic figure, Bernard Montgomery. By the fall of 1942, the first British M4 Shermans arrived en masse through Alexandria harbor, but the bulk of VIIIth forces still comprised M3 Grants, M3 Stuarts, Crusaders, Cruiser III-IVs, Matildas and Valentines.

The Praying Mantis was a private venture by one Mr. Ernest James Tapp (often shortened to E. J. Tapp) of County Commercial Cars. The design was patented in 1937, with the construction of prototypes beginning in 1943.

By October 1942, the general opinion was that Soviet tanks were among the best in the world, with Life magazine writing that "The best tanks in the world today are probably the Russian tanks...". The T-34 outclassed every German tank in service at the time of its introduction.

The M4 was often outmatched by German tanks, but its excellent reliability meant more of them were available to fight at any particular time. The most advanced version to serve with the U.S. Army was the M4A3E8, a larger, beefier tank with an improved suspension system and a more powerful 76mm gun.

The longest lived species can live up to 5 years in captivity, (females, of course) but are usually super rare and expensive to buy. Most mantises common in the trade don't live more than a few months, up to maybe a year or two. The second thing to consider about the mantises themselves is their delicateness.

The praying mantis has been associated with the Great Spirit due to its praying hands. They also traditionally symbolized wealth and luck within Native culture, meaning if someone were to see one, they would be blessed with success.

The mantids should be housed separately after the second or third moult. Mantids will live for 12 to 18 months and the oothecae can also take several months to hatch. Some species of mantis are parthenogenic so can produce a viable ootheca without mating.

Against the Germans, Britain's tank forces were simply ill-prepared for armoured warfare, with a slew of factors hindering the performance of British tank divisions in France. The first, and most glaring issues, were the designs of the tanks being fielded and the number of them available.

Why do British tanks start with C? ›

These included Crusader, Covenanter and later the Cromwell, followed by its larger version, the Comet. I suggest the names came from being classed as 'cruiser' tanks and also from the Christie suspension around which they were designed.

The top ten tanks today are the German KF51 Panther, the American Abrams M1A2, the Russian T-14 Armata, the Korean K2 Black Panther, the Chinese T-99, the German Leopard 2, the French Leclerc XL, the British Challenger 2, the Israeli Merkava V, and the Japanese Type-90.

Throughout the war, however, the British Army retained a specialized category of infantry tanks, such as the Churchill, and of cruiser tanks, such as the Crusader and Cromwell. The former were well-armoured and the latter were fast, but none was well-armed compared with German and Soviet tanks.

Cromwell tank, British medium tank that was used in the later stages of World War II. The Cromwell was designed to replace the Crusader tank (a lightweight cruiser, or cavalry, tank that had seen extensive use in North Africa) and was driven by a 600-horsepower Rolls-Royce Meteor engine.

The Centurion was the primary British Army main battle tank of the post-World War II period. Introduced in 1945, it is widely considered to be one of the most successful post-war tank designs, remaining in production into the 1960s, and seeing combat into the 1980s.

The Challenger 2 is the British Army's main battle tank. One of its strengths lies in its ability to shock the enemy by placing them enemy under pressure by a rapid and fully-committed advance, causing them to break and retreat.