Tankopedia
WW2MediumMedium TankAustralia

AC1 Sentinel

In service 1942 - 1943

Australia's cruiser tank, cast in one piece from scratch by a country with no tank industry - and the first tank to fire a 17-pdr.

Built byNew South Wales Railways, Chullora

AC1 Sentinel
AC1 Sentinel — Ways, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0

Development history

Cut off from British supply in 1941-42, Australia designed and built its own medium tank in about a year, solving the engine problem by coupling three Cadillac car V8s and casting the whole hull as a single piece. Sixty-five AC1s were completed before Sherman and Matilda deliveries made local production unnecessary. The experimental AC4 mounted a 17-pdr and fired successfully - reportedly the first tank anywhere to do so - and the Sentinel remains one of the most impressive improvised industrial efforts of the war.

Variants

One canonical record, 3 recorded variants.

  1. AC1 Sentinel

    1942

    2-pdr gun, cast one-piece hull

  2. AC3 Thunderbolt

    1943

    25-pdr gun, three-engine powerpack revised

  3. AC4

    1943

    17-pdr armed prototype, first tank to fire the gun