By 1943, Britain had a serious problem. The Churchill infantry tank was tough and reliable, but its 75mm gun could not reliably punch through the front of a German Tiger or Panther at combat range. The solution was sitting right there. Britain already had the QF 17-pounder anti-tank gun, which would kill a Tiger at over 1,000 meters.
The problem was getting it to fit inside a tank.
What Was the Black Prince?
The Churchill’s turret and hull was too small to fit the 17-pounder. Therefore, engineers at Vauxhall Motors widened the hull by 10 inches, redesigned the turret around the bigger gun, and strengthened the suspension to carry the extra weight. The result was the A43, named the Black Prince after Edward the Black Prince, the 14th century English warrior prince.
On paper it sounded like exactly what Britain needed. A heavily armoured infantry tank with a gun that could actually fight back.
Then they looked at the numbers more carefully.
- Main gun: QF 17-pounder — capable of destroying any German tank in service
- Armour: Same thickness as the Churchill
- Weight: 50 tons — about 10 tons heavier than the Churchill it came from
- Engine: The same 350 horsepower engine as the Churchill
That last point is where things went wrong.
Too Heavy, Same Engine
Adding 10 extra tons to a tank without upgrading the engine is not a small problem. The Black Prince topped out at 10.5 mph on a good road. Cross-country, it managed 7.5 mph.
For comparison, the German Panther could reach 34 mph on roads. Even the Churchill it was based on was faster. The Black Prince was so slow that repositioning on a battlefield, retreating from an ambush, or keeping up with advancing troops would have all been serious problems.
Now as you think about it, naming this thing after one of the most aggressive and fast-moving warriors in English history makes the whole thing a bit funny.
Six Prototypes, Zero Battles
Development moved forward and six prototypes were ordered. Trials were scheduled to decide whether it would go into full production.
The six prototypes were delivered in May 1945.
The war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945.
Britain received its Black Prince tanks with literally nowhere to send them. The trials went ahead anyway. Testers confirmed what the numbers had already shown — the tank was underpowered and too slow for modern armoured warfare. Not only that, a much better option had already shown up.
The Centurion Made It Pointless
While the Black Prince was being developed, British engineers were also working on a completely different design called the A41 Centurion which also used the 17-pounder. But the Centurion was a cruiser tank, built for speed and maneuver. It was lighter than the Black Prince, significantly faster, and had strong frontal armour on top of that.
In short, the Centurion did everything the Black Prince was supposed to do, but better, in a tank that could actually move.
In the end, the Black Prince got no production order. All six prototypes were quietly retired. Only one survives today, at the Tank Museum in Bovington, England, where it has recently been restored to running condition.
What Went Wrong
The Black Prince is a good example of solving the right problem in the wrong way. The 17-pounder was the correct answer to German armour. Fitting it onto a Churchill hull was not. The Churchill was already at the limit of what its engine could handle. Piling on another 10 tons without a new heart was always going to produce something that struggled.
What makes the story unusual is that the Black Prince never even got a chance to fail in combat. It arrived after the fighting was over, lost a comparison against a better design, and that was it.
Six tanks built. Zero battles fought. Not quite the legacy Edward the Black Prince would have wanted.