Background
The 17 pounder Archer was the only British tank destroyer of World War Two. The Brits used the American M10 Tank Destroyer, even upgraded it with the same Ordnance QF 17 gun and renamed it Achilles. The same was done to the American M4 Sherman tank, upgraded with the 17pdr gun and renamed it Sherman Firefly. But the Archer was built using a British Infantry tank, the Valentine.
Development
When the Germans introduced their new line of tanks like the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther and the Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger the Ordnance QF 6 gun was simply too weak and new, more powerful guns and tanks were needed. The British army needed a new gun platform. The Infantry Tank Valentine was chosen for its reliability, its availability (large numbers were already manufactured) and it was easy to convert into another vehicle.
The Valentine was a relatively small tank for the large and heavy 17 pounder gun and had to be placed the other way around using the Valentines engine as leverage. This meant the Archer drove backwards toward the frontline and battles.
Although strange to enter the battle backwards, it had a nice advance. When the Archer had to leave the battlefield it did not have to turn around, it already was turned and could use the full speed of the vehicle when retracting itself off the frontline, making it a perfect ambush weapon.
Specification of the Archer
The Archer was open topped like many tank destroyers in these days, like the American M10 and the German Marder tanks. It had a crew of 4, a commander, gunner, loader and driver. The 17pdr Valentine, Mk I, Archer was 6.68 meters long (21 ft 11 in), 2.7 meters wide (9 ft) and 2.24 meters high (7ft 4 in). The tank destroyer weighed 15 tons and had an armor of 14 to 60 mm (0.54-2.36 in). Its maximum speed was 32 km/h (20 mph) and an operational range of 230 kilometers (140 mi).
The 17-pounder punch
The Archers main armament is the QF 17 pounder (76.2 mm) gun with 39 rounds, secondary there was a .303 Bren light machine gun.
Although the 17 pounder gun had a smaller caliber than the tanks in the second phase of WW2, the tigers used the 88mm gun, the M36B1 tank destroyer and the M36 Jackson used the 90 mm gun, it had quite the punch and was not to be underestimated.
The QF 17 pounder 76.2 mm together with its APDS Saboth shell penetrated an astonishing 162 mm of armor at 3000 meters. That meant that even a German King Tiger Tank with 150 mm frontal armor could be taken out of action at 3 km distance. (The American 90 mm gun M3 with its best armor piercing shell T30E16 HVAP reached a penetrating capacity of 151 mm at 3000 meters). The QF 17 pounder 76.2 mm was in service from 1943.
17pdr Valentine, Mk I, Archer was produced 655 times by the end of the war.
