Cromwell 2 - Tank Design & Development
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- A look at the design and development of the Cromwell II, this tank is part of the regular A27M family, although only 2 were ever made and over the years it’s often been mixed up with other projects or forgotten about. Hopefully his video will put some fact straight and highlight an interesting vehicle in the Cromwell family.
While various uses of cromwell II have been circulated around in the past there was never any clear documentation of this name, we can now confirm this vehicle is cromwell 2 and the name rercorded in period print.
Oh well.. British tank development seems to be rather... unintuitive to understand at times! Thank you for making these videos about even the odd ends of such "niche" type vehicles. Always interesting to watch those!
My Grandad was an AT Gunner in the Royal Artillery from 39-46, He talked about Testing the Centaur's Armour.
Note how much older Viscount Nuffield was than the other engineers...
I don't know what it was about the culture of that era in particular where the older engineers were slow to adapt to new technology & blindly went ahead with what they were already doing, to the detriment of their country in a time of need.
As an American I have to say I really prefer British designs for tanks from a strict visual profile. British tanks for me just look exactly like what I imagine tanks should look like
Excellent bit of detective work, ty for sharing!
thanks ed for another interesting video! i was only aware of this vehicle from Chamberlain & Ellis' book on US & UK tanks of WW2.
Great to see a new video from you. Well done.
Bloody good show sir!
I wish you and yours a very happy and prosperous 2022!
Carry on.
The only time Leyland made the right decision regarding an engine was putting the short block Chevvy in the Rover SD1...😁
Is that some weird prototype? I thought SD1's had the same rubbish Buick engine as every other Rover?
I disagree,and this video makes the point
It's "Chevy", and the engine was a Buick design, not a Chevy. Aside from that, great post.
@@mattteee2973 it was indeed that engine and not a Chevrolet engine
Don’t get Leyland motors mixed up with British Leyland, Leyland motors up until the government made them take over BMC was a fantastic industrial business making innovative bus & truck designs with well made Diesel engines the Chieftain engine was poor mainly because it used a multi fuel system !
Don't worry about upside down casting numbers, I collect bricks, yup I'm a plintologist, anyway, I've a NORI brick, where the letters were placed into the mould as you read them, but came out back to front when produced. So the turret letters were placed in the mould as the worker read them the right way round, but were the wrong way round when the turret was cast.
awesome ty
Your posts are great. However, the problem common to most of them is that they're too short. You obviously have a great depth of understanding of your subject, please spend more time sharing it. Thanks.
most posts are very dependent on how may images survive, the less there is the shorter the post, as avg youtube viwers zone out if the same image is up for more than 30 seconds. - if i have a file with a lot of images and drawings it will be longer typically
Very informative sir. Thank you for sharing the results of your investigation.
This was very interesting and had it entered service it might have been a successful design. It certainly seem to be resistant to 25 pdr shot. Thanks for sharing this as the Cromwell, Cavalier and Centaur were my favorite British tanks.
I only discovered your channel recently, and thanks to a pesky dose of CoVid, I've been binge watching them.
Thank you for an informative and entertaining series. In my mind's eye, I see you producing them in a potting shed at the bottom of your garden.
So thanks...and I wish you a happy Christmas ⛄ and prosperous New Year.
Glad you enjoy it!
I enjoy these well researched videos. Thanks ❤
Theirs something about tanks that attracts all the best people, merry crimble Ed, aw ra best
Excellent video!
It's like The Chieftain meets Ian McCullum (Forgotten Weapons)!
Hey, AA, The Chieftain sent me. Likey.
A27L Centaur (od Cromwell II 3:25) is on exposition at Muzeum Broni Pancernej in Poznań, Poland - the city I live in :)
Cholera poważnie?
Wooow great video!!!🥳
I wish they added this Cromwell to War Thunder, by the If by any chance you read this comment, do you know if the 3D model of Cromwell I gun on WarThunder is incorrect?
Good job again.
It's not just the turret that looks like it came off a Churchill. The plate in front of the driver and hull gunner also looks like it came off a Churchill.
All nations tanks are based on their previous designs and share common features. Its normal.
Only if you're blind
What a convoluted and very British story. It seems sometimes the British defence industry hasn't changed much. Luckily it seems American industry didn't have problems like this with the Sherman.
With a name like 'ROBOT-ham', he was BORN FOR that work. 😉
Excellent research. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome! 👍
I would love to have been there to see a Crusader Tank come flying by me at 80 km/h, even by todays standards 80 km/h is very fast for a tank.
Great video Ed!
I wanna drive that Metoer swapped Crusader
As long as you don't expect to go around any corners! 😀
i wish these obscure british prototypes are seen more in tank games, they're so neat imo
You are confusing the issue. The Cromwell II was the original reference to the A27L Centaur as you mentioned. The Vauxhall Cromwell was designated Cromwell MkII and is one of the original A27M Cromwell III family. You forgot to include the "Mk" (Mark) in your designation of the Vauxhall Cromwell and you forgot the mention the Vauxhall pilot had a hull that was one of the first all-welded types. It was later used for BRCW tanks but with later D Type engine deck layout entering service as the Cromwell MkVw or MkVIIw depending on the tracks.
no ive pointed out that this is part of the A27M line, and particulary that there is a designation issue with the original cromwell 1/2/3system and that this tank is part of the A27M line, however in the docs for this its simply called Cromwell II. they do not use Mark as a sub catergory. i was goign to cover the welded part but other images have shown an all welded cavalier etc as well as cast cavaliers etc, which predate this and indicate that there was earlier work done and would be usefull for a new video.
I already finde the a and fv numbers confusing enough. And now thereis this 😄
That Meteor-powered Crusader that can do >80 km/h should definitely be added to War Thunder!
Too bad Britain rarely gets anything new apart from that African vehicle dump a while back
Cheeky buggers... thanks for your hard work!
Amazing that this late in the war, British tank designers took no notice of the development of sloped armour in tank design.
They did, very much so, and looked at in in depth, inc adding it to cromwell and comet, but the downsides outweighed the postives at that time, we had sloped armour before ww2 and centurion from 43 was designed with it in mind
Seems to me, not only by this video, that the British used a lot of energy on developing variants, instead of consolidating and simplifying...
Some variants seemed to be developed purely out of a single persons preferences instead of out of what was asked for by frontline personel.
Maybe, but if you look at the ones that actually entered production, they made very sensible decisions. British tanks were the best tansk of the war, in that they were always a good balance of protection, speed and firepower. For example, the Matilda was immune to all German guns other than the 88mm.
@@anzaca1 Also not immune from the 47mm. L.43 PaK.36(t), 50mm. L.60 PaK.38, 75mm. L.48 PaK.39, 75mm. L.48 PaK.40, etc.
Anzac-A1 nah team sherman babyyy
@@CZ350tuner most of which were unavailable to the Germans in North Africa at the time, The Matilda had the thickest armour of any tank in production at the start of the war
Italian tanks stood little chance against them, that was also true initially for the Germans, they had to upgun their forces there as a result, after that yeah they quickly became less useful and the Matilda was put into secondary roles, such as mine clearance
They did however do well in the Jungles in the Eastern war against Japan, being used extensively by the Australians making the Matilda the only British tank to serve in frontline service for the entire war
And Egypt used them against Israel in 1948
I'm still annoyed that the matilda BP never went into combat.. they had the wide shouldered hulls but were just so damn slow in shoving Cromwell turrets on them... the ausies ended up using them with normal mat turrets but I'm sure they could have used the extra firepower....
It's almost like a version of the air ministry.. where people went out of their way to deny useful equipment to out men in a time relevent manner....
OMG. How the Bloody Hell was any Tank ever Produced, with Every company pulling in differnt Directions.
Typical British B.S. and Red Tape. And I am British by Birth. Led to Believe it was all 'One for All and All for One..!'
Great Video and Research.
Toodle Pip old chap indeed.! And Gawd Help us..!
Cheers kim in Oz 😎
How thick is the new turret?
the same give or take a few mm
I think we lack perspective or perhaps we have too much of it due to hindsight. I think we underestimate the panic or desperation in wartime Britain when facing an army of fanatical Nazis equipped with what must have seemed like super weapons. The tank board trying to get as many companies and factories to create the required war materiel without wielding the control and power of a total dictator who could dictate exactly what he wanted. In Germany if you failed to deliver what Hitler wanted you might simply die and I am sure that focussed the mind very keenly. Trying to make British automotive magnates do your bidding was probably as difficult as herding soup. That coupled with the desire to fulfil that army expectation of 9,000 tanks to face the might of the Nazis might cause a production panic where you just try to build as many tanks as possible. There was also a shortage of engine manufacturing capacity and a multiplicity of designs. At that time they could not know which design would fail and which would ultimately succeed. Sometimes the sufficient is the enemy of the best.
Hitler had very little oversight over German tank design, doctrine, or production, at least in the critical period interwar and early war period. An example of this would be up-armoring of Panzer IIIs from 37mm to 50mm guns. Hitler ordered that all Panzer IIIs be up-armored to the newer guns in 1940...and was promptly ignored by industry leaders who had a supply system built around the 37mm, similar to the Brits with their 2 pounder. It was only when Hitler saw Panzer IIIs on parade, still with the 37mms, that he angrily forced the issue, by which point the need for the newer gun had been widely recognized.
American war production was similarly chaotic. Do you know the difference between an M3A1 and an M3A5? But the Americans knew how to build reliable engines and transmissions and starting from scratch, without the WW1 thinking of the Brits, gave them an advantage.
@@kirishima638 Well, yes, I don't dispute that but it is not really precisely relevant to the point I made. It was more about the mid war period and the imperatives that drove British war production in comparison to that which drove the Germans.
Herding soup 🍲.
This I like. 🤤
@@kirishima638 I agree, except for:
the Liberty engine was an American design not British,
The AEC, Leyland & Gardener engines were all considered reliable,
but were designed for double deck buses & rigid trucks, and once the weight went up in tanks,
they were not powerful enough singly.
@@stephenarbon2227 Yes the Liberty was American. It was also completely outdated and underpowered. The Americans themselves no longer used it.
Savalier, Sentaur, Sromwell? Makes perfect kents. Perhaps it's the Seltic pronunciation. ;)
BTW, it's not really a Cromwell without all the nipples on the turret.
The mislabeling of an A9 cruiser as a 'valentine' in that Bermingham Railway poster really annoys me...
yeah, tho tbh, not me who did it :)
3:05 corruption detector activated
And God said "Let there be Leyland" and behold there was Leyland and God said "WTF have i done!!!!" 😱
Obviously should have said IRON
_To make things complicated, ask the British._
Isn't that just the truth, eh?
@Zeph - you sure got that right!
Last time I was this early I'd just lost my virginity.
Great content as always!
A new World of Tanks premium tier VI or VII British medium tank!
WG nobbed it up... and added this turret to the cavalier in the game
@@armouredarchives8867 you're right. Well that wont stop 'em anyway! money, money, money, money, money.......
cant help feel hes a author of 3 my books ...🤔
And people criticise German Engineering LOL. It seems to me that those in charge were too detached from the reality of the battlefield and how urgent it was to get good tanks to the boys doing the dirty work. Something to do with the class system?
Leyland.....Hitler's other secret weapon! 😱
here's off the wall Question for you do you have any knowledge of Cromwell 'kangaroos' being used as armoured artillery tractors complete with limber ? this question is based a short piece of wartime footage I suspect in France not long after the invasion cos it involves à massive traffic jam crossing through the line of trucks comes a turretless Cromwell packed with steel helmets ha lol 😇 towing a 25 pounder limber but, just before the gun appears the cameraman moves the bl##dy camera
no, there is a cromwell arv with crew inside with no turret, but not a kangeroo apc which was a sepperate thing
@@armouredarchives8867 yes but towing an artillery piece? with about 7-8 guys inside ? sorry if I'm being obtuse
possibly time for a bit of mea culpa, maybe in the 45 seconds or so of visible film I misidentified the vehicle I've just found out that anti tank regiments were equipped in Italy with Crusader towing 17 per with limber and had a right old mix of equipment towed and SP it's possible some units were still using that combination in France Duh slaps forehead in frustration
@@misolgit69 The Crusader 17 pdr towing vehicle was a common sight in Normandy.
Normal history, the Germans was foolish in spend there R&D on many different tanks, insted of focus on a few, Great Britain hold my Tea.
Poor commoners losing their lives in war while the rich bicker over who gets to profit.
In what way did favouritism “run rampant” at the time? The use of weasel words doesn’t do your channel any favours.
How is that intentionally ambiguous or misleading?