"The primary difference separating these cruiser classes was the weapons layouts. Light cruisers would have a single tank gun and a coaxial, while heavy cruisers would have one or two additional *machine guns* in the hull." Um...? "The roles themselves differed slightly, with light cruisers to act as screening and skirmishing tanks, while heavy cruisers would be more focused on engaging *enemy tanks* directly." I know just what we need to fight off those enemy tanks! Two extra machine guns! *Facepalm*
A good read on the Crusader is “Alamein to Zim Zim” by Keith Douglas. It is available on Kindle. He was a tank commander from El Alamein to the end of the North Africa campaign. Before the war he was a published poet. He died from a mortar round while scouting ahead of his Cromwell during Normandy.
Thank you for another fascinating video, I have loved the look of the Crusader ever since I made a couple of models of different marks of it when I was a kid.
Great video - as always. I can't subscribe to the naming theory even though I love your research - Covenanters and Crusaders are best know for their fighting, I'm not sure that the Boys Brigade alternative would be as inspiring, however I am good at being wrong! Happy Easter and looking forward to the next episode.
The British Army's tradition of naming cruiser tanks with words beginning with C is also a factor here, a tradition that continues into modern times. I've seen the A9 Cruiser Mk.I referred to as the Carden tank, in some documents.
Those small pointless turrets almost deserve a video all to themselves; how did they make it from the original concept through testing onto operational vehicles?
My Grandfather, was a Tank Captain, in North Africa in WW2, he told me that he was in the tanks we call A13, or Cruiser, Crusaders but were not known by that name, by him, i had may Airfix model tanks, and he identified the Crusader, as the ones he was in,
If you can admit to having a favourite tank then for some reason Crusader is mine. It may be the looks rather than anything else - but to me it appears to have what it takes in the tank prettiness department.
Crusader is easily one of my fav ww2 tank designs. I would have loved to have seen a "super crusader". Increase the size and armour thickness, a singular angles front plate, meteor engine and improved mantlet design with a 6pdr mollins gun or 77HV. MBT before it's time
Sadly, apart from limited advances (looking at Cavalier...) Nuffield seems to have decided to sit on its laurels with this design and generally hold up development. A major causal factor of The Great Tank Scandal... and probably delayed Cromwell development by more than a year.
Just FYI. Grew up in Lincoln, and whenever I heard it mentioned, Ruston Bucyrus was always pronounced as: Bu (like the first syllable of beauty) and cyrus, (as in Miley Cyrus).
The saga of British tank development pre-war is one replete with missed steps and opportunities. And by the time we did get sorted out following the invasion panic we was always a year behind. The Cromwell would have been superb in 43, it popped up in 44, the Comet would have been a godsend in 44 and around Normandy, it arrived in 45.
@@stevenbreach2561 Probably too much of an ask and would require more butterfly wing flaps earlier in the war, resulting in a very different series of tanks. Perhaps if Carden hadn't died in that plane crash it could have changed things.
To be fair to Cromwell, it probably was available in 1943 in the UK (based on production dates, they may have had teething issues still as it was a new tank and new engine) but there wasn't much need for another medium tank in Italy at the time. It just wasn't worth the effort of shipping them out and taking on the logistics burden of supporting a new tank type in that theatre.
@Armoured Archives I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but enjoying the content nonetheless. One small quibble though @8.16: Ruston Bucyrus (pronounced bew sigh rus) is in Lincolnshire, not Derbyshire. As is William Fosters (who made the first tanks). Hint: Lincoln (City) = Lincolnshires County seat. :)
Curious if the addition of mg turrets was something that was scene at the time as 'common sense' or was it based on actual war time experience from conflicts in the 20s-30s, but was just rapidly obsoleted by ww2?
The US also has an obsession with extra MGs at the time ('More dakka' as The Chieftain puts it). And some Soviet designs, and a couple of Germans. It seems to have been worldwide.
it probably made sense in the 20's - the idea of lots of mg's overalling each other, but as time pased, ranges increased and tanls started to take on their own identity they became less usfeull, by late 30s they were just a hindrance
It has always puzzled me why we could make great warships, amazing aircraft but couldn't sort out a good tank. As this excellent series shows it wasn't for want of trying.
Excellent work Armoured Archives. Do you or anyone else know if the External version of the Mantlet included the original Internal Mantlet behind it? I have looked at many sources but no definite information found.
The British had gone mad with specifications. There was very little practical reason to have this kind of proliferation of tank specifications. It was as if a tank installed with a kettle would have its own specification and formed a new category of tanks.
Great video ! I read somewhere that when the Cromwell came along later, they tested the meteor engine in a Crusader. They went above 80 kph with her if I remember correctly. Does it make any sense ? Cheers from Canada !
we hit a brick wall with a well known tank musuem who blocked acess to any documents held due to us correctign a few of their mistakes.. so any new stuff means travelign to london, which is expensive - sadly, well see
@@armouredarchives8867 Very sad about that Ed you have produced an excellent series. I didn't realise they could be so petulant & unable to take constructive criticism . Even museums can't get it right every time ! Hope you can find a way to carry on with the series 🙂👍
Are we going to get a Part 2 on the Crusader? + what does tweedlepip (?) mean at the end of each video? Its kind of a personal signature of yours - whats behind it? Anyways, I gather this is hard work, you arent doing this full time, keep up the quality, thus your channel will grow!
Did you know that RUclips transcribes a lot of what you say into Vietnamese? Under the video, next to "DESCRIPTION," click the three dots, and then click Open transcript.
I tend to think that, eventually the Covenantor was somewhat wasted being placed in the training role which could have been allocated to improvised Universal Carriers. Sure it had issues that were in time overcome, but it offered a decent highly mobile chassis that could have been returretted to an open tank destroyer or mobile artillery role, which would have enabled them to mount a more useful 6 pounder or better with some ease. Obviously theres something Im missing or Im some kind of tank genius.
@@lkchild yes I get that, but I think the training they were used for was more tactical and situational, not specifically how to operate a tank or particular tank.
Can İ ask a Question?Which crusader tank was used in COD 2(2005 ) Video Game?I çanta find it anyehere.İt has Machine gun is it but still cant recognize it.What is its name
here's a little brain teaser for you, I recently started watching the Crown on Netflix got to the episode dealing with the Suez crisis watched British Paras leaping out of a plane, next scene they are patrolling the streets backed up by a Saladin APC and wait for it.....a MKIII Crusader I'm like half thinking WTF and half studying it trying to work out if it was real or a really good replica I came to the conclusion it was a real running 6pr Crusader, but at the same time I'm thinking, historically should have been a Centurion we know there are quite a few of those in full running order, or depending on where the armoured units were based possibly Comets, not easy to get one of those to film with but where does one obtain a Crusader to film with these days.?
heya, so just watched it, no she’s not a crusader pure, she’s a vismod. as it approached you can see the front, to the right-hand side you can see the mesh covering a driver’s section (a trick also used in goldeneye) the structure on the left that normally held a driver is also incorrect, no lifting eyes, the hatches are wrong on the inside, likely wood, to the rear the big give away is the lack of final drive bulges to the left- and right-hand side, to the side you can see a clear gap/space in the driver’s faux cab, and the wheels are off. it’s quite a good vidmod when filmed in short clips/burst and with good camera angles, but it is most certainly a mock-up. Im rather surprised they took the effort to make this as a centurions were used in the Suez, and certainly not crusaders as the UK dropped those in 43. There were still a few vintage tanks around, notably the SU-100, one of which is still at Bovington tank museum from that operation, as well as some old Archers on a valentine hull.
@@armouredarchives8867 thank you for that guess I'm not as knowledgeable as I thought I was, but did you catch a (presented by) National Geographic series I believe called Hitler's last stand, Christ what a bodge up every German tank was a Centurion swathed in camouflage netting the tale about the crew of a Churchill Crocodile on loan to the Americans ran into a German roadblock going home tank commander appears at his hatch camera pans up a frikking huge wall of steel I think it was either a FV432 or an M113, showing the Crocodiles in action two M5 light tanks roll up then a studio 'flame projector' is fired from behind the tanks, every single piece of German artillery especially the 88s was I think a 40mm Bofors and to put the tin lid on it the main German officer in each episode (8) was played by the same actor sorry for ranting dude but the average TV addict will believe anything
All these definitions (heavy,medium & light) seems a little too pointless, if these tanks were intended for the cruiser role, they had to be fast, for the heavy roles there were the infantry ones. Therefore I think that it's incredible that the UK didn't standardize their tank force with just a pair of models, instead of wasting resources on less than stellar models, f.e. the 8th Army had Matildas, Crusaders, Valentines and Vickers, too many issues for maintenance
One of the best looking tanks of WWII. If her performance matched her looks the Crusader would have been a marvelous tank. Alas!
Great video!
cheers!
Not convinced the phrase "small pointless turrets" appeared in the documentation. Although it should have.
though that said martel is given a firm reprimand in the minutes about these
I get more comprehensive info here than any other channel excepting the Chieftain.
"The primary difference separating these cruiser classes was the weapons layouts. Light cruisers would have a single tank gun and a coaxial, while heavy cruisers would have one or two additional *machine guns* in the hull."
Um...?
"The roles themselves differed slightly, with light cruisers to act as screening and skirmishing tanks, while heavy cruisers would be more focused on engaging *enemy tanks* directly."
I know just what we need to fight off those enemy tanks! Two extra machine guns! *Facepalm*
A good read on the Crusader is “Alamein to Zim Zim” by Keith Douglas. It is available on Kindle. He was a tank commander from El Alamein to the end of the North Africa campaign. Before the war he was a published poet. He died from a mortar round while scouting ahead of his Cromwell during Normandy.
Thank you for another fascinating video, I have loved the look of the Crusader ever since I made a couple of models of different marks of it when I was a kid.
Our pleasure!
I just built a radio remote control 1/35 Crusader. As a running scale model, it is beautiful machine.
Great video - as always. I can't subscribe to the naming theory even though I love your research - Covenanters and Crusaders are best know for their fighting, I'm not sure that the Boys Brigade alternative would be as inspiring, however I am good at being wrong! Happy Easter and looking forward to the next episode.
Glad you like them!
Sir .... your work is truly impressive !!!! 👍👍👍
The naming thing is fascinating, don't you wish they had recorded their reasons, but we are just as guilty now even with all of our tech.
yeah well fingers crossed his personel papers will reveal more later this year
The British Army's tradition of naming cruiser tanks with words beginning with C is also a factor here, a tradition that continues into modern times.
I've seen the A9 Cruiser Mk.I referred to as the Carden tank, in some documents.
That was a fascinating tutorial, especially where the names came from! Thanks for sharing this.
Those small pointless turrets almost deserve a video all to themselves; how did they make it from the original concept through testing onto operational vehicles?
Fire powaa dat u never unDeRstanD!!!
@@HhHh-uh8lh Doh
Thank you for your outstanding attention to detail, keep up the great work.
Thanks, will do!
Great Chanel! I always keep an eye out for new videos, worth the wait.
Much appreciated!
Every time I hear 'a meeting was held', I get a bad feeling.
My Grandfather, was a Tank Captain, in North Africa in WW2, he told me that he was in the tanks we call A13, or Cruiser, Crusaders but were not known by that name, by him, i had may Airfix model tanks, and he identified the Crusader, as the ones he was in,
thanks, ed! another great video - looking forward to part 2! i always liked the look of the two tanks
Glad you enjoyed it
If you can admit to having a favourite tank then for some reason Crusader is mine. It may be the looks rather than anything else - but to me it appears to have what it takes in the tank prettiness department.
A handsome beastie!
Excellent info and very interesting many thanks again for bringing this old wwar horses stories back to life.
Glad you enjoyed it
Crusader is easily one of my fav ww2 tank designs. I would have loved to have seen a "super crusader". Increase the size and armour thickness, a singular angles front plate, meteor engine and improved mantlet design with a 6pdr mollins gun or 77HV. MBT before it's time
"looks at Covenanter tank"
Nuffield: *Its good, but it can be better.....*
Sadly, apart from limited advances (looking at Cavalier...) Nuffield seems to have decided to sit on its laurels with this design and generally hold up development. A major causal factor of The Great Tank Scandal... and probably delayed Cromwell development by more than a year.
Just FYI. Grew up in Lincoln, and whenever I heard it mentioned, Ruston Bucyrus was always pronounced as: Bu (like the first syllable of beauty) and cyrus, (as in Miley Cyrus).
ahh, thats good ty . - every day is a school day!
Weird isn't it? All I remember Nuffield for was publishing all the science text books I used at school in the early 1980's....gods, I'm getting old!
Excellent thanks
crusader and matilda ll, my favorite tanks... brilliant job, greetings
When are you doing the follow up as I’m dying to see that as I love the crusader tank
Interesting theory on the source of the name.
indeed, it is of specualtion until i can get to the nuffiled papers later this year, but occams razors it makes much more sense
And there I was half expecting the next video to be on Cheese and Biscuits at Chertsey...
Another great video - thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it
One small thing, Ruston bucyrus.
It's pronounced "Ruston Beuw-sci-rus"
I hope that helps.
Great channel, love the content.
The saga of British tank development pre-war is one replete with missed steps and opportunities. And by the time we did get sorted out following the invasion panic we was always a year behind. The Cromwell would have been superb in 43, it popped up in 44, the Comet would have been a godsend in 44 and around Normandy, it arrived in 45.
How about the Centurion as a what if in 1944?
@@stevenbreach2561 Probably too much of an ask and would require more butterfly wing flaps earlier in the war, resulting in a very different series of tanks. Perhaps if Carden hadn't died in that plane crash it could have changed things.
To be fair to Cromwell, it probably was available in 1943 in the UK (based on production dates, they may have had teething issues still as it was a new tank and new engine) but there wasn't much need for another medium tank in Italy at the time. It just wasn't worth the effort of shipping them out and taking on the logistics burden of supporting a new tank type in that theatre.
@Armoured Archives I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but enjoying the content nonetheless. One small quibble though @8.16: Ruston Bucyrus (pronounced bew sigh rus) is in Lincolnshire, not Derbyshire. As is William Fosters (who made the first tanks). Hint: Lincoln (City) = Lincolnshires County seat. :)
ahh yes, well spotted my bad, tsk. wonder why i said derby.. brain fart moment. ty
Oh SH*T! There's no part two??? : (
Curious if the addition of mg turrets was something that was scene at the time as 'common sense' or was it based on actual war time experience from conflicts in the 20s-30s, but was just rapidly obsoleted by ww2?
The US also has an obsession with extra MGs at the time ('More dakka' as The Chieftain puts it). And some Soviet designs, and a couple of Germans. It seems to have been worldwide.
it probably made sense in the 20's - the idea of lots of mg's overalling each other, but as time pased, ranges increased and tanls started to take on their own identity they became less usfeull, by late 30s they were just a hindrance
Interesting
It has always puzzled me why we could make great warships, amazing aircraft but couldn't sort out a good tank. As this excellent series shows it wasn't for want of trying.
Excellent work Armoured Archives. Do you or anyone else know if the External version of the Mantlet included the original Internal Mantlet behind it? I have looked at many sources but no definite information found.
I'm not sure, i would need top check
I wonder if anyone from any country, thought...Lets just make a medium Tank for all rolls ? I get bridge requirements were important.
I wonder if the British Cromwell is a successor to this tank
The British had gone mad with specifications. There was very little practical reason to have this kind of proliferation of tank specifications. It was as if a tank installed with a kettle would have its own specification and formed a new category of tanks.
Great video ! I read somewhere that when the Cromwell came along later, they tested the meteor engine in a Crusader. They went above 80 kph with her if I remember correctly. Does it make any sense ?
Cheers from Canada !
They did indeed, the first cromwells were bades on crusader so they needed to see how it worked etc, it did indeed hit 80
Trying not to be pushy but how's the investigation and research into Crusader progressing?
its will get there, ive got to do SP4 first, then FMBT 5 , then Crusader 2 or Fox 3
What's happened to the excellent armoured archives series, not seen any new posts for a couple of months , hope all is well with Ed ?
we hit a brick wall with a well known tank musuem who blocked acess to any documents held due to us correctign a few of their mistakes.. so any new stuff means travelign to london, which is expensive - sadly, well see
@@armouredarchives8867 Very sad about that Ed you have produced an excellent series. I didn't realise they could be so petulant & unable to take constructive criticism .
Even museums can't get it right every time ! Hope you can find a way to carry on with the series 🙂👍
Are we going to get a Part 2 on the Crusader? + what does tweedlepip (?) mean at the end of each video? Its kind of a personal signature of yours - whats behind it? Anyways, I gather this is hard work, you arent doing this full time, keep up the quality, thus your channel will grow!
il get on with crusader 2, takes time to go over the original docs etc. Toodle-pip, a sort of UK goodbye, fairwell see you soon expression.
Did you know that RUclips transcribes a lot of what you say into Vietnamese? Under the video, next to "DESCRIPTION," click the three dots, and then click Open transcript.
I tend to think that, eventually the Covenantor was somewhat wasted being placed in the training role which could have been allocated to improvised Universal Carriers.
Sure it had issues that were in time overcome, but it offered a decent highly mobile chassis that could have been returretted to an open tank destroyer or mobile artillery role,
which would have enabled them to mount a more useful 6 pounder or better with some ease.
Obviously theres something Im missing or Im some kind of tank genius.
your not wrong, that was the same view from serveral at the top at the same time.
although UCs for the most part steer and behave very differently.
@@lkchild yes I get that, but I think the training they were used for was more tactical and situational, not specifically how to operate a tank or particular tank.
Can İ ask a Question?Which crusader tank was used in COD 2(2005 ) Video Game?I çanta find it anyehere.İt has Machine gun is it but still cant recognize it.What is its name
Too many British cruiser and infantry tanks had turret rings that were too small.
yup yup, but for reasons, which i need to cover at some point, for that we need to blame the victorians
I submit that until the Churchill and Comet tanks they ALL had turret rings that were too small!
here's a little brain teaser for you, I recently started watching the Crown on Netflix got to the episode dealing with the Suez crisis watched British Paras leaping out of a plane, next scene they are patrolling the streets backed up by a Saladin APC and wait for it.....a MKIII Crusader I'm like half thinking WTF and half studying it trying to work out if it was real or a really good replica I came to the conclusion it was a real running 6pr Crusader, but at the same time I'm thinking, historically should have been a Centurion we know there are quite a few of those in full running order, or depending on where the armoured units were based possibly Comets, not easy to get one of those to film with but where does one obtain a Crusader to film with these days.?
heya, so just watched it, no she’s not a crusader pure, she’s a vismod. as it approached you can see the front, to the right-hand side you can see the mesh covering a driver’s section (a trick also used in goldeneye) the structure on the left that normally held a driver is also incorrect, no lifting eyes, the hatches are wrong on the inside, likely wood, to the rear the big give away is the lack of final drive bulges to the left- and right-hand side, to the side you can see a clear gap/space in the driver’s faux cab, and the wheels are off. it’s quite a good vidmod when filmed in short clips/burst and with good camera angles, but it is most certainly a mock-up.
Im rather surprised they took the effort to make this as a centurions were used in the Suez, and certainly not crusaders as the UK dropped those in 43. There were still a few vintage tanks around, notably the SU-100, one of which is still at Bovington tank museum from that operation, as well as some old Archers on a valentine hull.
@@armouredarchives8867 thank you for that guess I'm not as knowledgeable as I thought I was, but did you catch a (presented by) National Geographic series I believe called Hitler's last stand, Christ what a bodge up every German tank was a Centurion swathed in camouflage netting the tale about the crew of a Churchill Crocodile on loan to the Americans ran into a German roadblock going home tank commander appears at his hatch camera pans up a frikking huge wall of steel I think it was either a FV432 or an M113, showing the Crocodiles in action two M5 light tanks roll up then a studio 'flame projector' is fired from behind the tanks, every single piece of German artillery especially the 88s was I think a 40mm Bofors and to put the tin lid on it the main German officer in each episode (8) was played by the same actor sorry for ranting dude but the average TV addict will believe anything
@@misolgit69 Indeed thats a particulalry bad one
All these definitions (heavy,medium & light) seems a little too pointless, if these tanks were intended for the cruiser role, they had to be fast, for the heavy roles there were the infantry ones. Therefore I think that it's incredible that the UK didn't standardize their tank force with just a pair of models, instead of wasting resources on less than stellar models, f.e. the 8th Army had Matildas, Crusaders, Valentines and Vickers, too many issues for maintenance
you started talking about the crusader after 3/4 of the video
also can't hear anything, volume is too low
actually you didn't talk about the crusader at all, you just went on a tangent about crusaders and covenanters
Like all British tanks it was built at a price And the poor tankers who were to use them paid the price
Struggles to not take jerusalem.
Toodle pip😂