Crusader and Covenanter - Great Britain: Books - History, Types and Construction

Crusader and Covenanter Cruiser Tanks 1939-45 (Osprey)

The Covenanter (which never saw active service) and Crusader Cruiser tanks were developed between 1939 and 1940. The Crusader first saw action in the North African desert in June 1941: its speed and sleek design made it a hard target to hit, and the tank was well-respected by the Afrikakorps for its velocity in combat. But its hurried development prior to World War II also made it prone to mechanical failure.

This book examines the Covenanter and the many variants of the Crusader tank, detailing the designs, developments and disappointments of these infamous World War II tanks.

Contents: Design and Development - Technical Analysis - Variants - The Crew - Operational History - Variants.

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A13 Mk.I & Mk.II Cruiser Tanks - A Technical History

The A13 Cruiser Tank was created by Colonel Giffard Le Quesne Martel after he had witnessed the performance of the fast Soviet BT tanks while on a military mission to Russia in 1936. These had in turn been developed from a prototype tank designed by the mercurial American engineer J. Walter Christie.

The British Army quickly imported one of Christie's tanks and set about modifying it to suit their requirements, in collaboration with Lord Nuffield. The result, achieved in a mere two years, was a powerfully armed, highly mobile, though lightly armoured tank.

This book follows the development history of the A13 up to and including the Battle of France, where any merits it may have possessed were overshadowed by poor preparation and the inadequate organisation and tactics of the Royal Armoured Corps.

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A13 Cruiser Mk. V Covenanter Tank - A Technical History

The Covenanter was intended to be the main equipment of the Armoured Divisions during the early years of the Second World War, and was a generally reliable tank that was well suited to its primary task of home defence.
Due to a rather convoluted series of events, mainly involving material shortages, it would not see service overseas, and as Britain's strategic circumstances evolved it would increasingly be used as a training tank.

If the Covenanter's active service was relatively uneventful, its development life was the very opposite, with two drastically different variants of the original machine being created, and constant refinement being undertaken while it was in the hands of its users.
The Covenanter was reflective of the many blind spots in the British Army's pre-war thinking as regards Armoured Fighting Vehicles, and from its travails much practical experience was gained that benefited subsequent tank designs.

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A15 Cruiser Mk. VI Crusader Tank - A Technical History

There can be few tanks that have proved as controversial in their deployment as the Crusader, a tank that was invested with high hopes on its entry into service in 1941. This book investigates in unprecedented detail the issues that impinged on its service life.
Drawing extensively on original archive sources, a new perspective is drawn on both the employment of the tank itself, and on British tank development of the era. The complex story that unfolds encompasses many interwoven and sometimes contradictory threads, allowing the author to reach both perceptive and surprising conclusions.

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A30 Challenger Tank - A Technical History

The A30 Challenger was devised during 1942 as a means of mounting the powerful 17 pounder anti-tank gun on the chassis of what was intended to be the British Army's next Cruiser tank, the Cromwell. The subsequent development programme was subject to a degree of controversy as to the role and efficacy of such a vehicle, and, in the event, only 200 machines were ordered.

The first examples did not see action until August 1944, and even then they were often viewed only as "stop-gaps" until the arrival of the A34 Comet. However, there were those, especially among its design team at Rolls-Royce in Belper, Derbyshire, who came to believe that the Challenger represented a missed opportunity to provide the Army with an unprecedented combination of firepower and mobility.
This book examines the story of what would be an innovative and successful, if somewhat rarefied, tank and its subsequent development as a self-propelled anti-tank gun.

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