Talk:Cromwell tank

Origin of name

Was it named for Oliver Cromwell or Thomas Cromwell or someone else? And if Oliver, how'd it happen the name was changed from Cavalier to the leader of the Roundheads? -- orthogonal 12:26, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rich tea man - the cavalier was the same hull but with the suspeension form the crusader. the cromwell and centaurs had a new suspension system. also there was an upsized crusader called the covenanter but was only used for training . The cavalier, centaur and cromwell were developments of this.

The Covenanter was *smaller* than the Crusader, although both were developed at the same time and shared the same turret design. DMorpheus 19:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It would be Oliver as Thomas wasn't a fighting man. The "C" names all have a martial air to them, Churchill can also be taken as referring to the Duke of Marlborough and weren't picked with any particular party sensibility. GraemeLeggett 08:12, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

It would be inconcievable that the tank is named after anyone else other than Oliver Cromwell. British military designs are only rarely named after real characters and then they would be from an elite few of great military commanders such as Wellington, Churchill, or Cromwell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.5.25 (talk) 01:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Chice of image to illustrate

I'm not happy with the current image "Cromwell tank color.JPG".

• Main gun - although the muzzle looks right it appears to be welded solid onto the front of the turret and lacks the co-axial Besa MG
• Hull machine gun - a metal tube too long and fat for to be a Besa MG.

We need a better piccie for the article than this one - if we have to stick with it for the moment it should at least have some appropiate commentary added. GraemeLeggett 11:54, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Help

I need to know a lot about this tank. Please tell me what you know.

I'm pretty sure the bulk of what we can tell you is already in the article, with additional material on the external links. If that's not sufficient, you'll probably need to borrow or purchase a book on it. Oberiko 01:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Surviving vehicles?

Would it be of value, with quite rare armour such as this, if we had a subsection entitled surviving vehicles where a list of known tanks could be seen.--Gaspode the Wonder Dog 17:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on the number of them. If there are under ten, then it could contribute, but to much more then that and it starts overwhelming the article. The best solution would be to post a link to an external site which contains such information. Oberiko 23:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree about the danger of overwhelming the article but on the other hand the sites that list surviving tanks are always lacking in detail and invariably incomplete. I think that this is just the sort of thing Wikipedia is good at. Worst case scenario if they got too big they could make their own page. Unless there’s any strong objections I’ll give it a try and see who it works for the Cromwell.--Gaspode the Wonder Dog 08:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The armour world appears to lack a website as effective as britishaircraft.co.uk for listing survivors.GraemeLeggett 09:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

fastest ???

>The Cromwell was the fastest tank to serve in WW2 IS the word 'British' missed there ? 60 kmph cannot be the fastest tank! Just compare it to BT-7

The BT-7 maximum speed is running on roadwheels with tracks off; its more of an armoured car then.GraemeLeggett 10:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Continued use of the Liberty

Am I right in understanding that this continued to be used when it was somewhat past its best because Lord Nuffield had a vested interest in its continued production? I've heard something to this effect a couple of times but am unfortunately a bit short on remembering any useful details, but the impression I'm left with is that Nuffield could have produced Merlins instead of the Liberty but wouldn't, leading to the production of the somewhat underpowered A27L. If true, it sounds rather scandallous, but if false (or at least unsubstantiated or POV) obviously it's not something that could go in the article. Does anybody know anything more?
-- Chris (blather • contribs) 14:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this particular case, but two things come to mind. First, you'll never be able to prove it one way or the other. Second, it wouldn't be the first time something like this was done. Military procurement is no more honest than anything else, and it would be naive to think that in wartime everyone puts aside their profit motives. Ever notice how many Ford trucks the Wehrmacht drove?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by DMorpheus (talk • contribs) 15:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC).

I think I'm easily shocked because I'm sometimes too naive and prone to assume good faith inappropriately! But the mention of those two dreaded words, "military procurement", soon disabuses me of such notions...
-- Chris (blather • contribs) 16:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that the state the British were in at the time, with almost draconian power possessed by Churchill - as 'Minister of Defence' - and the War Cabinet, any such machinations by Nuffield would have been quickly suppressed. HMG could have simply requisitioned/confiscated all of Nuffield's assets due to his actions being detrimental to the war effort. They really would have done that if it had been necessary. And Lord Nuffield and his lawyers would have been unable to do anything about it. So no, it's not very likely, even assuming that Nuffied was the sort of person who put profit before his own country's interests.

The fact that Nuffield's factories were already tooled up for the Liberty would have led some people to advocate the continued use of the engine, for some managers/ministers, production over-rides utility - "A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush". Unfortunately the use of the Liberty at around 300hp severely limited the amount of armour that could be carried by a Cruiser Tank and by 1942-43 this amount was not enough. With hindsight the Merlin/Meteor should have been started earlier but then again, Merlin aero engine production took priority.

The whole British pre-war/wartime tank development story is a pretty gloomy one, mostly due to meanness/lack of money in the War Department's case, together with a lack-lustre approach to the tank by the Army, and lack of investment in the factories and machine tools by the companies involved. IIRC, the Matilda I was designed to a unit price of £5,000. Hardly a good way to go about procuring a fighting vehicle. And the Cromwell's and Comet's as well as the Chuchill's inability to mount a larger gun than a 6-pdr was due to failing to install large enough turret ring machining lathes at the factories. They simply couldn't machine a turret ring (the circular aperture in the top of the hull on which the turret is mounted and rotates) large enough to mount anything bigger. These were eventually purchased from the US and IIRC the first tank design on which they were used was the Black Prince.

The Cromwell was probably the first British tank that had bags of reliable power - around 600hp, although it was still under-gunned and under-armoured compared to contemporary German AFVs. The subsequent Comet narrowed the gap with a much better gun, whilst it wasn't until the Centurion that a British tank could be described as being an 'excellent' vehicle.

The one bright point in British AFV development was in wheeled AFVs, in-which Britain arguably led the world, the Daimler Armoured Car, Daimler Dingo, Humber Armoured Car, etc., being probably the best anywhere at the time.

BTW, IIRC the Liberty-engined A27L was produced because at the time the Meteor was in limbo having been modified by Rolls-Royce but not having yet entered full production. The RR Nottingham factory that produced them was at that time being transferred over to Rover in a deal that swapped the factory for Rover's Barnoldswick Whittle engine works. The A27L was just a stop-gap until production of the Meteor could start, otherwise they would have had a large number of engineless tanks lying around - it was either that or halt/delay production of the new vehicle, which you just can't do in war. Many Liberty-engined Cromwells were subsequently re-engined with Meteors.

The Meteor was the AFV designer's dream engine, as it had plenty of power - roughly twice that of previous British tank engines - and could be thrashed all day and not break.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.68.219 (talk) 21:26, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Cromwell in the IDF

From Moshe Givati - In their hands the steel was tempered [MoD 1998, p 20-21, 42]: Haganah members persuaded four British soldiers to desert with four Cromwell tanks; those were the last tanks that remained in a tank battalion camp in Haifa airport. On night 29/30 June 1948 three tanks were stolen (the engine of the fourth one didn't start); one got stuck in sand and was abandoned; the remaining two (Mk III and Mk IV) were brought to the Borochov neighborhood of Givatayim and hidden there from the British. The tanks were assigned to the 8th Armored Brigade (82th battalion, heavy tanks company) before Operation Danny (July 1948). The tanks were used in that operation, including an unsuccessful attack on Latrun on 18 July, and in some subsequent operations.

According to Oleg Granovskiy - Names, Designations and Service Figures of IDF Armored Vehicles (Russian; http://www.waronline.org/IDF/Articles/Armor/1948-1952_tanks.html), the tanks were retired in 1952.

The Armored Corps Museum in Latrun (Yad la-Shiryon) has two Cromwells: one with dummy gun Image:Cromwell-latrun-2.jpg and other Image:Cromwell-latrun-memorial-1.jpg which is a part of the WWII memorial along with Sherman and T-34-85 Image:WWII-Memorial-latrun-1.jpg. Wheteher these are the "original" two, I don't know. Bukvoed 10:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Imperial / metric

Being that this is a British vehicle, shouldn't the units be in metric first, and imperial second? Oberiko 13:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

They're known as Imperial units for a reason, and the UK hasn't quite gone wholly metric yet. GraemeLeggett 14:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but they're officially metric and it looks like most other British vehicles have metric before imperial. Oberiko 17:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Back in WW2 the British were still imperial, having imperial makes it a lot cleaner (as the vehicles were designed as imperial, rather than 2.5cm it would be 1 inch. (213.167.69.4 (talk) 10:08, 9 September 2013 (UTC))

Of the era?

Why does the era matter? When we describe the Gladius, we don't use Roman units. I'll take it to the Military History task force though, and get their input. Oberiko 18:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I've posted the question here. Oberiko 18:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

odd

Does anyone know why the centaur's turret was calibrated? I never understood that. --MKnight9989 13:24, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The painted calibration marks on the turrets of RMASG Centaurs and Shermans were used to adjust deflection when fire was being adjusted by an observer outside the tank. DMorpheus 13:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --MKnight9989 12:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC) Bold text

Change of Picture

Can someone PLEASE change the picture - It's completely the wrong tank , the photographed one being a Israeli jerry-rig if anything at all, and does not represent any Cromwell that operated in Western Europe during WW2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.202.204 (talk) 11:03, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Most common British tank design?

"Late in the war it was the most common British design in use, replacing the Sherman tank for some units."

Is there a source for this? There were about 4,000 Cromwells built but over 7,300 Churchills. Granted, the Churchill entered service earlier, so the statement may be correct for the late war period (say June 44 to May 45). Regards, DMorpheus (talk) 15:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The 2nd part of the sentance is somewhat accurate - Cromwell tanks generally equipped the recce armoured regiments and was the sole medium tank (bar Sherman OP and Fireflys etc) used by the 7th Armoured Division.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 20:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

That's right, the 7th was solely equipped with Cromwells and the recon battalions in other divisions had them. But the other British armored divisions (11th and Guards) had Shermans, and the Tank Brigades had Churchills. The Canadian, Polish and South African armored divisions had Shermans also.

British tank brigades were quite large, having more tanks than a typical German panzer division, so there had to have been a lot of Churchills around. I am simply asking if there is a source comparing Churchills in service compared to Cromwells in the last year of the war, because the assertion in the article is that the Cromwell was the most common British tank design in use, and the Churchill is the only possible rival. Thanks, DMorpheus (talk) 21:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Also to note i do not believe Cromwell tanks were shipped to Italy (or shipped in huge enough numbers), which would exclude quite a number of recce units and perhaps the South Africans?

I have information for 1944 but not 1945, however it may cast light on the figure for 1945.

According to Fortin during the Normandy campaign they were committed as following: 46 Cromwell tanks per recce unit and 61 Cromwell tanks per armoured regt of the 7th Armoured Division. Both figures include the few CS tanks as well.(Fortin, p. 82)

31st Tank Brigade, in Normandy, consisted of 67 Churchill tanks per battalion - including modified tanks.(`Clark, p. 36)

If the latter is standard among all Tank brigades that is 603 Churchill tanks in front line service and 321 Cromwell tanks in front line service (183 in the armoured regts and 138 in recce units - assuming only the 3 British armoured divisional reccce units used them)

That would perhaps cast doubts on the exact wording of the sentence in question but not nesscerraly disprove it.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Right, I hae never seen any reference to Cromwells used in Italy. AFAIK the recon units of the Italian-theater armored divisions used Stuarts. The Polish 1st Armored Division had some cromwells, presumably in their recon battalion (10th mounted rifles IIRC). The Canadian ADs didn't have any.

So it may well be that the Churchill was in fact the most numerous British-designed tank even in the last year of the war. Even the ~4,000 figure includes about 900 Centaurs, and only a few (a dozen or so) Centaurs ever saw combat. I suggest the sentence be removed until / unless someone can source it. Regards, DMorpheus (talk) 04:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Could be the case of a missing qualifier - add "cruiser" and its probably right since the Churchill is an infantry tank. The line also says "late in the war", by which time the earlier Churchills would be out of service giving about 3,200 of the 6 pdr and 75 mm gun tanks? GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

It's becoming obvious that none of us knows and we are all guessing. Adding "cruiser"....well, wasn't the Cromwell the *only* British cruiser in service after the Crusader was phased out in 1943, with the exception of a few Comets in the last months of the war?

I am going to remove the sentence and, if someone eventually can source it, they can put it back in. DMorpheus (talk) 14:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Cromwell/Centaur

This non tank enthusiast has been unable to work out what the difference is. Does the main article need clarification? 212.159.44.170 (talk) 14:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Having read the introductory paragraphs, I can see its definitely not clear. I've tried to address the issue, perhaps someone else can build on it. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:25, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

'Tankies' on BBC2 (Spring 2013)

I was an AFV enthusiast as a kid and have never quite lost a taste for it... The programme 'Tankies' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pvbds) on BBC2 recently focused on the 7th Armoured Division which was presented with Cromwells in preparation for D-Day. The programme presenter, Mark Urban, was a former officer in the Royal Tank Regiment and was critical of the Cromwell's design - conspicuously the narrow entrance/exit hatch and (emphatically) the Cromwell's presentation of flat surfaces to enemy shell fire. The shortcomings of the main gun - which ceded a 200 yard advantage to the Tiger tank - was also mentioned. Urban's remarks were bitterly endorsed by at least two extant members of the 7th Armoured, one of whom claimed that - after repeatedly complaining about the design of the Cromwell - he was warned that if he didn't shut up he would be court-martialled. Anyone who's read 'The Small Back Room' could readily believe this to be true.

I concede that Urban (as a tank man himself) was talking about the 'user point of view' and that there is a kind of prejudice attached to this. The low profile of the Cromwell was denigrated in the programme because it didn't enable crews to 'look over hedges' (a deficit pertinent to the Bocage conflict, but a boon - as the Wikipedia article rightly points out - in general conditions); nor did Urban remark upon the superior speed of the Cromwell (I must say, like a commentator above, I was also surprised to hear it cited as one of the fastest tanks in ww2... although can't disprove the claim).

Now, while tank crews might have been inclined to whinge overly about the shortcomings of their various marques - I do think the Wikipedia articles are often uncritically influenced by manufacturer's statistics and the historic claims of military PR machines. For example, Urban repeated the observation that Sherman tanks had a reputation for catching fire easily... he mentioned that the Brits called them 'Ronsons' (after the cigarette lighter) which I some time ago pointed out on the 'Talk' page of the curiously chauvinistic Sherman Tank Wikipedia article. I didn't then know, as Urban went on to say, that the Germans called them 'Tommy boilers' - which grimly reinforces claims for the Sherman's shortcomings.

I'm a T34 man, myself (!), but there is no such thing as a 'perfect tank'. The tendency to denigrate the worst of the British tanks by comparing them to the best of the German tanks was always a tiresome tendency in WW2 discussions. (A key aspect of tank design that seldom enters such comparisons was the ability to manufacture them reliably and at speed!). My own memory of the Cromwell is that it was generally seen in a less favourable light than this article presents it - its lengthy genesis (for a war-time tank) meant that it retained outmoded features in its core concept. My memory (which could be flawed) is that the Conqueror project (post WW2) that led to the eventual Chieftan Tank set out to consciously amend this failure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.197.102 (talk) 00:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The faults of British tanks during most of WW II were due to a combination of circumstances and decisions made at the time. The primary ones are the simple fact that the War Office and Army asked for types of vehicle that as it turned out were not what was subsequently needed, and on top of that, no-one wanted to pay for proper development. This was due to the trend toward disarmament during the 1930s and later due to the peculiar circumstances after the Fall of Dunkirk when the danger of invasion disrupted more measured analysis of the actual requirements.

For a design to make a good AFV you need a good reliable engine giving plenty of power, as well as a balanced combination of armour and firepower. For much of the war British tanks were often lacking in one, or sometimes all of these areas. If you don;t have the engine power then the vehicle is slow if heavily armoured, or must be lightly armoured if speed is a requirement. Hence the two classes of Infantry tank and Cruiser tank. If you are unable to machine a large enough diameter turret ring then you are limited in the size (and power) of gun that can be carried, the width of the hull also limiting the diameter of the turret ring, and therefore the gun size. Because of choices made higher up, and in what was available to them, the British AFV designers were therefore greatly limited in what they were able to design, and it is fair to say that it was only with the Centurion that the British Army and War Office finally asked for what was really needed. This was made possible by the availability of the Rolls-Royce Meteor and the 17-pdr gun. Prior to this British designer had always had to make choices between second- or third-best. For example the Fall of Dunkirk left the British so short of anti-tank guns - 2-pdrs - that the planned replacement - the much more potent 6-pdr - was delayed due to the urgent need for guns of any kind. So the tanks continued to be under-gunned for longer than they would otherwise have been - it was either that or no guns at all.

The Cromwell was a very reliable vehicle with plenty of power, but it was designed as basically an upgraded Crusader and so many compromises had to be made, again the turret ring diameter limiting the size of the gun that could be carried. This was why the 77mm HV was developed and used on the Cromwell's immediate successor, the Comet tank, as it was not possible to carry a 17-pdr in a turret on the Cromwell hull, as the gun breech was too long for the hull aperture at certain gun elevations. That's why the turret ring diameter limits the gun size that can be carried. The turret ring diameter also governs the hull width and hence overall vehicle width, so as gun size goes up you need a wider vehicle if you want it mounted in a 360-degree rotating turret. This can bee seen in the Black Prince development of the Churchill tank which is a noticeably wider vehicle in order to accommodate the larger turret ring for the 17-pdr. If the vehicle is wider the overall vehicle weight increases for a given armour thickness.

It is also only fair to point out that unlike the German and Soviet vehicles that were able to be transported almost exclusively overland by rail, the British and US tanks had to be suitable for transport by ship, which before the availability of LSTs and similar, meant that an AFV had to be light enough to be able to be lifted by dockside cranes for loading and unloading aboard ship. After the end of the North African Campaign this requirement was no longer a limitation for German designers and so vehicle weights were able to rise.

The Sherman was a good reliable tank but it faced the 88mm Flak and its tank gun derivatives which were extremely powerful guns for the time. In order to carry armour sufficient to resist the 88 and still be reasonably mobile a vehicle needed at least 500-600hp and needed to be designed from scratch using a clean sheet of paper rather than being a modification of an existing design. ISTR that the 88 would also knock out a T-34 at a mile as well as it would a Sherman or Cromwell. BTW, I know the Soviet Union was actually invaded in 1941 but it's one thing moving heavy industrial equipment overland by rail, as the Soviets were forced to do, and quite another having to do this by ship across the North Atlantic in autumn/winter which is what the British were facing.

So in short, the British tank designers were operating under certain specific limitations that the designers of Germany and the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent, the USA, were less limited by. A lot of the reasoning and governing factors aren't always obvious at first sight. They've rather made up for it since then though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 19:15, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

An interesting discussion - and quite right to have it here and not have editing wars! Just referring to the paragraph immediately above, it is important to remember these limitations. I think it was rail loading limitations that did limit the size of turret rings for instance, and British designers was asked to design tanks that could travel by rail. It's also interesting to see how British tank design was affected by the lack of a purpose built large scale tank industry. Designs were influenced by the ability of British industry to produce them with existing or modified plant. Eg how plate armour was bolted or welded onto a frame on the Cromwell and Churchill, and how a stepped rather than a sloped glacis on the hull was easier to produce. So indeed, not the finest tank of its era, but they were put into the field maintained, armed, fuelled,and with trained crews as part of a bigger all-arms team. They did their job, I'd say. Thanks for a good article and some good insights guys. Salute! Mungo Shuntbox (talk) 11:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The way I see it is that the Cromwell, Sherman, T34 and Pz4 were all equally awful, it was only because of the heavier German tanks like the Tiger and the Panther (which only made up a minority of axis armour) that give the Cromwell a bad name. When the Cromwell entered service it was going against the biggest and best German armour, so it was compared with it, whereas the Sherman and T34 were compared with the Pz4. The Cromwell wasn't a bad tank, its just that German over-engineering was far superior (apart from the all important production figures that is!). (213.167.69.4 (talk) 10:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC))