Britain,s deseret crusader: the cruiser tank of 1941

Pricing & History

Sold for
Start Free Trial or Sign In to see what it's worth.
Sold Date
Source eBay UK

The Tank: The Crusader was a development of an earlier fast "cavalry" tank that saw action in France in 1940, via the intermediate Covenanter model that saw no action and was used only for crew training. Seeing action in Libya in late 1941, the Crusader was designed to be an ultra-fast tank capable of almost twice the maximum speed of the German Panzer IV. Its strong points were to be its superior speed and manoevrability, and armour thickness and weight of gun were sacrificed to bring this about. However, the tank was handicapped in action by the mechanical unreliability that had plagued its predecessor, the Covenanter, and it took a good year to iron out the flaws in a design that had been rushed into action too soon. It saw action in three marks up until the end of the North African war in 1943, and was then down-rated as obselete for further combat. Gun tanks were converted into troop carriers, anti-aircraft tanks or artillery towers, and a Crusader lineage could be seen in its succcessor tanks - the Cromwell, the Comet and the Centurion, the last of which was in front-line British service as late as the 1970's. A must for any collector interested in the development history of British tanks, and the "family line" that stretches back from today's Challenger 2 to the cavalry cruisers of the early 1940's. The model: The kit is read more

Items in the Price Guide are obtained exclusively from licensors and partners solely for our members’ research needs.

Flag item for content or copyright

If this item contains incorrect or inappropriate information please contact us here to flag it for review.

If you are the originator/copyright holder of this photo/item and would prefer it be excluded from our community, contact us here for removal.