Cromwell Cruiser Tank 1942–50

Reports on the effectiveness of Cromwell on the battlefield are compounded of official wishful thinking, personal loyalty or simply misunderstanding. One commentator, writing in the Royal Armoured Corps Journal, reported on the fate of those Cromwells destroyed in the debacle at Villers Bocage on 14 June 1944. The writer describes Cromwell as ‘the new British Cruiser tank’ but that its armour was not in the same class as Panthers and Tigers. The fate of some 4th County of London Yeomanry's tanks, he says was ‘a mishap that put the case against British tank design far better than a dozen speeches in Parliament could do’. Cromwell may have been Britain’s latest tank, but it was hardly new, and on welded types the frontal armour was exactly the same thickness as Tiger. It was the gun that was the problem. In fact, given precisely the same circumstances, no tanks could have survived what happened outside Villers Bocage, not even if 4th CLY themselves had been equipped with Tigers.

The best sources of operational information on Cromwell are 21st Army Group Technical Reports. The Cromwell had few chances to show its spurs until The Great Swan, the amazing dash across France to Belgium. The tank was praised for its reliability, the only major problem being roadwheel tyres that began to crumble under the strain. A shortage of spare road wheels led to some units cannibalising their Crusader AA tanks, so Cromwells began to appear with a mixture of solid and perforated tyres.

The autumn of 1944 saw a return to positional warfare, with engines overheating as mud and fallen leaves clogged air intakes. This malfunction was made worse where crews piled on extra stowage that masked air intakes, until they were ordered to stop.

Mines were also a menace and Cromwells seemed to have been particularly vulnerable; the explosion could twist a hull out of alignment, causing the tank to be written off. Mine blast would also buckle trackguards, jamming hatches and preventing escape. The Czech Brigade solved this by fitting tack-welded panels instead of trackguards; these would simply break off, leaving the hatch clear. The practice of welding spare track links to tanks as additional protection was popular, but frowned upon as ineffective by experts. Yet there is evidence of one Cromwell IV surviving five direct hits from a 75mm PaK 40 at 274m (300yd) while a nearby tank, without such protection, was knocked out.