Re: British Tanks

"Tero P. Mustalahti" <termusta@xxxxxx> wrote

I think many who people believe that the Crusader was really bad fail to
realize, that the poor performance of Crusader equipped units against the
Germans had as much to do with inproper tactics as with the actual tanks.

Up to a point, yes. The British early-war policy, faithfully carried out by
the armoured regiments, was for their tanks to seek out and destroy the Axis
armour in some sort of cavalry battle. At the same time, the Germans had a
policy of using its armour as a manoeuvre element to attack the soft rear
elements of enemy forces, while using infantry and lines of AT guns to hold
off enemy armour. How those two policies translated in practice is that the
British armour all too often gallantly immolated itself on Axis gun lines,
while the Axis armour survived to ravage the British LOC, forcing British
retreat.

But, even in the best possible world, the early British cruiser tanks would
always have been marked by a degree of mechanical unreliability and lacking
a decently-sized HE gun (although I suppose if the British had not
positioned their armour as an anti-tank force, they might have fitted a
better HE gun anyway - they certainly did not lack candidates).

.

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