How The Cromwell Reinvented Britains Approach To Tanks | Tanks! | War Stories

After inventing the tank in WW1, Britain failed to capitalize on this emerging technology. Germany did however and the full effects of this were seen in the unstoppable wave of Blitzkrieg in WW2. To combat Hitler's Panzers, Britain turned to a new type of tank, The Cromwell.

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[craigbeaumont]

The image used to state that "Forced the British to flee the continent, leaving it's tanks on the beaches at Dunkirk" is from The Dieppe Raid by the Canadians in 44.

[Boric]

The old boy at 36 mins talking about having to order his tank to drive over bodies. Nothing but total respect for him and his peers. Go through that and still retain your humanity. There are reasons they are called the Greatest Generation.

[alanvaughan]

My father was a commander of a "Cromwell Tank" In the "Guards armoured division".His tanks name was "Fulham". This tank came back with him to the UK after the completion of the Disarming of the Germans.!!
I understand it was one of a few tanks that was employed that came back at the end of the war!!

[bwilliams]

35:45 My grandfather served as a Sherman tank commander on Iwo jima, and I was the only person he told all his war stories to. He told me about being ordered forward when the beach was so covered with dead and wounded that 'you couldn't step between them.' He never said directly that he ran over wounded Marines, but he was gravely serious about it when he mentioned it, and he only told me about it near the end of his life.

[davidstevenson]

There's no doubt in my mind that the turret of the Cromwell tank was the inspiration for the design of the Daleks of Doctor Who.

[trevorbromidge]

Listening to this and the arguments in the 30's about costs and cutting military spending is like listening to todays news. History is there to learn not dispise.

[kumasenlac]

16:13 The British were unable to use tanks effectively because the man who knew (Percy Hobart), and had written the textbooks in the 1930s, was of the wrong class and therefore his opinion was of no interest. Heinz Guderian had copies of everything that Hobart wrote, translated into German, and carried them with him throughout the war.

[richardthornton]

May sound nit-picking, but the footage of Churchill tanks on that pebbly beach most probably is Dieppe, it’s definitely not Dunkirk.
Great video tho 👍

[grizzlycountry]

15:10 Bryan Perrett should be a used car salesman. He says how good it was before everyone points out that it was garbage.

[bhut]

Art Boon ran a 50 cal on top of a Sherman or Firefly from Juno Beach and up through the Netherlands. He said there were so many wounded and Canadians on Juno Beach that they turned and eventually found a way up. He joined at age 15 and just passed away two years ago. Art was brave humble man, ever "Audox et Cautus".

[anvil]

@0:38 "Spring 1940 Germany... ...forced the British to flee the continent. Leaving it's tanks on the beaches at Dunkirk"
Looks alot like Canadian Churchill tanks on the beaches of Dieppe in1942 to me. Hope the rest of this is a bit more acurate

[markasp]

Re: the German 88mm in 1941/ '42

The Germans, especially Rommel, used their 88mm anti-aircraft gun as an anti-tank gun against British cruiser tanks, which in 1941 and early 1942 ONLY had 2-pounders, firing anti-tank shells, with NO high explosive shells at all. Yet the British also had an anti-aircraft gun - the QF 3.7-inch AA gun (with an even wider calibre of 94mm), which would've been just as effective as the German 88mm had it been deployed against tanks.

So the lesson here: fighting is about tactics, training, and flexibility.

BTW: British artillery, in the form of the 25-pounder, were effective against German tanks (in 1941 and 1942) and the British had AP-shells for them.

[johnrudy]

The crusader had the lines and profile of a modern tank. Being difficult to range....exactly what you want. Good video. Thanks

[lawrencehebb]

One thing not mentioned here is that the Matilda II was so well armoured at the beginning of the war that the only thing that stopped them from stopping the Germans at Arras was an anti-aircraft unit that knew their guns were also designed as anti-tank guns, but had never been used that way.

Rommel even had a captured Matilda II as his command tank in North Africa, so they can't have been all bad. But it was undergunned

[garyhill]

The A30 Challenger is perhaps even more underrated and misunderstood than Comet. With a true 17pdr, 100mm frontal armour on later variants, and mobility equivalent to the Cromwell, the Challenger was a good tank. It would have even been better had its design not been hindered by rather unrealistic design requirements.

[tophat]

the pictures of the Churchill tanks 40 and 9 minutes 30 seconds in were on the beaches of Dieppe, the disastrous raid that took place in 1942, "Operation Jubilee."

[nomadpi]

I, as a former gunner in a M-41, enjoyed this video, despite the wrong pictures to the narrative.

[Greenghoat]

Funny that the method the German's used with the Blitzkrieg was actually a British idea from a singular British Army Officer which the German's seen the value of. That British Officer was not in vouge at the time and the British Army dismissed his ideas but the German's got as much information as the could about it and we see how that allowed them to dominate the Allies early in the war.

[ashfox]

A rather splendid new Cromwell has arrived!

[ngauruhoezodiac]

The Battle of France forced the British to reconsider their tank philosophy. The Matilda had good armour but it was slow and lacked firepower. The crusader had mobility but lacked both armour and firepower. The British needed American Grant and Sherman tanks in order to succeed in El Alemein.