The term "cruiser tank" is typically British. Other nations would have qualified those machines as "medium tanks", but they would have failed to capture the difference between a slow tank, intended to progress at the pace of walking men to support them, from the fast tank specialized in the pursuit and exploitation. The history of the cruiser tanks is no success story. Ordered "off the drawing board", going over directly to mass-production, they made their tests on the battlefield, with more than often, disastrous results. The models at the start of the war (A-9, A-10, A-13) were always one generation late in face of their German opponents. Their flimsy armor was a serious handicap. Later in the war, there were some successes, like the Crusader, but they were interspesed with total failure like the Convenanter. The first really successful model was the Cromwell. It appeared at the right moment, when its mobility coul be put in good use in the exploitation phase in France and later in Germany. That first success was followed by two others in a row: the Comet and the Centurion, which had brilliant careers after the war. Built by N/A
Cruiser tank 