Thursday 29 August 2013

Armour of the BEF, France 1940: Cruisers




The British 1st Armoured Division was equipped with Cruiser tanks. These were a strange British concept of  lightly armoured fast tanks designed to make deep thrusts along Liddel-Harts 'indirect approach'.

Utter cobblers of course and it led to a series of disasters in North Africa until Montegomery took command, cut the crap, and devised the massed firepower and punch strategy that beat the Panzer Divisions.

The medium tank is an A10 heavy cruiser (Cruiser Mk II). It was supposed to be an infantry support tank but sanity prevailed and it was reclassified as a heavy cruiser beciuase is has light tank armour as opposed to armoured car level armour! Probably the best of the 1940 cruisers. All the cruisers were prototypes with inevitable consequences on reliability.

The small tank beside it is a Light Tank Mk VIC. The Spanish civil war had shown light tanks to be useless but this was the only model in full production model when war broke out so it was employed as a cruiser substitute. As light tanks went, it wasn't bad with a two man turret. The C version had a 15mm automatic cannon. The Mk VI B was aso used as a reconnaisance vehicle by 1940 infantry divisions, one regiment per division.

The models are from Warlord Games Bolt Action 28 ml range.



8 comments:

  1. Nice work! Not tanks you'd ever want to fight in but they look splendid.

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    1. Yes, of course, the German and Italian tanks were no better. However, over in Russia...

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  2. Lovely stuff John. It's nice to see 'proper' tanks that you can stand up in the command hatch and look dashing for the ladies!

    Regards, Chris.

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    1. Command hatches also useful for a quick escape.

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  3. Excellent paint job on these models. A1 for sure.

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  4. Great job on these coffins John.

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    1. You have no confidence in 10mm of armour to hold out an '88 flak shell? How unpatriotic of you.

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