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The bright spots of British tank design included the Valentine, Churchill (A22), Cromwell (A27M), and Comet I (A34), which together made up a little over half of total British tank production during WWII. The Valentine was a reliable, heavily armoured infantry-support tank used successfully in the desert and by the Red Army as a light tank.
The Great Tank Scandal: British Armour in the Second World War. Part 1. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. ISBN 978-0-11290-460-1. French, David (2001) [2000]. Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany 1919–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-24630-4. Fortin, Ludovic (2004). British Tanks ...
American armoured vehicles were purchased and sometimes re-fitted with British guns, and were used by British and British-supplied Allied forces throughout the war. Sherman IC and VC – Sherman I and Sherman V medium tank chassis adapted by the British with a redesigned turret to mount a British 17-pounder gun. The 17-pounder could knock out ...
A British development of the Sherman led to the Sherman Firefly, which was the only tank able to defeat German Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II tanks at range, until the Comet tank entered service in late 1944. [77] The British divisional anti-tank weapon was the Ordnance QF 2-pounder, which had three times the range of the German 3.7 cm PaK 36. [78]
The infantry tank was a tank concept developed by the United Kingdom and France in the years leading up to World War II. Infantry tanks were designed to support infantrymen in an attack. To achieve this, the vehicles were generally heavily armoured to allow them to operate in close concert with infantry even under heavy fire.
The M4 Medium became the second-most-produced tank of World War II, and was the only tank to be used by virtually all Allied forces (thanks to the American lend-lease program); approximately 40,000 M4 Mediums were produced during the war. [30] M4s formed the main tank of American, British, Canadian, French, Polish, and Chinese units.
Light Tank Mk VII Tetrarch – British produced light tank, most of which did not see service. A small number were supplied via lend-lease to the Soviet Union, and a small number were delivered by glider into Normandy to support British airborne forces. M3 and M5 Light Tanks – US supplied tank, called the 'Stuart' in British service.
The British Army also retained a World War II tank design, the Centurion, which proved to be highly successful and was not fully replaced until the 1970s. The West German Bundeswehr decided to develop their own tank in the 1960s, and in the 1970s produced the Leopard I , which was a somewhat lighter design, conforming to German doctrine that ...