Excelsior tank

The Tank, Heavy Assault, A33 (Excelsior) was a British experimental

After the Dieppe Raid in August 1942, there was concern that the Churchill infantry tank was slow and too unreliable and it was suggested that production of the Churchill stop in 1943 in order to manufacture more of the A27 (Cromwell) design, which was performing well in trials. While two lines of tanks were still policy, there was interest in a "universal tank chassis" from which infantry tanks, cruiser tanks, and other vehicles could be built. Until then an interim design based on the A27 to replace the Churchill as an infantry tank was considered.^[1]

English Electric built two prototypes on a Cromwell tank hull, the first with the suspension and T1 track of the M6 tank in 1943 but with a 6-pounder gun. The second was built with a widened Cromwell track and suspension by LMS and different armoured skirts. The design included extra armour and an Ordnance QF 75 mm gun. When the problems of the early Churchill models were worked out, the A33 was no longer required and the project was dropped.^[2]

Survivors

The second pilot vehicle is in the collection of

See also

• A38 Valiant – a heavily armoured lightweight assault tank
• Comet – a fast cruiser tank also developed from the Cromwell

Tanks of comparable role, performance, and era

• British Churchill – heavy tank, entered service in 1941
• American-British
  T14
  – another prototype heavy assault tank with similar specifications to Excelsior
• American M6 – heavy tank, saw trials but never entered service
• Soviet KV-1 – heavy tank, entered service in 1939

Notes

References

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to A33 Excelsior.

• White BT, British Tanks 1915-1945 Ian Allan p68-69
• Chamberlain, P and Ellis, C British and American Tanks of World War II 1981 Arco publishing
• ISBN 0-11-290534-X
  .