hello I'm David Fletcher I'm
in the Tank Museum what follows the
short films about one or two exhibits
which we hope you'll enjoy
you
now this is the a13 Cruiser it entered
service the British Army in about
1938-39 and was almost certainly the
best of the cruiser tanks we had in the
early part of the war it's real claim to
fame its most important feature the
Christie suspension and that's
characterized by large wheels Springs
which you can't see because they hidden
behind the armor and each spring works
independently on a wheel so each wheels
free to lift up and down at any speed
really which was the secret of these
tanks they were very fast this
particular type would do about thirty
miles an hour which was pretty good for
those days really it's powered by a
Nuffield Liberty v12 engine which had
about 395 horsepower so that really
pushed it along compared with the other
tanks we had at the time and Christie
was an American engineer who came up
with this idea of the suspension he was
one of those people slightly awkward who
was best worked away from if possible he
brought a sample tank over went back to
the States the production of these tanks
was then taken over by Lord Muirfield
who started a new firm in Birmingham to
build tanks and aircraft and really he
made all the difference he came up with
his own idea of what the Christie
suspension was all about he did away for
instance with the idea Christie had of
running tanks on tracks or wheels as you
could do with any of his early designs
with the Nuffield tanks only tracks
would do nothing else the rest of the
tank chemically is very simple you've
got the v12 in the back driving through
an ordinary gearbox and then out to the
drive sprockets which a clutch and brake
steering very very simple but quite
adequate for what was there at the time
the arm was pretty thin on these tanks
and I think about eleven millimeters but
it was armed with a two pound a 40
millimeter gun it was probably one of
the best guns available in anti-tank
work at the time very high velocity and
quite powerful the armor of the tank has
been upgraded it's been brought up to
Mach 4 level and that's with spaced
armor around
turret the rear the original turret is
underneath here and this space dharma
was introduced with the mark 4 version
of the cruiser 2 just to make it a bit
more powerful and lasts a bit longer in
battle but the rest of the tank has the
original thin armor on it was easily
penetrated by German anti-tank guns the
turret was power traversed the gammas
stood there and he had a rotating
platform that he stood on and cause the
tank to the turret at least to turn
around but everything else was the
old-fashioned manual thing elevation of
the gun was done purely by shoulder
controlled by the Gama who had
absolutely no control over it
otherwise he hadn't got any gears till
they make you go up and down he had to
aim virtually by eye and by by shoulder
pad lifting the Ganon equalizing it with
his knees as it went over rough ground
really um other than that it's really a
very conventional tank of its time very
simple with them typically British in
that the armoured part of the tank is
within the tracks the rest of it the tin
plate is on the outside that doesn't
really matter it's only ten and can
absorb punishment and fall to bits and
nobody really cares but altogether
probably the best tank we had in 1940
you