Still, the Centurion wasn’t the most prolific of tanks.

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general praised the Centurion and its crews for showing that “anywhere a tank can go is tank country-even the tops of mountains.” The Centurion’s combat debut actually came in the tank-unfriendly mountains of Korea, where it climbed up steep slopes to support an embattled British brigade against massed Chinese infantry attacks in the 1951 Battle of the Imjin River.

We will never know how the Centurion would have fared against big Nazi tanks such as the 75-ton King Tiger the first Centurion prototype didn’t arrive until April 1945, just a month before Germany surrendered. Main battle tanks are one-size designs equally adept at engaging tanks and infantry, breaking through fortified lines, and exploiting breakthroughs. The Centurion would become one of the first main battle tanks, which replaced the World War II concept of light, medium, and heavy tanks. The new design was designated a “Universal Tank” that would combine the functions of cruiser and infantry support tanks. Developed in 1944, the centurion first saw action in the Korean War. Finally, the British Army “understood that they couldn’t keep urgently building tanks that were obsolete while they were being built,” Stuart Wheeler, historian for the U.K.-based Tank Museum, tells Popular Mechanics.Ī centurion tank perched on a rocky ridge, January 21, 1952. Wartime crisis also led to poor designs, rushed into production and kept in service for too long. British tanks were often outmatched by German tanks, especially the heavy Tigers and Panthers with their thick armor and deadly high-velocity cannon. Early British tank cannons could fire armor-piercing but not high-explosive rounds, which meant they could engage tanks, but not anti-tank guns or infantry. Infantry support tanks, such as the Churchill, had thicker armor, but were too slow to exploit breakthroughs. “Cruiser” tanks, such as the Crusader, were fast vehicles intended for cavalry-like maneuvers-but were too poorly armed and armored to survive against German tanks and anti-tank guns. Despite inventing the tank in the First World War, British armor in the next conflict was a disaster.

The Centurion saga begins with a dismal prologue: British tank design during World War II.

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