The T-55’s low height made it more difficult for the vehicle to assume a “hull-down” position, where the hull of the tank is protected by a hill or embankment, with just the turret and gun peeking out. The more compact T-55 made a smaller target that was more difficult to hit, but poor ergonomics hampered crew efficiency. But the Centurion’s flat plate armor was tougher than the Patton’s cast armor, and its 105-millimeter gun was much better than the Patton’s ninety-millimeter gun (so much so that the Israelis replaced the ninety-millimeters on their Pattons with the L-7). The Patton was faster, had a better combat fuel range, and was more maneuverable, with a maximum speed of thirty miles per hour versus twenty-two for the Centurion.
The Centurion was a better tank than its contemporaries, the American M-48 Patton and Soviet T-54 and T-55.
Though fielded just a few months after World War II ended, the Centurion proved such a good design that it is still in service today with the Israeli and other armies. The Centurion may have been the best tank overall during the 1950s and 1960s. British and American crews dreaded coming to grips with the heavily armored German Panthers and Tigers, whose powerful cannons inflicted huge losses on Allied armor.Īnd then in 1945, the British got it right. In the end, many British units were equipped with Lend-Lease American Shermans, a mediocre vehicle that at least was reliable.īritish armor had been roughly handled in North Africa, yet the Normandy campaign in the summer of 1944 was the real nightmare. The British tank corps of World War II was schizophrenic, caught between those who wanted fast, light cruiser tanks that were essentially cavalry horses on treads, and those who wanted heavy, slow infantry tanks to help the foot soldiers breach enemy trenches. British tactics were faulty, favoring gallant charges by tanks acting without infantry or artillery support. British railroads were too narrow to transport big vehicles the size of the German Tiger. But on the whole, British tanks like the Crusader proved a disappointment. She then had a very clear Cold War mission: The British had some tank successes here and there: the heavy Matildas that tore through lighter Italian armor in 1940, the Crocodile flamethrower tanks whose very presence terrified German troops into surrendering, or the “Funny” engineering tanks that proved invaluable at D-Day. The Centurion tank was a powerful tank and a child of World War II.
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