A9 Cruiser Mk I
In service 1938 - 1941
The first British cruiser tank: a 2-pdr gun in a power-traversed turret on armour thin enough to be dangerous.
Built byVickers-Armstrongs
Photograph pending. No clearly licensed photograph of this vehicle was found.
Development history
Sir John Carden designed the A9 as a cheap replacement for the Vickers mediums, and it was the first British tank with a hydraulically powered turret traverse. The 2-pdr was an excellent gun in 1940 but 14 mm of armour was not enough for any battlefield, and the two machine-gun sub-turrets robbed space while adding little. A9s fought in France in 1940 and in the Western Desert, where their reliability in the heat was poor, and were withdrawn by 1941.
Variants
One canonical record, 2 recorded variants.
Cruiser Mk I (A9E1)
1938Standard 2-pdr gun tank with two machine-gun sub-turrets.
Cruiser Mk I CS
1939Close-support version with a 3.7-inch howitzer for smoke and high explosive.
Notable actions
- Battle of France
- Operation Compass
- Western Desert