In August 1943 the Centaur and Cromwell were pitted against the Sherman M4A2 and M4A4 in the 'Dracula' (i) reliability test, which was a 2,300-mile (3700-km) trip round various armoured units. Tests showed that the overworked Liberty engine had an even shorter life and was less reliable in the Centaur than it had been in the preceding Crusader. The first A27 was competed in July 1942, and the name Centaur was adopted in November 1942. It is unclear how many Centaur vehicles were later re-engined, but a significant number of tanks were built from scratch with Centaur hulls and Meteor engines and designated as Cromwell tanks. The design of the A27 would first be modified to allow it to take either engine. English Electric and the Birmingham Carriage & Wagon Company were to produce the Meteor-powered A27M Cromwell III while Leyland was to produce the Liberty-powered A27L, then known as the Cromwell II. At first Leyland agreed to produce the Meteor, but then backed out and decided to continue building the Liberty.Īt this point the Ministry of Supply should have stepped in to force Leyland to build the much more powerful Meteor, but instead and perhaps inevitably compromised. Spurrier was worried about the low power of the Liberty engine being used in new British tank designs. This work was triggered by a October 1940 meeting between Robotham and Henry Spurrier, the general manager of Leyland Motors. Robotham, a senior Rolls Royce designer, led a team that converted the Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engine into the Meteor tank engine. The Centaur was really a tank which should never have been built. It was not in itself a great success, and many Centaur vehicles were converted into or completed as Cromwell tanks, and in that configuration were used in combat in North-West Europe. The Cruiser Tank Mk VIII Centaur (A27L) was a version of the Cromwell tank powered by a Liberty engine. 'Dracula' (i) was a British undertaking to evaluate the relative reliability of the British Centaur and Cromwell cruiser tanks and the US M4 Sherman medium tank (August 1943).
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