hi fella's
this is my mk6 cromwell which is currently under restoration by a firm called british military vehicles in wigan, lancashire. i bought it last year from a chap in shrewsbury who i knew well as i had also bought a mk4 churchill avre from him earlier in the year aswell as a mk1 centaur. the centaur has been used as a donor vehicle to supply the turret ring and turret to use on the cromwell. this was necessary as the cromwell had been converted post war to a charioteer tank destroyer which involved removing the cromwell turret and 75mm gun and replacing it with a 20 pdr gun fitted to a larger but less well armoured turret aswell as a larger ring to take the recoil forces of the 20 pdr. the 20 pdr was an excellent 84mm high velocity tank gun that could penetrate 300mm of armour. to give you an idea of it's power the penetration is approximately twice that of the 88mm fitted to the tiger 1 (shame they didn't design it in time for the war). although the gun had real stopping power the tank was never more than a stop gap and only entered service with territorial army units from 1955 to 1960 'ish they were then sold off to other countries and this one ended up in finland where it was eventually auctioned off in 2006 to a private individual that brought it back to the uk and i ended up with it in 2010.
the centaur which is basically the same tank as a cromwell but with a v12 nuffield liberty engine instead of the v12 meteor (due to a shortage of meteors) had been used as a target on salisbury plain for 40+ years until it was recovered by a chap in 1992 after which it changed hands several times until i got it, although the centaur has been used as a donor vehicle i will restore it once the cromwell is finished, i would like to restore it back to centaur spec but this is unlikely as the liberty engine is rarer than rocking horse shit so it will probably go to cromwell spec with a meteor.
these first pics show it as i found it and then it's delivery to wigan. there will be more to follow.
all the best
eddy
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