The Crusader II (Early) - a new British light tank for BR1

Suggestions Vehicles
1

The Crusader II was a development of the earlier Crusader I cruiser tank, of which replaced the A13 series of tanks as the main cruiser tank Britain had used. The primary difference between the two models was increased armor protection, so Mark 1s were often ‘converted’ to Mark 2s, and there was very little visual difference between the two. The Crusader II would end up becoming the most used tank by British forces during the North African campaign, seeing as it accounted for most of the 5000+ tanks produced in the Crusader series, and is an iconic tank associated with the North African campaign.

In game, this would be in effect an upgraded A13 Mk2. It shares the same 40mm QF 2-Pounder cannon and mounts a coaxial 7.92mm BESA machine gun, and also has a turret in the hull that houses an additional BESA machine gun with another crewman to man it, bringing it to 5 total members. These were present on the Crusader Is and while often removed by crews, some were still kept even after being converted to the more heavily armored Crusader II, and early production Crusader 2s would keep it, but eventually were cut. The armor values of this tank and the A13 Mk 2 are in the below spoiler. As can be seen, the hull armor is slightly thinner (although the MG turret helps block some damage), but the turret armor is much thicker than the A13’s at 52mms compared to 13mms.

Armor values

Crusader II

Armour
front / side / back
Hull
20 / 28 / 14 mm
Turret
52 / 24 / 30 mm

A13 MkII

Armour
front / side / back
Hull
30 / 14 / 14 mm
Turret
14 / 14 / 14 mm

I think that it should be added to the Allied tech tree at BR1 because even though it wouldn’t be all that powerful of a tank and there isn’t much need for it to be added, it is still a quite iconic tank from one of WW2’s most interesting theaters, and one that was most defined by tank warfare at that.



Should the Crusader II (Early) be added to the Allied tech tree?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
8 Likes
2

There’s a lot of important things to add, and I don’t want any more SCIENCE BOXES that I don’t need.

Because it’s actually only a big target, and there’s nothing it can do.

3

Someone give this man back his pills

4 Likes
4

I voted yes cuz I like the crusader. It should be noted that this would be not a upgrade to a13 mk2 in game

3 Likes
5

Thank you, now that we have your opinion we can sleep peacefully.

6

while not inherently an improvement over the crusader that we already have,

i absolutely would love this one.
great for HA mods and early theaters of North africa ( if… and when devs will decide to add more desert maps too i guess )

2 Likes
7

It has better armor and an extra mg at the cost of lower mobility, it is still more or less an upgrade.

8

A lot of people that are against this there’s one thing they don’t realize, not everything added to enlisted needs to be an upgrade to something else. That’s part of what put us in this mess to begin with, people are asking for extreme power creep. Having stuff like this would be perfect, having a good historical tank, plane, an infantry equipment at every BR would be an amazing end goal for when this game is finally wrapped up. That doesn’t mean we can’t add tons of non-historical options either, but we need to tap all the historical routes first before we start getting into balancing with non historical equipment additions (looking at you ho-ri).

In short, yes! I’d love to see this.

1 Like