Designed by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway as a better-armoured replacement for the Cruiser Mark IV, it was ordered into production in 1939 before pilot models were built.

This was rectified in the Mk IV after many corrective actions were undertaken but, by February 1944, it was declared obsolete.

Angled surfaces (through the principles of sloped armour) could be thinner, provided they were at least as effective as a 30 mm thick vertical plate.

[7] Design work was by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company (LMS), who had no prior experience in the design and production of fighting vehicles and had been invited to participate under a Government policy that British companies should develop skills in expectation of war.

The expectation was that two pilot models would serve for testing and results applied to the production lines.

The unusual arrangement, although tested in mock up form first, when combined with the rushed design resulted in serious problems with engine cooling.

Even when the systems were redesigned, there were problems and the piping from engine to the radiators heated the fighting compartment.

[16] By late 1943, the Covenanter was considered too weakly armed and armoured to deal with new German tanks.

It was decided that neither problem could be addressed without significant changes in the design, so the tank was declared obsolete and all vehicles except the bridge-layer variant were to be scrapped.

[9] Eventually, a handful of vehicles were sent to the desert for service trials and were allocated to the REME for maintenance and evaluation.

[20] The bridgelayer version was also used by the 4th Armoured Brigade of the Australian Army at Bougainville and Balikpapan during the Pacific Campaign in 1945.

[25] The partially buried, wrecked hulls of two tanks may be seen at Titchwell Marsh in Norfolk, UK.

[26] Now a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds nature reserve, the area was formerly a tank gunnery range and the Covenanters were likely used as targets.

[27] Two Covenanter Bridgelayers are preserved in Australia – one at the Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum, Puckapunyal, Victoria, and one at the 1st/15th Royal New South Wales Lancers Lancer Barracks and Museum at Parramatta, New South Wales.