Facebook: Friends of the Tank Museum

[Techno II]

 

cheers - Phil.

[Raider4]

The legendary RAF fighter pilot Douglas Bader died 5th September 1982.
This anecdote is not true but it is funny.

I saw a Liverpudlian comedian - Stan Boardman? - telling this story/joke on TV years ago. Think it basically killed his career.

[steve_holmes_11]

I saw a Liverpudlian comedian - Stan Boardman? - telling this story/joke on TV years ago. Think it basically killed his career.

Wouldn't let it lie till after the watershed.

[fsn]

'Dagger,' 'Dazzle', and 'Duchess' lead the way during British Army manoeuvres. The A11 Matilda was used between mid-1938 and 1941. The Vickers Medium had been retired by this point, but it was pressed back into service as an emergency measure during mid-1940 as a result of the loss of almost all the British Army's tank fleet after the fall of France. These losses included 97 of the 139 A11 Matildas.

[Steve J]

Excellent photo . Do you know by any chance when the photo was taken? I've used the Vickers Medium in my AVBCW games and Operation Sealion. Pretty useless to be honest but looks cool and needs must and all that.

[Techno II]

Sorry...I know you lot know I'm a complete 'historical' ignoramous, (Which I'm genuinely NOT proud of).....

But in that photo...The staff car ? (half way downish, on the left hand side of the pic) looks like it could hold a lot more men than some of those tanks/tankettes ?

Must have been horrendous to be in one of those 'wee tanks'.

Cheers - Astounded of Wales

[toxicpixie]

Yep, two men crammed into the Matilda I.

I did have a set of schematics somewhere that had the crew sketched in.

I am not a tall man, but I wouldn't want to drive one...

That's the Tilly II. The "big boys" version

[fsn]

Excellent photo . Do you know by any chance when the photo was taken? I've used the Vickers Medium in my AVBCW games and Operation Sealion. Pretty useless to be honest but looks cool and needs must and all that.

I don't know ... I'd guess 1938 or 39? Certainly no later than 1940.

[fsn]

But in that photo...The staff car ? (half way downish, on the left hand side of the pic) looks like it could hold a lot more men than some of those tanks/tankettes ?

Two men only. 

[fred.]

That is a small tank! The turret has to be rotated to allow the driver's hatch to open!

You do have to wonder about inter-war tank design...

[toxicpixie]

No one had a clue, requirements for actual war were rather hazy, funding was... limited, technology was basic and unrefined, what was needed for the rather euphemistic "colonial policing" or "security" differs from what was needed in a full on at tier equivilent war, etc etc.

All the bits were there but it took a rather hotter crucible to forge it together and produce Centurion.

[steve_holmes_11]

That is a small tank! The turret has to be rotated to allow the driver's hatch to open!

You do have to wonder about inter-war tank design...

With out hindsight, most look like Tracks and a machinegun fitted onto Noddy's car.

[steve_holmes_11]

No one had a clue, requirements for actual war were rather hazy, funding was... limited, technology was basic and unrefined, what was needed for the rather euphemistic "colonial policing" or "security" differs from what was needed in a full on at tier equivilent war, etc etc.

All the bits were there but it took a rather hotter crucible to forge it together and produce Centurion.

More hindsight.

It's all very well to sit here 80 years later and claim that the Somua, BT-5, Panzer II, Japanese Type 95 or L6/40 are complete pants.
But almost any tank's a good tank with a bit of elan, and when the enemy have only  a few big rifles to oppose you.

Witness Italy in Abysynnia, Japan in Malaya, Germany in Poland, France, Netherlands, Belgium.

[toxicpixie]

Very true, and application of the correct soft factors goes a very long way.

Technically British and French tanks were much "better" than the opposition (guns, armour) but all the soft things were lacking. Reversed in the late war, although the quality of everything was far better.

And tanks are seldom built for the military needs alone, as much as they're political creatures and bought for politico-economic factors (witness the British Army & Abrams versus Chally I/Shir, or the Soviet T-64/72/80 "competing" design bureau politics).

[fsn]

There were a lot of factors that went into tank design. The Italians were self-limited by their bridges, the British by their rail gauge. The Chieftain makes a point that the most important feature of the Sherman was the eyebolts that allowed the tanks to be lifted by cranes onto ships.

That plus the economic factors, the philosophy of armoured use and industrial capacity all affect tank design.   

The cute little Matilda I was there to provide the infantry tanks with an anti-machine gun capacity. In short, it is a mobile Vickers gun. So being slow and small didn't matter, but having thick armour was beneficial.

Similarly early Pz IV were just support tanks with a short barrelled howitzer, and the Pz III was meant to fight other tanks.