Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the development of tanks was
not well co-ordinated, which, in light of the acute funding shortages, was far
from ideal. The formation of the Mechanisation Board in 1934 was an attempt to
improve matters. The person responsible for tank development was the Director
of Mechanisation at the War Office who controlled MWEE and the Design
Departments at Woolwich. The Mechanisation Board could acquire tanks from three
sources:
a. In-house designs by the Superintendent of
Design at Woolwich;
b. The Board placing contracts directly with
industry;
c. Procuring private venture vehicles from firms
such as Vickers.
This meant the funds available to DD(V) at Woolwich were
very limited. The situation was not helped by the General Staff frequently changing
requirements for armour, vehicle speed and armament. Hence when rearmament
started in the 1930s the status of tank design in Great Britain was at a low.
The lack of focus and clear requirements resulted in fifteen
different tank projects during the period from 1934 to the start of the Second
World War. One factor that influenced the subsequent inadequacies of British
tanks during the Second World War was the policy to focus on three classes of
tank:
Small light machine-gun-armed tanks for reconnaissance;
Cruiser tanks with an emphasis on mobility;
Infantry tanks with an emphasis on protection but requiring
a low top speed.
The requirement for three classes of tank was formally
endorsed as policy in the 1937 Annual Report of the Mechanisation Board.
The emphasis on either mobility or protection meant that
firepower was often neglected, even though the proponents of mechanised warfare
recognised that the best counter to tanks would be other tanks. The overall
balance of performance of the resulting tanks was often poor and even though
some did have reasonable attributes the army tended to buy light tanks because
they were cheaper and were seen as having utility for operations throughout the
British Empire.
In 1926 the Superintendent of Design had started work with
Vickers to develop the A6 Medium Tank, which was intended to replace the Medium
Mark II. A design driver was a weight limit of 15.5 tons which led to the
nickname of ‘16 tonners’. A mock-up was completed in March 1927 and the first
two of three prototypes were delivered to MWEE in June 1928 for trials. Various
engines, both petrol and diesel, and turret arrangements were tested, but
overall the vehicle was considered inadequate leading to a redesign. The new
design, called the Medium Mark III, had a revised turret and improved armour.
Three Medium Mark IIIs were built, one by Vickers and two by the Royal Ordnance
Factory at Woolwich, but it was considered too expensive and no further
production was undertaken. Development activities on the Mark III stopped in
1931. One novel feature of the vehicle was that it had a very early
implementation of a ‘collective protection’ system. This is a system where
filtered air is provided to the crew compartment to provide ventilation in a
chemical warfare environment. Trials of the ‘Porton Filtration Unit’ were
carried out in June 1931 and Major R.A. Hepple of the Royal Army Medical Corps,
noting the clearance of the smell of oil and ‘fug’ when the unit was running,
reported that, ‘The installation of the Porton filtration unit caused a
distinct improvement in hygienic conditions in the fighting chamber, and will
undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the health of personnel of the Royal
Tank Corps.’ The three Medium Mark IIIs were taken into service by the HQ of
the Tank Brigade and one was fitted out as a Command Tank.
In 1929 the Chief Superintendent of Design started work on
an experimental medium tank and the Ordnance Factory at Woolwich produced three
prototypes of what was the A7 Medium Tank. Development of this vehicle stopped
in 1937, but it helped form the basis of the A12 Matilda Infantry Tank, which
was developed by the Vulcan Foundry.
In 1934 Sir John Carden of Vickers-Armstrong designed the
Cruiser Mark I (A9), which was intended as a cheaper alternative to the A6.
Design of a heavier but slower version with thicker armour (A10) was started
soon after. The resulting vehicles ended up very similar to each other, but
both went into production as the Cruiser Mark I (A9) and Cruiser Mark II (A10).
They saw action in France and the Western Desert although numbers built were
limited as by the time production contracts were ready (1937 for the A9 and
1938 for the A10) work was underway on the superior A13.
After years of limited funding the remains of expertise in
tank design was to be found in Vickers-Armstrong and DD(V) at Woolwich, but
when rearmament started a number of other contractors were brought in to
develop tanks. These included Bedford, Leyland, the LMS Railway works, Nuffield
Mechanisation, the Vulcan Foundry and Harland and Wolff. Nuffield Mechanisation
was one of the more prominent of these companies. It had been formed by the Morris
Motors group to build aero-engines, but orders did not materialise so the
organisation turned its attention to tanks.
In September 1936 Lieutenant Colonel Martel, in his role of
Assistant Director Mechanisation, visited army manoeuvres in the Soviet Union
where he was particularly impressed by the performance of the Soviet BT3 tanks.
The design of this tank had been based on the M1931 tank designed by John
Walter Christie in the USA, two of which had been bought by the Soviets. The
War Office therefore asked Nuffield Mechanisation to act as their agent in
buying a Christie vehicle. Following receipt of this request Mr Oliver Boden,
an ex-Vickers employee who now worked for Nuffield, contacted Christie and
arranged to buy a vehicle for £8,000. The vehicle bought was the M1932, an
improved version of the M1931 which had been offered to the US Army. They had
turned it down mainly due to frustrations in trying to work with Christie. To
meet US regulations the basic vehicle was exported to the UK as an agricultural
tractor with the more war-like parts said to have been sent separately as
‘grapefruit’. The vehicle reached the UK on 17 November 1936 and it was
delivered to MEE for trials. Tested over 687 miles, of which 327 were
cross-country, the vehicle was reported to have reached a speed of 63.4mph on a
slightly downhill run. Despite the impressive automotive performance it was
assessed that, as it stood, it was unsuitable to meet British Army
requirements. It was, however, used by Nuffield Mechanisation as the basis for
the A13 Mark I or Cruiser Tank Mark III.
The A13 was wider and higher than the M1932, in order to
mount a 2pdr gun, and was 2 tons heavier. The basic concept was defined by
January 1937 and an initial order for sixty-five followed a year later in
January 1938 with the first vehicles being delivered in December that year. The
A13 Mark I was followed by the A13 Mark II, which had an improved turret and
was the first vehicle to use spaced armour. The A13 Mark I and II saw action in
France and the Western Desert. The final version of the A13, the Mark III, also
called the Covenanter or Cruiser Mark V, was designed by the LMS Railway
Company with input from the Mechanisation Board. Delivery started in 1940 when
tanks were needed quickly after the fall of France, but it proved to be very
unreliable and although over 1,700 were built it was only ever used for
training.
Meanwhile Vickers-Armstrong had developed the A11 Matilda 1,
which met a request for a tank ‘built down to a price’ and cost only £6,000. The
requirement for the A11 stated that the ‘heaviest possible armour was
essential’ although it was only required to have a top speed of 5mph and was
armed with a machine gun. A total of 139 were built and some saw action in
France.
Work on two experimental heavy cruisers was started in 1938,
neither of which went into production. The A14 was built by the LMS Railway
Co., who had design support from the DTD, and the A16 was built by Nuffield
Mechanisation. The A16 weighed over 21 tons and used a heavier version of the
Christie suspension. An interesting aside with the A16 was that when a major
design problem arose with the vehicle Thomson and Taylor, a Brooklands-based
racing-car firm who had been involved in the design of the Bluebird Land Speed
Record car, was asked to help; they very quickly carried out some redesign work
and built some components. Later the prototype was used to investigate
transmission and steering problems in the A13s and became the first tank fitted
with a ‘Merritt’ controlled differential steering system.
One in-house design by the DTD was the A20, which met
requirements for an assault tank with a long track length for crossing
trenches. The prototype was built by Harland and Wolff, but development was
subsequently taken over by Vauxhall Motors and became the basis of the A22
Churchill. Another project of interest was the TOG (The Old Gang) tank designed
by the Special Vehicle Design Committee. This committee included a number of
those involved in the development of the original First World War tanks
including Swinton and designers at Fosters of Lincoln. It was a slow-moving
unwieldy 70-ton vehicle with solid suspension conceived to attack the Siegfried
Line. The project was dropped when it became apparent that the nature of
warfare was very different from the defensive trench warfare of the First World
War. The DTD had some involvement in the TOG programme and, for example,
supported the design of the TOG 2 turret. This was manufactured by Messrs
Stothert & Pitt Ltd under a contract placed by William Foster and Co. The
turret was made from 3in armour plate supplied by the Admiralty with an inner
layer of 0.5in steel. DTD provided advice on design and testing. For ballistic
trials purposes the turret was fitted with an obsolete mantlet designed to
mount a 2pdr gun, 3in howitzer and a machine gun. This mantlet had been
designed to meet a requirement for armament that had been seriously proposed as
an alternative to mounting a 6pdr gun in cruiser tanks and would have been a
nightmare for the crew. Trials, which included attacks by 6pdr anti-tank rounds
and 25pdr proof shot, demonstrated the ability of the inner skin to provide
protection against secondary fragments should the outer shell be damaged or
bolts dislodged.
At the start of the Second World War the majority of tanks
in service were light tanks and efforts to address inadequacies in the quality
and availability of vehicles was hampered by a lack of resources as aircraft
and ships were given priority. The expenditure on tanks in the build-up to
rearmament was:
1931 £357,000
1932 £309,000
1933 £315,000
1934 £501,000 (The year Germany
started rearmament)
1935 £772,000 (The year Italy invaded
Abyssinia)
1936 £842,000 (The year Germany
reoccupied the Rhineland)
1937 £3,625,000
The £500,000 spent in 1934 represented only about 1 per cent
of the total army budget. Further problems had arisen from the office of the
Master General of the Ordnance (MGO). At the time of rearmament the MGO was
General Elles who had originally commanded the Tank Corps in the First World
War; however, instead of being an advocate of tanks he was convinced that the
development of anti-tank guns had so reduced their utility he was unwilling to
commit significant funds to their procurement. It was only when it was
demonstrated that the Infantry Tank Mark I was proof against 37mm and 47mm
anti-tank guns that procurement started in earnest.
Following the Experimental Force Trials in 1927 and
development of the doctrine captured in the ‘Purple Primer’ it had been agreed
in 1933 that a single Tank Division be formed although even by the start of the
Second World War it was still not fully equipped. The British Expeditionary
Force in France was equipped with 342 light tanks, seventy-seven Matilda 1s,
twenty-three Matilda 2s and 150 Cruisers consisting of twenty-four A9s,
thirty-one A10s and ninety-five A13s. Even at this stage the inadequacies of
British tanks were recognised by some; before deploying to France Brigadier
Vivian Pope, the adviser of armoured vehicles at the General Headquarters of
the British Expeditionary Force, wrote to the War Office to say, ‘We must have
thicker armour on our fighting vehicles and every tank must carry a cannon. The
2pdr is good enough now, but only just. We must mount something better and put
it behind 40 to 80mm of armour.’ His concerns were well founded and during the
fighting leading to the fall of France the light tanks were all but useless,
and although the Cruisers showed some utility they suffered from a lack of armour.
Only the infantry tanks had any significant success when on 21 May 1940
fifty-eight Matilda Mark Is and sixteen Matilda Mark IIs took part in a
counter-attack. This caused much confusion amongst German forces, who found
them largely impervious to their anti-tank guns, and it delayed their advance
to the extent that it made the withdrawal to Dunkirk and subsequent evacuation
possible. Unfortunately the counter-attack itself was not supported and could
not be sustained.
Following the fall of France a very limited number of tanks were left to defend the United Kingdom. Exact numbers are not clear but probably consisted of around 407 light tanks, 141 cruiser tanks and 140 infantry tanks. Therefore the priority became re-equipping the army to defend against invasion. In 1938 the Secretary of State for War had put forward a proposal that led to the formation of the Ministry of Supply. This was set up with the Liberal MP Leslie Burgin, previously Minister for Transport, as Minister for Supply from July 1939 to May 1940. A key principle behind the thinking and policies of the ministry was that successful businessmen would have the skills for mobilising industry for war. Organisations within the War Office concerned with the Design, Development and Procurement of weapon systems were transferred from the War Office to the Ministry of Supply – with the office of MGO placed in abeyance. Thus the responsibility for delivering tanks was separated from the War Office and hence from direct contact with the operational user. This resulted in the situation where the priority of the Ministry of Supply was to meet the production targets it was being set and it did not want to put delivery at risk by the design changes or new designs being requested by the War Office. Existing contracts and production lines were kept running, leading to the delivery of more light tanks that were already known to be largely useless.
