Here you go: It covers everything you needed to know about the Tetrarch, and also lots of stuff you didn't need to know but are going to be informed of anyway. Available at Amazon and Lulu amongst other places. I believe that the Lulu printers are higher quality than the Amazon ones, fwiw.
Swine! Also: nice one on covering another somewhat neglected machine. It'll be next month for me most likely. (He says, with a vague feeling there's Lulu vouchers somewhere in the emails.) TBH. Haven't noticed a print quality difference and bought from both.
Copy ordered from Lulu - no need to make Bezos any richer than he already is! Thanks for the heads-up - I'm just glad to know P.M. Knight is still out there, beavering away in the archives.
This is the most recent thread on this tank, so readers might be interested to download this PhD thesis and read the passages of the tank in action / inaction: http://bear.buckingham.ac.uk/520/1/Andrew Wheale Complete Thesis 30-06-21.pdf Just encountered then, I knew the tank existed, but was unaware it saw action in Normandy.
6 Tetrarchs had earlier seen operational service during Operation Ironclad, the invasion of Madagascar, in May 1942.
That thesis has made the mistake that everyone makes about the Tetrarch in Normandy - that it was supposed to operate as a proper tank and proved too light to do so. Richard Gale in his Directive on the use of 6 AARR makes it clear that they were intended to operate in the reconnaissance role in terrain that was too rough for the unit's other vehicles. So the basic idea was the 'B' Squadron (carriers, jeeps, motorcycles) would largely conduct recce on road, and the 'A' Squadron (Tetrarchs) were there to conduct recce cross country. The Tetarchs also had a secondary role of supporting/screening the parachute infantry. So the point is that the Tetrachs were not there to go racing around blasting things and generally be tanks. They were there to do relatively mundane recce and support work, which is what they did, and why the reports on their use were on the whole quite positive. The only exciting aspect of their use was in how they were delivered to the battlefield.
Richard Smith of the Tank Museum has just included it in a new youtube video with a list of Bottom 5 tanks, calling it a complete waste of time, without regards to what DJ just described about the positive reports. Yeesh. Mind you, it's a really casual style of video.
Well, James Holland recently included the Panzer IV as a bottom five tank, which was a bit much even for me. I think The Museum Guys are now getting into "Here's why the Beatles actually sucked" territory, tbh.
An image I couldn't leave be. Jan '44 So is that 20 Jan 44 HH961 Over shot and hit Nissen hut during EXERCISE MANITOBA or 21 Jan 44 DR858 Damaged Beyond Repair by tank leaving glider Assuming the former, looking at some of the frankly mental images further down this fine page: Prangs! Just slightly disappointed there's not a perfect tank-shaped hole in that wing. Now I know it's a wing, 'cos at first...
I like the Chieftain because he doesn't do any of that. He always looks at the tactical role of the tank first and asks:"Did it or did it not fulfill the role it was designed for?"
That they did. Great little article and some photos of Soviet Tetrarchs here: Tank Archives: Tetrarch in the USSR
Oh, they do the vehicle collision element of the NCAP by smashing the tank into a (wait for it) NISSAN Hut? Is that the test? All the best Andreas
Holland is on a mission to establish a narrative that British kit rocked, and German kit sucked. Who could forget his tweet comparing (unfavourably of course) the bombload of a Ju 88 C-1 night fighter with that of a Lancaster? I'm guessing it plays well with the potential audience, and who cares about actual facts, right? All the best Andreas
I think a better comparator is maybe the German Panzer II Luchs (which was a dead end), the 8-wheel Puma or the various gun-armed half-tracks in armoured recce units. Mobility, armour and reasonable firepower in a neat package. You don't want to meet anyone serious, but if the job is to i) find and ii) get out of a scrape fast while being able to beat up the oppo as you do so, it's not an unreasonable solution to the tactical problem. All the best Andreas
Wikipedia (ahem) mentions a Tetrarch CS version. Do we know if these were issued with HE, and were they fielded? (It seems a possibly more useful weapon than the 2-pounder, all told, but I know CS tanks were mainly intended to lay smoke, at least early in the war.)
Amen. I've certainly sat on the internet front line of defending allied gear, or at least opposing its lazy dismissal, while encouraging more scepticism about the Wunderwaffe brigade. And that was absolutely needed in many cases; but I've seen a few things of late that are frankly a backlash too far. It's as if you have to pick a team, dismissing nuance.