British Tank Development.

Tempting me to bring Oswald Spengler into the thread and his concept of "Faustianism" - the culturally specific Western urge for expansion into infinity.

But more soberly, I honestly think that the tanks that the British had during the early part of the war were probably the best they could have had. I don't know if Alexander Davidson was prescient or just stumbling along, because as I said previously he never gave his side of the story. But he seemed to do his best to ensure that the British Army actually had tanks that were relatively balanced and efficient designs. You can point out the flaws in the Crusader or the Matilda, but they were at least the products of a sane mind. The Army could so easily have ended up with overweight, multi-turreted monstrosities, and if money were no object, I'm fairly confident they would have done.

(They would still have blamed everybody but themselves for the battlefield results, of course).

 

I mean, you can laugh at the two dustbin-sized machine gun turrets on the A9, but they weren't part of the original Vickers design - they were added because the Army insisted on them.

 

To be fair, wasn't there also an element of needing to provide a variety of companies funds to both design and manufacture (in small quantities) tanks to ensure that if war came, and if it was against Germany and if the British army was deployed to the continent and if the British contingent included an armoured element, that the British could both arm it and then keep it in the field? For a long war?

Regards

Tom

 

I'd need to write an essay to answer this, as I can't even begin to describe how far the British were from understanding the ramifications of sending a large mechanised army to the Continent. You will be amazed to learn that from November 1937 to January 1939 the Italians in Libya were identified as the most likely antagonist in any potential armoured warfare.

 

You boys are making life awfully expensive, I have just ordered the A13 Mk I & II and Crusader books by Knight due to this discussion. I am going broke extremely quickly.

 

Not so, if Hitler had waited another year he'd have been facing A.16's, which were the tanks the British wanted. It was designed to be a true medium, with decent gun, decent armour and reasonable cross country mobility.
A lot of the plethora of inter-war designs were generated from the DTD trying out new ideas to see what worked and what didn't. Such as the weird as hell 1938 class tank, or it's predecessor the A.19. In the earl stages of any tank project you get hundreds of concept designs where technology is looked at and refined down. The reason why so many of them made it to metal was due to engineering processes back then. It was cheap to knock up a short production run, and see what works doesn't work. Now due to cost it's a lot more refined.
There was a similar process with the EMF. See what works in the field, and hat doesn't.

Then, with some surprise we've got WWII, and need to re-arm, and we're halfway through the filtering stage, so what do you do? Well you build what you've got and what's closes to what you want.

 

I am exaggerating slightly for effect, but the A16 was only on a 30mm basis (less than the A15 Crusader), had a Liberty engine like the Crusader, and had two forward machine gun turrets that were an anachronism. Also it wasn't necessarily the tank that the Army wanted, it was the tank that 'Q' Martel and Joseph Hollebone wanted. Alexander Davidson wanted the A14, but Martel persuaded Harold Brown not to pursue it, and once Martel was gone, Davidson in return killed off the A16 in favour of the A15. I would very humbly suggest that you read the A13 Cruiser Technical History book I mentioned earlier.

Well, the DTD didn't exist until May 1940. But otherwise no there was not an open-minded exploration of new ideas, there was quite bitter competition between various protagonists over whose design succeeded. For example, E.M.C. Clarke and George MacLeod Ross were bitter for years over the sidelining of the A7.

 

The A.14 was was designed as a exploration chassis, like the A7, to develop ideas around a new medium tank. The twin sub turrets had been replaced in the A.16E2 design with sloped armour plate fitted with two domes that improved protection, and provided the same coverage. These had been developed as part of the A.18. That substitution was what delayed the A.16 design, as the drivers compartment needed re-working. The A.15 crusader didn't show up until 1940, which is a nice development of the tank. A.13 > A.16 > A.15. All neatly progressing into the next. There's a document at Kew that shows the Army were looking towards 40mm basis quite early on, but current designs were advanced enough that it needed to be worked into the next generation of tanks.

 

I don't think we are going to persuade each other Listy, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

Listy,

I'm really interested in delving deeper into this area - could you tell me what the file reference is?

Regards

Tom

 

Well, we'll never advance history by not discussing things.

I think it's this one:
GENERAL AND WARLIKE STORES: Tanks (Code 45(E)): Cruiser Tanks, incorporating Christie... | The National Archives

Trouble is it's from back when I started going to Kew so my filling system was crap. I have this page from it:
Imgur: The magic of the Internet

If that helps.

 

I know... I've gone and ordered Men, Ideas and Tanks myself.

 

This is a burden we sometimes must carry.

 

Luckily I bought that one a few years ago, along with a number of others, including a couple that I still haven’t read, but now find they may be unhelpful.

 

I think it will, many thanks. Next time I'm in Kew I'll copy it and maybe even this one, obviously some sort of top secret pre-war weapons programme:

WO32/4456 - GENERAL AND WARLIKE STORES: General (Code 45(A)): Improvements in Army bedsteads and bedding.

Regards

Tom

 

And again, to be fair, wasn't it in 1937 that the politicians told the army that they did not have a continental commitment in Europe? Which probably accounts for the identification as the Italians in Libya as the most likely armoured opponent.

Your comment on the likelihood of the British developing an equivalent of the T-34 is a good one though. I'm not an expert on tank development in the Soviet Union in the 1930's, just like I'm not an expert on anything else, but to the casual observer they seem to have made a great leap from their "overweight, multi-turreted monstrosities" to well-armed and armoured tanks. An interesting contrast, thanks for that thought.

Regards

Tom

 

There's a massive amount of material at Kew. trouble is it was catalogued by people who are not SME's. Thus it all gets lost under a single generic title. I've had some truly surprising finds down there, the last one led me to my most recent book for example.

 

Excuse my, ignorance, but which book? Would it help me looking at the development of the 1st Armoured Division?

 

I doubt it, but my latest is this one:
Book Review - Defeating the panzer Stuka Menace. David Lister.

 

Thanks. I think you are probably correct. I may look at it in the future.