Behold.the following firing trial report for the VMG in the original Matilda: One mystery in this report is the reference to the twin belt box carrier. I understand the belt box carrier was a metal frame attachable to the tripod of the standard VMG, and which held the box for the ammo belt in alignment with the feed block. However, what is the twin belt box carrier? I assume it carries a pair of belt boxes, but for what purpose? The A11 was only fitted with a single machine gun.
Hello DJ, would the MG in question be this little beaut? Or is this a different Mark? Kind regards, always, Jim.
For anything Vickers my thoughts always turn to the ever helpful Richard Fisher so hopefully he'll pass by soon with his thoughts
I think this may just mean a larger size single box ( to hold twin belts/500 rounds, instead of a single size belt box that would hold 250 rounds) - maybe! Happy to learn differently from Mr Fisher, or other more informed (than me) folks. Kind regards, always, Jim.
That is a commercial variant. I haven't checked the specs on the A11 (what a useless tank) but the last in the series of .303 Vickers tank MGs in British service was the Mark VII. The last of the .5 tank MGs was the Mark V.
Mk VI* info within the page here; .303-inch Mk VI* - The Vickers Machine Gun Looks like that trial gun would have been one of the 196 made by September 1936. Unfortunately nothing further within said page to add (about twin belt box carrier) to ltdan's post #5 above. Kind regards, always, Jim.
As the twin box carrier is referred to here as a carousel, it sounds as though the tray could be rotated so that as one belt box was exhausted the other belt box was swung into position. The report mentions that the carrier could be either "fixed" in position with pins or left "free", and I suspect the latter refers to when the carousel needed to be rotated.
It's notable that the Mk.VI* had a left-hand feed, whereas IIRC the standard Vickers had a right hand feed. This was likely because on the Light Tank Mk.VIB, the .303" weapon was on the left, and the .5" on the right. However, when employed co-axially with the 2 pounder, the VMG was to the right of the main armament, so I wonder if a different mark of gun was employed.
I've researched the Vickers 0.303 used in the A11. The standard Vickers machine gun could be fitted with either a left-hand or right-hand feed-block depending upon the position of the ammunition carrier and other 'stuff' in the tank turret, thus the precise model of VMG was not an issue when supplying a VMG for a tank (for example) so long as it was compatible with the mounting etc, but rather which feed-block it was supplied with. When the Vickers 0.5 in machine gun was fitted to the A11 (this was field mod carried out in France only, and only affected 15 vehicles) the guns were those usually supplied to the light tanks and had the incorrect feed-block for the A11 turret set-up and these had to be changed to enable the gun to be used (along with other changes such as the size of the ammunition carrier for the larger 0.5 inch ammo cases, the length of the ejector tube and the removal of the conical flash hider). The 0.5 VMG was a longer weapon and took up more space in the turret. Neither the .303 nor the 0.5 were great tank armament by 1940, but their faults were well known and a trained and drilled gunner could rectify almost all of the stoppages that generally (always) occurred. The BESA was a better tank weapon by far (and didn't need a huge armoured sleeve like the .303 and 0.5 did to protect the water jacket from being punctured). Yes, it was well known that the A11 was not suitable for the Infantry tank role and this was recognised as early as 1936. The A11 was thus seen as a stop-gap training machine (rather like the Pz I and PzII) to be used to develop tactics and train crews while the better infantry tank came along - which was the 2pdr anti-tank gun armed A12 Matilda. Unfortunately the A12 was not ready in time and Adolf and his crew didn't want to wait any longer so the obsolete A11 was deployed to France in 1939 as a 'gesture' of solidarity with the much better equipped French. It was hoped that the A11 tanks in France would be replaced by the A12s but production was not fast enough and only 23 combat A12 were deployed overseas before 10 May 1940. Britain wasn't the only nation to field 'training only' tanks in the field (see tanks strengths for Germany's Pz I and Pz II). When armed with a 0.5 VMG, the A11 could (and did) perform well against the Pz 35(t) and the Pz I and II and the armour was superb.
Well it kicked Rommels arse back a few miles at Arras, gave the Germans the willies about how over extended they were and caused them to slow down a bit, allowing the Dunkirk situation to be created. Equally, it's not being used as it was intended. It seems like it was envisioned as a weapon of mass deployment, sticking hundreds alongside an infantry attack to shoot it onto the target. That we didn't buy enough is likely down to lack of funding as anything else. Then the idea became more cemented in, and the A.12 appeared it was seems like it was deemed silly to buy it any great numbers.
One other point about the use of the A11 during Arras is that the execution of the British attack was the usual cock-up. The commander of 1st Army Tank Brigade, Douglas Pratt, wanted to hold back for the infantry to arrive so that he could mount a combined arms attack, but the commander of 50th Infantry Division, Giffard Le Quesne Martel, insisted he attack immediately. This led to some extremely bad blood between Pratt and Martel (who had previously worked together in MGO 5) that went on well into the post-war era, as Pratt considered that if the attack had been coordinated with infantry support it would have been far more successful. This was also an example of how the technical qualities of tanks are invariably less important than how they are used. The British Army in the early war years generally used their tanks as ineptly as they possibly could, and all the post-war guff about the supposed inferiority of their tanks (which still goes on today) is little more than a smokescreen to disguise that fact.
Not quite. Trials identified the shortcomings of the A11 and it was not considered suitable for a combat machine by the Army - they tried to order more (than had thus far been agreed) but the Treasury rightly decided that if it wasn't suitable for combat it wasn't going to buy more than were needed for immediate training needs - hence the relatively low numbers of A11 produced. Yes that's absolutely correct. The BEF Infantry Tanks were committed to action three times during the campaign and in none of those actions were they employed in the way intended. The Infantry Tanks were trained to operate alongside infantry, with artillery support, and used en-mass and concentrated for short distance breakthrough operations either against a fortified line or as a counter-attack, yet, in all three cases of employment in France and Flanders, none of those conditions were met and the tanks were employed as a General Purpose AFV (of which the British Army had none, had planned none, and would hold out against producing anything like one for the next few years - sticking to the Infantry / Cruiser / Light classifications far too long!) I've examined this issue from both sides of the argument and understanding the situation leading up to the attack is vital. Let me state for the record that I don't like Martel's reputation as a 'tank expert' but he had forward thinking ideas and his plan for the attack at Arras was just that - it was just a bit too far ahead of what the British Army was capable of at that time, technically and logistically and ideologically. He wanted swiftly moving mobile columns armed with infantry, tanks, anti-tank guns and with flexible artillery support that would find weaknesses in the enemy and exploit them (i.e. The German model of attack), but the British Army of 1940 couldn't provide that. Martel was under tremendous pressure to 'deliver' (from Churchill and Tiny Ironside on down) and he knew that the longer the attack was delayed the less chance the mission had of success. He had also messed up by not readying 151 Infantry Brigade earlier in the day. Pratt wasn't that popular amongst some of the tank men - including Brigadier Vyvyan Pope (Advisor AFV GHQ BEF) and some of the more senior officers in the Tank Battalions. They perhaps saw him and his staff as slow to respond to the situation, too tied to the Army way of doing things, maybe as being too old for the job. There is much marginalia in one War Diary maligning Pratt and his Brigade Major and Brigade Captain. Pratt was right to ask for the attack to wait for the infantry, but had to bow to Martel and the timetable that had been agreed and then to get busy making it work - that's what subordinates do. Alas, this led to bad blood between the Infantry and the Tanks as well as between Pratt and Martel. Infantry accusing tanks of swanning off without them, tanks wondering where the bloody infantry were. Strangely, the Artillery didn't come in for the same treatment even though their contribution to the mission, in terms of flexible aimed fire, was very poor indeed. Neither the tanks nor the Infantry had a good word for the RAF that day (or for many days either side of it) There's no way of finding out the consequences of a delay to the attack, although I'm sure it has been wargamed over the years.
I was meaning that there seems to be a direct link from Martel's one-man tank to the infantry tank. Indeed, the one-man/two-man tankettes are even called that in documents.
