Tanks in the British Army



This article deals with the history of tanks of British Army.

Overview
Tanks first appeared on the battlefield as a solution to trench warfare. They were large, heavy, slow moving vehicles capable of driving right over the top of enemy trenches; thereby eliminating the need to send soldiers "over the top" only to be blasted to pieces by enemies. The British Army was the first to use them, who built them in secret to begin with. To keep the enemy from finding out about this new solution, the public were informed that the vehicles were large water carriers, or tanks, and the name stuck.

World War I established the validity of the tank concept. After the war, many nations needed to have tanks, but only a few had the industrial resources to design and build them. During and after World War I, Britain and France were the intellectual leaders in tank design, with other countries generally following and adopting their designs. This early lead would be gradually lost during the course of the 1930s to the Soviet Union who with Germany began to design and build their own tanks.

While World War I saw the first use of the tank as a weapon of war, it was during World War Two that the tank soon became a dominant force on the battlefield. The British, American, German and Russian armies all had different approaches to tanks and tank warfare, each with their fair share of successes and failures. The infantry tank was a concept developed by the British and French in the years leading up to World War II. Infantry tanks were tanks designed to support the infantry in the attack. To achieve this they were generally heavily armoured compared to the cruiser tanks, to allow them to operate in close concert with infantry even under heavy gun fire. The extra armouring came at the expense of speed, which was not an issue when supporting relatively slow moving infantry.

Once the infantry tank-supported attack had broken through heavily defended areas in the enemy lines, other tanks such as cruisers, or light tanks, were expected to exploit their higher speed and longer range to operate far behind the front in order to cut lines of supply and communications.

Background
No one individual was responsible for the development of the tank. Rather, a number of gradual technological developments brought the development of the tank as we know it closer until its eventual form was unveiled out of necessity by the British army. The British army designs were forced by the trench warfare in which neither side could achieve more than small incremental gains without heavy loss of soldiers lives, but tanks changed that. They were made to cross the trenches and quickly break into the enemy rear, while other tanks supported the main attack. The development between the infantry tank and the cruiser tanks had its origins in the World War I division between the first British heavy tanks which supported the infantry and the faster Whippet Medium Mark A and its successors the Medium Mark B and Medium Mark C. During the interbellum British tank experiments generally followed these basic classifications, which were made part of the overall doctrine with the work of Percy Hobart and Captain B.H. Liddell Hart. The next development of the more heavily armoured and upgunned tanks was brought about by the tank on tank battles in War World II German Blitzkrieg. This continued throughout the war, and led to heavy tanks which became the basis of the current Main Battle Tanks seen throughout the armies today.

British development
The Landships Committee and the newly formed Inventions Committee, agreed with Swinton's proposal and commissioned Lieutenant Walter Gordon Wilson of the Royal Naval Air Service and William Tritton of William Foster & Co. Ltd. of Lincoln, to produce a small landship. Constructed in great secrecy, the machine was given the code-name tank by Swinton.

Nicknamed Little Willie, this prototype tank weighed 14 tons and could carry a crew of three, at speeds of less than 2 mph over rough ground. Trench-crossing ability was deemed insufficient however, leading to the development of a rhomboidal design, which became known as HMLS Centipede and later Mother, the first of the British heavy tanks. After completion on 29 January 1916 very successful trials were made, and an order was placed by the War Office for 100 units to be used on the Western front in France,  on 12 February 1916,  and a second order for 50 additional units was placed in April 1916.

The great secrecy surrounding tank development, coupled with the skepticism of infantry commanders, often meant that infantry at first had little training to cooperate with tanks.



The first use of the British tanks on the battlefield was the use of 49 Mark I tanks during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916, with mixed, but still impressive results. Many broke down but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. Finally, in a preview of later developments, the British developed the lighter Whippet. This tank was specifically designed to exploit breaches in the enemy front. The Whippet was faster than most other tanks, although it carried only machinegun armament. Postwar tank designs would reflect this trend towards greater tactical mobility.

While the British took the lead in tank development, the French were not far behind and fielded their first tanks in 1917. The Germans, on the other hand, were slower to develop tanks, concentrating on anti-tank weapons.

Following the Great War, many experiments involving armoured vehicles were conducted in the United Kingdom. Particularly many advances were made in the areas of suspensions, tracks, communications, and the organization of these vehicles on the battlefield.Britain continued its technical dominance of tank design from 1915 through at least the early 1930s. British designs, particularly those from Vickers-Armstrong, formed the basis for many of the most common tanks of the 1930s and early WWII. The six-tonner, which was arguably the most influential design of the late 1920s, was not adopted by the British Army.

The Carden Loyd tankettes (two-man vehicles with machine guns) influenced the tankette concept through export and similar designs such as the Soviet T-27, Italian CV-33, German Panzer I and other copies. Another notable design was the Vickers Medium Mk II, a pivotal design which combined some of the best traits of WWI tanks into a much faster tank. Eventually, by the 1930s, British experiments and policy and their strategic situation led to a tank development programme with three main types of tank: light, cruiser, and infantry. The Infantry tanks were intended to support dismounted infantry. The maximum speed requirement matched the walking pace of a rifleman, and the armour on these tanks was expected to be heavy enough to provide immunity to towed anti-tank guns. Armament had to be sufficient to suppress or destroy enemy machine gun positions and bunkers as well as enemy tanks. Cruiser tanks were to carry out the traditional cavalry roles of pursuit and exploitation, working relatively independently of the infantry. This led to cruiser tank designs requiring greater speed. To achieve this they were lightly armoured, and tended to carry anti-tank armament. In practice both cruiser and infantry tanks entered the Second World War with the same gun. The light tanks were tasked with reconnaissance and constabulary-type colonial roles, with cost the major design factor.

An outstanding achievement of the British Army had been the creation of the Experimental Mechanised Force in the late 1920s. This was a small Brigade-sized unit developed to field-test the use of tanks and other vehicles. The unit pioneered the extensive use of radio to control widely separated small units. The unit was short-lived, however. However even though the British in the 1930s continued the design and development of tanks themselves, the Germans began to further develop tank strategy and incorporate them into their tactical employment more than the British. This doctrine of deployment led armies to equip their tanks with radios, to provide unmatched command and control, Germany along with the USSR also led the way with welding, although the US followed closely. Riveting and bolting remained in use in British designs.

Infantry tanks were a continuation of the Great War tanks, heavily armoured and designed to accompany an advancing infantry unit (so were very slow). Once the infantry tanks had punched through an enemy line, lighter and faster cruiser tanks would be let loose to disrupt supply lines.

The main problem with this strategy however, was that the British infantry tanks were just too slow and the cruisers of the time were vulnerable, and often mechanically unreliable. Come 1940, most of the British armour had been abandoned in France when the Expeditionary Force evacuated from Dunkirk, but this encouraged new designs. By the end of the war the increase in speed of the infantry tanks, and the increased armour of the cruisers, meant that there was little difference between the two classes of British tank. However, the British had to quickly build more reliable and more heavily armoured designs from the experienced gained in the early battles or acquire US designs to meet the needs.

At the start of the war, most British tanks were equipped with 2-pounder (40mm) guns which, while able to penetrate contemporary German armour, was limited by the army's refusal to issue high explosive rounds for dealing with non-armoured targets (the reasoning was that they contained so little explosive that it would not be worth while). The trend towards bigger guns and thicker armor which resulted in heavier tanks quickly made itself felt as second World War began and tanks showed the weakness in design and also in reliability.

In 1939, most tanks had maximum armour of 30 mm or less, with guns no heavier than 37–47 mm. Medium tanks of 1939 weighed around 20 tons. Also if the tank's gun was to be used to engage both unarmoured and armoured targets, then it needed to be as large and powerful as possible, making one large gun with an all-round field of fire vital. Also, mounting the gun in a turret ensured that the tank could fire from behind some cover. Hull-mounted guns required that most of the vehicle be exposed to enemy fire. Multiple-turreted or multi-gun designs such as the British A9 Cruiser Mk I slowly became less common.

British tanks armament and use in the battles also had to change as German Blitzkrieg tactics and doctrine shifted towards faster medium and heavy tanks fighting large multi-tank battles, with the role of the infantry tank in assaults taken by simpler self-propelled artillery. In British practice, the main armament of the infantry tank went in three phases. The pre-Dunkirk British Army Matilda I had only a single machine gun, a compromise forced by the low cost to which they had been built. The Matilda II gained a capable anti-tank capacity for its time, with the 40mm 2 pounder, but these were only issued with solid-shot (i.e. non-explosive) for anti-tank use and was of little use for artillery close-support of infantry. The followup gun to the 2pdr was already in development but the need to rapidly replace the losses in France delayed its production. Eventually 6-pounder (57mm) guns were put into the British tanks, and these could deal with pretty much anything but head on attacks on the German Tiger and Panther tanks - thanks to their special armour piercing rounds. As the war progressed many British tanks were equipped with 75mm guns from American Sherman tanks. These had better performance using high explosive or smoke ammunition, but could not match the 6-pounder against armour. Then the 17-pounder (76.2mm) was developed, becoming the best British gun of the war - able to deal with almost any armour put up against it.

World War I


The British Mark I was the world's first combat tank, entering service in August 1916, and first used in action on the morning of 15 September 1916. It was developed to be able to cross trenches, resist small-arms fire, travel over difficult terrain, carry supplies, and be able to capture fortified enemy positions. The Mark I was a development of Little Willie, the experimental tank built for the Landships Committee by Lieutenant Walter Wilson and William Tritton in the summer of 1915. A small number of Mark I tanks took part in the battle of the Somme during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette in September 1916. They were used to cut through barbed wire to clear the way for infantry, and were even driven through houses to destroy machine gunner's emplacements. Although many broke down or became stuck, almost a third that attacked made it across no mans land, and their effect on the enemy was noted, leading to a request by the British C-in-C Douglas Haig for a thousand more. The Mark II and Mark III incorporated minor improvements and changes over the Mark I with the Mark II used in the Battle of Arras in April 1917 because of delays in the production of the Mark I tank. The Mk IV incorporated thicker armour to resist German armour-piercing bullets. The Mark V had more power (150 bhp) and could be steered by one man, thanks to the epicyclic gear system created by Walter Wilson. It was first used in the Battle of Hamel on 4 July 1918 when 60 tanks contributed to a successful assault by Australian units on the German lines. During the Battle of Amiens in August 1918, several hundred of the Mark V and the lengthened Mk V* tanks, together with the new Whippet tanks, penetrated the German lines in a foretaste of modern armoured warfare. The Mark VI did not progress past the stage of a wooden mock-up; the project was cancelled in December 1917 in order that a tank co-developed with the US (the Mark VIII) could go forward. Because of technical troubles the Mark VII, almost identical to Mks I to V, had only three produced out of an order for 74 when war ended. The Mark VIII was a cooperative design between the Allies and was also known as "Liberty," "International," or Anglo-American tank. It did not see combat in the war but was used and upgraded until the 1930s when given to Canada for training. The Mark IX was designed in 1917 as the world's first specialised Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC). Thirty-four were completed, but none saw service. One was experimentally equipped as an armoured ambulance, and another rebuilt as an amphibious tank by the staff of the test base at Dollis Hill. There is photographic evidence that some Mk IX were used post-WWI as Infantry Carriers, but no record of their peacetime service is known to exist. The Mark X, a further improvement on the Mk V, was planned but never built. The Medium Mark A Whippet was a British tank of the First World War. It was intended to complement the slower British heavy tanks by using its relative mobility and speed in exploiting any break in the enemy lines. The Whippet tanks arrived late in the First World War, and went into action in March 1918. Alongside Mark V and V* tanks, they took part in the Amiens offensive (8 August 1918) where they broke through into the German rear areas causing the loss of the artillery in an entire front sector.

A first offensive using 49 Mark I tanks took place on 15 September 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, under Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, with limited success. Not until 20 November 1917, at Cambrai, did the British Tank Corps get the conditions it needed for success. Around 400 tanks penetrated almost six miles on a 7-mile front. This was their first large-scale deployment in combat. Unfortunately, success was not complete because the infantry failed to exploit and secure the tanks' gains. The British scored another victory the following year, on 8 August 1918, with 600 tanks in the Amiens salient. General Erich Ludendorff referred to that date as the "Black Day" of the German Army.

The German response to the Cambrai assault was to develop its own armored program. Soon the massive A7V appeared. The A7V was a clumsy monster, weighing 30 tons with a crew of eighteen. By the end of the war, only twenty had been built. Although other tanks were on the drawing board, material shortages limited the German tank corps to these A7Vs and some captured Mark IVs. The A7V would be involved in the first tank vs. tank battle of the war on April 24, 1918 at Villers-Bretonneux&mdash;a battle in which there was no clear winner.

Parallel to the British development, France designed its own tanks. The first two, the medium Schneider CA and heavy Saint-Chamond, were not well-conceived, though produced in large numbers and showing technical innovations, as for the latter type a petro-electrical transmission and a long 75 mm gun. The later Renault FT was the first operational tank with a "modern" configuration: a revolving turret on top and an engine compartment in the back; it would be the most numerous tank of the war. A last development was the superheavy Char 2C, the largest tank ever built, be it some years after the armistice.

Numerous mechanical failures and the inability of the British and French to mount any sustained drives in the early tank actions cast doubt on their usefulness&mdash;and by 1918, tanks were extremely vulnerable unless accompanied by infantry and ground-attack aircraft, both of which worked to locate and suppress anti-tank defenses.

The first American-produced heavy tank was the 43.5-ton Mark VIII, a US-British development of the successful British heavy tank design. Armed with two 6-pounder cannon and five .30-caliber machine guns, it was operated by an 11-man crew, had a maximum speed of 6.5 miles per hour, and a range of 50 miles. Production difficulties meant that none was produced before the War ended.

Between the wars


After the Great War, General Erich von Ludendorff of the German High Command praised the Allied tanks as being a principal factor in Germany's defeat. The Germans had been too late in recognizing their value to consider them in their own plans.

At a time when most soldiers regarded the tank as a specialized infantry-support weapon for crossing trenches, a significant number of officers in the Royal Tank Corps had gone on to envision much broader roles for mechanized organizations. In May 1918, Colonel J.F.C. Fuller, the acknowledged father of tank doctrine, had used the example of German infiltration tactics to refine what he called "Plan 1919". This was an elaborate concept for a large-scale armoured offensive in 1919.

An outstanding achievement of the British Army was the creation of the Experimental Mechanised Force in the late 1920s. This was a small Brigade-sized unit developed to field-test the use of tanks and other vehicles. The Experimental Mechanized Force formed by the British demonstrated a mobile force with its own motor transport infantry and self-propelled guns. The unit pioneered the extensive use of radio to control widely separated small units. The unit was short-lived, however.

In 1920 the Infantry had plans to acquire a Light Infantry Tank. Colonel Johnson of the Tank Design Department derived such a type from the Medium Mark D. In competition Vickers built the Vickers Light Tank. but the project was abandoned in 1922 in favour of a generally more conventional design: the Vickers Light Tank Mark I, that would be renamed to Vickers Medium Tank Mark I in 1924. The first prototypes were sent to Bovington for trial in 1923.

The Medium Mark I replaced some of the Mark V heavy tanks; and served in the Royal Tank Regiments, being the first type of in total 200 tanks to be phased out in 1938.

The Medium Mark I was the first tank to see "mass" production since the last of the ten Char 2C's had been finished in 1921. As of the next tank, the Renault NC27, only about thirty were built, the British Mediums represented most of the world tank production during the Twenties.

The Medium Mark I successor, the Vickers Medium Mk II combined some of the best traits of WWI tanks into a much faster tank. It was derived from the Vickers Medium Mark I, and was developed to replace the last of the Medium Mark Cs still in use. It had a fully rotating turret on top like the FT, but mounted a dual-use 3-pounder gun (that could fire both high-explosive and anti-tank shells) with a coaxial machine gun.

Both the cavalry and the Royal Tank Corps wanted fast, lightly armoured, mobile vehicles for reconnaissance and raiding&mdash;the light and medium (or "cruiser") tanks. In practice the "light tanks" were often small armuored personnel carriers. On the other hand, the "army tank battalions" performing the traditional infantry-support role required extremely heavy armoured protection. As a consequence of these two doctrinal roles, firepower was neglected in tank design.

After the First World War the British began to produce a series of similar light tanks and developed them right up to Second World War; the Light Tanks Mk II through to the Mk V. Eventually, by the 1930s, British experiments and their strategic situation led to a tank development programme with three main types of tank: light, cruiser, and infantry. The Infantry tanks were tasked with the support of dismounted infantry. The maximum speed requirement matched the walking pace of a rifleman, and the armor on these tanks was expected to be heavy enough to provide immunity to towed anti-tank guns. Armament had to be sufficient to suppress or destroy enemy machine gun positions and bunkers. Cruiser tanks were tasked with the traditional cavalry roles of pursuit and exploitation, working relatively independently of the infantry. This led to cruiser tank designs having great speed. To achieve this they were lightly armoured, and tended to carry anti-tank armament.

The light tanks were tasked with reconnaissance and constabulary-type colonial roles, with cheapness the major design factor. They saw use in training, and in limited engagements with British Empire units such as the South African Army during the East African Campaign against forces of the Italian Empire. Up until the Mk V, they had a crew of two: a driver/commander and gunner.The Mk V had a crew of three: a driver, a gunner, and the commander helping on the gun. The light tanks were kept in use for training until around 1942. Some saw active use in the Western Desert Campaign or Abyssinia. They were followed by the Light Tank Mk VI from 1936.

The Mk VI Light Tank, was the sixth in the line of light tanks built by Vickers-Armstrongs for the British Army during the interwar period. The company had achieved a degree of standardization with their previous five models, and the Mark VI was identical in all but a few respects. Production of the Mk VI began in 1936 and ended in 1940 with approximately 1,000 Mark VI tanks having been built.

When the Mk VI was first produced in 1936, the Imperial General Staff considered the tank to be superior to any light tank produced by other nations, and well suited to the dual roles of reconnaissance and colonial warfare. Like many of its predecessors, the Mark VI was used by the British Army to perform imperial policing duties in British India and other colonies in the British Empire, a role for which it and the other Vickers-Armstrongs light tanks were found to be well suited. When the British government began its rearmament process in 1937, the Mk VI was the only tank with which the War Office was ready to proceed with manufacturing; the development of a medium tank for the Army had hit severe problems after the cancellation of the proposed "Sixteen Tonner" medium tank in 1932 due to the costs involved, and cheaper models only existed as prototypes with a number of mechanical problems. As a result of this, when the Second World War began in September 1939, the vast majority of the tanks available to the British Army were Mk VIs - there were 1,002 Mk VI Light Tanks. The British and Commonwealth forces employed a relatively small number of these light tanks and armoured vehicles in East Africa against the forces of the Italian Empire from June 1940 to November 1941. For the most part, an assortment of armoured cars was used. However, B Squadron 4th Royal Tank Regiment did include small number of Matilda II infantry tanks.

In 1934 the best features of the earlier Mk III light tank were incorporated into a cruiser tank design. Sir John Carden of Vickers-Armstrong produced this new tank, to General Staff specification A9, which was subsequently accepted as the Cruiser Tank Mark I. A prototype was tested in 1936 and it went into production the following year, 125 examples being produced in 1937 and 1938. The follow-up to the A9, the A10, was also designed by Carden. Designated as a "heavy cruiser" tank, it was put into production in July 1938. It resembled the Cruiser Mk I, but had heavier armour, and was one of the first British tanks with Spaced armour and the first to be equipped with the Besa machine gun.

Orders for the Mk I and Mk II Cruisers were restricted, since the British Army had already decided to produce a more advanced and faster cruiser tank which would incorporate the Christie suspension acquired from the American inventor J. Walter Christie and have better armour. In 1936, General Martel, a pioneer in tank design who had published works on armoured warfare and pioneered the lightly armoured "tankette" to enhance infantry mobility, became Assistant Director of Mechanization at the War Office. Earlier that year Martel had witnessed demonstrations of Soviet tank designs including the BT tank, which had been influenced by Christie's work. He urged the adoption of a tank that would use the suspension system and also follow Christie's practice of using a lightweight aircraft engine such as the Liberty Engine. The government authorized purchase and licencing of a Christie design via the newly formed Nuffield Mechanisation and Aero.

The vehicle obtained from Christie became the basis of the Cruiser Mk III (General Staff number A13 Mk 1) though Christie's tank required extensive redesign as it was too small. Following testing of two prototypes, the A13 was ordered into production and a total of 65 were manufactured. The Mk III weighed `14 long tons (14.2 metric tonnes), had a crew of four, a 340 hp engine which gave a top speed of 30 mph and was armed with a 2 pounder gun and a machine gun. However, when it was introduced into service in 1937, the Army still lacked a formal tank division. The Cruiser Mk IV (A13 Mk II) was a more heavily armoured version of the Mk III.

World War II
By the time World War Two had come around, the design of the tank had shifted from its uses as a terrain covering vehicle, and the full potential of the tank as an armoured, combat vehicle had been realised.

Since the infantry tanks were to work at the pace of the infantry units, which would be attacking on foot, high speed was not a requirement and they were able to carry heavier armour. The Infantry Tank came about as a result of a 1934 requirement by the General Staff for a tank that would directly support an infantry attack. Armament would consist of a machine gun and an overall speed of a walking man when moving. Vickers designed an inexpensive (cost was a serious consideration) pilot which was delivered and accepted in 1936. Although heavily armoured it was slow and under-armed. Most would be lost or left behind in France.

The first two purpose-designed infantry tanks, the Infantry Tank Mark I "Matilda" and Mark II "Matilda" were armed with a heavy machine gun and QF 2 pounder anti-tank gun respectively. These two saw action in the Battle of France. It was quickly seen that the Matilda Mark 1 was inadequate for its intended role. The second Matilda was ordered directly off the drawing board in 1937. During its production years of 1940 to 1943, 2987 of these sturdy tanks were built. Though small, the tank presented a massive appearance due to its armoured skirts and cast armour. The Matilda 2 totally dominated all Italian armour and could claim title to "Queen of the Desert" until the arrival of German tanks in North Africa.

The British Army were pioneers in tank combat, but by 1939 it could be argued they were behind the times in terms of strategy and tactics, their methods based on the trench warfare of World War One. The British Army entered the Second World War with an array of poor designs and hobbled by poor doctrine. According to the theories of Captain BH Liddell Hart and Major-General Sir Percy Hobart, they split their tank force into two groups; Infantry tanks and Cruiser tanks. British tank use focused on cavalry-type missions and infantry support without the focus on the combined-arms tactics that dominated German and Soviet thinking.

The result was a series of under-armed, mechanically unreliable designs such as the A9 which Sir John Carden of Vickers-Armstrong produced in 1934 and A10 and Crusader (A15) cruiser tanks, and the Matilda (A11) also by Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd, began in 1935 and Matilda II (A12) infantry tanks, and a series of deathtrap light tanks, the Light Tank Mk I built earlier by Vickers Armstrong from 1929, up to the Light Tank Mk V produced during 1936, that were suitable for reconnaissance work only.

The Matilda Mk I, (A11) and Matilda II (A12) infantry tanks fought together in France as part of the 1st Army Tank Brigade of the British Expeditionary Force in the Battle of France. They participated in the defence and counter-attack operation at Arras against the invasion by Nazi Germany in May 1940, temporarily discomfiting the 7th Panzer Division under Rommel. When the BEF returned to the United Kingdom, nearly all their armour was left behind and the remaining Matilda Mk Is were withdrawn. The Matilda II was used up to early 1942, in the war in North Africa, the Matilda II proved highly effective against Italian tanks, although vulnerable again to the larger calibre and medium calibre anti-tank guns. When the German Afrika Korps arrived in North Africa, the 88 mm anti-aircraft gun was again pressed into the anti-tank role against the Matilda, causing heavy losses, and, by the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942, few Matildas were still in service.

Combat experience against the Germans in the Western Desert Campaign demonstrated to the British many shortcomings with their cruiser tanks. The Cruiser Mk I was an effective tank in the French, Greek and early North African campaigns. The 2 pdr gun was lethal against the primitive Italian tanks encountered first during the North African campaign, but was, at best, a mediocre weapon against the modern German armor of the Afrika Korps. The heavier Cruiser, Mk II (A10), were part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sent to France in the early stages of World War II. Their cross-country performance was recorded as poor, but they were still used later in North Africa.

Hence a request was made in 1941 to the Nuffield Organisation's subsidiary and Leyland Motors Ltd for a new heavy cruiser tank that could achieve battle superiority over German models. With the A34 Specification later called "Comet" the tank designers were to use a new gun, the "77mm HV". This gun used the same calibre (76.2 mm) projectiles as the 17-pounder but the shell casing was from the older QF 3 inch 20 cwt gun (loaded to higher pressures) permitting a smaller gun that could be readily fitted into a tank. The A34 Comet began to be delivered by September 1944. Intended to be in service by December 1944, crew training was delayed by the German Ardennes Offensive. By the end of the war, 1,200 had been produced.

They were followed by the Valentine and Churchill designs. Designed using the interior and chassis layout of the experimental A10, the Valentine met an emergency 1938 requirement for a tank to supplement the Matilda. Ordered "off the drawing board" in 1939. By the time production ceased in 1944, some 8,275 of these sturdy tanks had been built. Considered stable and reliable by its crews, the tank was only hampered by its small size. Unlike the Matilda tanks, this model allowed the later fitting of a larger main gun but at the expense of operating a two-man turret. The initial riveted construction soon was replaced by welding. The Valentine proved to be difficult to develop further but the Churchill went through successive variants and served up to the end of the war. These early Churchills were wrought with mechanical faults and required many changes before they were considered sound. The army had this machine designed to meet a possible need for a tank to operate in a "shelled area" on the Western Front which in 1939 was expected to eventually look like 1918. The initial A20 design was not successful which caused Vauxhall to take over from Harland and Wolff. The Vauxhall design was called the A22. The first production vehicles were delivered around the middle of 1941. Eventually, the teething problems were resolved and the tank went on to become one of the best tanks in the army's inventory. The tank was refined into many speciality roles - mostly with the Army's Royal Engineers. The tank had excellent weight distribution and was considered very stable in movement.

As British cruiser tank designs developed into larger tanks with more powerful engines, they could carry larger guns and more armour yet still achieved high speeds. At the end of the war the cruiser tank lineage led to the "universal tank" in the form of the Centurion.

In practice the British did not operate only infantry and cruiser tanks. Lack of production capacity meant the large scale adoption of US medium tanks.

Britain had been the worldwide trend-setter in tank development from 1915, but had lost its leadership position as the war approached. The British Army entered the war with an array of poor designs and hobbled by poor doctrine. British tank use focused on cavalry-type missions and infantry support without the focus on the combined-arms tactics that dominated German and Soviet thinking. The result was a series of under-armed, mechanically unreliable designs such as the A9, A10 and Crusader (A15) cruiser tanks, the Matilda (A11) and Matilda II (A12) infantry tanks, and a series of deathtrap light tanks suitable for reconnaissance work only.

The Cruiser Mk I was an effective tank in the French, Greek and early North African campaigns. The 2 pdr gun was lethal against the primitive Italian tanks encountered during the North African campaign, but was, at best, a mediocre weapon against the modern German armor of the Afrika Korps. Engaging the more thinly armored flanks and rear of German tanks was generally the only way to have any effect. The minimal armor made the A9 an easy kill for most German anti-tank weapons. Also problematic was the lack of High Explosive shells for the 2 pdr gun and even worse the lack of AP for the 95 mm gun on the Close Support version. Another issue was that the areas around the front machine gun turrets created a frontal surface that was more vulnerable to enemy fire than it would have been had it been a flat plate, let alone a sloped glacis.

A number of Cruiser Mark IIs were part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sent to France in the early stages of World War II. The A10 cross country performance was recorded as poor, but they were still used later in North Africa at the defence of Tobruk in 1941, where reliability and suspension performance in the desert conditions was praised. Sixty worn out examples were taken to Greece, by the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and although they performed well against the German tanks, over 90% were lost due to mechanical breakdowns as opposed to enemy action (mainly tracks). (See "A Tankie's Travels" By Robert Watt ISBN 1-84683-021-4)

The few bright spots of British tank design included the Valentine, Churchill (A22), Cromwell (A27M), and Comet I (A34). The Valentine was a reliable, heavily armoured infantry-support tank used successfully in the desert and by the Red Army as a light tank. The Churchill had heavy armour and good off-road capability. The Cromwell was in most respects the equal of the early model Sherman of the United States or the German Panzerkampfwagen/Pzkw-IV, but was fielded only in small numbers beginning in 1944. The Comet was an excellent design fielded in the final months of the war. The British Challenger (A30) Cruiser Tank, mounted with a 17 Pounder gun on the Cromwell chassis to add heavier anti-tank firepower to the cruiser tank units.

Beginning about mid-1942, most British tank units were equipped with vehicles supplied from the United States, such as the Stuart light tank, the Lee (or the Grant variant thereof) and the Lee's/Grant's replacement the Sherman.

Immediately before and during the war, the British produced an enormous array of prototype tanks and modified tanks for a variety of specialist tasks (see Hobart's Funnies). For example, the Churchill AVRE mounted a 290 mm (11.4") direct-fire mortar which was used for destroying buildings and clearing obstacles. Responsibility for the build up of vehicles and the training of crews to use them was given to armoured warfare expert Percy Hobart after whom the collection was named.



Many of the ideas had already been tried, tested or were in experimental development both by Britain and other nations. For example, the Scorpion flail tank (a modified Matilda tank) had already been used during the North African campaign to clear paths through German minefields. Soviet T-34 tanks had been modified with mine-rollers. Close-support tanks, bridgelayers, and fascine carriers had been developed elsewhere also. However, the Funnies were the largest and most elaborate collection of engineering vehicles available.

By early 1944, Hobart could demonstrate to Eisenhower and Montgomery a brigade each of swimming DD tanks, Crab mine clearers, and AVRE (Engineer) tanks along with a regiment of Crocodile flamethrowing tanks.

Montgomery considered that the US forces should use them, and offered them a half-share of all the vehicles available, but take-up was minimal. Eisenhower was in favour of the amphibious tanks but left the decision on the others to General Bradley who delegated it to his staff officers.

History in the Cold War
During the Cold War (1945–1990), the two opposing forces in Europe were the Warsaw Pact countries on the one side, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries on the other side. The Warsaw Pact was seen by the West as having an aggressive force outnumbering the NATO forces.

Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact led to effective standardization on a few tank designs. In comparison, NATO adopted a defensive posture. The major contributing nations, Britain, France, Germany, and the USA developed their own tank designs, with little in common, while the smaller nations of NATO purchased or adapted these designs.

After World War II, tank development continued largely as it had been because of the Cold War. Tanks would not only continue to be produced in huge numbers, but the technology advanced dramatically as well. Tanks became larger and their armour became thicker and much more effective. Aspects of gun technology changed significantly as well, with big advances in shell design and terminal effectiveness. However, nowadays most tanks in service still have manually breech-loaded guns, a trait of the earliest tanks which is shared with most self-propelled and field guns. Many of the changes in tank design have been refinements to targeting and ranging (fire control), gun stabilisation, communications and crew comfort. Many tanks by the 1950s, were equipped with NBC protection, allowing mechanized units to defend against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, or to conduct breakthroughs by exploiting battlefield nuclear strikes. Armour evolved to keep pace with improvements in weaponry, and guns got bigger, but other than that there were no fundamental changes. Right after the war, tank design budgets were cut and engineering staff was often scattered. Many war planners believed that the tank was obsolete, now that nuclear weapons were on the scene. It was felt that a tactical nuclear weapon could destroy any brigade or regiment, whether it was armoured or not. The Korean war proved that tanks were still useful on the battlefield, given the hesitation of the great powers to use nuclear weapons.

British main battle tank
Modern tanks still follow the same basic principle as the A34 Comet and modern tank warfare has evolved little from the World War Two tactics. The armoured nature of the vehicle means that it can advance towards the enemy unhindered. Tanks operate today as a unit supported by both infantry transported in other armoured military vehicles and air support which can be called in when required using radio communication.

The FV4034 Challenger 2 is the main tank currently being used today by the British military in combat situations. It is renowned for its durability and endurance. Only two have ever been recorded as destroyed, one of which was due to a friendly fire incident involving another Challenger 2 tank. This is possibly due to the use of Chobham armour for the Challenger's outer armour. Chobham armour is an incredibly tough armour, the details of which still remain secret to the developers. It uses layers of ceramics and other materials, combined in such a way as to withstand extreme heat and impact.

Jorgensen, Christer and Mann Chris, Tank Warfare: Strategy and Tactics-The Illustrated History of the Tank at War 1914-2000, The History Press LTD (2001: UK) Medium tanks gradually evolved into the new concept of the Main Battle Tank. This transition happened gradually in the 1950s, as it was realized that medium tanks could carry guns (such as the British L7 105 mm, and to lesser degree the US 90 mm and Soviet 100 mm) that could penetrate any practical level of armor at long range. The World War II concept of heavy tanks, armed with the most powerful guns and heaviest armor, became obsolete since they were just as vulnerable as other vehicles to the new medium tanks. Likewise, World War II had shown that lightly armed, lightly armored tanks were of little value in most roles. Even reconnaissance vehicles had shown a trend towards heavier weight and greater firepower during World War II; speed was not a substitute for armor and firepower.

The Main Battle Tank thus took on the role the British had once called the 'Universal tank', filling almost all battlefield roles. The British Centurion was the classic main battle tank of the 1950s along with the Soviet T-55 series, and the US M47/M48 series. These were upgraded significantly over time, as for example, the Centurion began life with the highly effective 17-pounder (76.2 mm) gun, but was upgraded to 20 pounder (84 mm) and then 105 mm main armament by 1959, with improved fire control and new engines. The British Centurion and the 2 other tanks series and their derivatives formed the bulk of the armored forces of NATO and the Warsaw Pact throughout the Cold War and some remain in use in the 21st century.

Light tanks continued to be built, but for very limited roles such as amphibious reconnaissance, support of Airborne units, and in rapid intervention forces which were not expected to face enemy tanks. Furthermore, the value of light tanks for scouting was diminished greatly by helicopters, although many light tanks continued to be fielded.