The Infantry Tank Mark II , better known as the Matilda , is a British infantry tank of the Second World War .
126-637: The design began as the A12 specification in 1936, as a gun-armed counterpart to the first British infantry tank, the machine gun armed, two-man A11 Infantry Tank Mark I . The Mark I was also known as Matilda, and the larger A12 was initially known as the Matilda II or Matilda senior . The Mark I was abandoned in 1940, and from then on the A12 was almost always known simply as "the Matilda". With its heavy armour,
252-491: A Portuguese fleet sent to India to take part in a colonial war in the 1740s. Also in 1737, it was mentioned that a German engineer had invented a 10-pounder cannon capable of firing 20 times in a minute. In 1740, a cannon able to shoot 11 times per minute was developed by a Frenchman called Chevalier de Benac. Meanwhile, not long after in England, in 1747 a cannon able to simultaneously charge and discharge itself 20 times in
378-421: A swivel gun that did not need cleaning or muzzle-loading and was capable of being made to any dimensions and used as an ordinary cannon at a moment's notice and firing 40 shots a minute was invented by a native of Ireland. Also in 1828 a revolver cannon capable of firing 12 shots a minute and worked by 2 artillerymen was invented by a Frenchman called Lesire-Fruyer. In 1854 this cannon would be put on display at
504-516: A tripod or on a vehicle; when carried on foot, the machine gun and associated equipment (tripod, ammunition, spare barrels) require additional crew members. Light machine guns are designed to provide mobile fire support to a squad and are typically air-cooled weapons fitted with a box magazine or drum and a bipod; they may use full-size rifle rounds, but modern examples often use intermediate rounds. Medium machine guns use full-sized rifle rounds and are designed to be used from fixed positions mounted on
630-522: A 3-inch howitzer. The ultimate evolution of the British infantry tank concept began with the Churchill Mk I , where a hull-mounted 3-inch howitzer could support infantry assaults with high explosive shells while the turret had a 2-pounder for use against other tanks. As the increasing size of tanks, and their turret ring diameters, allowed such a howitzer to be turret-mounted in vehicles such as
756-523: A 54-inch turret ring but was armed with a 6-pounder and that might have offered an alternative route. It was also somewhat expensive to produce. Vickers proposed an alternative, the Valentine tank , which had the same gun and a similar level of armour protection but on a faster and cheaper chassis derived from that of their "heavy cruiser" Cruiser Mk II . With the arrival of the Valentine in autumn 1941,
882-416: A French artist known as Renard invented a piece of ordnance that could be operated by one man and fired 90 shots a minute. Also in 1792, a French mechanic called Garnier invented a musket battery made up of 15 barrels capable of firing 300 shots in 2 minutes for a total rate of fire of 150 shots a minute or 10 shots per minute per barrel and of being operated by one man. In the early and mid-19th century,
1008-516: A Matilda II tank from 2015 to 2018, with updates provided through YouTube. While a gearbox fault prevented it running at the 2018 Tankfest (its first advertised running event since 2013), the issue was corrected and the tank has run at several events since. The Tank Museum at Bovington also displays the only surviving Matilda Canal Defence Light, currently housed in the Vehicle Conservation Centre. The WW2 Tank Stories display has
1134-824: A Matilda in desert Caunter camouflage scheme In the UK, the Imperial War Museum also has a Matilda - listed as a Mk V - with additional turret ring armour on display at their IWM North site. The Royal NSW Lancers Museum in Parramatta in Sydney has a MKII "ACE" fitted with a 3 in. howitzer in place of the 2 pounder. Other examples are displayed at the Kubinka Tank Museum in Russia, the Royal Museum of
1260-786: A better-armed tank would be needed and the Mark II, was already under design and would be ordered in mid-1938. The two saw action in the Battle of France where in the Battle of Arras they caused a shock to the German panzer units. Losses of the Mark I in France were not replaced but the Mark II Matilda remained in production. Infantry and cruiser tanks were expected to engage enemy tanks, hence
1386-411: A bipod and drum in the light machine gun role or a tripod and belt feed in the medium machine gun role. Machine guns usually have simple iron sights, though the use of optics is becoming more common. A common aiming system for direct fire is to alternate solid ("ball") rounds and tracer ammunition rounds (usually one tracer round for every four ball rounds), so shooters can see the trajectory and "walk"
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#17327731488221512-584: A breakthrough had been created, a Mobile Division containing a tank brigade with light and cruiser tanks, would advance through the gap and use the speed and range of its tanks to surprise the defender and attack flanks, headquarters and non-combatant units. By 1939, further amendments to FSR added counter-attacks on an enemy armoured breakthrough. (The codification of the difference between Infantry and cruiser tanks and their functions in FSR 1935, accidentally created an obstacle to all-arms co-operation that lasted long into
1638-407: A breech-loading volley gun , similar to the later mitrailleuse, was invented by a Frenchman called Du Perron which was worked by 3 or 4 men and capable of discharging 24 barrels 10 times a minute for a total rate of fire of 240 shots per minute. In 1776, a gun capable of charging and discharging itself 120 times 'by the motion of one hand only' in a minute was invented in England by an inventor from
1764-431: A cartridge to overheat and detonate even when the trigger is not pulled, potentially leading to damage or causing the gun to cycle its action and keep firing until it has exhausted its ammunition supply or jammed; this is known as cooking off (as distinct from runaway fire where the sear fails to re-engage when the trigger is released). To guard against cook-offs occurring, some kind of cooling system or design element
1890-644: A class of military kinetic projectile weapons, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod , a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils . Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns , medium machine guns , heavy machine guns , general-purpose machine guns , and squad automatic weapons . Unlike semi-automatic firearms , which require one trigger pull per round fired,
2016-618: A common feed source. The continuous nature of the rotary action and its relative immunity to overheating allow for a very high cyclic rate of fire , often several thousand rounds per minute. Rotary guns are less prone to jamming than a gun operated by gas or recoil, as the external power source will eject misfired rounds with no further trouble; but this is not possible in the rare cases of self-powered rotary guns. Rotary designs are intrinsically comparatively bulky and expensive and are therefore generally used with large rounds, 20 mm in diameter or more, often referred to as Rotary cannon – though
2142-443: A full-power rifle cartridge from a closed bolt are called automatic rifles or battle rifles , while rifles that fire an intermediate cartridge are called assault rifles . Assault rifles are a compromise between the size and weight of a pistol-caliber submachine gun and a full-size battle rifle, firing intermediate cartridges and allowing semi-automatic and burst or full-automatic fire options (selective fire), sometimes with both of
2268-424: A given amount of heat, while at the same time they are also much better at shedding the excess, as the extra barrels provide a larger surface area from which to dissipate the unwanted thermal energy. In addition to that, they are in the nature of the design spun at very high speed during rapid fire, which has the benefit of producing enhanced air-cooling as a side-effect. In weapons where the round seats and fires at
2394-516: A larger Infantry Tank was made in 1936, with specification A12. The design was produced by the Royal Arsenal , Woolwich , and Vulcan Foundry was selected as the manufacturer. A12 used a number of design elements of the A7, a medium tank that was built in limited numbers in the early 1930s whose mechanical layout was used for many following designs. With its greatly increased armour, a lack of power
2520-573: A machine capable of firing 600 balls in a few minutes. In 1720, a French inventor called Philippe Vayringe invented a small cannon that could fire 16 shots in succession, which he demonstrated before the Duke of Lorraine. In 1737, it was mentioned that Jacob de Weinholtz, a Dane who was serving in the Portuguese army, had invented a cannon capable of firing 20 to 30 shots a minute though requiring 15 people to work it. The cannons were brought along with
2646-494: A machine gun is designed to continue firing for as long as the trigger is held down. Nowadays, the term is restricted to relatively heavy crew-served weapons , able to provide continuous or frequent bursts of automatic fire for as long as ammunition feeding is replete. Machine guns are used against infantry , low-flying aircraft , small boats and lightly/un armored land vehicles , and can provide suppressive fire (either directly or indirectly ) or enforce area denial over
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#17327731488222772-408: A maximum speed of only 8 mph (13 km/h) but carried 60–65 mm (2.4–2.6 in) of armour and was mechanically reliable. The A11, Infantry Tank Mk I , was the first Infantry tank (I tank) and the first practical expression of the decision to split design into I tanks and cruiser tanks , with different functions and tactics, supplied to separate units and formations. The 1935 edition of
2898-467: A means for the German infantry to engage Matilda tanks at combat ranges. Nevertheless, during Operation Crusader Matilda tanks of 1st and 32nd Army Tank Brigades were instrumental in the break-out from Tobruk and the capture of the Axis fortress of Bardia. The operation was decided by the infantry tanks , after the failure of the cruiser tanks of the 7th Armoured Division to overcome the Axis tank forces in
3024-549: A minute of use. Because they become very hot, the great majority of designs fire from an open bolt , to permit air cooling from the breech between bursts. They also usually have either a barrel cooling system, slow-heating heavyweight barrel, or removable barrels which allow a hot barrel to be replaced. Although subdivided into " light ", " medium ", " heavy " or " general-purpose ", even the lightest machine guns tend to be substantially larger and heavier than standard infantry arms. Medium and heavy machine guns are either mounted on
3150-503: A minute though the rate of fire was limited by the overheating of the barrel. In 1819, an American inventor from Baltimore designed a gun with 11 barrels that could fire 12 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 132 shots a minute. In 1821, a muzzle-loading repeating cannon capable of firing 30 shots in 6 minutes or 5 shots per minute was demonstrated in England by the French-American "Fire King" Ivan Ivanitz Chabert. It
3276-822: A minute was invented by James Allis and presented to the Royal Society of England. In 1750, in Denmark, a Prussian known as Captain Steuben of the Train of Artillery invented a breech-loading cannon worked by 4 people and fed by paper cartridges capable of firing 24 times in a minute and demonstrated it to the King of Denmark along with some other high-ranking officials in the same year. In 1764, Frenchman Ange Goudar wrote in his work The Chinese Spy that he had assisted in Paris in
3402-415: A multi-shot weapon by a Palmer during this period appear to be referring to a somewhat more common Kalthoff repeater or Lorenzoni-system gun . Despite this, there is a reference in 1663 to at least the concept of a genuine automatic gun that was presented to Prince Rupert , though its type and method of operation are unknown. In 1708, it was reported from Constantinople that a French officer had invented
3528-479: A needless addition to the tank's weight, the thick areas were ground away. This process required highly skilled workers and additional time. The complex suspension and multi-piece hull side coverings also added time to manufacturing. The Matilda was first used in combat by the 7th Royal Tank Regiment in France in 1940 . Only 23 of the unit's tanks were Matilda IIs; the rest of the British infantry tanks in France were
3654-820: A notable collection at the Royal Australian Armoured Corps Memorial and Army Tank Museum , at Puckapunyal , Australia; it has five Matilda IIs on display, including a Matilda Frog flame tank, a Matilda Hedgehog and a Matilda Bulldozer. Tanks in running condition are owned by The Tank Museum Bovington in the United Kingdom, the American Heritage Museum in the United States, and several private owners in Australia. The Tank Museum completely restored
3780-668: A number of rapid-firing weapons appeared which offered multi-shot fire, mostly volley guns. Volley guns (such as the Mitrailleuse ) and double-barreled pistols relied on duplicating all parts of the gun, though the Nock gun used the otherwise-undesirable "chain fire" phenomenon (where multiple chambers are ignited at once) to propagate a spark from a single flintlock mechanism to multiple barrels. Pepperbox pistols also did away with needing multiple hammers but used multiple manually operated barrels. Revolvers further reduced this to only needing
3906-430: A pre-prepared cylinder and linked advancing the cylinder to cocking the hammer. However, these were still manually operated. In 1805, a British inventor from Northampton designed a cannon that would prime, load and fire itself 10 times a minute. In 1806, a Viennese copper engraver and mechanic known as Mr Putz invented a machine cannon that could load, fire and clean itself once every second or potentially up to 60 times
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4032-402: A reasonable rate of fire and reliability. In contrast to the rotary format, such weapons have a single barrel and a recoil-operated carriage holding a revolving chamber with typically five chambers. As each round is fired, electrically, the carriage moves back rotating the chamber which also ejects the spent case, indexes the next live round to be fired with the barrel and loads the next round into
4158-466: A reduced rate of fire. Some designs – such as the many variants of the MG42 – are capable of rates of fire in excess of 1,200 rounds per minute. Motorized Gatling guns can achieve the fastest firing rates of all, partly because this format involves extra energy being injected into the system from outside, instead of depending on energy derived from the propellant contained within the cartridges, partly because
4284-598: A sector of land with grazing fire . They are commonly mounted on fast attack vehicles such as technicals to provide heavy mobile firepower, armored vehicles such as tanks for engaging targets too small to justify the use of the primary weaponry or too fast to effectively engage with it, and on aircraft as defensive armament or for strafing ground targets, though on fighter aircraft true machine guns have mostly been supplanted by large-caliber rotary guns. Some machine guns have in practice sustained fire almost continuously for hours; other automatic weapons overheat after less than
4410-414: A single heavy Vickers machine gun , a compromise forced by the lightness of its chassis and its target cost. The Matilda II gained a capable anti-tank capacity for its time, with the 2-pounder, but these were only issued with solid-shot (i.e. non-explosive) for anti-tank use and had little effect as artillery when providing close support for the infantry. A separate variant of the Matilda was fitted with
4536-581: A small number of Matildas were used during the East Africa Campaign at the Battle of Keren . However, the mountainous terrain of East Africa did not allow the tanks of B Squadron 4th Royal Tank Regiment to be as effective as the tanks of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment had been in Egypt and Libya. A few Matildas of the 7th RTR were present during the Battle of Crete and all of them were lost. A total of 409 Matilda IIs were supplied by Britain to
4662-640: A tank to a General Staff specification based on the first option as the A11 Matilda. Within the limitations of military finances, the Master-General of the Ordnance , Hugh Elles , went for the smaller machine gun tank and the larger cannon-armed version did not proceed. This requirement was passed to Vickers-Armstrongs which had a prototype (A11E1) but with armour proof against current anti-tanks guns ready by September 1936. The first suggestion for
4788-414: A time when close. It was also claimed to be able to shoot 5 or 6 times before infantry came within musket range or cavalry within pistol range and with no more space between each shot than the time needed to prime a pistol, cock it and release the hammer as well as being nearly as manoeuvrable as cavalry. An alternative and heavier version was said to be able to throw grenades and it was also proposed to equip
4914-497: A tripod. The heavy machine gun is a term originating in World War I to describe heavyweight medium machine guns and persisted into World War II with Japanese Hotchkiss M1914 clones; today, however, it is used to refer to automatic weapons with a caliber of at least 12.7 mm (0.5 in), but less than 20 mm (0.8 in). A general-purpose machine gun is usually a lightweight medium machine gun that can either be used with
5040-419: A turret big enough for a radio and an Ordnance QF 2-pounder high-velocity gun, firing solid projectiles capable of penetrating all 1939–1940 German tanks. Vickers and government factories could not take on the work and it was farmed out to a civilian firm, which lacked experience, designers and draftsmen. It took until 1939 to bring the A12 into production as the "Matilda II" and it had not gone into service when
5166-436: A very light cannon that could fire from a single barrel 30 shots in 2 and a half minutes for a total rate of fire of 12 shots a minute. In 1711, a French lawyer called Barbuot presented to the parliament of Dijon a crank-operated 'war machine' made up of 10 carbine barrels and loaded via a 'drum' capable of firing in vollies. It was said to be accurate at 400 to 500 paces and to strike with enough force to pierce 2 or 3 men at
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5292-569: Is a revolving arquebus , produced by Hans Stopler of Nuremberg in 1597. True repeating long arms were difficult to manufacture prior to the development of the unitary firearm cartridge; nevertheless, lever-action repeating rifles such as the Kalthoff repeater and Cookson repeater were made in small quantities in the 17th century. Perhaps the earliest examples of predecessors to the modern machine gun are to be found in East Asia. According to
5418-900: Is locked into the chamber. Almost all machine guns have a "safety" sear, which simply keeps the trigger from engaging. The first successful machine-gun designs were developed in the mid-19th century. The key characteristic of modern machine guns, their relatively high rate of fire and more importantly mechanical loading, first appeared in the Model 1862 Gatling gun , which was adopted by the United States Navy . These weapons were still powered by hand; however, this changed with Hiram Maxim 's idea of harnessing recoil energy to power reloading in his Maxim machine gun . Dr. Gatling also experimented with electric-motor-powered models; as discussed above, this externally powered machine reloading has seen use in modern weapons as well. While technical use of
5544-634: Is required. Early machine guns were often water-cooled and while this technology was very effective, (and was indeed one of the sources of the notorious efficiency of machine guns during the First World War ), the water jackets also added considerable weight to an already bulky design; they were also vulnerable to the enemies' bullets themselves. Armour could be provided, and in WW I the Germans in particular often did this; but this added yet more weight to
5670-549: Is the recoil actuated type, which uses the gun's recoil energy for the same purpose. Machine guns, such as the M2 Browning and MG42 , are of this second kind. A cam, lever or actuator absorbs part of the energy of the recoil to operate the gun mechanism. An externally actuated weapon uses an external power source, such as an electric motor or hand crank, to move its mechanism through the firing sequence. Modern weapons of this type are often referred to as Gatling guns , after
5796-569: The Australian Citizen Military Forces until about 1955. The Red Army received 918 of the 1,084 Matildas sent to the USSR. The Soviet Matildas saw action as early as the Battle of Moscow and became fairly common during 1942. Unsurprisingly, the tank was found to be too slow and unreliable. Crews often complained that snow and dirt were accumulating behind the "skirt" panels, clogging the suspension. The heavy armour on
5922-564: The Crusader Close Support (CS) and Centaur CS cruiser tanks. Since infantry tanks were to work at the pace of infantry units which would be attacking on foot, high speed was not a requirement and they were able to carry heavier armour. The first two purpose-designed infantry tanks, the A.11 Matilda Mark I armed with a heavy machine-gun and A.12 Matilda Mark II with a heavy machine gun and 2-pounder anti-tank gun. The Mark I had been ordered in 1938, but it had become clear that
6048-479: The FCM 36 . All three had two–man crews and were similar to the Matilda I in terms of size, weight and armour. However, they were better armed, having 37mm guns as well as co-axial machine guns. In practice, although able to resist hits from other tanks and anti-tank guns, and designed for good, albeit slow, cross-country performance, the separation of tank functions into specialised areas such as infantry and cruiser types
6174-699: The London, Midland and Scottish Railway at Horwich Works ; Harland and Wolff , and the North British Locomotive Company Glasgow. The last were delivered in August 1943. Peak production was 1,330 in 1942, the most common model being the Mark IV. The Matilda was difficult to manufacture. For example, the pointed nose was a single casting that, upon initial release from the mould, was thicker than required in some areas. To avoid
6300-462: The Nordenfelt gun . The first known ancestors of multi-shot weapons were medieval organ guns . An early example of an attempt at the mechanisation of one of these would be an 'engine of war' produced in the mid-1570s in England capable of firing from 160 to 320 shots 4, 8, 12 or 24 bullets at a time at a rate of fire up to roughly 3 times the rate of fire of the typical arquebusier of the day. It
6426-620: The Romanians had also captured some Soviet Matildas, but no other source mentions this, so it may be a confusion. Egypt used Matildas against Israel during 1948 Arab–Israeli War . Around 70 Matilda IIs survive in various degrees of preservation. Around 30 are in Australia, with the Bandiana Museum and the Australian armour and artillery museum having one each, others displayed as public monuments or in private ownership, and
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#17327731488226552-473: The Vickers Medium Tank Mk I and Medium Mk II , which were judged obsolete by the 1930s; most of the vehicles were at the end of their mechanical life. It was impractical to build more because their road speed of only 18 mph (29 km/h) was too slow for manoeuvre warfare and their armament of a 3-pounder gun lacked the power to penetrate newer foreign tanks. By 1931, experience with
6678-597: The dazzle patterns of First World War ships. The design incorporated block colours, visually breaking the tank in half. The first Matilda was produced in 1937, but only two were in service when war broke out in September 1939. Following the initial order from Vulcan Foundry , a second order was placed shortly after with Ruston & Hornsby . Some 2,987 tanks were produced by the Vulcan Foundry, John Fowler & Co. of Leeds , Ruston & Hornsby, and later by
6804-746: The A12E1 prototype in April 1938. The prototypes proved excellent in a 1,000 miles (1,600 km) test, resulting in only a few changes to improve the gearbox, suspension and cooling. When war was recognised as imminent, production of the Matilda II was ordered and that of the Matilda I curtailed. The first order was placed shortly after trials were completed, with 140 ordered from Vulcan in June 1938. The Matilda Senior weighed around 27 long tons (27 t; 30 short tons), more than twice as much as its predecessor, and
6930-1447: The Armed Forces and Military History in Belgium, the Yad La-Shiryon museum in the Latrun , the Musée des Blindés in France, and the Cavalry Tank Museum at Ahmednagar in India. Background: British armoured fighting vehicle production during World War II , Tanks in the British Army Machine gun A machine gun ( MG ) is a fully automatic and rifled firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges . Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles ) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower and are not considered true machine guns. Submachine guns fire handgun cartridges rather than rifle cartridges, therefore they are not considered machine guns, while automatic firearms of 20 mm (0.79 in) caliber or more are classified as autocannons rather than machine guns. As
7056-789: The Australian army between 1942 and 1944, and a further 33 close-support Matildas were transferred from New Zealand to the Australian army in 1944, as New Zealand made the decision to use only close-support Valentine tanks in the Pacific theatre, to minimise supply problems. The Australian 4th Armoured Brigade used them against Japanese forces in the South West Pacific Area , first in the Huon Peninsula campaign in October 1943. Matilda II tanks remained in action until
7182-578: The Experimental Mechanized Force led to the report of the Kirke Committee and specifications for three types of tank, a medium tank with a small-calibre anti-tank gun and a machine-gun , a light tank armed with machine-guns for reconnaissance and to co-operate with medium tanks by engaging anti-tank guns. A close support tank armed with a gun firing high explosive and smoke shells to give covering fire for tank attacks
7308-742: The French Museum of the Marine. In France, in 1831, a mechanic from the Vosges department invented a lever-operated cannon that could fire 100 shots a minute. In 1832, a machine capable of firing 500 rifle shots a minute was devised by Hamel, a French mechanic. Infantry tank The infantry tank was a tank concept developed by the United Kingdom and France in the years leading up to World War II . Infantry tanks were designed to support infantrymen in an attack. To achieve this,
7434-480: The Germans. Several vehicles were transported to Kummersdorf where they were evaluated, including trials by live fire. The German designation was Infanterie Panzerkampfwagen Mk.II 748(e) translating roughly as "Infantry Tank Mk.II Number 748 (English)". The Matildas were well-regarded by their German users although their use in battle caused confusion to both sides, despite extra-prominent German markings. Czech historian Ivo Pejčoch [ cz ] writes that
7560-461: The Inspector, Royal Tank Corps, asked Vickers to design a tank for infantry co-operation, that could survive all existing anti-tank weapons and be cheap enough for mass production in peacetime. The next year, Vickers had a two-man tank design, with a machine-gun and powered by a civilian Ford V8 engine of 70 hp (52 kW). The prototype of October 1936 weighted 10 long tons (10 t) had
7686-477: The Italians as the British pushed them out of Egypt and entered Libya to take Bardia and Tobruk . Even as late as November 1941, German infantry combat reports show the impotence of ill-equipped infantry against the Matilda. Ultimately, in the rapid manoeuvre warfare often practised in the open desert of North Africa, the Matilda's low speed and unreliable steering mechanism became major problems. Another snag
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#17327731488227812-471: The Matilda II was an excellent infantry support tank but with somewhat limited speed and armament. It was the only British tank to serve from the start of the war to its end, although it is particularly associated with the North Africa Campaign . Only two were available for service by the outbreak of World War II in 1939. It was replaced in front-line service by the lighter and less costly Infantry Tank Mk III Valentine beginning in late 1941. The split between
7938-443: The Matilda from using the other. The combined power of the engines went through a six-speed Wilson epicyclic gearbox, operated by compressed air. The tank's suspension system was that which had been developed by Vickers for their Medium C prototype in the mid-1920s The tank was carried by five double wheels bogies on each side. Four of the bogies were on bellcranks in pairs, with a common horizontal coil spring. The fifth bogie at
8064-440: The Matilda was comparable to that of the Red Army's KV-1 heavy tanks , but the Matilda had nowhere near the firepower of the KV. Most Soviet Matildas were expended during 1942 but a few served on as late as 1944. The Soviets modified the tanks with the addition of sections of steel welded to the tracks to give better grip. Following Operation Battleaxe a dozen Matildas left behind the Axis lines were repaired and put into service by
8190-456: The Matilda was further exacerbated by a troublesome suspension and a comparatively weak power unit, which was created from two AEC 6-cylinder bus engines linked to a single shaft. This arrangement was complicated and time-consuming to maintain, as it required mechanics to work on each engine separately and subjected automotive components to uneven wear-and-tear. It did provide some mechanical redundancy , since failure in one engine would not prevent
8316-427: The Matilda was phased out by the British Army through attrition, with lost vehicles no longer being replaced. By the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein (October 1942), few Matildas were in service, with many having been lost during Operation Crusader and then the Gazala battles in early summer of 1942. Around twenty-five took part in the battle as mine-clearing Matilda Scorpion mine flail tanks. In early 1941,
8442-445: The Matilda was the heaviest of its era. Contemporary German Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks had 30 to 50 millimetres (1.2 to 2.0 in) hull armour, while the T-34 had 40 to 47 millimetres (1.6 to 1.9 in) (angled at 60 degrees). Matilda's side and rear armour was relatively heavy even at the end of the war when tanks like the M4 Sherman carried about 40 mm, and late models of the Panther carried 50 mm. The shape of
8568-419: The Matilda, without developing a larger turret, was impractical. There was at least one instance of the turret from the A24/A27 cruiser tank series being fitted to a Matilda, complete with 6-pounder gun. As the size of the Matilda's turret ring was 54 inches (1.37 m) vs. the 57 inches of the A27, it was possible that a larger turret ring had been superimposed on the hull. The Churchill Mark III also had
8694-457: The Second World War.) Defence against tanks could be achieved by troops finding physical obstacles and by controlling their own anti-tank guns. The obstacles could be woods and rivers or minefields as long as they were covered by fire from other weapons. In places lacking convenient terrain features, lines-of-communication troops would also need anti-tank guns and be trained to set up localities suitable for all-round defence The need for economy in
8820-425: The Soviet 45-ton KV-1 heavy tank and 25-ton British Matilda II infantry tank were deployed at about the same time in 1940. These two models had similar levels of armour protection and mobility, but the KV's 76.2 mm main gun was much larger than the Matilda's 2-pounder (40 mm). In British practice, the main armament of the infantry tank went in three phases. The pre-Dunkirk British Army Matilda I had only
8946-401: The War Office publication, Field Service Regulations (FSR), containing the principles by which the army was to act to achieve objectives, was written by Major-General Archibald Wavell , made breakthrough the responsibility of infantry divisions with the support of Army Tank Battalions, equipped with specialised vehicles for infantry-artillery co-operation, the slow and heavy Infantry tanks. Once
9072-680: The Wu-Pei-Chih, a booklet examining Chinese military equipment produced during the first quarter of the 17th century, the Chinese army had in its arsenal the 'Po-Tzu Lien-Chu-P'ao' or 'string-of-100-bullets cannon'. This was a repeating cannon fed by a hopper containing balls which fired its charges sequentially. The way it worked was similar to the Perkins steam gun of 1824 or the Beningfield electrolysis gun of 1845 only slow-burning gunpowder
9198-461: The basis of size; those using shotgun cartridges are almost always referred to as automatic shotguns . The term personal defense weapon (PDW) is sometimes applied to weapons firing dedicated armor-piercing rounds which would otherwise be regarded as machine pistols or SMGs, but it is not particularly strongly defined and has historically been used to describe a range of weapons from ordinary SMGs to compact assault rifles. Selective-fire rifles firing
9324-406: The chamber. The action is very similar to that of the revolver pistols common in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving this type of weapon its name. A Chain gun is a specific, patented type of Revolver cannon, the name, in this case, deriving from its driving mechanism. As noted above, firing a machine gun for prolonged periods produces large amounts of heat. In a worst-case scenario, this may cause
9450-610: The close-support version of the Matilda, armed with an Ordnance QF 3-inch howitzer , was preferred by the Australians as it was more effective against Japanese bunkers. Local modifications to the tanks included improving the waterproofing, and adding an outside infantry telephone so supporting troops could more easily communicate with the tank crew. Guards were fitted to the suspension to stop it from being tangled with jungle undergrowth, and metal panels fitted to make it harder for Japanese soldiers to attach adhesive demolition charges to
9576-547: The county of Westmoreland. In 1777, Philadelphia gunsmith Joseph Belton offered the Continental Congress a "new improved gun" , which was capable of firing up to twenty shots in five seconds; unlike older repeaters using complex lever-action mechanisms, it used a simpler system of superposed loads , and was loaded with a single large paper cartridge . Congress requested that Belton modify 100 flintlock muskets to fire eight shots in this manner, but rescinded
9702-448: The design and production of the A11, which was too small for a radio, led to work on a successor, the A12, Infantry Tank Mk II in 1936. Capable of 15 mph (24 km/h), the A12 was still slow but had 60–70 mm (2.4–2.8 in) of armour, making it almost invulnerable to tank guns and standard foreign guns like the German 37 mm Pak 36 anti-tank gun. The tank had a four-man crew and
9828-648: 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. During the inter-war years, the French Army adopted three light tanks in the infantry tank role. These were the Hotchkiss H35 , the Renault R35 and
9954-531: The fire into the target, and direct the fire of other soldiers . Many heavy machine guns , such as the Browning M2 .50 BMG machine gun, are accurate enough to engage targets at great distances. During the Vietnam War , Carlos Hathcock set the record for a long-distance shot at 7,382 ft (2,250 m) with a .50 caliber heavy machine gun he had equipped with a telescopic sight . This led to
10080-494: The front and cut lines of supply and communications . The infantry tank was superseded by the "Universal Tank" concept which could adequately perform the roles of both infantry and cruiser tank, as represented by the Centurion which replaced both the Churchill and any medium or cruiser tanks then in service. This led to the main battle tank . The experimental armoured formations of the British army were mostly equipped with
10206-523: The gunner some situational awareness and target finding capabilities. The loader used a single, rectangular hatch in the turret's roof on the right side. The turret was equipped with a basket around which much of the ammunition stowage was contained. The turret had a power traverse system used under normal conditions, and a manually-operated mechanical emergency assist. The turret roof, hull roof and engine deck were 20 millimetres (0.79 in). The armour varied in strength from IT .80 to IT.100 The armour of
10332-573: The guns. Air-cooled machine guns often feature quick-change barrels (often carried by a crew member), passive cooling fins, or in some designs forced-air cooling, such as that employed by the Lewis Gun . Advances in metallurgy and the use of special composites in barrel liners have allowed for greater heat absorption and dissipation during firing. The higher the rate of fire, the more often barrels must be changed and allowed to cool. To minimize this, most air-cooled guns are fired only in short bursts or at
10458-407: The hull, and protected by a rotating armoured cover which could be held locked in either fully open or closed positions; emergency egress was made possible by a large escape hatch under the driver's seating position. The driver also had a direct vision viewing port with manually operated armoured shield and a single Mk IV periscope to use when buttoned up. Like many other British infantry tanks , it
10584-521: The hull. The Matilda Frog , an Australian-modified version of the tank that replaced the gun with a flamethrower saw some successful use against the Japanese on Borneo. Another Australian version, the Matilda Hedgehog , which could fire seven 65-pound (29 kg) mortar shells, was successfully tested but was developed too late to see combat service. Matilda IIs remained in service with
10710-536: The infantry tank and cruisers had its origins in the First World War division between the first British heavy tanks 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 Major-General Percy Hobart and
10836-459: The influence of Captain B.H. Liddell Hart . In 1934, Hobart, the then "Inspector, Royal Tank Corps", postulated in a paper two alternatives for a tank to support the infantry. One was a very small, heavily armoured, machine gun-armed model that would be fielded in large numbers to overwhelm the enemy defences. The other was a larger vehicle with a cannon as well as machine guns and heavier armour proof against enemy field artillery . Vickers designed
10962-513: The introduction of .50 caliber anti-materiel sniper rifles , such as the Barrett M82 . Other automatic weapons are subdivided into several categories based on the size of the bullet used, whether the cartridge is fired from a closed bolt or an open bolt , and whether the action used is locked or is some form of blowback . Fully automatic firearms using pistol-caliber ammunition are called machine pistols or submachine guns largely on
11088-606: The inventions mentioned in the book, it is uncertain if it was ever built. It is sometimes claimed (i.e. in George Morgan Chinn's the Machine Gun ) that in 1663 the first mention of the automatic principle of machine guns was in a paper presented to the Royal Society of England by Palmer, an Englishman who described a volley gun capable of being operated by either recoil or gas. However, no one has been able to find this paper in recent times and all references to
11214-619: The larger calibre and medium calibre anti-tank guns. In late 1940, during Operation Compass , Matildas of the British 7th Armoured Division wreaked havoc among the Italian forces in Egypt . The Italians were equipped with L3 tankettes and M11/39 medium tanks , neither of which had any chance against the Matildas. Italian gunners were to discover that the Matildas were impervious to a wide assortment of artillery. Matildas continued to confound
11340-524: The last day of the war in the Wewak, Bougainville and Borneo campaigns, which made the Matilda the only British tank to remain in service throughout the war. The tanks were often employed in dense jungle with limited visibility, and could be subject to point-blank fire from hidden Japanese heavy artillery pieces. The Matilda's heavy armour (enhanced by the crews with spare track links) proved to be reasonably effective protection against this. In this fighting,
11466-530: The latter presents. Many machine guns are of the locked breech type, and follow this cycle: The operation is basically the same for all locked breech automatic firearms, regardless of the means of activating these mechanisms. There are also multi-chambered formats, such as revolver cannon , and some types, such as the Schwarzlose machine gun etc., that do not lock the breech but instead use some type of delayed blowback . Most modern machine guns are of
11592-514: The locking type, and of these, most utilize the principle of gas-operated reloading , which taps off some of the propellant gas from the fired cartridge, using its mechanical pressure to unlock the bolt and cycle the action. The first of these was invented by the French brothers Claire, who patented a gas operated rifle, which included a gas cylinder, in 1892. The Russian PK machine gun is a more modern example. Another efficient and widely used format
11718-438: The machine with a bellows for clearing smoke that built up during firing. Another early revolving gun was created by James Puckle , a London lawyer, who patented what he called "The Puckle Gun " on May 15, 1718. It was a design for a manually operated 1.25 in. (32 mm) caliber, flintlock cannon with a revolver cylinder able to fire 6–11 rounds before reloading by swapping out the cylinder, intended for use on ships . It
11844-449: The more powerful German anti-tank guns from long range with high explosive shells. Using later terminology, the infantry tank has been compared to a heavy tank , while the cruisers were compared to mediums , lights , or even armoured cars . This comparison can be misleading; late Second World War heavy tanks were intended to have superior anti-tank capabilities, which wasn't a focus of the traditional infantry tank. The infantry tank
11970-430: The next round can be inserted simultaneously with or before the ejection of the previous cartridge case, and partly because this design intrinsically deals with the unwanted heat very efficiently – effectively quick-changing the barrel and chamber after every shot. The multiple guns that comprise a Gatling being a much larger bulk of metal than other, single-barreled guns, they are thus much slower to rise in temperature for
12096-515: The nose armour was based on Christie's designs and came to a narrow point with storage lockers added on either side. The heavy armour of the Matilda's cast turret became legendary; for a time in 1940–1941, the Matilda earned the nickname "Queen of the Desert". While the Matilda possessed a degree of protection that was unmatched in the North African theatre, the sheer weight of the armour on
12222-467: The open desert. As the German army received new tanks with more powerful guns, as well as more powerful anti-tank guns and ammunition, the Matilda proved less and less effective. Firing tests conducted by the Afrika korps showed that the Matilda had become vulnerable to a number of German weapons at ordinary combat ranges. Due to the small size of the turret and the need to balance the gun in it, up-gunning
12348-413: The order when Belton's price proved too high. In 1779, a machine made up of 21 musket barrels worked by 3 men was produced by a British inventor called William Wilson Wright which he claimed could be fired 3 times quicker than a single man could load and fire a musket 3 times. In 1788, a Swiss soldier invented a machine worked by 10 men capable of discharging 300 balls in 3 minutes. Also in 1788, it
12474-413: The original inventor (not only of the well-known hand-cranked 19th century proto-machine gun, but also of the first electrically powered version). They have several barrels each with an associated chamber and action on a rotating carousel and a system of cams that load, cock, and fire each mechanism progressively as it rotates through the sequence; essentially each barrel is a separate bolt-action rifle using
12600-408: The proofing of a 'great gun' capable of firing 60 times in a minute. In 1773, another cannon capable of firing 23 or 24 times in a minute and cleaning itself after every shot was invented by Thomas Desaguliers . In 1775, it was mentioned that in England two large cannons invented by an unidentified matross at Woolwich had achieved a rate of fire of 59 shots in 59 and a half seconds. Also in 1775,
12726-649: The rear area of 7th Panzer Division . A gun line of artillery and later 88mm flak guns , personally organised by the divisional commander General Erwin Rommel was needed to repel the attack. All vehicles surviving the battles around Dunkirk were abandoned when the British Expeditionary Force evacuated. Up to early 1942, in the war in North Africa , the Matilda proved highly effective against Italian and German tanks, although vulnerable to
12852-416: The rear was sprung against a hull bracket. Between the first bogie and the idler wheel, was a larger diameter vertically sprung "jockey wheel". The first Matildas had return rollers; these were replaced in later models by track skids, which were far easier to manufacture and to service in the field. The turret carried the main armament, with the machine gun to the right in a rotating internal mantlet. Traverse
12978-532: The rifle-calibre Minigun is an exception to this. Whereas such weapons are highly reliable and formidably effective, one drawback is that the weight and size of the power source and driving mechanism makes them usually impractical for use outside of a vehicle or aircraft mount. Revolver cannons , such as the Mauser MK 213 , were developed in World War II by the Germans to provide high-caliber cannons with
13104-406: The same time, mechanical timing is essential for operator safety, to prevent the round from firing before it is seated properly. Machine guns are controlled by one or more mechanical sears. When a sear is in place, it effectively stops the bolt at some point in its range of motion. Some sears stop the bolt when it is locked to the rear. Other sears stop the firing pin from going forward after the round
13230-403: The shell explosive charge was so small. The main weapon against unarmoured targets was its machine gun. The Matilda II had a conventional layout, with the driver's compartment located at the front of the tank's hull, the fighting compartment with the turret in the centre and the engine and transmission housed in the rear. The driver's position was normally accessed by a single hatch in the roof of
13356-648: The smaller machine-gun armed A11 Matilda . Its 2-pounder gun was comparable to other tank guns in the 37 to 45 mm range. Due to the thickness of its armour, it was largely, but not completely, impervious to the guns of the German tanks and anti-tank guns in France. The Germans found the 88 mm anti-aircraft guns were the only effective counter-measure. In the counter-attack at Arras of 21 May 1940, 18 British Matilda IIs (and Matilda Is) were able to briefly disrupt German progress, but, being unsupported, they sustained heavy losses (30 tanks lost) after breaking through to
13482-550: The term "machine gun" has varied, the modern definition used by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute of America is "a fully automatic firearm that loads, fires and ejects continuously when the trigger is held to the rear until the ammunition is exhausted or pressure on the trigger is released." This definition excludes most early manually operated repeating arms the Gatling gun and such as volley guns like
13608-618: The use of both the 2-pounder and then 6-pounder on both. They were followed into service by the Infantry tank Mk III Valentine tank and A.22 Infantry Tank Mk IV Churchill designs. 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. As British cruiser tank designs developed into larger vehicles with more powerful engines, they could carry bigger guns and more armour and yet still achieve high speeds. At
13734-486: The vehicle contributed to a very low average speed of about 6 mph (9.7 km/h) on desert terrain and 16 miles per hour (26 km/h) on roads. At the time, this was not thought to be a problem, since British infantry tank doctrine valued heavy armour and trench-crossing ability over speed and cross-country mobility (which was considered to be characteristic of cruiser tanks such as the Crusader ). The slow speed of
13860-483: The vehicles were generally heavily armoured to allow them to operate in close concert with infantry even under heavy fire. The extra armour came at the expense of speed, which was not an issue when supporting relatively slow-moving foot soldiers. Once an attack supported by infantry tanks had broken through heavily defended areas in the enemy lines, faster tanks such as cruiser or light tanks were expected to use their higher speed and longer range to operate far behind
13986-505: The war began, only 67 A11s having been delivered. When the Matilda was supplied to Army Tank Battalions it was an effective tank in the Battle of France and in the Western Desert Campaign , where it outclassed Italian tanks and was effective against standard Italian and German anti-tank guns from 1940 to 1941 but was later found to be too slow for the fast tempo that German panzer units could achieve and unable to engage
14112-680: Was also claimed that the gun could be reloaded 'as often as you like' and fired no matter the weather though the English government never adopted the weapon despite testing being carried out at the Tower of London . The first firearms to have the ability to fire multiple shots from a single barrel without a full manual reload were revolvers made in Europe in the late 1500s. One is a shoulder-gun-length weapon made in Nuremberg, Germany, circa 1580. Another
14238-474: Was also specified. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression led to big reductions in the funds made available for the army. Money spent on tracked vehicles fell from £357,000 in 1931–32 to £301,000 in the year 1932–33 and exceeded the 1931 figure only in 1934–35. In May 1934, Lieutenant-General Hugh Elles was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance and Brigadier Percy Hobart ,
14364-420: Was armed with an Ordnance QF 2-pounder (40 mm) tank gun in a three-man turret . The turret traversed by hydraulic motor or by hand through 360 degrees; the gun could be elevated through an arc from −15 to +20 degrees. One of the most serious weaknesses of the Matilda II was the lack of a high-explosive round for its main gun. A high-explosive shell was designed for the 2-pounder but was rarely issued, as
14490-503: Was by a hydraulic system. As the gun was balanced for ease of movement by the gunner, much of the breech end was behind the trunnions. Two smoke grenade launchers were carried on the right side of the turret. The grenade launcher mechanisms were cut down Lee–Enfield rifles, each loaded with a smoke grenade. Its camouflage scheme was designed by Major Denys Pavitt of the Camouflage Development and Training Centre based on
14616-479: Was considered too slow for Blitzkrieg tactics and fell from favour. German, and to some extent Soviet, wartime doctrine shifted towards faster medium and heavy tanks fighting large multi-tank battles, with the role of the infantry tank in the assault taken by simpler Sturmgeschütz assault guns . An important difference, however, was that heavy tanks were generally very well armed, while infantry tanks were not necessarily better armed than other types. For example,
14742-635: Was different from either the "heavy tank" or "breakthrough tank" concepts, although some pre-war multi-turreted heavy machines such as the Soviet T-35 and the German Neubaufahrzeug (both taking some of their inspiration from the 1926 Vickers A1E1 Independent – an idea which was abandoned by the War Office in the late 1920s for lack of funding), which were similar, and with similar doctrines for their use. The Neubaufahrzeug
14868-447: Was heavily armoured. The front glacis was up to 78 mm (3.1 in) thick; the nose plates top and bottom were thinner but angled. The sides of the hull were 65 to 70 millimetres (2.6 to 2.8 in) and the rear armour, protecting the engine to sides and rear, was 55 millimetres (2.2 in). The cast, cylindrical three-man turret was seated on ball-bearing ring mount and its armour was 75 mm (2.95 in) all round. The turret
14994-410: Was laid out such that the gunner and commander were seated in a laddered arrangement on the left side of the gun, and the loader on the right. The commander was given a rotating cupola with a two-piece hatch and a single panoramic Mk IV periscope installed in the forward-facing hatch door. The same device was also mounted in a fixed position in the turret roof, forward of the commander's cupola, and giving
15120-467: Was not effective. Invariably the cruisers ended up meeting enemy tanks in combat, while the infantry tanks were the only ones present when a breakthrough was accomplished. The infantry tank idea faded as tank design progressed during the war. It was eventually replaced outright with the general acceptance of the 'universal tank' idea. Books Theses Background: History of the tank , Tank classification , Tanks in World War I Background: History of
15246-406: Was one of the earliest weapons to be referred to as a machine gun, being called such in 1722, though its operation does not match the modern usage of the term. According to Puckle, it was able to fire round bullets at Christians and square bullets at Turks . However, it was a commercial failure and was not adopted or produced in any meaningful quantity. In 1729, a report was written in France on
15372-413: Was reported that a Prussian officer had invented a gun capable of firing 400 balls one after the other. In 1790, a former officer in the French military known as Joseph-François-Louis Grobert invented a 'ballistic machine' or 'pyroballistic machine' with multiple barrels operated by 4 men and a continuous rotational movement capable of firing 360 rifle shots a minute in a variety of calibers. In 1792,
15498-531: Was seen as a problem. The solution was to use two AEC straight-six water-cooled diesel engines, used in London buses, providing up to 87 hp each. These were linked along a common shaft. Suspension was to use the "Japanese Type" bell crank suspension used on the A7. Vulcan received a contract for two wooden mock-ups and two mild-steel prototypes in November 1936. The first mock-up was delivered in April 1937 and
15624-546: Was the lack of a high-explosive shell (the appropriate shell existed but was not issued). When the German Afrika Korps arrived in North Africa , the 88 mm anti-aircraft gun was again pressed into service against the Matilda, causing heavy losses during Operation Battleaxe , when sixty-four Matildas were lost. The arrival of the more powerful 5 cm Pak 38 and 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank guns also provided
15750-562: Was used as the propelling force in place of steam or the gases produced by electrolysis. Another repeating gun was produced by a Chinese commoner, Dai Zi, in the late 17th century. This weapon was also hopper-fed and never went into mass production. In 1655, a way of loading, aiming and shooting up to 6 wall muskets 60 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 360 shots per minute was mentioned in The Century of Inventions by Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester , though, like all
15876-420: Was worked by a "wheel" fed by paper cartridges from a store attached to the cannon and ignited using a match from a match-holder somewhere else on the cannon. In 1825 an Italian book attempting to catalogue all topographic features of all known countries on Earth mentioned that in France there were 'mechanical rifles' used to defend warehouses that were capable of firing 120 shots without reloading. In 1828,
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