The british Matilda A1 light tank

The Mk I Matilda I (A11) was an english infantry tank of World War Two, only 140 were built since 1937. A small and very slow two men tank crew and armed only with a machine gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_I_%28tank%29

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• weapons
• british
• tanks
• world
• war
• two
• matilda

[raccoonmatinginyour]

I don't care how slow and underpowered the a1 was I wouldn't mind owning one to drive around outside somewhere lol!

[Panzer4F2]

That was very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

[monsterzeroJr]

Being chased by a Matilda is like being chased by a steamroller. It cannot catch up with a man walking briskly.

In terms of tactical doctrine, this was very much the wrong tank design.

[Vlaxerman343]

my hats off to these British soldiers who had to drive this monster

[CaptHawkeye]

@sadurianmike To be fair to the Brits, pre-war testing determined that any HE shell less than 75mm produced negligible fragmentation. Less than a hand grenade. So it was determined HE shells would have been useless for the 2pdr and even the 6pdr. That ended up not being the case but by then the Brits were convinced that Germany was outproducing them in tanks by a magnitude. So until troop reports came back from North Africa they were convinced shell production be prioritized for AT.

[sadurianmike]

@CaptHawkeye Yes, the lack of HE was problematic - the 2pdr's replacement, the 6pdr 7cwt, also had poor HE capablity. This was down to the design being optimised for AT work - the 2pdr (40mm) was an excellent tank killer for its calibre, far better than the German/US/Soviet 37mm which was the contemporary in those armies.

[CaptHawkeye]

@sadurianmike A big mistake the Brits made in their design of infantry tanks though was not including HE rounds for their 2pdrs. When the Matilda encountered AT guns, its only option was literally to just run them over which Matilda crew frequently did in France.

[bulldogge12]

Wow a oldtimer drives a old tank.Maybe he never left the tank since 1939 lol!

[evildeathmonkey1]

@dopefish93 That was the MK II. Which, I believe, was much more successful.

[dopefish93]

thought the matilda was classed as an heavy tank :S

[sadurianmike]

A minor point, but the Matilda MkI (and MkII) were not light tanks as suggested by the video title. The Matilda I was designated the Infantry Tank A11 (not A1), and the Matilda II was the A12. The A9, A10 and A13 were all Cruiser tanks.

Infantry Tanks were designed to support infantry attacks, whereas light tanks were for scouting. It was cheap and not a particularly effective fighting machine, but the Germans found great difficulty knocking them out.