1 November 1936. 14:00hrs. The War Office. London, England.
The report from the MEE in Farnborough had arrived on the desk of General Sir Hugh Elles, the Master General of the Ordnance. The A11E1 had been put through its paces and found satisfactory, but only just. Mechanically it was fine, there were a few small details that were easy fixes, such as the exhaust pipe heating up the oil engine oil and so it would need to be rerouted. The four sets of Vicker’s double sprung bogies on each side gave the impression of length, and some tinkering would need to be done to sort out the problem of stones getting stuck in the drive sockets. The original Ford engine’s replacement with the Meadows had provided a little extra power, as suspected, giving the tank a top speed of 10mph.
The reasons it was found wanting by the MEE personnel was that the tank commander was overwhelmed with too many duties. Originally conceived, the idea of this infantry tank was to be a mobile pillbox. The idea was to have a swarm of these machine gun armed vehicles that would cover the infantry while they got their weapons onto the flanks and into the rear of an enemy. Because they would be working in large numbers over small distances, radios would be superfluous. There was no copula on the turret because there would be no need for a look-out, all that the machine-gunner would need to do was man his weapon. The two-man tank went against all that Vickers-Armstrong had been preaching about in developing the Light Tanks. The MEE agreed that the commander, having to also work the gun, would be overloaded with responsibility. Now that a radio was considered necessary, Carden had had to squeeze one in to the hull at the rear of the turret, which involved the commander having to do strange contortions to be able to work it properly, all the while taking his eyes off what was going on around him.
The report of the MEE to the War Office suggested that the original concept, with the need to keep the price of the tank down, had resulted in a tank that, certainly was well enough armoured, but seemed to have made no progress from the 1918 Mark V tank. Therefore, the question was whether something was better than nothing, especially as it didn’t look as if the War Office was likely to build enough of these to perform the “swarm” attack previously envisaged.
An addendum to the report from the tank’s designer, Sir John Carden, noted that he had provided a working model based on the price and requirements originally given him. Having worked on it, he noted that it would be possible, with the length of the machine, to increase the turret ring from the current 34.1 inches to something that would enable it to take a larger turret, at least providing something that two men, commander and gunner, could act in their separate roles. The nature of the armament as a single machine gun was simply a cheaper alternative. In the original specification that Colonel Studd (Martel’s predecessor as Assistant Director of Mechanisation) had signed off on in 1935 he had agreed to look at using Vicker’s semi-automatic 40mm gun, the basis of the Navy’s anti-aircraft pom-pom. It wasn’t as powerful as the 2-pdr anti-tank gun, but would provide the infantry with a more powerful, and quick firing High Explosive round, in addition to co-axial machine gun fire. In fact, he noted, that the Latvians has bought six Vickers light tanks armed with this weapon, so up-armouring a turret already designed to take it would be eminently feasible. The 40mm gun would also be able to fire an anti-tank round, giving the tank some degree of protection from enemy tanks, which it currently lacked.
Elles was keen on trying to get more companies involved in tank design and manufacture. While the idea of an improved A11 was acceptable, the basic idea of a heavily armoured gun tank designed as such from the start was desirable. Perhaps Vulcan Foundry might be approached with a specification, which would be A12 in the normal scheme. In the meantime, three battalions of the Royal Tank Corps currently using Medium tanks could be equipped with the up-graded specification A11 infantry tanks. This might be able to get past the Treasury, even if the price per tank was a bit higher than originally specified. It would also please some of the Cavalry Colonels that they would have longer with their horses. The specification for an A11E2 was written and sent off to Vickers-Armstrong, while a new specification, A12E1, would be written and offered to Vulcan Foundry at Newton-Le-Willows.
