RTC report on the 1938 Summer Exercises
We are pleased with the results of the exercises overall, although they did show there were areas that still need considerable work. With all the new equipment having its first use, this was expected, but it has helped pinpoint the areas that are in need of most improvement.
The faster and more powerful tanks proved effective in the breakthrough exercise. The extra speed and reliability, and the thicker armour (resulting in fewer losses to the AT guns) had made exploiting a weak point the Cavalry had located a lot easier. Not without losses, but a far more acceptable rate of loss. The light armoured cars had proved to be very effective; the light tanks had worked well, although the small number of the new Daimler heavy armoured car had actually worked better. This had been a surprise - they had thought that the light tank would be more useful over rough ground, but except for a couple of areas with very poor conditions the lack of tracks hadn't been a problem, and their speed was most useful. The officer commanding them had pointed out that they had avoided the really bad conditions, but the feeling was that in Western Europe doing this in a real battle wouldn't be an issue. We still need a way to handle mines better, while we didn't have any tanks killed by them, the umpires adjudicated we had a number immobilised.
The mobility of the new infantry tank had also been a surprise. The speed of attack had not been anticipated by the infantry, and their heavy armour had helped them take little damage. The infantry had complained they needed more heavy AT guns and mines if such beasts were to be let loose on them! They had also been upset at the losses the Umpires had determined due to the HE guns on the tanks.
The new Birch guns had worked very well. While new, the crews were familiar with the guns, and only one of the rather inexperienced drivers had got his gun stuck badly enough to need serious assistance. They'd had a few other problems, but properly trained crews should take care of them.
The carriers had also proved a success. While not dissimilar in mobility to the old dragons, the crews had found the rear doors a big improvement, must faster and easier to use. Again they'd had a few more issues than expected, the crews weren't familiar with them yet, but this could be fixed with more training time.
The improved speed and protection had also worked well in the counterattack. One advantage had been the use of radio by the carriers. It was too expensive to fit them all with radios, but they were operating in groups of fours, three infantry squads plus the command, and the command vehicle had a radio. So coordinating the infantry support had been much faster and easier. It had also shown they needed a lot more practice in netting, as well as speeding the process up. While radios weren't cheap, the suggestion was that they fitted one in four vehicles for the Armoured Infantry Brigade. It might be of less use to pure infantry units, that would have to be looked at.
One point we would like to raise is that we currently have no good anti-tank or anti-personel mines in service. The infantry have used mock-up mines to considerable effect against us, and surely they would have equal efficiency against an enemy force. We suggest this lack be looked into, and also ways of us neutralising them, or at least minimising their effect.
All in all, they were very happy with the results. Not only had they clearly won, despite the infantry being well-organised and equipped with ant-tank weapons, it had showed up a lot of faults. None of these were insurmountable, and they expected to have all these fixed up in time. The suggestion was that they incorporate the necessary fixes and modification in the next batch of tanks - apparently Vickers had offered to increase the armour, as well as fitting the new Wireless Set No 9 which was just finishing development, to make a Mark 2. More armour was always considered a Good Thing by tankers.
General Brooke had spent some time with the French observers, his excellent French making this productive. He'd made some notes on the French armoured expert, a colonel DeGaulle - "personally arrogant and supercilious, tends to consider French tactics always the best, but he certainly knows his stuff. Have suggested to him some sort of joint exercises would be useful to both parties if these could be arranged."
