Gecko announces a new British infantry tank Matilda I
This is partial text from the full article (usually with photos) at https://armorama.com/news/gecko-a11-matilda-i
This is partial text from the full article (usually with photos) at https://armorama.com/news/gecko-a11-matilda-i
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Finally! This and the WC-54 ambulance (Zvezda) were the decades long hold outs and now they’re both out in the same year! Huzzah!
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I predict that this will sell well.
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For the country that came up with the concept of the tank, what were they thinking when they came up with this!
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Defence cuts dear boy, defence cuts! Or that’s what we’d call it today. It was the usual battles between the Treasury and the War Office, with the Treasury winning. It was built to a very cheap design as far as I can gather. But I agree: what the hell were we thinking of? The Germans of course, were designing their breakthrough tank back in 1937 - 30-odd tons’ worth, and we were tinkering around with this?
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Don’t be too hard the development and fielding of the Matilda Mk I. When considering designing and fielding, there’s a large gap between the paper and ink on the desk and the steel and the engine on the ground. There was more to solving the problems than just money. (Though that was certainly a major contributor.)
A MG armed, heavily armored, yet small infantry accompaniment tank was a fairly common doctrinal idea at the time. As for the mighty, mighty Germans, don’t forget that they also manufactured the Panzer I Ausf. F in 1940 (which was NOT just some “training tank”)…
Remember that before the war, the mass use of armor was still pretty much doctrinal theory. Infantry tanks, cavalry tanks, break-through tanks, tank destroyers, light-medium-heavy… Metallurgy, automotive engineering, cannon, projectile and propellant science and engineering, manufacturing (mass or piecework / craftsmanship) processes were all underdeveloped for AFVs.
Everybody had doctrinal ideas and preferences based on their unique national experiences and circumstances, but nobody REALLY knew how it would all work out. It’s one thing to build a tank that weighs 60 tons, but which will only ever have to be moved over internal lines of communications by train and which can be shipped back to the homeland by train to the factory for repair. It’s an entirely different thing to build a tank which will have to be (literally) shipped to the other side of the planet and off-loaded to shore where there are no port facilities and maintained for the duration of its operational life using nothing more than hand-tools. It’s yet another thing to build a tank which has an engine and transmission life measured in a few hours but, when it breaks down, can be recovered and rebuilt at the factory to be reissued once more. All might be valid approaches depending on national circumstances and doctrinal theories (valid, of course, for as long as you’re winning).
The Matilda I was simply a product of its time and circumstances that shouldn’t be judged too harshly through the lens of “what was to come.”
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Seems the A11 was actually a good tank for what it was designed to do - lead infantry attacks against enemy infantry lines. Its main “flaw” if we call it that, was that the Germans didn’t read the script and developed a more mechanised style of war in 1940! See https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/gb/matilda-mki.php for an interesting history.
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This morning, BootsDMS posted a picture of that Gecko Matilda in the Royal Tank Regiment campaign. I spent about 30 minutes trying to track it down. Thought I was doing something wrong.
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Fun synchronicity. Just finished spraying the first coat of paint on one of these.
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In addition to what SdAufKla wrote, it took major advances in engine technology, metallurgy (for things like final drives, gear boxes, and torsion bars), and welding to get from the tiny tanks of 1935 to the brutes of 1945.
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Michael I get all that - I really do - but you got to admit, that just on looks alone it looks bloody awkward and very vulnerable. I just feel for the poor soldiers who had no option but to make it work - and go into battle in the thing. I feel that the fact remains it was a poor design, not least given the financial straits imposed upon it, yet still taken into service.
As a mobile MG platform the Army might have been better just procuring more Bren Carriers. It had some utility of course in that the German 37mm anti-tank gun failed to penetrate it, but I suspect that was small comfort to the crews.
After all that, I might well buy the Gecko kit because it is so different - which I’m sure makes me a modelling hypocrite(!)
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For me a dream comes true !
Gecko is a company which hits my nerv permanently.
Go on Gecko !
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That’s the thing: at the start of the war the 37mm was pretty much the only A/T gun the Germans deployed. At Arras it was only Rommel hijacking a battery of 88mm AA that stopped them…
Cheers,
M
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We can mock, but look at what the Germans were planning (and building) by 1945, after years of war and considerable practical experience. Anyone for the Maus?. At least the Matilda was used and had its moment at Arras.
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Bugger,
as always happens hand made (or printed now), a plastic one is released after . 
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Thank you Frank for your sacrifice 
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Rommel’s 88s, using AA ammunition, could stop a Matilda I by damaging the running gear. They were not very effective against the Matilda II though.
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I would have thought that an 88mm impacting would do far more than damage the running gear; more like the complete and utter disintegration surely?
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At least the turret rear off set, is correct on the gecko.
My 3D printed one is straight, which is incorrect.
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An anti-aircraft shell wouldn’t penetrate the hull of a Matilda I. Did the crews of these 88mm AA guns have access to AP ammunition at that time? No one really seems to know, but I think it unlikely. It would probably have been Stukas that did for most of the Matilda I tanks lost at Arras.
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Well, I’m no 88mm Ninja, but I understood that the 88 had anti-armour ammo from the word go, such was the prescient nature of the weapon’s designers. If the 88s deployed in France in 1940 were there to provide AA cover, surely, somewhere amongst their logistic train there would be anti-armour rounds because armies often do “just in case”, but as I say, I’m no 88 expert let alone on the 1940 campaign. I suspect the crews would have trained in the anti-armour role too, because again, that’s what armies do. I recall myself that Brit 5.5" crews in the 70s practiced in the direct-fire role to engage enemy armour.
I would still have thought that even if an AA round, the velocity alone would destroy the Matilda.
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I am very sure that the 88 could penetrate teh Matilda I and II too.
My grandfather worked on this but died many years ago.
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