Please remember that little sucker rocked 60mm of armour front, sides and turret. The contemporary variant of the Pz.IV had, at best, 50mm on the front (most just 30mm) and, apart from a 40mm section mid-side, only 20-30mm elsewhere.
Cheers,
M
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Yeah, but Tom, a mere 60mm isn’t going to cut it when a 10kg shell, travelling at a 1000 metres per second arrives on your glacis. It doesn’t have to even be an armour-piercing jobby, a “normal” Flak round arriving at that velocity is going to vaporise the thing by sheer kinetic energy alone, I should think, and that’s without the shell even exploding. Happy to be proved wrong of course, I’m no Tankie, but I don’t think the crew, let alone whatever remains of the vehicle are going anywhere.
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While the AP round would probably go in the front and out the back, the AA round is designed to fragment when it goes off, so it’s kinetic energy, let alone the bursting charge, will convert it into lots of little bits - many of which won’t be going in the right direction. The nose fuse isn’t even one solid bit either. I’m not ruling out non-penetrating K.O.s though. The big Russian SU/ISU 152 Zveroboy Assault Guns killed German Tanks even when not equipped with AP shells by knocking off the turrets with blast or acting like HESH and cracking welds, and even the turretless Ferdinand/Elephant was susceptible to behind-armour effects such as spalling. Even where such a vehicle could be recovered and repaired, you had still lost a crew who might need hosed out of the machine…
Regards,
M
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This may help in the discussion.
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Thank you Frank for sharing this excellent article!
I’m very happy to see the Matilda I finally released as a styrene kit. I’d also like to see the Covenanter some day.
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In anticipation of building the Gecko A11 kit (once it’s actually released! LOL!), I bought a copy of this new reference by P.M. Knight. I’m only about halfway through the first chapter, but I have to say that I’m VERY IMPRESSED! Extraordinarily well researched and written.
Amazon: “A11 Infantry Tank Mk.I A Technical History” P.M. Knight
For anyone following the discussion here, the general theme of which has been, “What were they thinking?”, all of your questions are answered. (Although you might not like those answers!) The author even covers the story behind the name, Matilda (with a copy of the primary reference that documents that particular detail included in the book).
(With regard to the battle of Arras, the author devotes an entire chapter to it, including many new - to me - photos).
The story of the development of the I-tank (starting with the Matilda) and the evolving armored force doctrine (coupled with the ideas for unit organization, force development, mobilization, and, yes, funding) is one of personality-driven subjective and objective thinking that was in flux and in conflict. “What were they thinking?” largely depended on which one of the many people involved had the influence at the moment. However, they were all sincere, rational and possessed of clear visions, but at the same time, no one knew which of those visions reflected what would be the reality of the future of armored warfare.
What becomes clear is that the Matilda I was ultimately fielded in concert with the fundamental concept of how to mobilize and deploy the army to the continent starting with the standing army to be followed by waves or “contingents” of TA divisions. (Following on in about 90-day periods after the first deployment of the standing army divisions.) What sort of tank could those forces be deployed with that could also be manufactured (by the existing, such as it was, tank building industry) was a driving motivation. This had to be matched to the levels of training and equipping that could be expected of the mobilized TA divisions which were to compose each successive contingent of forces to be deployed.
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