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as the Germans were marauding the way
over Northwest Europe at the early
stages of World War two the British
Expeditionary Force had one secret ace
up their sleeve it was a 12 infantry
tank mark - Matilda - we were to melt
your vehicle technology foundation
Portola Valley California and in front
of Matilda I guess we'll start off with
the name the name Matilda has absolutely
nothing to do with a doc just get that
one out of the way it was a code name
that was brought up even before the
first Matilda had been built the other
thing to point out is that the color on
this vehicle and a lot of other vehicles
like it around the world is wrong it is
the contour camouflage scheme which was
developed for North Africa however what
apparently happened is that in the early
60s or so the Imperial War Museum were
repainting one of their Matilda's
unfortunately it turns out that the
actual light blue is really supposed to
be more of a grey and everybody figured
well the Imperial War Museum can't be
wrong and so other Matilda started being
paid to dub like the Imperial War Museum
and as a result contour is now very
commonly viewed as this color scheme the
requirements for the infantry tank a12
came out in 1937 and basically the
infantry tank was supposed to be solid
tuff no faster than the infantry which
was to support the cruiser tanks were
the fast ones as a result Matilda had
armor of up to 78 millimeters which is
basically unheard of at the time and
even the thinnest part of Matilda was
still a good 2 centimeters thick which
was thicker than any part of a cruiser
tank as a result when the Germans were
meeting up with Matilda's for example at
arrests when 7th RTR went up against
Ramos 7th Panzer the the Germans found
out that 37 millimeters were not having
very much success in fact pretty much
the only way you can deal with these
things was artillery Stukas or the 8
point 8 centimeter at the aircraft gun
aim it sideways shoot this thing and it
will go right through it was actually a
fairly small tank pretty hard to hear
anyway we're going to be taking our tour
around here in the usual format we're
going to start off with the exterior
suspension go around the back up into
the turret and then I'm going to try to
get into the driver's hole and I'm
honestly never done it before so this
should ought to be amusing this is not a
very large tank the overall design for
the armor from Mattel that would discuss
what did the most famous for it was
basically designed to wade into battle
as a result of his armored everywhere
the front casting as the thickest part
of the tank of course rolls all the way
up to protect the driver now what it's
not so immediately apparent is is
actually every knows but these are here
are basically these are two external
stowage boxes which are fairly well
armored but these would lift up and
forward
the hinge on this is actually frozen
into place but you could stow extra
equipment in there in addition to having
the armored angled effect on the front
you go around the side the running gear
is completely encased in the stowage
boxes crew would cause but whatever they
wanted preferably things that were
somewhat expendable because the program
went through the front of this it would
shoot up their personal gear also on the
front for the driver he's got a
periscope up here and the direct vision
viewport that's pretty much it for the
front we're gonna go around I've looked
aside it was about an inch of armor
plate covering the entire side of the
vehicle from nose to stem the side
plates have access hatches for all the
maintenance for the suspension system
you take basically a half inch square
head wrench unlock it and a drop
standing doctor maintenance on the bogie
systems so for those of you who are
wondering what it looks like behind the
panel at the tool
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one thing you never ever see photographs
up for whatever reason so it's a quarter
turn to the left and it simply falls
down it's on the chain inside you can
see the spring system for one of the
double bogies so there's a bogey here
there's another bogey here this brings
in between the two
grease points in here for access and a
pivot point here all these rivets and
bolts are for actually mounting the
bogies there's not much else in here a
little latch to retain it and so now
your modelers can make a maintenance
diorama of Matilda if you want wheels
are mounted in four wheels per bogie the
bogies are mounted to double bogies per
side and one single bogey there's also
at the front here a jockey rotor
Americans will call it a track tension
idler and its function is basically to
exert a force forward on the track to
maintain the tension on it to actually
adjust the tension there is a simple
bolt at the front here and you crank it
forwards backwards and you can see the
threads here on the screw which will
move the idler wheel forwards or
backwards the crews were supposed to
count how many threads were visible on
each side and make sure that they were
equal when they come back towards the
upper return very simple error no return
rollers the track simply runs on a
series of skids not very efficient but
since the tank only did about 15 miles
an hour anyway it wasn't the end of the
world so it was considered quite
acceptable for the low speeds it was
simpler easier cheaper and you'll see
that this continues on even Churchill
has just solid skids so it's noisy but
it works interestingly Vickers also sold
a number of tanks of Japanese and they
adopted a very similar suspension system
for some of the earlier tanks as well
not much else to see on the tracks here
the tracks are very very simple cast
shape they're reasonably solid the
wheels have no rubber
so modelers would be very glad to hear
you don't have to paint all the the tire
on the outside of these simple steel
wheels on steel track with steel skid
returns this is not required tank but
even if you know it's coming what are
you going to do it's called 78
millimeters of armor calling the law
firm well the British had a numbering
system for their vehicles it's actually
rather simple if it begins with T it's a
tank
so tank 7415 stowage for a shovel twin
smoke projectors they're fired from
inside the turret and they basically lob
a smoke grenade out little mortar which
creates a smoke shield moving further to
the rear big armored housing for the
ventilation for the engine and
transmission compartment and that's it
then you get to the back of the tank
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