now this is the vickers-armstrongs
marquee it was actually first developed
in 1928 and it was purely done for
commercial reasons the British Army took
one look at it and decided they didn't
like it which was run the most stupid
things a british army of a dim manner
mind and it was designed by vickers
purely for for an export really and it
sold very well particularly with the
russians who bought loads of the men
copied it we've got upstairs in the rest
of the museum the t26 which is a russian
tank which is based on this it's quite
an interesting design in any respect
when they were first built they had two
turrets side by side each for the
machine gun in but they've then favored
this larger turret with a 40 set of
short 47 millimeter gun in it and they
did away with the old twin turret
arrangement after that most foreigners
took the same line really it's powered
by an air-cooled four-cylinder armstrong
siddeley engine it's actually half the
v8 engine that was originally in the
Vickers medium rated up at 80 horsepower
it's in the back of the tank and lying
on its side and it actually drives
through to the front that this is very
odd in a British tank you see the teeth
sprockets at the front which drive the
track around there quite well it natural
to all tanks but on British tanks apart
from the very lightest tanks you very
rarely found front drive like this so it
means that the gearbox and the steering
systems all in the front of the tank
with the engine in the back and say
lying very oddly on its side and it
meant that the tank actually handled
perfectly well it didn't make any
difference but in Britain we've always
favored the rear drive position the
suspension is rather complex really it
consists of a bogie which is the whole
thing mounted on a tube which runs
across the floor of the tank so the
whole thing is free to move up and down
but in the in the bogie itself each half
has leaf springs which work against the
movement of the bogum independently work
those four wheels there you've got the
same thing at the back the same sort of
idea but
to banning across the same on both sides
so it made a very good flexible system
but again it was that really the
suspension mr british army didn't like
and wouldn't accept for themselves a lot
of these tanks were built and exported
all around the world even the Americans
testing one they didn't actually buy it
but they tested it which was near as we
ever got to selling them a tank and
generally speaking it was very popular
it was reasonably cheap the only trouble
with it is Vickers spent far too long
with the same design they kept it in the
pot in their catalog for about ten years
or more and it was getting a bit long in
the tooth when they finally decided to
give it up by then the Second World War
had broken out and there wasn't any need
anyway this particular tank is
interesting it was built and actually to
Thailand originally but it was built on
a slightly modified hull which was one
Vickers had designed for their mark F
which was the next model in line they
were built in the early part of the
Second World War and the turret this big
47 millimeter gun turret was moved over
a bit more to the right to make it give
a bit more space inside now these tanks
there was still some of them left in
Britain when war broke out and they were
therefore taken into service to the
British Army painted green and sent out
for training they weren't actually used
in combat at all but at least they
that's the reason we've still got it in
fact and that it's got that use of but
is it the only one's ever used by the
British Army a crew of four normally
driver commander gunner and loader in
the turret but free to move about far
more than you get in a more modern tank
you have to sit in your place and stay
there it's hardly anywhere to sit in any
of these tanks but still almost
certainly one of the best designs ever
produced in Great Britain in its day
you