you
so we're here in the Tank Museum
workshops with our Matilda to tank this
vehicle a12
Matilda - sometimes called the senior
Matilda because before this tank was
built there was the first British
infantry tank the Matilda one the a11
and this was a result of thinking in
Britain in the 1930s that we really
needed about three types of Tanks we
need faster lighter tanks for
reconnaissance
we need infantry or heavier tanks
well-protected fairly slow to help the
infantry advance onto a prepared
position a target that's or a defended
position of the enemies and then we need
a cruiser or medium weight tank to then
exploit the gap that the heavier tanks
have made and go off and do the damage
in the background now
in the mid-1930s Hugh Ellis who was the
commander of the British tanks in the
First World War he becomes master
General of ordnance
and he likes this idea of the supporting
tank for the infantry the problem is at
the time Britain has got very little
money to invest in tanks so the first
tank the Matilda one the a11 is actually
made to a very tight budget and it looks
it they sometimes call it a Matilda like
the waddling duck type tank that was a
cartoon character at the time it was
built
5,000 pounds per tank including
development costs and even as they
finish making that first type of
infantry tank they realize they're going
to need something better and that's when
they design the Matilda - which doesn't
actually start production until later in
the 30s in September of 1939 they've got
two of them are actually ready and going
into service with the army now by the
end of the production run they've made
just under 3000 Matilda twos and there
is a little bit of a tendency like we
always do is we look back on history we
see the bigger things that are coming
later and we diminish the importance of
some importance of some of these earlier
vir
but this is a superb cutting-edge tank
it has got very thick Armour they give
the production issues to the Vulcan
foundry they're the parent body that
looks after the actual manufacture of
this tank and the Vulcan foundry is very
good at casting so for the first time on
British tanks we get major bits of
casting this whole frontal section and
the turret is actually made of car steel
now that's better in terms of product
production and protection because what
you've got there instead of riveting a
bit of armor plate to a framework you've
actually got a solid body so there's
less to be actually braid less to fly
off less to go wrong if hit by an enemy
incoming round they put two diesel
engines in the back of pair of diesel
engines AC diesels on the early models
and later some Leyland Diesel's which
was slightly more powerful in the later
models and Matilda - now the armor
protection it was aimed to be defeat any
37 millimetre anti-tank gun that's the
standard anti-tank gun that was in
service in the thirties in Europe so
they thought if it was protection
against that it would be okay actually
it was that much better and on the
battlefield this is the tank that caused
Hitler to worry when he reads reports of
their 37 millimetre anti-tank guns
bouncing off this thick armor that's why
Hitler gets heavily involved in the
German tank program and that leads to
vehicles such as the tiger because he's
amazed at seeing how effective this
thick armor is in terms of crew three
men in the turret driver down the front
you've got a 2 pounder gun fitted to
this vehicle so 40 millimetre and that 2
pounder fired a high-velocity
high-velocity round coming out the end
of the barrel
it did have a high-explosive round but
it was so small it was almost useless
there was very little bursting charge in
a 2 pounder shot so they only tended to
issue armor-piercing rounds about 90
were carried in the vehicle
armor-piercing rounds which
mount with a huge amount of force behind
them and that 2 pounder in 1939-1940
would have gone through any known German
tank in operation at the time so it was
actually a very very effective anti-tank
gun by 1942 it's easily being out class
by the fifty millimeter long
high-velocity guns on the Panzer 3 or
later as well those 75 millimeter high
velocity guns that were put on the
panzer fours but early in the war again
a very very effective anti-tank gun very
effective armor protection mobility it's
a slow tank about 15 miles an hour much
top speed don't forget for an infantry
tank helping the infantry attack a
prepared position that didn't matter and
so they weren't too worried about 150
miles hundred 60 miles range on the road
before needing to be refueled as well
now why we think this is a really
important tank is because in 1914
Matilda ones and 18 Matilda twos like
this one do a really important tack on
the advancing German columns going
through France they come back from
Belgium where we thought the German
attack was going to be they flood down
the hill up from Arras and from Vimy
Ridge pass terrace and they attack a
German column in the side the 7th Panzer
Division that was moving forward and it
really causes panic in the German ranks
Rommel has to come from the back of the
column and calm the troops down and
actually find ways of trying to defeat
the thick armor by using things like
their 88 millimeter anti-aircraft guns
against the vehicles so this tank that
attack really frightens the German High
Command because it shows how vulnerable
their tactics were in 1940 and also
because that slows them it also leads to
the chance for the British army to be
taken off the beaches at Dunkirk so from
that point of view it earns its place in
British tank history big time because
it's a it's influential in stopping that
route that was going on in France at
that particular time and of course also
in North Africa this tank gets called
the queen of the desert it's attacks
against the Italian
early on in the war in Libya and caused
tremendous problems for the Italians and
almost the defeat of the entire massive
Italian army that's out there when they
attack using Matilda to tanks and that
near defeat causes Hitler to wake up to
reinforce the Italian forces there with
the Africa Corps so this in terms of
British tank history a really important
tank and it's one of the tanks we've had
running here at the museum over a number
of years some things were going wrong
with it that led to an investigation
that we're now doing a lot of work on it
to help restore it back to good running
condition and we'll be following up this
video in the future with a number
showing the restoration of this
particular vehicle so we capture some of
the issues we've been finding with it
and seeing it hopefully back to good
running condition again
you