I'm Rob Bell and this is the institution of Mechanical Engineers top five tanks
five tanks and five rules for engineering success
by the end of 1914 there was deadlock on the western front to break this
stalemate the kaisers generals turn to their
chemists and developed poisoned gas the British turned to their engineers new
problems requires new solutions requires innovation but just how do you innovate
well you think big you act fast and you start small our tank number five is
little Willie the first-ever tank it stands example to how innovation should
be carried out you quickly build a prototype you get it running and you
start to learn the tank was the innovative combination of four existing
technologies armor a gun in a turret the internal combustion engine and
caterpillar tracks armor and guns in turrets were old technology but
lightweight powerful engines and reliable caterpillar tracks were recent
inventions Walter Wilson and William Tritton brought these existing
technologies together Little Willie was their first prototype a testbed and they
learn many a lesson particularly with the tracks existing tracks just weren't
robust enough for such a heavy vehicle and they'd sag away from the rollers
when crossing a trench Tritton developed his own stronger tracks to counter these
issues they also learnt that the bottom profile of the tracks needed to be
curved to reduce the length of tracking contact with the ground to make it
easier to steer without Little Willie it would have taken much longer to
encounter these problems and find the innovative solutions to them that's why
little Willie is our tank number five
so are all great products innovative well the answer is no and a good example
of that is our number four tank the Sherman
there's nothing innovative about it at all
it's just really really really well designed so what do we mean by good
design and how do you create it a good design takes into account everyone
who'll use it and I mean everyone and in the case of the Sherman that means the
people who make the components the people who put them together the people
who have to repair and maintain the tank the people who have to lift it and lower
it onto a ship or a train and of course it had to be designed for the people
who'd work inside it and for the operations it would carry out so look
here just one example of how well the Sherman was designed it was incredibly
easy to change the transmission easily accessible and unbolted from the front
of the tank how do you get good design communication designers have to talk and
listen to all the people involved in the creation and operation of a product and
try and find a way to balance any conflicting requirements one variant of
the Sherman was the Firefly with its famous 17 pounder gun it reminds us that
whether you're designing a car washing machine or a tank you're in an arms race
and that every new product needs to be designed to match future competition not
what's currently in the market it also reminds us that sometimes design is
about compromise the turret on the Firefly became more cramped and
difficult to work in but that was deemed a worthwhile trade-off in order to have
a more powerful gun the design problems of fitting such a large gun into the
Sherman turret were solved by one William Kilbourne he reduced the height
of the gun by turning it through 90 degrees so that the breech-block now
sat horizontal and the one meter travel of the 17-pounder when it fired had to
be reduced he replaced the original recoil system with twin hydraulic
cylinders meaning that that movement was reduced to just 25 centimeters the
cradle and barrel of the gun also had to be redesigned to ensure that it was
properly supported william Kilburn was a member of the institution of Mechanical
Engineers or the IEEE meki the IEEE McKee has over a hundred and twenty
thousand members and has been at the heart of mechanical engineering since
1847 right back to tanks it's unusual for any product to go straight from the
drawing board into production a period of testing and development is needed to
weed out any teething problems development is an engineering specialism
in its own right and it's crucial if you want a reliable product our tank number
three is the Churchill now it was rushed into production as there was a desperate
need for new tanks and it had many problems to start with but one by one
they were overcome and through development it became a great tank
staying in service until the 1950s the Churchill was heavily armored with
excellent mobility it had the innovative Merritt Brown triple differential
transmission designed by dr. Henry Merritt's another member of the eye meki
instead of powering just one track and breaking the other this regenerative
system provided power to both tracks during turning the Churchill served in
North Africa in Italy Northwest Europe and on the Eastern Front where it
participated in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk it was also the
basis for many special vehicles including the famous Hobart's funnies
and the armored recovery vehicle these Churchill based variants remind us that
many engineers spend their career maintaining and operating equipment
thinking on their feet diagnosing problems and then coming up with
solutions engineers are by nature curious we like to get our hands on what
the competition are making use it test it take it apart how does it compare
with your own products are there any ideas worth stealing this exercise is
called benchmarking and our tank number two this panzer 3 was brought to the UK
for that precise reason so why is this on number two tank well it's got some
good design features the extensive use of welding throughout gives the most
armor for the least weight but more important than it's designed features
was its design process many contemporary British tanks weren't designed with an
eye on the future wars see rapid change and several designs of British tanks
became obsolete because they couldn't be up gunned or up-armored in contrast the
Panzer 3 was designed with growth in mind first built with a 37 millimeter
gun the turret was designed to take an as yet non-existent 50 millimeter gun
and it was this forward-thinking in the design process that gave this tank its
edge
so why isn't this brilliantly thought-out Panzer 3 our number one tank
well a product may be innovative it may be well designed and developed but all
of this is wasted if it doesn't get to market on time and if it's not available
in the volume required in the critical year of 1941 less than 1700 Panzer 3
tanks were built and less than 500 pans of fours left German factories that was
the year the Third Reich chose to invade the Soviet Union and that same year
Russian factories produced 3000 t-34s and 1,100 kV ones but in 1941 one
country out built even the Soviets in that year almost 5000 tanks left the
factories the length and breadth of Britain nowadays the British tend to
remember the war is David versus Goliath the plucky underdog against the might of
the Third Reich they forget that British industry outproduced Germany and most
types of weapon during the crucial early years when the war could have been lost
Britain had the industrial capacity to send tanks to France then to Egypt
Greece and in October 1941 to the Soviet Union this high output was achieved by
bringing in new factories and new workforces
that had never built tanks before it was achieved by constantly improving
processes and increasing efficiency our number one tank is representative of
that success it was in service from the very first day of the war to the very
last the Matilda to
designed at the Willetts Arsenal in London and built in factories across the
UK the Matilda is a veteran of so many battles in the desert in the jungle and
in the snow when it was introduced in 1939 it was one of the most heavily
armored tanks in the world and it's two pounder gun was capable of knocking out
most opponents the fate of the Third Reich was decided by its failure to
defeat the Soviet Union before the end of 1941 and the Matilda played a part in
that epic struggle Britain sent Matilda and Valentine tanks to Russia to aid in
the defense of Moscow and like their British counterparts the Russian tank
crews appreciated the solid construction of the Matilda and compared to the
overworked tank commander of a t-34 who also had to double as a gunner his
comrade in the Matilda could focus on his task he also had better vision and a
radio - the British used the Matilda on the front line until 1942 by which time
it's 40 millimeter gun was no longer capable of destroying the latest enemy
tanks the Russians continued a little longer but that wasn't the end of the
Matilda's career the Australian Army used it in Jungle fighting on the
Pacific Islands right to the very end of the war if a design satisfies the needs
of a particular market it can stay relevant and stay in service for a very
long time we're so lucky to have so much of our industrial heritage preserved but
seeing a tank like Matilda here cold and still just doesn't convey what it was
like to operate it or indeed what it was to base one in the midst of battle
fortunately this Matilda has been overhauled in the tank museum workshops
a special events here in bobbington you can see it hear it smell it feel the
vibration in the ground as it goes past you can appreciate it
technically and emotionally and perhaps understand why it's our number one tank
that's the end of our I'm a key top five tanks we hope you've learned something
about what makes a great engineering product if you want to find out more
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