Matilda II

The Infantry Tank Mark II, commonly called the Matilda II or Matilda Senior, was a British tank used during the Second World War. Its design began in 1936 under the A12 specification, intended as a gun-armed version of the earlier A11 Infantry Tank Mark I—a two-man vehicle armed only with machine guns. The Mark I was also known as the Matilda, so the larger A12 was initially called the Matilda II or Matilda senior. After the Mark I was abandoned in 1940, the A12 became simply "the Matilda."

Thanks to its thick armour, the Matilda II was well-suited for supporting infantry, though it was somewhat slow and its firepower was limited. It was the only British tank to see service from the start of the war until its end, and it is most closely linked to the North African campaign. Only two Matilda IIs were ready when World War II broke out in 1939. From late 1941, it was gradually replaced in front-line roles by the cheaper and lighter Infantry Tank Mk III Valentine.

The split between infantry tanks and cruisers traced back to World War I, which divided heavy British tanks from faster models like the Whippet Medium Mark A and its successors. During the interwar period, British tank experiments followed these classifications, formalized by Major-General Percy Hobart and influenced by Captain B.H. Liddell Hart. In 1934, Hobart—then Inspector of the Royal Tank Corps—proposed two options for an infantry support tank: a small, heavily armoured machine-gun carrier to be used in large numbers, and a larger vehicle with a cannon, machine guns, and armour strong enough to resist field artillery. Vickers built the first option as the A11 Matilda, but financial constraints led the Master-General of the Ordnance, Hugh Elles, to choose the smaller machine-gun tank, and the larger version was shelved. Vickers-Armstrongs produced a prototype (A11E1) by September 1936, with armour capable of stopping contemporary anti-tank guns.

The call for a larger infantry tank came in 1936 with the A12 specification. The Royal Arsenal at Woolwich designed it, and Vulcan Foundry was chosen to build it. The A12 borrowed several design features from the A7 medium tank, a limited-production vehicle from the early 1930s whose mechanical layout influenced later designs. To address the power shortage caused by its heavy armour, the tank used two AEC straight-six water-cooled diesel engines—each producing up to 87 hp—originally used in London buses, linked along a common shaft. The suspension was a "Japanese Type" bell crank system, also from the A7.

Vulcan received a contract for two wooden mock-ups and two mild-steel prototypes in November 1936. The first mock-up arrived in April 1937, and the A12E1 prototype followed in April 1938. After a 1,000-mile (1,600 km) test, the prototypes performed well, requiring only minor changes to the gearbox, suspension, and cooling. As war seemed imminent, production of the Matilda II was ordered, while the Matilda I was phased out. The first order—140 tanks from Vulcan—was placed in June 1938, shortly after trials ended.

The Matilda Senior weighed about 27 long tons (27 t; 30 short tons), more than double its predecessor. It was armed with an Ordnance QF 2-pounder (40 mm) tank gun in a three-man turret. The turret could rotate 360 degrees via a hydraulic motor or by hand, and the gun could be elevated from −15 to +20 degrees. A major weakness was the lack of a high-explosive round for the main gun; a high-explosive shell was designed but rarely issued because its explosive charge was too small. Against unarmoured targets, the tank relied on its machine gun.

The Matilda II had a conventional layout: the driver sat at the front, the fighting compartment and turret were in the centre, and the engine and transmission were at the rear. The driver entered through a single hatch in the hull roof, protected by a rotating armoured cover that locked fully open or closed. An emergency escape hatch was located beneath the driver's seat. The driver had a direct vision port with a manually operated armoured shield and a single Mk IV periscope for use when buttoned up.

Like many British infantry tanks, the Matilda II was heavily armoured. The front glacis was up to 78 mm (3.1 in) thick; the nose plates above and below were thinner but angled. Hull sides were 65 to 70 mm (2.6 to 2.8 in) thick, and the rear armour—protecting the engine—was 55 mm (2.2 in). The cast, cylindrical three-man turret sat on a ball-bearing ring and had 75 mm (2.95 in) of armour all around. Inside, the gunner and commander sat on the left side of the gun in a laddered arrangement, with the loader on the right. The commander had a rotating cupola with a two-piece hatch and a single panoramic Mk IV periscope in the forward-facing hatch door. Another fixed Mk IV periscope was mounted in the turret roof ahead of the cupola, giving the gunner situational awareness and target-finding ability. The loader used a single rectangular hatch on the right side of the turret roof. The turret had a basket that held much of the ammunition stowage, and it was equipped with a power traverse system.