Between the wars, Great Britain lost its way in tank design concentrating on an almost bewildering array of cheaply built designs trying to be Light, Medium, Heavy, Cruiser and infantry Tank designs. The main flaw being the size of the main armament. The size of the gun governs the size of turret required to fit the gun into it. The bigger the turret the bigger the tanks hull on which to sit the turret. However,Britain, far from rearming until it was all but too late to counter the German threat, entered an austerity driven phase of design. Attempting to save money private enterprise was encouraged and where possible commonly available parts were to be used.
One such 'Infantry' design is seen here, the Matilda 1 armed only with a machine gun and designed to accompany infantry into what some thought would be a WW1 type attack scenario. Designed and built cheaply by Vickers-Armstrong, the tank was reliable, had good armour and was actually quite popular with the crews but, hopelessly armed.
The much better Mk 2 built by The Royal Arsenal and Vulcan Foundry sported even better armour and a bigger main armament in an attempt to redress the poorly armed Mk 1 hence a bigger tank. In N. Africa the Matilda as it became known once the Mk1 disappeared, was popular with its crews and earned the nickname 'Queen of the desert' however it remained heavily outgunned by its German opposition.
