The Tank, Cruiser, Mk II (A10), was a

cruiser tank The cruiser tank (sometimes called cavalry tank or fast tank) was a British tank concept of the interwar period for tanks designed as modernised armoured and mechanised cavalry, as distinguished from infantry tanks. Cruiser tanks were develop ...

developed alongside the A9 cruiser tank, and was intended to be a heavier,

infantry tank The infantry tank was a concept developed by the United Kingdom and France in the years leading up to World War II. Infantry tanks were designed to support infantrymen in an attack. To achieve this, the vehicles were generally heavily vehicle armo ...

version of that type. In practice, it was not deemed suitable for the infantry tank role and was classified as a "heavy cruiser".

History and specifications

The A10 was developed by

Sir John Carden Sir John Valentine Carden, 6th Baronet MBE (6 February 1892 – 10 December 1935) was an English tank and vehicle designer. He was the sixth baronet of Templemore, County Tipperary, from 1931. Work Born in London, Carden was a talented, self- ...

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...

in 1934 by the adaptation of his A9 design. The A10 specification called for armour of up to standard (the A9 was ); a speed of ) was acceptable. The two sub-turrets present on the A9 were removed, and extra armour bolted onto that already present on the front and sides of the hull, along with all faces of the turret, providing approximately twice the armour in most areas. The A10 was two tonnes heavier than the A9, but used the same engine, and as a consequence the tank's top speed was cut from to . The turret armament consisted of a QF 2-pounder (40-mm) gun and a coaxial

.303 .303 may refer to: * .303 British, a rifle cartridge * .303 Savage, a rifle cartridge * Lee–Enfield The Lee–Enfield or Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the B ...

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a Water cooling, water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more me ...

. For the production version, there was a 7.92 mm

BESA machine gun The Besa machine gun was a British version of the Czechoslovak ZB-53 air-cooled, belt-fed machine gun (called the TK vz. 37 in the Czechoslovak army"TK" from ''těžký kulomet'' "heavy machine gun"; "vz" from ''vzor'' "Model"). The name came f ...

mounted in the hull in a barbette to the right of the driver. This was added to give extra firepower, but at the expense of simplicity - the Vickers and the BESA using different ammunition. The tank had a crew of five (Commander, gunner, loader, driver and hull machine gunner). There was no separation between the driver's compartment and the fighting compartments. The prototype ("Tank, Experimental A10E1") was completed in 1936, a few months after the A9 prototype. Carden had died in an air crash in 1935 and development was slower than expected. In 1937, the A10 was dropped as an infantry support tank, but in 1938 it was decided to produce an order of 75 as an interim "heavy cruiser". The A10 was accepted for service - initially as "Tank, Cruiser, Heavy Mk I" and then "Tank, Cruiser A10 Mk I" and finally "Tank, Cruiser Mk II". Production was ordered in July 1938. Total production was 175 vehicles, including the 30 CS versions (see below); 45 were built by

Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company The Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company (BRC&W) was a railway locomotive and carriage builder, founded in Birmingham, England and, for most of its existence, located at nearby Smethwick, with the factory divided by the boundary betwe ...

, 45 by Metropolitan-Cammell, 10 by

. In late 1939, another order was placed with Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company, this time for a larger order of 75 vehicles. Entering service in December 1939 the tank was something of an oddity, it had been intended to sacrifice speed for armour like an Infantry tank but was still relatively poorly armoured and not effective.

Combat history

Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-161-0317-26, Balkan, Griechenland, britischer Panzer

A number of Mark IIs were part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sent to France in the early stages of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The cross country performance was recorded as poor, but they were still used later in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

at the defence of Tobruk in 1941, where reliability and suspension performance in the desert conditions was praised. Sixty worn out examples were taken to Greece by the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and, although they performed well against the German tanks, over 90% were lost due to mechanical breakdowns as opposed to enemy action (mainly lost tracks).

Variants

;Tank, Cruiser, Mk II (A10 Mk I) Classified as a 'heavy cruiser', 31 were sent to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

with the 1st Armoured Division, but performed poorly in the

Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...

. The tank also served in the North African Campaign until late 1941. ;Tank, Cruiser, Mk IIA (A10 Mk IA) The coaxial Vickers machine guns were replaced with BESA machine guns. Armoured radio housing added. ;Tank, Cruiser, Mk IIA CS (A10 Mk IA CS) Cruiser MkIIA CS 1 Bovington

The CS (Close Support) version of the Mark II had a

howitzer A howitzer () is a long- ranged weapon, falling between a cannon (also known as an artillery gun in the United States), which fires shells at flat trajectories, and a mortar, which fires at high angles of ascent and descent. Howitzers, like ot ...

in the turret instead of the 2-pdr. The standard ammunition load was 40 rounds smoke, and a few HE shells. This weapon was derived from a World War I field howitzer, the

QF 3.7-inch mountain howitzer Ordnance, QF 3.7-inch howitzer is a mountain gun, used by British and Commonwealth armies in the First and Second World Wars, and between the wars. History The British Indian Army first requested a modern mountain gun in 1906 to replace the BL 10 ...

. It was not related to the 3-inch (76 mm) howitzer used in later British tanks in the Second World War, which was itself replaced by a howitzer in the later versions of the Churchill infantry tanks and all CS versions of the Centaur and Cromwell cruiser tanks. British doctrine was that the CS tank was to provide smoke cover in advances or retreats and hence many more smoke rounds were carried than HE.Bovington accession record

Related vehicles

The Valentine used the suspension and transmission of the A10 but with a much more heavily armoured hull and turret.

References

Notes Bibliography
Tank Cruiser Mark IIA A10, Close Support (E1949.348)
* *

External links