Paul: Many thanks for those details! I hadn't thought of leaving the radiators where they were and just moving the trunking. Good thinking
Robin: Cheers. Hopefully, the next post provides some more grist for your mill ...
Alaric VI - A21 meets A12 'Matilda Senior'Obviously, the calamitous fall of France ended the supply of French-made suspension parts for the
Alaric programme. By June 1940, Dr. Merritt had already issued specifications for a replacement design - the A22 Infantry Tank (which would also eclipse the now-obsolete A20). But, as German troops lined the English Channel, the A22 was at least a year away from production. With an invasion threat building, it was critical that partially-completed
Alarics be finished. An
ad hoc solution was fitting
Alaric hulls with the suspension of the pending A12 Infantry Tank - the so-called '
Matilda Senior'. The A12 was a
Matilda I replacement but with an astonishingly thick armour. The result was a mass of 25 tons - just 2.5 tons short of the
Alaric. Work began at once on adapting the A12's coil-spring suspension to the larger A21 hull.
Fortunately, production of the A12 suspension was well ahead of anticipated delivery to the tank's complex and largely cast hulls. Beyond the usual drive sprocket and idler, the suspension for the '
Matilda Senior' consisted of five paired bogie assemblies and a forward 'jockey wheel' which came into contact with the ground only when the bogie wheels were under load. Although the
Alaric hull was longer than the A12, there was not sufficient space to install an additional bogie pair. Instead, a rear jockey wheel was added to each side. This 'fix' got
Alaric assembly rolling again but the A12 suspension was somewhat overtaxed by the Support Tank's greater weight. In light of the times, this compromise was considered fully acceptable.
Top An
Alaric VI prototype fitted with A12 '
Matilda Senior' suspension units. This vehicle was part of the Dorset coastal defence force based at Lulworth in July 1940. The tank was actually assigned to the 52nd Training Regiment, Armoured Fighting Vehicles School - specifically, the Gunnery School at Lulworth, close to the Dorset coast.
The
Alaric VI prototype's commander was A/Maj E.F. Offord (a South African who was an Assistant Instructor at the Gunnery School). Here, Acting Major Offord sits in his commander's hatch with access to a pintle-mounted Lewis gun. Since arriving at Lulworth, this
Alaric VI has been fitted with an experimental 'pepper-pot' muzzle brake (likely to trial the effects of large numbers of firings).
Note the truncated,
Alaric IIA-style cooling louvres (explaining why the tank's rooftop cooling 'mushroom' is fixed in the fully-open position). This prototype has a non-standard wireless arrangement and is also missing its lower suspension-covering skirts. For security reasons, the individual vehicle number has been painted out (although why that was thought necessary is unclear). It seems that this tank never received an individual vehicle name (which was not that strange for a prototype).
Into Active Service - the Operational Alaric VIA Infantry Support TankTwo
Alaric VI prototype conversions [1] were completed and both suffered cooling problems. The production model
Alaric VIA introduced enlarged hull-side cooling louvres to address the issue. The extended louvres helped but - especially in Summer months - it was not unusual to see
Alaric VIAs with their hull-top cooling 'mushrooms' gaping. Other than its suspension and cooling 'mods', the VIA was indistinguishable from the preceding
Alaric V.
A total of 32
Alaric VIAs were completed and all were issued to the 141st Battalion, RAC (making up three squadrons of this newly-formed unit). [2] The
Alaric VIA did what was required of it during the Summer of 1940. As feared, the under-strength suspension proved to be the Achille's heel of the
Alaric VIAs. Within a year, the type had been withdrawn from active service (other than some retained for crew training at Bovington).
Bottom An
Alaric VIA of the 141st Bn, RAC, near Folkestone, Kent, in August 1940. This is a near-new vehicle. Note the
Alaric VIA's enlarged cooling louvres and full lower skirts. A3864 has been fitted with a fixed machine gun shield armed with a Lewis gun.
(To be continued ...)
_______________________________
[1] The first
Alaric VI prototype conversion was made to an
Alaric I - one of the original French Char B1s supplied as demonstrators. In May 1940, this vehicle had suffered a failure of its Naeder hydrostatic system and was awaiting a replacement from France. (The other three
Alaric Is went overseas with the British Expeditionary Force as support vehicles for the
Alaric IA force. All three deployed
Alaric Is were lost in France.) In June 1940, the remaining
Alaric I had been stripped of its suspension in order to complete another
Alaric IIA hull.
[2] 141 Bn formed as the 7th Battalion, Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) which was to be assigned to the 209th Independent Infantry Brigade (Home). Instead, the nascent unit was transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps. Members of 141 Regt wore The Buffs' cap badge on their black RAC berets (as did all such transformed former infantry regiments).