Matilda I (tank)

The Matilda I, officially the Tank, Infantry, Mk I (A11), was a small two-man British infantry tank designed by Sir John Carden at Vickers-Armstrongs for the build-up to the Second World War. The General Staff wanted a cheap tank built from commercially available automotive parts, so it used a Ford V8 engine and a Fordson gearbox and carried a single machine gun, a Vickers .303 inch or .50 inch, in a small cast turret. Its heavy armour resisted the standard German anti-tank guns in the Battle of France in 1940, the only time it saw combat, but its slow road speed of 8 mph and weak armament left it obsolete before it entered service. A total of 140 were produced between 1937 and August 1940, and three survivors are kept at The Tank Museum in Britain. It is a separate design from the later Matilda II.