British multi-turret tank Vickers A1E1 INDEPENDENT COBI 2990 - Historical Collection

You know that:

• The idea for a new British tank was conceived in December 1922 during a meeting of commanders at the British Army General Staff.
• The army leaders drew up a series of requirements based on the experience of the First World War, and so were in effect at this point already creating a tank that was not ready for the events to come. It should be noted that in 1922 there was no talk of the First World War, as nobody knew that the Second World War would come soon.
• The author of the design was the versatile Irish-born engineer Walter Gordon Wilson, who also filed a number of patents in the aviation industry.
• The first and only prototype of the tank was submitted for testing in 1926 in which it did not perform very successfully and was therefore redesigned in 1928.
• The modified version got hydraulic brakes and a new Siddeley V12 engine for the first time.
• The designer himself, Wilson, was in the crosshairs of the Russian secret service, which gradually hijacked plans for Russia to build its own T-28 tank.
• Eventually, a traitor within the ranks of the British Army was exposed, Lieutenant Norman Baillie Stewart, who gradually passed secret information to his liaison in Berlin. He was punished for his actions with 5 years in prison.
• Due to its obsolete design and loss of secrecy, it was thus used solely for testing purposes and scrapped completely in 1935.
• Today, the restored tank is part of the collections of the Bovington Tank Museum.

Technical parameters:

• dimensions: length 7.59 m, width 2.67 m, height 2.72 m
• weight 34 000 kg
• armour 13-28 mm
• power unit air-cooled 12-cylinder Armstron Siddeley V12 engine with 280 kW
• number of gears 4 forward + 1 reverse
• maximum speed 32 km/h
• range 153 km
• main weapon 47 mm QF 3 cannon, secondary armament 4x Vickers 7.62 mm machine gun
• crew 8 persons