CHAPTER 1 4 ARMOURED FIGHTING VEHICLE S frequently happens with important inventions, the basic principle Aof the tank occurred to a number of people independently and abou t the same time. Among them was an Australian inventor, L. E. de Mole,1 who in 1912 made and reduced to practical shape a brilliant inventio n which anticipated and in some respects surpassed the one actually adopted several years later .2 De Mole despatched blueprints of his invention to th e British War Office, which acknowledged them, pigeon-holed them an d forgot them. Several years later Sir William Tritton and Major W. G. Wilson submitted to the War Office a design which on being accepted, became the basis of the British tank used in the first world war . On learn- ing that the Royal Commission on War Inventions had awarded Tritto n and Wilson £15,000 for their design, de Mole applied for recognition of his invention and travelled to England for the purpose of supportin g his claim. He was granted £965 to cover out-of-pocket expenses, and was decorated. In the later years of the first world war Britain introduced the tank into warfare and at length built up a tank force so large that in the final offen- sives in France as many as fourteen battalions were employed (a big force even by the standards of 1940 and early 1941) . British officers and designers continued to develop the tank and to work out doctrines o f armoured warfare. During the twenties and thirties little money was mad e available to produce tanks in quantity in Britain . When Germany began to rearm, her leaders, impressed by the work and writings of such Britis h designers and strategists as Giffard Martel, J . F. C. Fuller, and Liddel l Hart, gradually built up a fairly large tank army and resolved to use it in mass as the British military experts advocated . By 1939, Germany had far larger armoured forces than her enemies . The success of the German armoured divisions in Belgium and France demonstrated afres h the power of the tank. Even before this demonstration the Australian Army, which had main- tained a tank training corps since 1935, began to consider whether tank s should be made in Australia. Australian representatives, including Major- General Northcott, who attended the first Dominion War Conference i n London in October 1939 and who afterwards inspected the defence system s of Britain and France, returned fully convinced by what they had seen in Europe that Australia would be compelled to make most of her ow n military equipment . Soon after the fall of France the Department o f Defence decided that an attempt should be made to manufacture tanks, 1L. E. de Mole, CBE. (Served 1st AIF .) Engineer; of Melbourne and Sydney ; b . Adelaide, 13 Mar 1880. Died May 1950 . 2 See Proceedings of the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, HM Stationery Office . Leonardo da Vinci has been credited with the first conception of the tank. 302 THE ROLE OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTR Y and forwarded a recommendation to this effect to the War Cabinet, a t the same time placing an order for 859 . In making its recommendation to the War Cabinet it was the army' s intention that in the first instance Australia should attempt to provid e tanks for the A .I.F. in the Middle East, where armoured vehicles of all kinds were sadly lacking not only among Australian but among Britis h forces as well.3 Britain's factories were then fully occupied in preparing to meet the threatened invasion of her own shores and there was no better hope of obtaining tanks from the United States, despite the fact that it s vast automotive industry was turning to the production of armoured fight- ing vehicles . That tanks might also be required for the defence of Australi a in the event of Japan entering the war was a possibility to which militar y planners were fully alive . For a country that had not yet manufactured a motor-car—a much less difficult undertaking—this was technically a most ambitious program , and the serious strain which it was likely to impose on Australian engineer- ing industry led to the growth of two schools of opinion : one opposed to the manufacture of tanks on the ground that it was beyond Australia's engineering capacity, the other convinced equally firmly that the challeng e could be met. The Australian Army leaders' enthusiasm for the tan k project was, from the beginning, shared by the Department of Munitions . Much later, when the manufacture of tanks in Australia came under criti- cism from Lend-Lease authorities, it also received the support of Genera l MacArthur, who in a letter to the Prime Minister said : "I am most heartily in agreement with the proposal that Australia should have a tank produc- tion program." In addition to opposition within Australia there was i n some quarters in Britain and the United States a strong disinclination to believe that Australian industry was capable of making tanks . Among the early civilian optimists was Sir Langdon Bonython, who, to encourag e the Commonwealth Government in its efforts to launch tank manufacture , had made a gift of £25,000 for the express purpose of assisting investiga- tions of tank design . The cruiser tank was only one of a number of armoured fighting vehicles eventually required by the army. There were also machine-gun carriers , two-pounder anti-tank gun carriers, three-inch mortar carriers, scout cars , light armoured cars, heavy armoured cars, and heavy (infantry) tanks . The general plan was to make the army responsible for the designs o f these vehicles, and the Department of Munitions (through the Directorate of Ordnance Production) responsible for manufacture. With these ends i n view the army set up a Design Section within the Branch of the Chief Military Adviser, and the Ordnance Production Directorate created a s At the end of 1940 sprocket and track parts were made in Australia for the British cruiser tanks, and were sent to the Middle East . It was unfortunate, in view of the critical stage of the campaign and the urgent need for these parts, that they should have proved completel y useless . The reason for this was found to be that the drawings sent out from Britain to th e Australian contractor were not up to date and did not include the modifications that had bee n incorporated in the tracks manufactured in England . When this was realised the drawings wer e altered appropriately, and a second large order from the British Ministry of Supply was satis- factorily completed by the contractor, Messrs H. V . McKay-Massey Harris. ARMOURED FIGHTING VEHICLES 303 Section of Armoured Fighting Vehicles . 4 The section's first task was to explore the general problems of production and to coordinate the develop- ment of army design with the manufacturing capacity and raw materials available. To ensure the closest cooperation between the two section s arrangements were made for their staffs to work under the one roof — the Crace Buildings in Melbourne . The tank is singled out from other armoured fighting vehicles for a detailed account because its manufacture presented the greatest challeng e to industry. 5 Normal procedure in making a complex piece of equipment such a s a tank was first to compile a "user specification " outlining the general requirements, such as the degree of protection, speed, armament, number of crew, range of activity, communication equipment and automotive .per- formance—a complex document which could be drawn up only by combat officers, and must be interpreted by experienced technical officers of th e Army General Staff. After problems concerning these requirements had been thoroughly thrashed out a workable design was produced . Concur- rently, full-size models in wood ( " mock-ups " ) were built in order to assist designers and users to determine the most efficient disposition of th e numerous pieces of equipment which must be accessibly packed in th e vehicle : ammunition, radio, small arms, operating mechanism and con- trols, to mention only a few . A fully-operative prototype, or pilot model, was built, then tested, and if necessary modified until it was as nearly certain as possible that it would do what was expected of it . At this stage the design was "frozen " . Then, and only then, was mass productio n undertaken. In war, these orderly steps in design and production wer e often too time-consuming to be carried out in the normal sequence, wit h the result that frequently they had to be overlapped . Design in itself was a complex process in which a number of distinct stages might be recognised . The first step to decide upon was the basi c design, which was essentially an elaboration of the user specification . The next step comprised the basic engineering design, which delineated th e way the user specification was to be implemented—the nature of th e power unit, for example. This was followed by the detailed engineering design entailing th e drawing up of the dimensions of every component in the vehicle, ranging from nuts and bolts to the engine and armour plate . It involved fixing not only the size, shape and weight of every part but also the degre e of tolerance or permissible variation from these dimensions, which in turn required on the part of the designer a thorough knowledge of moder n mass-production methods and interchangeability of components . Then followed the detailed design of tools, jigs, gauges and fixture s necessary to produce the components in quantity with provision for inter - changeability.