British Armor Policy

[Monster Company]

I recall seeing this subject discussed by the Grogs on the Battlefront message board.

Its my understanding that the british pre-war plan was that the main gun on the infantry tanks would be for killing other tanks, and that the coaxial machine gun was to be used to attack soft targets. that is why there was no HE for some british tanks in the early period of the war.

In the instance of the infantry tanks, they were to be used in conjunction with infantry, so the conventional wisdom was that they should concentrate on killing enemy tanks and assist the infantry advance by suppressing/killing enemy infatry with their machine guns. The infantry tanks are also generally much slower and heavily armored, so they are able to withstand more but only need to keep pace with the infantry.


The cruiser tanks also show specialization, as some are equipped with smoke shells, and some have HE, but little AP. AIUI, that was because they were to be the "breakout" force. They were supposed to exploit the attack and would race ahead of the infantry, so they would be without combined arms and would need the HE/smoke support.