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ATENÇÃO:
A publicação de qualquer imagem ou informação referentes ao nazismo, fascismo ou quaisquer outros regimes totalitários deve ser entendida como reprodução do rigor histórico e não como apologia a estes regimes, líderes ou símbolos.

Vickers 6-ton Mark E Type A light tank - case report

Poland!!  First to fight!!
      Continuing the Polish phase of the topics, it's time of the last vehicle from this triple building: 

       You followed the building of the other two models in this series: the 7TP-jw and the 7TP-dw with snow-plow.  Let's see now the Vickers 6-ton mark E type A.
Light tank Vickers 6-ton Mark E Type A - Polish colors
History:
      The Vickers 6-Ton Tank or Vickers Mark E was a British light tank designed as a private project at Vickers. It was not purchased by the British Army, but was picked up by a large number of foreign armed forces and was copied almost exactly by the Soviets as the T-26. It was also the direct predecessor of the Polish 7TP tank. By the start of World War II it was the second most common tank design in the world after the Renault FT.
Vickers 6-tons under construction
      The first Mark E was built in 1928 by a design team that included the famed tank designers John Valentine Carden and Vivian Loyd. The hull was made of riveted steel plates, 25 mm thick at the front and over most of the turrets, and about 19 mm thick on the rear of the hull. The power was provided by an Armstrong Siddeley Puma engine of 80–95 horsepower (60–70 kW) (depending on the version), which gave it a top speed of 35 km/h on roads.
Armstrong Siddeley Puma engine
      The suspension used two axles, each of which carried a two-wheel bogie to which a second set of bogies was connected with a leaf spring. Upward movement of either set of bogies would force the other down through the spring. This was considered to be a fairly good system and offered better than normal cross-country performance although it could not compare with the contemporary Christie suspension. High strength steel tracks gave over 5000 km of life which was considerably better than most designs of the era.
Vickers suspension
      The tank was built in two versions:
  • Type A with two turrets, each mounting a Vickers machine gun.
  • Type B with a single two-man turret mounting a single machine gun and a short-barreled 47 mm cannon OQF 3-pdr Gun.
     The Type B proved to be a real innovation, it was found that the two-man turret dramatically increased the rate of fire of either weapon, while still allowing both to be fired at the same time. This design, which they referred to as a duplex mounting, became common on almost all tanks designed after the Mark E.
Vickers 6-ton Mark E Type B
      The British Army evaluated the Mark E, but rejected it, apparently due to questions about the reliability of the suspension. Vickers then started advertising the design to all buyers, and soon received a trickle of orders eventually including USSR, Greece, Poland, Bolivia, Siam, Finland, Portugal, China and Bulgaria. A Thai order was placed, but taken over by the British when the war started. Vickers built a total of 153 (the most common figure) Mark E's.
      Experience with the Polish machines showed that the engine tended to overheat due to poor airflow over the air-cooled Puma engine. This was addressed by the addition of large air vents on either side of the hull.
Vickers 6-ton Mark E Type B with large air vents 
      For a new Belgian order the design was modified to use the Rolls-Royce Phantom II water-cooled engine instead. This engine would not fit in the rear, and had to be mounted along the left side of the tank, requiring the turret to be moved to the right and rearward. One example of the resulting Mark F was tested by Belgium, but rejected. Nevertheless the new hull was used, with the older engine, in the sales to Finland and Siam.
      The Mark E was also developed as a cargo vehicle, and purchased by the British Army in small numbers as artillery tractors to haul their large 60 pounder (127 mm) artillery guns. Twelve were ordered by the Army as the Dragon, Medium Mark IV', while China purchased 23 and India 18.
Vickers Dragon Mark IV cargo vehicle
      Poland was generally happy with the design, and purchased 50 and licensed it for local production. Modifying it with larger air intakes, their own machine gun, 360-degree Gundlach periscope and a Diesel engine, the design entered service as the 7TP. Only the original 38 entered service, 12 remained unassembled and later used for spares. Out of 38 original two-turreted tanks, 22 were later converted to single turret version with a modified turret and the 47 mm main gun (Type B standard).
      The Soviets were also happy with the design and licensed it for production. However in their case local production started as the T-26, and eventually over 12,000 were built in various versions. The Soviet early twin-turret T-26s had 7.62 mm DT machine guns in each turret, or a mix of one machine gun turret and one 37 mm gun turret.
T26 with twin MG turret
 Later, more common versions mounted a 45 mm gun in a single turret. The final versions of the T-26 had welded construction and, eventually, sloped armor on the hull and turret.
T26 with 45mm gun
      Because the T-26 was in such wide use and was a reliable platform, a variety of engineer vehicles were built on the chassis, including flamethrowers (OT-26)  and bridgelayers.
OT-26 flamethrower

      A novel radio-controlled demolition tank was built on the T-26 chassis also. During the Spanish Civil War the Soviet Union sent the T-26 to the Republican Army. The Italians, after suffering losses from Republican's T-26 during the battle of Guadalajara (1937), captured some of these tanks which served as a model for their M11/39 and M13/40 light/medium tanks.
 T26 of the Republican Forces, Spain, Battle of Guadalajara, March 1937
      In 1939, during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, the Finnish armoured forces consisted of around thirty-two obsolete Renault FT-17 tanks, some Vickers-Carden-Lloyd Mk. IVs and Model 33s, which were equipped with machine guns, and 26 Vickers Armstrongs 6-ton tanks. The latter had been re-equipped with 37 mm Bofors AT-guns after the outbreak of the war. Only 13 of these tanks managed to get to the front in time to participate in the battles.
      At the Battle of Honkaniemi on February 26, 1940, the Finns employed their Vickers tanks for the first - and only - time against Russian armour during the Winter War. The results were disastrous. Of the thirteen available Finnish Vickers 6-ton tanks only six were in fighting condition and able to participate in the first assault on the Soviet lines - to make matters worse, one of the tanks was forced to stop, unable to cross a wide trench. The remaining five continued onwards a few hundred meters but ran into dozens of Soviet tanks in the village of Honkaniemi. The Finnish tanks managed to knock out three Soviet tanks but were soon themselves knocked-out. In the skirmishes that followed, the Finns lost two more Vickers tanks.
      In 1941, the Finns rearmed their Vickers 6-Ton tanks with the Soviet 45 mm gun and re-designated them as T-26E. These tanks were used by the Finnish Army during the Continuation War. 19 rebuilt Vickers tanks, along with 75 T-26s continued in Finnish service after the end of the Second World War. Some of these tanks were kept as training tanks until 1959, when they were finally phased out and replaced by newer British and Soviet tanks.
Finnish "modernization" of T-26.  Karelia, 1943
Specs:
Vickers 6-Ton Mark E Type A Light Tank
TypeLight tank
Place of originUnited Kingdom
Specifications
Weight7.3 tonnes
Length4.88 m 
Width2.41 m 
Height2.16 m 
Crew3

Armour13 mm
Main
armament
Hotchkiss 8mm machine guns (Type A only)

Secondary
armament
none
EngineArmstrong Siddeley Puma petrol
80–98 hp (60–70 kW)
Power/weight11–13 hp/tonne
Suspensionleaf spring bogie
Operational
range
160 km 
Speed35 km/h

The kit:
      The kit is from RPM, a very crude but interesting model... The box art is very good...
RPM model kit n° 35071
The box content...Notice the other two polish girls behind the box...
Starting the Vicker's hull. The 7TP in background is almost ready
Wheels and tracks. The vinyl tracks are very poor...
Vicker's bogies
Bogies in position...
      I choose to arm my Vickers tank with Hotchkiss MG, because the 7TP-dw was already armed with the Brownings. Thus, we have two similar tanks with different weapons.
Vickers with Hotchkiss 8mm MG
Vickers - rear view
Three girls ready for painting: 7TP, 7TP dw and Vickers
Primmer
Three tones Polish cammo 
With tracks...almost ready...
       And the British-Polish girl was ready:
Vickers Mk E Tipe A - 3rd Armoured Battalion- Poland, 1939.
Vickers Mk E Tipe A - 3rd Armoured Battalion- front view

Vickers Mk E Tipe A - 3rd Armoured Battalion - right side

Vickers Mk E Tipe A - 3rd Armoured Battalion - rear view
Vickers Mk E Tipe A - 3rd Armoured Battalion 
Three Polish light tanks
Obrigado pela atenção, Senhores !!!!

2 comentários:

  1. Marcos, where are the pictures of your collection of tanks and workshop? I recall that on some kind of a forum, but can't find it. When will you resume new builds?

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  2. @Bizarre: My address change is complicated because the carpenter did not deliver the furniture in the combined time (he was sick).
    My current bench was dismantled and I am sick over this!! I think I can move to a new apartment in about one month ...Meanwhile, the crisis of abstinence is terrible ...
    About pics, as soon I move, I send to you !!!

    Big hug !!!

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