Infantry tanks

Infantry tank
Churchill tanks during the 2nd Battle of El Alamein
Type	Armoured fighting vehicle
Place of origin	France and Britain
Service history
In service	1938–1945
Used by	French and British armies
Wars	Second World War

The infantry tank was a concept developed by the British and French in the years leading up to World War II. Infantry tanks were designed to support infantry-soldiers in an attack. To achieve this, the vehicles were generally heavily armoured to allow them to operate in close concert with infantry even under heavy fire. The extra armour came at the expense of speed, which was not an issue when supporting relatively slow-moving infantry.

Once an attack supported by infantry tanks had broken through heavily defended areas in the enemy lines, faster tanks such as cruiser or light tanks were expected to use their higher speed and longer range to operate far behind the front and cut lines of supply and communications.

The British tank arm was constrained by decisions about procurement made in the early 1930s. By 1931, experience with the Experimental Mechanized Force led to the report of the Kirke Committee and specifications for three types of tank, a medium tank with a small-calibre anti-tank gun and a machine-gun, a light tank with machine-guns for reconnaissance and to co-operation with the medium tanks by engaging anti-tank guns. A close support tank armed with a gun firing high explosive and smoke shells to give covering fire for tank attacks was also specified. The cost of experiments with tanks led in 1932 to the Director of Mechanisation to cancel work on a replacement for the medium tank, during the financial cuts imposed during the Great Depression. When work resumed in 1935, the army had Light Tank but no design bureau for a new medium tank and no engine powerful enough to move it. To avoid delay, the British chose not to attempt to design specialist tanks for close infantry support or for independent operational manoeuvres and in 1934, the Army Council decided that each infantry division should have a battalion of Infantry tanks (I tanks).