A20 was a British tank design by

Harland & Wolff Harland & Wolff Holdings plc is a British shipbuilding and Metal fabrication, fabrication company headquartered in London with sites in Belfast, Arnish yard, Arnish, Appledore, Torridge, Appledore and Methil. It specialises in ship repair, ship ...

to meet an Army requirement for an

infantry tank The infantry tank was a tank concept developed by the United Kingdom and France in the years leading up to World War II. Infantry tanks were designed to support infantrymen in an attack. To achieve this, the vehicles were generally heavily arm ...

that could replace the

Matilda II The Infantry Tank Mark II, better known as the Matilda, is a British infantry tank of the Second World War.Jentz, p. 11. The design began as the A12 specification in 1936, as a gun-armed counterpart to the first British infantry tank, the mac ...

and

Valentine tank The Tank, Infantry, Mk III, Valentine was an infantry tank produced in the United Kingdom during World War II. More than 8,000 Valentines were produced in eleven marks, plus specialised variants, accounting for about a quarter of wartime Britis ...

. It was designed in the expectation that conditions would be similar to those of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The specification was produced by Superintendent of Tank Design at

Woolwich Woolwich () is a town in South London, southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was mainta ...

with design by the Mechanization Board and passed to

for detail work and to build a pilot. Four pilots were ordered in February 1940. Two – A20E1 and A20E2 – were built. The first pilot took part in trials in June 1940.Chamberlain & Ellis p66 It was shipped from

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

Vauxhall Motors Vauxhall Motors Limited , ;Company No. 00135767. Incorporated 12 May 1914, name changed from Vauxhall Motors Limited to General Motors UK Limited on 16 April 2008, reverted to Vauxhall Motors Limited on 18 September 2017. is a British Automoti ...

(without a turret) in August; thereafter to Mechanical Warfare Experimental Establishment at Farnborough. The

Battle of France The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembour ...

indicated that

trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from a ...

was not going to be the case in the Second World War. A new specification, A22, was drawn up and Vauxhall who had been engaged to find a suitable power plant – their Bedford "twin six" engine – for the A20 were instructed to bring a tank based on the A20 into production as soon as possible. This would enter service as "Tank, Infantry, Mark IV" later named Churchill. The first pilot Churchill was finished by November 1940. The decision to cancel the order for 100 A20 was made in June 1940 and that the four pilot models – constructed of mild steel – would be used for component testing. After the MWEE, the A20E1 moved to the Experimental Bridging Establishment,

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

then back to Farnborough, this time to the Wheeled Vehicle Experimental Establishment. There it was used as trial load to test a twenty-wheel 70-ton capacity tank transporter trailer built by Cranes of

Dereham Dereham (), also known historically as East Dereham, is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Breckland District of the England, English county of Norfolk. It is situated on the A47 road, about west of the city of Norwich ...

Notes

Sources

* * * Infantry tanks World War II tanks of the United Kingdom Heavy tanks of the United Kingdom Abandoned military projects of the United Kingdom Trial and research tanks of the United Kingdom {{World-War-II-stub