Despite these alterations, a total of 175 A10 tanks were delivered between July and December 1939 by various companies, including the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company, Metropolitan-Cammell, and Vickers.
These tanks ultimately entered service in early 1940, contributing to the military efforts of the time.
The A10, with its modified A9 plans, brought significant improvements to the design. While its speed was slightly reduced, the addition of a lighter armoured box armed with twin .303 (7.62 mm) machine guns marked a notable change.
Furthermore, the armor was upgraded, with the nose and mantlet reinforced to 30 mm (1.18 in) and other parts to 14 mm (0.55 in), providing enhanced protection.
However, this also resulted in an increased weight of 2.3 tons, impacting its top speed, which was reduced to 26 km/h (16.1 mph).
This is another 3D print available from Dark Castle Terrain. I can thoroughly recommend there range and service and Callum is always excellent to deal with.
In the Battle of France, were the first 21 delivered were committed with the 1st armoured Division, the Mark II seems to have performed poorly. This was due to its very slow speed off road and torsion problems with its tracks, which proved too fragile in operations.
Later on, much of the production was sent in North Africa, to defend Egypt against a belligerent Italy.
their first commitment came when repelling the Italian invasion of December 1940, and fought their way into Libya and Abyssinia during Operation Compass, where they performed well, due to a dry and flat terrain, against Italian tanks which were not well-armed nor better protected.
Later, in Greece, 60 Mark IIAs were sent with the 3rd RTR.
There, the QF 2-pounder (40 mm/1.57 in) was found deadly against German reconnaissance armoured cars columns, and light tanks like the Panzer I and II. But it was unable to sustain the fire of the German main AT gun, the Pak-36, nor from the early Panzer III’s 37 mm (1.46 in), and most were lost, disabled or abandoned in April 1941.
Reliability often proved an issue, as well as crew safety, due the narrowness of the escape hatches.
