Disclosures about Tanks
Since it appears not to have been reported elsewhere, a striking and disturbing speech on the Tank situation made by Mr. S. S. Hammersley in the Vote of Confidence debate still calls for mention here. Mr. Hammersley was handicapped by the necessity of not saying anything which would give information to the enemy, but he said enough to show that the Mark 11 infantry tank has a " glaring weakness " which could be remedied; and that another tank of the latest design, which came into pro- duction last April, has serious defects, and falls short of the standard of mechanical reliability. This is a very grave matter, for the tanks thus condemned are apparently still being produced, and Mr. Hammersley pertinently asked whether any of these tanks had been sent to Libya. Our tanks, compared with the Germans', are heavily underkunned. When we turn to the means of remedying a situation which ought never to have arisen. we learn on Mr. Hammersley's authority—and he has not been contradicted—that the men who have the supreme responsibility for the design and development of tanks, the Controller-General of Design and Development and the Chief Engineer of Tank Design, had no experience of tanks prior to their arrival at the Ministry of Supply. The executive head " responsible for initiating ideas . . . has no check above and no check below him from people with direct tank-knowledge themselves." These strictures must either be rebutted, or admitted and reformation promised. Neither course seems to have been taken yet.
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