A11 Matilda I in Poland?

[matildaguy]

Hi axiswarlordhcv,

I'm not saying there wasn't an A11 shipped to Poland pre-September 1939, one the other hand I am not convinced that one was either. The possibility has been raised (on what evidence I don't know), but the hard evidence has not yet been made available.
Pictures of A11 (early type) being evaluated in Germany following capture have all, so far, been former British Army vehicles left behind in France.

It's a puzzle.

[Piotr Mikołajski]

There are no confirmed and based on documents info about purchase and delivery od Matilda A11 tank to Poland before WWII. Old reliable publications don't mention about A11 at all. Many new monographies and articles were published in recent years but still there are no info about Matilda tank. It doesn't mean that this tank was not delivered but I would be very careful with claims that Poland received such tank.

Following is an excerpt from Militaria No 277 - Polska 1939, Vol I.

Bibliography published by this book is outdated in part about Polish tanks. But more important is that Polish text and English translation are slightly different. Below is the same paragraph in Polish and in English and it's clear that English text is shorter and less detailed

Militaria 277 page 65.png

Part underlined with red is about low speed and weak armament of tested French tanks. Matilda A11 was slower and was armed with machine gun only and it's clear that this tank was inferior when compared with Renault R35 and Hotchkiss R35. I can't explain why anyone would like to waste time and test tank worse than tanks already considered to be poor.

Capt'd Matilda I in Poland Image (another different view of #834) below:

I'm sorry but this particular tank was part of BEF and is clearly visible on this photo:

Matilda A11 834 01.jpg

[trufelhunter]

I fully support the statement of Piotr Mikołajski. Never came across any document related to Matilda imports to Poland, too - and saw quite a few papers related to Polish AFV over the last 25 years. The written sources available in Polish language should be treated with maximum care as some of them contain misleading information, despite good photo and drawing coverage.

Cheers,

Mariusz