Bloomfield’s ‘Tortoise’ Single Track Heavy Tank

Commonwealth of Australia (1942) Heavy Tank – None Built Post WW1, most tanks follow a common enough shape, with a rigid armored body, a pair of track units, with one on each side, an engine located within the body, and either a fixed casemate gun or a turret with some secondary guns in the hull. …

Matilda Hedgehog

Commonwealth of Australia (1945) Tank-Mounted Spigot Mortar – 6 Built Rumble in the Jungle Beginning in 1942, as Australian forces battled against the Japanese through New Guinea and the South West Pacific, it became apparent that there was an increasing need for offensive armaments capable of demolishing Japanese defensive positions. The typical Japanese bunker was …

Gerrey Machine Gun Motor Vehicle

Commonwealth of Australia/United Kingdom (1939) AFV – None Built Budgong Gap may not be the sort of world-famous location associated with great architecture or magnificent structures of the ancient world. Nor is it a place with any association in the world of armored fighting vehicle manufacturers, yet this somewhat obscure location, lying nearly a 3-hour …

Wales-Whitehead Amphibian Tank

Commonwealth of Australia (1941) Amphibious Tank – None Built In March 1941, Messrs. Wales and Whitehead wrote to the Australian Army Inventions directorate with a memorandum and booklet proposing the construction of an amphibian tank along with an armoring system designed to overcome the problems which existed in Australia at the time with the manufacture of …

Grasshopper Light Tank

Commonwealth of Australia (1944) Flying Light Tank – None Built Naming tanks is a complex business. The name is supposed to capture the essence of the vehicle, inspire the crews with confidence and the enemy with fear and, as a result, many such vehicles are named after large raptors, predators, and wild animals. There are …

Wentworth Cruiser Tank

Commonwealth of Australia/New Zealand (1924-1942) Cruiser Tank – Drawings Only War can bring about a wide variety of ideas from an equally wide variety of people and places, and one design from Australia came from the most unlikely of places; a prison. The person concerned in this unusual tale is Prisoner ‘131’ – Jack Alva …

G. Crowther’s ‘Land Fortress Tank’

Commonwealth of Australia (1945) Moving Fortress – None Built War can stimulate the minds of the young and the old alike to develop weapons. Whilst the majority of would-be tank designers have finished their basic school education, it seems one precocious Australian schoolboy by the name of ‘G.Crowther’ saw his opportunity in 1945 to make …

Puckridge’s Land Battleship

Commonwealth of Australia (1884-1944) Land Battleship – Paper Project Australia entered the Second World War with very few tanks and an urgent need for armored fighting vehicles. Although the primary opponent for Australian forces was Japan and their its small and thinly armored vehicle in the Far East, Australian forces would also serve throughout North …

Cossor Land Cruiser

Commonwealth of Australia (1943) Landship – None Built Australia is most famous for a wide range of deadly native creatures, but within the tank community, it is well known for its Cruiser tanks (AC I, II, III and IV Sentinel Cruiser Tanks). Whilst those Cruiser tanks were good designs in their own right, another vehicle, …

Modra Revolving Light Tank

Commonwealth of Australia (1943) Light Tank – None Built Of the many designs for tanks submitted to the Australian Army Inventions Directorate during World War 2, there were some very sound schemes, some very outlandish schemes, and then a few very peculiar schemes. The Modra Revolving Light Tank is one of the latter. It was …

Melvaine’s Mobile Pill Box

Commonwealth of Australia (1944) Mobile Pillbox – None Built The ‘Mobile Pill Box’ was the brainchild of W. W. Melvaine. He lived in Brighton Boulevard, Bondi, Australia. It was one of many inventions submitted to the Army Inventions Directorate of the Australian Army in the Second World War. Many designs were submitted for all manner, …

AC IV 17-pdr Armed Sentinel Cruiser Tank

Commonwealth of Australia (1942-1943) Cruiser Tank – 1 Prototype Built The one with the big gun Another offspring of the AC I Sentinel was the AC IV, which was to be equipped with the new British Ordnance QF 17-pounder anti-tank gun. After the July 1942 decision to proceed with increased armament for the Australian Cruisers, a …

AC III Thunderbolt Cruiser Tank

Commonwealth of Australia (1942-1943) Cruiser Tank – 1 Prototype Built The inadequate 2 Pounder In 1941, The QF Vickers 2-Pounder had been recognised as likely to become obsolete by the time that the AC tanks were scheduled entered production. The armament of the Mark I “Sentinel” was seen as transitional since the beginning, and the tank …

AC II Cruiser Tank

Commonwealth of Australia (1941) Cruiser Tank – None Built The Sentinel that never was Contrary to a popular misconception the AC II was not a design for the installation of an Ordnance 6 pounder gun in the AC I Sentinel cruiser . Such a design did exist, entitled AC IA, but this is covered more appropriately with the …