VCL LIGHT AMPHIBIOUS TANK A4E12 LATE- CHINESE ARMY 1939

Description

The British armor company Vickers-Carden-Loyd (VCL) developed an experimental amphibious tank in the early 1930s which was armed with a Vickers .303 machine gun in a turret and was manned by a crew of two. While the British Army did not acquire the tank, a number of them were sold abroad including China, Thailand, the Dutch East Indies and the USSR. Soviet engineers reverse-engineered their tanks to create the amphibious T-37A. China ordered 12 of the model A4E12 tanks and when Japan invaded China in 1938, these tanks together with 15 armored cars attempted a counter-attack to drive out the invaders. This armored force was attacked by Imperial Japanese Army aircraft inflicting heavy losses on the Chinese. Only one of the VCL tanks survived and would later serve as a training vehicle. (Scale : 1/35e)