Matilda II

"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"

– Aussies, in between drinks

The Matilda II, otherwise known as Matilda Senior or simply Matilda (because the Matilda I was never really used), was an infantry tank that saw brief use in France, and wider use in North Africa and the Pacific. Lend-lease meant that the Soviets also made use of the vehicle, but not for very long: its complicated track-system and heavy skirts meant that it often got bogged down in mud and snow. Notable for its heavy armor, the FoW version has armor comparable to the T14 Heavy Tank in a much smaller (and slower) package.

Stats

Oy, cantcha make this thing go faster?.

IRL

The Matilda II was one of the British mainstays of the early-war. A product of British infantry tank doctrine, it was very slow and cumbersome, but had armor that was equivalent to the Russian KV-1 heavy. This was during the time when the only real competition were Panzer IIIs, and when 75mm cannons were mostly limited to either howitzers or field guns. The 2-pdr could punch straight through most other vehicles of the time (but not itself), and in North Africa, it pretty much destroyed Italian tankettes, much to their embarrassment.

This does not mean the Matilda was unstoppable: the tank's slow speed meant that the Germans simply needed to outmaneuver it and hit it from its more vulnerable sides; PaKs could also take one down when close, and the German 88s could destroy them at pretty much any range. The 2-pdr cannon also had inadequate performance when shooting HE shells, and it only had one coaxial MG. The tank was also cramped as hell, which made the tank understandably unbearable in the hot deserts of North Africa.

Changing German Tactics, as well as the up-gunning of their Panzers, meant that the Matilda soon became obsolete, and it would be replaced with the Valentine and the Crusaders, which were better suited to carry larger weapons and out-maneuver Panzers respectively. While unsuited for the open spaces of North Africa, the Matildas were still quite effective in the Pacific, where its short-ranged and slow-speed was less of a problem, and where its thick armor was all but impenetrable, unless some poor idiot with a land mine on a stick showed up. Japanese AT weapons were wild, man.