The Mark IIA CS was a close-support model rebuilt from previous Mark IIA tanks and replaced its standard 3-pdr gun unit with a demolition-minded 15-pdr gun for ranged support of ground forces. Heavier and more cumbersome, the model nevertheless provided a much-needed smoke-laying capability and could just as easily fire High-Explosive (HE) shells. The Mark D of 1929 was a one-off model delivered to Ireland and fitted a Sunbeam 6-cylinder gasoline engine of 170 horsepower as well as a 6-pdr main gun. This product lasted until scrapped in 1940.
Beyond these forms, the Mark II was also developed into an all-machine gun tank (the Medium II Female), a bridgecarrier (wholly experimental), a command tank (one-off example), and an experimental Self-Propelled Gun (SPG) system known as the "Birch Gun".
In 1931, the Soviet Union purchased a small batch of fifteen Mark IIs and these were nicknamed "English Workman". The existed primarily as trainers and were still on hand during the Soviet invasion of Finland (the "Winter War" of 1939-1940). The Finns manage capture of as many as six engine-less examples in the fall of 1941 (during the "Continuation War" of 1941-1944).
Officially identified as obsolete by the time of World War 2, the Mark II was no less still available in some number with British forces and retained as driver trainers. Some were reactivated as frontline tanks following the losses in France and remained on hand until the threat of invasion of the British homeland subsided. Numbers were delivered to Allied forces in Egypt to shore up losses and increase strength there and some of these were arranged as fixed defensive battlefield pieces at Tobruk and Mersa Matruh.
Mark IIs remained in notable active service until 1939 by which point they were officially succeeded by the Cruiser Mk I (A9) which appeared from 1938 onward and saw 125 of their kind produced. The Cruiser Mk II was a heavier model based on this original design. Cruisers made up one-half of the new British Army fighting doctrine of cruiser / infantry tanks intended to overwhelm enemy positions. The concept was abandoned following World War 2 with the arrival of the Main Battle Tank (MBT).
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