Questions for Don Primarily.

1. I think it was the same in all three services, slightly less in RAF because of needs must they had Sergeant Pilots.

2. I am not sure I understand the question. If you mean why were the officers all drawn from a certain class, well that was the same in just about every armed service throughout the world and not what you know but who you know pretty much applied to the whole world then, and if we are honest still does. remember the thing about class (anywhere) is that is much overblown by those "concerned" about it whether for or against. In my view "Class" is generally something bantered about by metropolitan elites from the extremes of the political spectrum. This is universal. IRL I find or did find we were pretty much a meritocracy, well until the last 20 years or so anyway.

3. Again "reform" was subjective and patchy, but like giving women the vote was inevitable and inexorable. War is the great leveller and society everywhere was changed after both World Wars

4. Actually the Brits were at the forefront of tank design interwar and were regarded as some of the best if not the best. remember German success in the Blitzkrieg was not because of the quality of the tanks, but how they were used.

5. The Churchill did what it was designed to do, very well, the problem was what it was designed to do was an obsolescent theory. Having said that in the infantry support mode it was second to none.

I think you missed the emphasis of my question.

The phoney war period was my main question not once the battle got heated.

Maybe by the Brits, LOL  And maybe by everyone until the early 1920s...but...

I'd say the Czechs were at the forefront on the national level, and the German tanks were not all that good until the Czech designs entered the Wehrmacht. The Poles also score highly surprisingly, but they didn't produce many but came up with some important inovations. The Polish 7TP light tank was the first tank in the world to be equipped with a diesel engine and 360° Gundlach periscope.  The French tanks also seem better than those of the Brits in design although horrid French doctrine made them largely useless.  The Matilda II was formidable but slow as hell and only 2 were operational at the start of the war and it wasn't designed until 1936.....instead there was the Matilda I which only had a vickers for armaments.  It was an crawling heavily armored machine gun nest, not really a tank as we think of them today.  Most of the Brit tank development budget after WWI has gone into the failed project the Medium Mark D.  The Cruiser MK I was a decent tank but nothing particularly special.  It had decent speed and a decent gun for the time but poor armor.  The Cruiser came about after the Brits were impressed by a demonstration of Soviet BT tanks in 1936. and the BT was based off the suspension design of an American J. Walter Christie, as was the T-34, British Covenanter and Crusader,  and Comet tanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Walter_Christie

This private inventor was at the top as the best Brit and Russian designs came largely from him....well except for one...

The Sherman Firefly which came about because none of the Brit tanks could fit in a Ordnance QF 17-pounder, and a Brit design to do so, the A30 Challenger, had to have its armor reduced to mount the gun.  Furthermore there was confusion in the Brit tank design agencies and the problem of limited production so few A30s were produced (about 200) whereas the Firefly had over 2,100 units.

Well a Thinly spread group of substandard divisions shouldn't be expected to hold against the main German Thrust.  That is something like 9 divisions (2 fortress divisions, 5 not regular army divisions and 2 regular army divisions) against something like  30-45  German divisions including 7 panzer divisions. The BEF along with the Belgian Army the Dutch Army and the French 1st and Seventh Armies was facing only 18 divisions.  Specifically in the BEF section it was 9 British and 17 Belgian divisions up against 17 German divisions (2 of which were panzer divisions).  That is in numbers a 3 to 2 advantage  for the defender on the allied side opposed to the overwhelming Axis advantage over the French 9th Army.

The breaching of the French was a fault in planning not of the men themselves (aside from the High Command)  The Brits were facing a diversionary action so them holding in limited action is no superlative feat and had no real impact (aside from maybe morale of performing satisfactorily individually in their first engagements) as they were soon to be retreating anyways.

Now had 9 divisions of the BEF with two of them being fortress troops held at the Ninth's assigned area against the 45.5 German divisions you might have some bragging rights over the French troops in that regard.  I certainly suspect that although the BEF would have done better by a fair stretch they still would have been broken, they might have held out another day or two as they were in larger proportion regular army type soldiers.

Maybe I misread what you said, but it looked to be a "we were better than the French" boast.  I agree that the BEF was indeed better than a second rate or worse mostly reserves formation of the French, but I think the Brits would have also be broken in that situation.  This was a worse situation than at Malaya and Singapore, and we know how that ended for the Brits....85,000 captured by an army of only 35,000.  So they didn't fare well with an attack from an unexpected direction including a water crossing, and defending with some subpar units either.

Now if that wasn't the boast and I am mistaken I withdraw the argument against such a boast.

LOL you were talking about inter war years and have veered wildly off into mid late war tanks!!

Christie suspension wa sbig all round and initially snubbed by the US and taken up by the Europeans.

The Vickers 10 ton tank was widely regarded at the time as the best tank of the mid war years, but was a private venture and did not fit the British army doctrine. The Czechs made some excellent chassis based on the T38, which the Germans readily adopted. The German tanks were incapable of stopping the the hideously slow machine gun armed Matilda 1, which did make great inroads at Arras  until that man Rommel (again) turned a FLAK battery armed with 88s on them. Even the light Whippets, when used by O'Connor were a match for the Italian medium tanks, even though they were only machine gun armed. The Matilda 2 was pretty much invincible until the Panzer IV ausf H with a long barrelled 75mm was introduced into the desert. The Panzer III even with the high velocity 50mm could only stop it from the flanks. Again it was the ubiquitous 88 used in conjunction with Rommel's tactics and the harshness of the terrain on mechanicals that did for it. That and the fact that the 2pdr (40mm) gun was only given AP rounds despite the fact that there were HE rounds available in the UK they were not sent to Africa, so the 88's could not be engaged effectively.

Ummm... not Rommel but Manstein and Rundstedt

No doubt true to a large extent, but in varying degrees.  U.S. Grant went to West point and rose to command the Union armies yet his father was a simple tanner, and Grant wasn't exactly a gentleman.  Connections helped on to get in, but there doesn't appear to be the same exclusion in the US due to class as was in the UK nearly a century later. 

As for China, not a good example there, as China was one of the first meritocracies and examination scores totally trumped social class for centuries.  In Japan after the Meiji restoration class privilege's were largely abolished.  The Japanese army had many leaders from Samurai families, especially in the oldest generations of the military, but also people of humble roots not far below that (Lt General generation) where sons of doctors and schoolteachers could be found without samurai class ancestory.

Very true.  All these supposed European governments and militaries being "masters of tank design" with massive budgets being surpassed by an American private citizen.