Hobart definitely required the Italics
, strikes me as one man who
really could have made the difference, possibly the best of the interwar 'armour minds' but even he was never quite able to force the point home in the face of those entrenched ideas and the other, perhaps more important constraint, of cost (His own rather severe personality may well have played a major part in him not 'rocking the boat' at that time too). The Government (other than Churchill when he pops up in his various pre-PM roles) simply were not prepared to pay the large amounts required by armour development and production.
On general mechanisation the weird thing is that up until about 1934 the British were possibly, even within the above constraints, the Major world Army most serious about, and most advanced users of, mechanisation;
and producing the best vehicle designs. The variety of stuff being produced and tested in that period was staggering, nearly all cutting edge & highly influential on other Countries putative designs of that period (Pz.1, etc.). The mechanised force exercises were leading to (arguably) the fastest mechanisation acceptance of any major power and some exceptionally experienced men and officers in the actual handling of motorised/mechanised/armoured units. The US in particular were in a parlous state of modernisation, I'd say they only really took to it properly when world events forced them to at the turn of the decade (but by god she certainly took to it when her industrial power was properly focussed).
So for me the tragedy comes from dropping the ball in the mid 30's, and the strange and largely cost-related reluctance to focus on medium tanks. Nazi Germany (and to some extent the USSR) picked up the ball in the mid 30's and ran with it. I still find it hard to blame any particular party for what happened as most countries were more focussed on recovery from the 30's depression, and not practising dilligently for world domination like Hitler and his men.
Cheers,
Adam.