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And the solution was quite ingenious. The British Mk I was much more stable than the first German tank, the A7V, which was prone to toppling over, and had a much better parapet-climbing ability than the first French attempts, the CA 1 and the S:t Chamond. It was however badly protected, underpowered, making it extremely slow - a man walking on foot had no problem to keep up, and also very difficult to drive. When the Mk I had made it's debut in September 1916, all these shortcomings made it obvious that the tank in it's original guise was not up to scratch, and it had to undergo some serious redesign. And this redesigned tank would soon appear, as the Mk IV. But as that would not happen until 1917, the production lines had to be kept open. For this, first a batch of 50 improved tanks were ordered: these were the Mk II, identical to the Mk I, save for the lack of steering tail, a revised roof hatch, so called track spuds attached to each sixth track link to improve traction, and a somewhat smaller drivers cab. After these had left the factories, yet another 50 even more improved tanks were ordered as another stop-gap measure. This was this tank, the Mk III. It incorporated the changes seen in the Mk II, and added a number of new features: a muffler, thicker armour - up to the thickness of the coming Mk IV - plus, in some late production vehicles: a new type of smaller sponsons, of the type to be used in the Mk IV. |
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The Mk III was used alongside the Mk II:s and the surviving Mk I:s in the Trench Battles during the first half of 1917: first at Arras 9-15 April, then at Messines at the 7 June and then in the first months of the Third battle of Ypres, that started in late July. They, and the Mk:s I and II, were however soon phased out when the new Mk IV arrived, being relegated to training duties. Some were however still used during the big push at Cambrai. |
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shows the "Female" MG-equipped variant, and is a Airfix kit,
suitably corrected. (As we all know, the Airfix kit, though very good despite
it's age, shows a hybrid variant that never existed, i.e. a Mk II with steering
tail.) The Track spuds comes from matador Models excellent detail kit, the Lewis
Guns from an Aircraft Detail set. It is shown as a generic Mk III, as it would
have appeared at Ypres during early autumn 1917.
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Weight Maximum Armour Maximum Road Speed Armament Crew |
The Worlds first operational fully tracked armoured fighting vehicle, or "Tank" for short. It's strange romboid-form with tracks running around the whole hull, was an attempt to counter two of the main draw-backs of the original design: it's inherent instability and it's poor trench-crossing
ability.
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