Britain’s Shellproof Tank:
Part
2 - Birth & Death of the Flying Elephant
by
Roger
Todd & Eugene Sautin
Conception of the Flying Elephant: Preliminary Design
It has been seen why and how the shellproof tank concept began to be developed. The two designs which resulted were for huge machines, considerably exceeding the original War Office specifications. A more compact vehicle was clearly preferred, and at some point in July or August 1916, a new, more detailed, design appeared, together with the first use of the name Flying Elephant. The tracks were around the same length, though turned up more at the front, rather like those of the later Whippet. But the armament and hull were completely different, and far less bulky. Gone are the two 6-pdr sponsons; in their place is a huge, part-spherical casemate carrying a single gun. The drawing appears to show a 12-pdr gun of naval pattern, and Tank Supply Committee notes later that year support the move to a larger gun than the 6-pdr (at a Tank Supply Committee meeting of 20 November 1916, Stern reported that ‘the Ordnance Board were making a new 3” gun for this machine, but as a matter of fact, any field gun could be utilised’). The huge, hinged armour plate at the front has been replaced with a smaller, fixed plate, sharply angled, perhaps to deflect shot downwards away from the tracks. The main body is now rounded, the better to deflect shot and shell, a feature of the patent mentioned in Part 1. Again, the power source is the double Daimler engine, with the exhaust pipes leading straight up to the roof and venting out of the top of the machine. No machine gun mountings are indicated.
Final Design
By the end of August 1916, the design had changed again, and settled into the familiar machine seen in drawings. The vehicle was shortened to 27ft 9in, around the length of a Mark I, the earlier designs probably being judged too long. Armour was increased in thickness to 3in at the front, and 2in on the sides, which may have been another reason for shortening the vehicle.
The inner supplementary tracks have become rigid fixtures, and lengthened to around two-thirds the length of the whole machine. This marks a radical departure from the original concept, and is the fully developed manifestation of Tritton’s ‘live-belly’ track system, intended to spread the weight of the vehicle if it sank in soft mud. These auxiliary tracks were generally to have been un-powered, but could be coupled to the engines by means of dog clutches. In fact, the final form of the Flying Elephant fairly closely follows the layout of the machine described, and illustrated, in Tritton’s second patent for the auxiliary track system, a system that, in the event, never saw service. Meanwhile, the large casemate mounting the nose gun was simplified in shape, and the frontal armour plate shrunk to a vestigial, fixed downward curving ‘lip’. No indication is made in the Foster’s drawings as to the configuration of the engine exhausts, so in the accompanying drawings it has been assumed that much the same arrangement as in the previous design would have been the case. Six machine guns now covered the sides and rear.
It was only now that construction began in earnest, with instructions in November 1916 to Tritton to ‘proceed with the armouring of this machine with 1½” armour plate’, which, according to d’Eyncourt, was sufficient to keep out German 77mm shells. John Glanfield has written that the weight saved by using this slightly thinner armour would have produced a machine of around 60-tons, a figure supported by a TSC memo from January 1917. This was still double the weight of a Mark I but somewhat more practicable than the earlier 100-tons. At this point, the project started to look quite feasible. The first machine (referred to at this meeting as either the Heavy Machine or, interestingly, the Mark V) would be complete at the end of January 1917, according to Stern, and that if put into production, a number would be ready by August or September.
But by mid-January 1917, the schedule had slipped yet again. The ‘heavier design’ was discussed at length at a Tank Supply Committee meeting on 16 January. It now appeared that the first machine would be ready for trials at the end of March. The need for a 3in gun was emphasised as it was feared that having already experienced the first British tanks in action, the Germans would produce more powerful machines. The role of the Flying Elephant was refined to that of tank-killer: ‘It is considered that a certain number of the heavier type with 3” guns would be useful against the German tanks.’ As for their operational use, Stern and d’Eyncourt recommended forming conventional tanks into groups of ten headed by one heavy machine, and that at least twenty of the latter should be built.
Post Mortem
In the end, of course, the Flying Elephant never was completed. It is uncertain how far construction had proceeded before the project was cancelled some time in early 1917. Some writers have claimed that it was ‘almost complete’ at cancellation, but William Rigby, Tritton’s chief draughtsman and thus in a good position to know, later went to great pains to say that very little had been fabricated apart from the engines and some elements of track frames. Why was progress so slow? To start with, the constant radical changes to the design were a serious impediment. From April 1916 until the end of August, four quite different designs appeared, making it impossible to begin any meaningful construction work, except on the double-engine, the only consistent feature. Partly, too, because resources were severely stretched. During this period, Tritton was busy ironing out the many problems coming to light with the Mark I. Wilson was helping John Greg at Metropolitan design the Gun Carrier, so Tritton could not rely on much help from that quarter. In fact, after the initial flush of enthusiasm, one detects a distinct waning of interest on Tritton’s part. All the references to the project in TSC memos and reports from that time on carry a strong scent of classic committee delaying tactics, claiming that it would be ready in a few months time, and then a few months later saying the same thing again! In any case, with conventional tanks available in large numbers, and no German tanks for the Flying Elephant to kill (the A7V would only go into action in March 1918, and then only in small numbers), there really seemed no need to divert stretched resources into a costly experiment.
A more fundamental reason was that given by Stern in his memoirs. He stated that the machine was cancelled as ‘mobility was thought to be a surer defence than heavy-armour’, which rather brings to mind Admiral Fisher’s dictum that ‘speed is armour’. Opinions still differ as to how valid this conclusion was. Chamberlain and Ellis believe that events vindicated Stern. Certainly, huge resources were to be devoted to Tritton’s Whippet, lightly armed and armoured, and fast to boot, but so too were huge resources devoted to the relatively slow Mark IV. It would probably be more accurate to say that numbers were a surer defence than either speed or heavy armour.
It is also uncertain what the implications of the project’s cancellation were for future developments. It is certainly undeniable that, for many reasons, during the next twenty-five years the British produced a succession of poorly protected, lightweight tanks. Might having had no operational experience with a heavily armoured machine during the Great War have contributed to this? One suspects, however, that had the Flying Elephant been completed it would have been a failure. The machine was grossly underpowered, even in its lightened version (which would almost certainly have been exceeded) and the ‘tunnels’ formed by the low-slung tracks with their close proximity to the side armour skirts and hull above would have been prone to clogging up with mud and stones. The armour skirts themselves would have dug into the ground with only minor sinkage, impeding movement even more. As for transportation, it is difficult to see how such a large and heavy machine could have been easily transported to the Front. Unlike the K-Wagen, designed to be dismantled by crane into several sections, none of the Shellproof Tank designs could be broken down.
One suspects that Tritton could see that the machine would fail, perhaps furnishing another explanation for his desultory progress – why spend all that money and time on something you know will fail? Quite apart from the waste, an outright failure would have been a blot on his reputation. Far better to let it slip and let people wonder about what-might-have-been. It may be of significance that the Foster’s commemorative book celebrating their role in the development of the tank, published after the Great War, makes no mention whatsoever of the Flying Elephant.
Acknowledgements
Gratitude is
extended, in no particular order, to the following:
1
King’s College London,
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives: Albert Stern Papers
2
David Fletcher, the Tank
Museum, Bovington
3
UK Patent Office:
William Ashbee Tritton, Pat. Nos. 126,070 and 126,076
4
John Glanfield: The
Devil’s Chariots
5
Albert Stern: Tanks,
1914-1918: The Log-Book of a Pioneer
6
M J Verrall: 1995,
unpublished monograph, the Tank Museum, Bovington