Mk A Tank "Whippet"
by Peter Kempf, Philippe Massin, Knut Erik Hagen, Bryan Foster and Franck Soulier

Pretty soon the extreme slowness of the early tanks was identified as a problem. Of course, they were initially thought of as weapons of breakthrough only, but some experts started talking about using tanks for exploitation as well, working together with the cavalry. This, however, required a faster tank. The result was the MK A "Whippet" - or, as it was initially known, after it's designer: "The Tritton Chaser". Work started in October 1916, and the first prototype was ready in March 1917.

An order for 200 vehicles was placed, and production started in December 1917.

Whippets were first used in action near Herbetune in northern France in March 1918, but the tanks really came to the fore in August the same year when some 90 of them were used during the Battle for Amiens. (The action in August showed that the idea of "Cavalry Tanks" were as dead as the Cavalry themselves: in good conditions the horses were faster than the tanks, but whenever they met any serious opposition they had to wait for the "Whippets" to move up in support. And in heavy going the tanks left off.)

The Whippet had poor trench-crossing capability, but with it's 13-14 km/h the Whippet WAS faster than the other tanks, and when used in the role it was originally intended for, it could make quite an impression. One such Whippet, "Musical Box", belonging to B Coy, 6th Battalion, commanded by lieutenant CB Arnold, took part in the big attack on August 8, 1918, overtook the slow Mk V:s, routed a German Artillery Battery and on it's own penetrated to the rear of the German lines. Quoting Mitchell: "From this on the loneley Whippet, with it's bold crew of only three men, carried on a war of it's own. It shot down retiring infantry, attacked horse and motor transport, and regularly terrorized the bewildered Boche." This went on for eleven hours, and then the tank was first immobilized, surrounded and then destroyed by fire from field artillery. Arnold and one of his crew survived, and were taken prisoners. (For more on the exploits of the "Musical Box", click here.)

The Whippet was also used in the Russian Civil War, first by the Whites, an later, when captured, by the Red Army. An unknown number of Whippets were after the war purchased by the Japanese, who used them until 1929. During WW1 the German Army also captured a number of Whippets, but they were never used in Combat by them. (Their opinion of it was pretty high, however: some believed it was the only Allied tank that was worth copying right off.) It can be mentioned, that at least one captured Whippet was used by Freikorps forces during the unrest in Germany after the war.

Technical Data

A military requirement for a lighter and faster machine than the then stand­ard Tank, Mark I was formulated towards the end of 1916. It was envisaged that such a machine should be able to exploit a breakthrough of the enemy defences by the heavy tanks and co­operate with the cavalry. For this role the great length of the standard heavy tanks needed to facilitate trench crossing was not quite so important, so light­ness could be achieved by a reduction in size and also, it was at first decided, by a decrease in armour thickness.

Sir William Tritton of William Foster & Co. Ltd. of Lincoln undertook the design and manufacture of a pro­totype vehicle to meet these require­ments and this, known as “Tritton's Light Machine” or “Tritton Chaser”, was completed in early February 1917.

The more compact dimensions of “Tritton's Light Machine” led him to place the crew behind the power plant which was, however, in roughly the same relative position in the vehicle as in the heavy tanks, with drive to the rear track sprockets. In order to achieve sufficient power with engines which were available for tank use and at the same time avoid the cumbersome gear change and steering arrangements of the heavies, twin Tylor commercial vehicle engines, complete with their own clutch and gear-box, were used. The two systems were joined at the cross-shaft from whence final drive to the tracks was by chains to sprockets on either side. For steering the clutches joining the cross-shaft were released and one or the other engine speeded up, the turn being on the side opposite to that of the faster running engine. The steering effect could be increased by use of the brakes on one engine or another. This arrangement had the advantage of being controlled by one man only but it called for a great deal of skill on the part of the driver, because one or both of the engines could be stalled if care was not exercised. To aid performance by decreasing track friction, rollers to carry the top run of the track and a series of chutes along the sides to clear mud were introduced.

The armament consisted of one Lewis machine-gun - then temporarily in favour for tanks-mounted in a revolving turret of the pattern used in Austin armoured cars. The turret was offset on the left-hand side of the hull (the driver's cab was lower and on the right) and had all-round traverse and a com­manding field of fire- the gun mounting was approximately 9 ft above ground level.

A production order was given for 200 vehicles based on “Tritton's Light Machine” and designated Tanks, Medium Mark A. Several changes were made in the production machines, the most prominent being the replacement of the revolving turret by a fixed structure with four ball mountings for Hotchkiss machine-guns. This change was made to simplify production. The armour thickness was increased from the 9-mm. maximum of Tritton's prototype to the 14mm. standard of the heavy tanks. The petrol tank, which was unarmoured in the original model, was moved from between the rear horns to the front, where it was enclosed in an armoured box. There were also other minor adjustments at other points including the exhaust system and elimination of the rear mud chutes on each side, which were replaced by round inspection plates. All these changes increased the weight of the Medium Mark A to 14 tons, compared with approximately 12 tons for the “Tritton Chaser”, although performance does not appear to have been greatly affected.

The first Medium Mark As were built in October 1917 and they were being delivered in quantity to the Tank Corps in the field by March 191 8. They first went into action on 26 March to help stem the German offensive when twelve “Whippets” (as the Medium became widely known) near Colincamps surprised and put to flight two German infantry battalions.

An order for a further 185 Medium Mark As was subsequently commuted to one for Mark Bs, which promised to be a better design. Experimental modifications by the Tank Corps Central Workshops in France to a Mark A included the addition of leaf springs to the suspension and later the substi­tution of a Rolls-Royce 360-h.p. aero engine for the Tylor engines. These changes increased the speed of the tank from about 8 m.p.h. to no less than 30 m.p.h.

From B.T. White: "Tanks and other Armored Fighting Vehicles 1900-1918" (1970)

For more info on the Whippet, click here!

Photos by Philippe Massin:

Photos by Franck Soulier:

Photos by Knut Erik Hagen:

Photo by Phil Radley
Showing exhaust details of the Whippet that can be seen at Bovington:

For a BIG walkaround with many more detail pics, click here!

The photo below is of poor quality (it is taken from a German book published in the 20-ies) but is still interesting, as it shows a disassembled Whippet:

These plans, taken from the French publication Le Génie Civil, no 1948, December 1919, give you, despite their not-perfect quality, a good view of the interior dispositions of the "Whippet". (But mind you, especially the side view is pretty big.) The photos have been taken by Knut Erik Hagen.

As all WW1 Tanks the interior was cramped, warm and noisy. One tanker describes the interior of the Whippet as "resembling the steam rooms of a Turkish Bath", with the driver "hunched up over his twin clutches and the steering wheel like a racing motorist", the compartment pitching with the movement of the tank, filled with cordite fumes from the Hotchkiss MG:s.

If you want to know more on the Whippet interior, click here!

More Interior Photos

These photos have been taken by Franck Soulier, and even more many details of the Brussels Whippet (many of these pictures are quite big, but they are worth it):

CAMOUFLAGE
Already during 1917, the colourful schemes used on the first tanks gave way completely to a new, Dark Khaki Brown Overall scheme. The question is: was this scheme applied to the Whippet as well? There are signs to the contrary. Philippe Massin have several time examined the Whippet in the Army Museum in Brussels, and he is quite sure that it's original colour is GREEN, "but of a very thin thickness. It's probably the factory paint, hastily applied without much preparation". I have myself the opportunity to examine the Whippet in Brussels, and I say that I agree with Philippe. The colour is rather murky, but contrast to the brown-painted Mk IV beside it is apparent. And if you examine some of the more shielded parts, like the rear end, it is obvious that the original colour of this Whippet was some kind of GREEN! It is impossible to say something about the exact shade, though. 

For some excellent colour profiles of Whippets, click here!

MARKINGS
Nicknames. The use of nicknames for individual tanks was pretty standard during WW1, but unlike most tank types, the Nicknames used on Whippet did seldom follow any pattern, but was obviously up to the whim of the crew. Most Nicknames were paintes directly on the front. Call signs - or as it is also known: Crew Numbers - were directly related to the unit. For example: in 1916 all A-Companies used call signs starting on "C" and following in direct sequence from 1 onwards, in increments of 20, a company having 20 tanks. On "Whippets" the call sign did not follow that strict logic, and could instead be just one digit (say, "9") or just one letter (say, "P") or even both. (And the one letter call sign could totally unrelated to the company or batallion, and instead be the initial of the tank commander.) Serials. While the call signs had tactical use, the serials had not. Instead they were a number given by the manufacturer, issued when the tank was built, and used to identify the tank when it came to administration, overhaul etc. (It was not only painted on the tank. It was also found on embossed plates inside the tank.) Serials for "Whippets" were three digits always preceded by a "A", etc. The serials were painted on the sides of the fighting compartment and - in small letters - on the back of the same. The colour seems in general to have been white. National ID Bands. National markings came in use on British tanks in June 1918, as a direct order from GHQ - and as a result of the Germans using more and more captured tanks - and constituted of three stripes of white-red-white on the utmost forward portion of the tracks. (The reason for using these colours, is that they were those of the Cavalry Corps.) On "Whippets" this national markings was often put on the front of the vehicle: part of it or whole. There are also examples of "Whippets" carrying ID bands on the engine compartment covers.

These are just some examples of Whippet markings: