Mark V** Female Tank

When the Germans realised what a threat tanks could be they made their trenches wider to trap them; one answer to this was to build longer tanks and the Mark V was stretched by six feet to create the Mark V*. As an interim solution this was adequate but a further improved version, the Mark V** was designed for 1919.

This Mark V** Female Tank was on display at the Bovington Tank Museum.

The “Female” tank was a variation of the British heavy tank deployed during the First World War. It carried multiple machine guns instead of the mix of machine guns and cannons mounted on the “male” tank.

More photographs of the Mark V** Female Tank.

Mark VIII “The International” Tank

This Mark VIII “The International” Tank was on display at Bovington Tank Museum. It is the last remaining survivor of the six Mark VIII tanks which were completed for Britain.

When the United States declared war on Germany in 1917 the US Army started to look at tanks. They favoured the American Renault as their light tank but used British Mark V and Mark V* tanks for their heavy battalion. However they had their own ideas on tank design and, in co-operation with the British Tank Corps came up with a new heavy tank design for 1919.

Mark VIII “The International” Tank

The Mark VIII tank also known as the Liberty or The International was an Anglo-American tank design of the First World War intended to overcome the limitations of the earlier British designs and be a collaborative effort to equip France, the UK and the US with a single heavy tank design.

Production at a site in France was expected to take advantage of US industrial capacity to produce the automotive elements, with the UK producing the armoured hulls and armament. The planned production levels would have equipped the Allied armies with a very large tank force that would have broken through the German defensive positions in the planned offensive for 1919. In practice manufacture was slow and only a few vehicles were produced before the end of the war in November 1918.

More photographs of the Mark VIII “International” Tank.

Many people have thought that the tank used in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade film was a Mark VIII. However that tank was specially created for the film, inspired though somewhat by the Mark VIII.

Tank from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Mechanical effects supervisor George Gibbs said this movie was the most difficult one of his career. He visited a museum to negotiate renting a small French World War I tank, but decided he wanted to make one. The tank was based on the tank Mark VIII, which was thirty-six feet (eleven meters) long, and weighed twenty-five tons. Gibbs built the tank over the framework of a twenty-five ton excavator, and added 6.4 ton tracks, that were driven by two automatic hydraulic pumps, each connected to a Range Rover V8 engine. Gibbs built the tank from steel, rather than aluminum or fiberglass, because it would allow the realistically suspensionless vehicle to endure the rocky surfaces. Unlike its historical counterpart, which had only the two side guns, the tank had a turret gun added as well. It took four months to build, and was transported to Almería on a Short Belfast plane, and then a low loader truck.

There is a (similar) 28mm resin kit of this tank, called the Mark IX Beast. I did buy one from Empress Miniatures and even managed to build it and paint it.

Mark IX Beast

Mark V Tank

The British Mark V tank was an upgraded version of the Mark IV tank. It was first deployed in 1918, used in action during the closing months of World War I, and in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War on the White Russian side, and by the Red Army, after they were captured.

This Mark V Tank was in display at the Tank Museum in Bovington.

Mark V Tank

Although similar in appearance to earlier models the Mark V was a much better tank, more powerful and easier to drive. It was equipped with the new Ricardo six-cylinder engine and Wilson’s epicyclic steering system which meant that one man could handle all the controls, compared with four in the Mark IV.

Mark V Tank

Among the new features was a rear cab for the commander, complete with signalling apparatus and a rear machine-gun position. Our exhibit also carries an unditching beam, which was first introduced in the Mark IV. This would be used if the tank got stuck in mud – chained to the tracks it was drawn under the tank and gave it something solid to grip.

Mark V Tank

The Mark V is shown in the Markings of 8th (H) Battalion (No. H41), Tank Corps at the time of the Battle of Amiens (8 August 1918). Commanded by a young officer named Whittenbury this actual tank took part in the battle and its young commander was awarded the Military Cross.

More photographs of the Mark V at Bovington.

The last confirmed use of the Mk V in battle was by units of the Red Army during the defence of Tallinn against German forces in August 1941

In 1945, Allied troops came across two badly damaged Mk V tanks in Berlin. Photographic evidence indicates that these were survivors of the Russian Civil War and had previously been displayed as a monument in Smolensk, Russia, before being brought to Berlin after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Mark V Tank in Berlin 1945
Mark V Tank in Berlin 1945

Accounts of their active involvement in the Battle of Berlin have not been verified.

Mark V Tank in Berlin 1945
Mark V Tank in Berlin 1945

Source for Berlin Photographs.

Mark IX Tank

The Mark IX tank was a British armoured fighting vehicle from the First World War. It was the world’s first specialised armoured personnel carrier (APC).

During the first actions with tanks, it became clear that infantry often could not keep up with the tanks, It wasn’t that the soldiers were too slow, the early tanks themselves could only move at a walking pace, but because soldiers on foot remained vulnerable to enemy machine gun fire. In many actions, positions gained at great cost were immediately lost for lack of infantry to consolidate.

At the end of the Great War only three had been finished, out of a total ultimate production run of thirty-four, following an order for two hundred.

If there had been, as I discussed in an earlier blog post, an alternate timeline in which there was a revolution in Great Britain in 1919.

In Great Britain the government feared a bolshevik uprising and was quick to oppress any potential threat to the established order. One of the biggest areas for concern were the labour movements and trade unions. One strike in Glasgow in 1919 eventually resulted in a street battle between strikers and police, which was so bad, the army was called in. The “Battle of George Square”, also known as “Bloody Friday” and “Black Friday”, was one of the most intense riots in the history of Glasgow; it took place on Friday, 31 January 1919. Clashes between the City of Glasgow Police and protesters broke out, prompting the War Cabinet to make soldiers available to the civil power, to prevent the violence from escalating.

In another blog post I looked at other incidents that could have led to revolution.

On the August Bank Holiday that year, the government in London despatched warships to the northern city of Liverpool in an overwhelming show of force. Thousands of troops, backed by tanks, had been trying without success to suppress disorder on the streets.

If there has been such a conflict the Mark IX Tank, or APC I suspect would have been widely used to move troops around, and to protect them from attack

These metal monsters designed in an era when they didn’t really know what they were doing and there was a lot of trial and error. The Mark IX reminds us that the APC is as old as the tank.

More photographs of the Mark IX Tank.

Mark IV Tank

The Tank Museum is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. I visited the Tank Museum before in 1984, 1997, and 2016, but recently made a return visit.

At the Bovington Tank Museum you can get close up and personal with the first tanks that were built and used in combat, such as the Mark IV Tank.

First World War tanks, namely the British Mark IV, started the practice of carrying fascines on the roof, to be deployed to fill trenches that would otherwise be an obstacle to the tank.

The Mark IV was a British tank of the First World War. Introduced in 1917, it benefited from significant developments of the Mark I tank (the intervening designs being small batches used for training). The main improvements were in armour, the re-siting of the fuel tank and ease of transport. A total of 1,220 Mk IV were built: 420 “Males”, 595 “Females” and 205 Tank Tenders (unarmed vehicles used to carry supplies), which made it the most numerous British tank of the war.

The “Male” tanks were armed with three machine guns and two 6-pdrs. Whilst the “Female” tanks had Five .303 Lewis machine guns.

The Mark IV was first used in mid 1917 at the Battle of Messines Ridge. It remained in British service until the end of the war, and a small number served briefly with other combatants afterwards.

I have been working on a metal 15mm Mark IV Tank for use with the Home Guard. Though I do really like the Flames of War Great War models, which have a lot more detail.

I also have a Bolt Action 28mm Mark IV Tank on the workbench.

I also have a gallery of Mark IV tanks from a wonderful 28mm demonstration game at GamesDay 2007.

Mark I Tank

The Tank Museum is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. I visited the Tank Museum before in 1984, 1997, and 2016, but recently made a return visit.

In the World War One exhibition at the Tank Museum they have a Mark I tank attacking a trench.

This Mark I tank is painted to represent tank number 705, C19 Clan Leslie, as it was on the 15th September 1916.

Later the tanks were painted in a standard green brown scheme, as the camouflage became pointless once the tank was covered in mud.

Though painted as C19, unfortunately the Tank Museum has no idea of the tank’s actual identity. This tank was presented to Lord Salisbury in 1919 to recognise the use of his estate at Hatfield Park for trials of Mother in January and February 1916. His golf course was converted into a battlefield, complete with trenches, parapets, craters and large amounts of mud. This Mark I was displayed outdoors at Hatfield until it came to the Tank Museum in 1970.

The Mark I had steering wheels attached to the back of the tank.

More photographs of the Mark I from a previous visit to the museum.

Challenger 1

At the entrance to the Bovington Tank Museum is a Challenger 1.

This is one of the prototypes of British main battle tank developed in the 1980s, crew of 4, powered by Rolls-Royce Meteor CV12 diesel engine. The production Challenger 1 was fitted with Chobham armour and armed with a 120mm gun and two machine guns.

When I was visiting the museum in 2016 it was hiding…

Hidden Challenger I

There was also a prototype Challenger 1 on display at Duxford.

M24 Chaffee

The Tank Museum is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. I visited the Tank Museum before in 1984, 1997, and 2016, but recently made a return visit.

This M24 Chaffee was on display in the car park.

It has French markings.

The M24 Chaffee  was an American light tank used during the later part of World War II; it was also used in post–World War II conflicts including the Korean War, and by the French in the War in Algeria and the First Indochina War. In British service it was given the service name Chaffee after the United States Army General Adna R. Chaffee Jr., who helped develop the use of tanks in the United States armed forces. Although the M41 Walker Bulldog was developed as a replacement, M24s were not mostly removed from U.S. and NATO armies until the 1960s

FV432

The Tank Museum is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. I visited the Tank Museum before in 1984, 1997, and 2016, but recently made a return visit.

In the car park there is an FV432 parked. I find this quite bizarre, that there are armoured vehicles that you can park next to.

The FV432 is the armoured personnel carrier variant in the British Army’s FV430 series of armoured fighting vehicles. Since its introduction in the 1960s, it has been the most common variant, being used for transporting infantry on the battlefield. At its peak in the 1980s, almost 2,500 vehicles were in use.

This British tracked armoured personnel carrier has a crew of 2 with capacity for 10 personnel, powered by Rolls-Royce 6-cylinder multi-fuel engine, armed with one machine gun.

Outside the Land Warfare exhibit at the Imperial War Museum Duxford is an Alvis FV432 APC.