Medium Tank Mark A Whippet

Medium Tank Mark A Whippet, Historia wojsk pancernych, Tanks - AFV Armoured Fighting Vehicles

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 Photography
Copyright
& distribution
William C. Marshall <
>
(photos
,
,
,
,
,
&
Jakko Westerbeke
(other photos)
This document is copyright © 2003 by Jakko
Westerbeke, all rights reserved. Photographs num-
bers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 27, 29, 37, 51,
53, 55, 57, 58, 59 and 60 are copyright © 2003 by
William Marshall; unless otherwise indicated, all
other photographs and remaining illustrations in
this document are copyright © 2002-2003 by Jakko
Westerbeke.
This document may be freely distributed, on the fol-
lowing conditions: that no changes or modifications
are made to the document in any way; and that no
profit is made off the distribution.
Writing, design,
layout, etc.
Jakko Westerbeke
Thanks
to
Paul Owen for discovering some of the South African
Whippets history.
Arno Riedel for the stowage bin dimensions.
Other
images
Technical
stuff
from a reproduction World War I
trench map
Zillebeke. 28 N.W. & N.E. 3 (parts of)
Edition 3. E
.
from unknown
source, via William C. Marshall.
from
Janes Infantry Weapons 1975
by Major F.W.A.
Hobart, editor (Macdonald and Janes, 1974).
copyright © 1994
Pocketbond Ltd.
Icons taken from one or two of
s icon sets.
All of these used without permission but also without
commercial intentions.
Most of the photographs in this net.book were taken
using a Fujifilm Finepix 6900Zoom digital camera,
while the computer graphics were created with
POV-Ray 3.5 and the KPovModeler 0.20 and 1.0
front-ends for it. The document was laid out in
Palatino Linotype, Futura XBlk BT and
CombiNumerals using QuarkXPress 4.1 for
Windows. The PDF was created with Adobe Acrobat
Distiller 3.01 and worked on using Acrobat
Exchange 3.0.
Medium A
Whippet
The Medium Tank Mark A, or
Whippet as it was more common-
ly known, was
what can be
described as a
second-gener-
ation British
tank of World War I,
being of completely different
design to the heavy tanks built from 1916 onward.
Some 200 Whippets were constructed by William
Foster & Co., and after its introduction in March 1918,
it was used until the end of the war and beyond.
front and rear of the tank by means of coil springs
with hooks. Photographs of these covers in use are
rare, however.
At the very front of the vehicle was the fuel
tank, which was not really more than a sheet
metal drum encased in an angular, armour-
plated box for protection. Although its posi-
tion put the fuel as far away from the crew as possi-
ble, it had the disadvantage of at the same time put-
ting it as close to the enemy as possible
Behind the fuel tank, in the hull proper,
was the engine cooling system, which drew
air through louvres in the hull sides and
forced it back over the engines and transmis-
sion, and out a large slot in the hull rear plate.
Located aft of the cooling system were the
twin Tylor engines themselves, producing
33 kW each. Their exhausts were equipped
with mufflers, and fitted outside on either
side of the engine compartment. The mufflers were
wrapped in asbestos rope, with a sheet metal cover-
ing over this.
The engine compartment was accessed
through two large doors in the front bonnet.
Each of these had a smaller hatch set into it,
that could be used for routine maintenance to
the engines. It is not entirely clear if there ever was a
bulkhead between the engines and the crew compart-
ment. Surviving vehicles do not appear to have one,
but it could have been removed from them at some
pointnone of these tanks is anywhere near com-
plete, after all.
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Layout
Unlike the earlier British tanks, which had
rhomboid-shaped hulls with the engine in the
middle, the tracks running all around the hull,
and the armament fitted in so-called spon-
sons sticking out the sides, the Medium A had its
engines at the front, under a long bonnet or hood, low
track units on either side of the hull, and a high cab at
the back carrying only three crewmembers. (The pro-
totype had a revolving turret like that used on Austin
armoured cars, but this was considered too advanced
and so was replaced by a fixed cab on production
vehicles.) Armor varied between 5 and 14 mm in
thickness, sufficient to protect the crew from machine
gun fire and shrapnel.
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65
2
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25
The tracks were carried on long, low track
units that were mainly constructed from rivet-
ted steel plates, between which a large front
idler wheel, 16 small roadwheels, five return
rollers, and a rear drive sprocket were located. The
idler was fairly high off the ground, the whole
arrangement making the Whippet somewhat remini-
scient of a small boat sailing up against a wave. The
whole suspension is unsprung, though the idler can
be adjusted by means of large screws to adjust the
tracks tension. The track itself was a simple affair,
like that of all British tanks of the period, consisting
of steel plates rivetted to chains that actually run
around the wheels. Aside from a
curved section that overlapped the
next link, and the eight rivets per
track, the track plates had no profile
whatsoever with which to provide
traction on the ground.
Although no mudguards
were fitted, a canvas track
cover could be installed over
each track, hanging from
angle iron brackets at the
The crew compartment, or cab, was at the
back of the tank. It most likely had a wooden
floor, though apparently no surviving
Whippets have one, with the transmission
underneath, and only provided a seat for the driver.
This was at the right front of the cab, with the remain-
ing two crewmembers (commander and gunner)
standingor, more likely, hunchingin the cab dur-
ing combat. Although originally designed for four
crewmembers, the interior was found to be too
cramped for this, and the crew was
reduced to three as a result.
Ammunition racks were
fitted behind the drivers seat
and on the left of the cab. A
stowage bin was also fitted at
the right rear, and the machine guns
could be stowed on the left rear wall
of the cab when the tank was outside
the combat area.
Basic
data
Length 6.09 m
Width 2.61 m
Height 2.74 m
Weight 14,225 kg
Speed 12 km/h
Range 65 km
Crew Commander, driv-
er, gunner
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3
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35
3
2
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9
3
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51
5
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67
Medium A Whippet
Access to the tank was by a door in the rear
of the cab, and a hatch in the cab roof. This
hatch was not really intended as an entry
point, though; rather, it was for use by the
commander, to guide the driver when driving the
tank behind the lines.
Some Whippets had large
stowage bins on the back of the
cab, but wartime photos do
not show these, or even
traces of them, on all tanks.
The illustration at right is
not entirely accurate, but
does provide an impres-
sion of what they
looked like on the
real tank. The bins
appear to have con-
sisted of angle iron frames with panels (wood, per-
haps?) fixed inside them, and a diagonal bracing rod
running to the cab side for support.
Most tanks do seem to have had lengths of
steel strip rivetted to the cab sides and roof
and the hull rear, onto which grousers were
hung. These were wooden blocks with metal
fittings, which could be attached to the tracks to
improve traction in soft ground, but it appears there
are no known photos of Whippets with these actual-
ly fitted to the tracksthough many photos do show
them hanging from the stowage rails.
knocked out, or stalled for some reason, the tank
would only drive round in circles
Armament
The Whippets armament consisted entirely of
Hotchkiss machine guns, most likely the No. 2
Mk. 1* variant developed for the Tank Corps. This
weapon was based on the French Fusil
Mitrailleur Hotchkiss Modèle 1909, but
fired British .303 caliber (7.7×56 mm
rimmed) Mk VII ammunition instead of
the French 8×51 mm round. Additionally,
like the Modèle 1914 Hotchkiss, the No. 2
Mk. 1* was able to use the standard
Hotchkiss metal strips that held 30 rounds
each as well as ammunition belts. These
were actually a series of three-round strips
connected together with hinges, and not like the
modern ammunition belts were each round is indi-
vidually linked to the next.
1
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11
The Whippet carried four of these machine
guns, one per ball mounting in the crew com-
partment (one to the front, one to either side,
and one to the rear). Some sources indicate
each tank was to have only three guns, the idea being
that the crew would swap them around as needed, but
because there are four machine gun stoware bracket
inside the vehicle, this seems unlikely. A total of 5,400
rounds of ammunition was carried for the machine
guns, in racks at the right rear, left and front of the cab.
The guns covered most of the area around the
tank, but additional pistol ports were provided
around the cab for the crew to use their revolvers
against targets that could not be
reached by the machine guns.
Drive
train
There was one engine for each track, mak-
ing the Whippet difficult to control but giving
it an unprecedented (for
tanks) speed of some
12 km/h, which lead to its nick-
namewhippet being a kind of
dog bred for its running speed.
This was not without its problems,
though. As each engine drove one
track through a gearbox and a
chain drive to a sprocket at the
rear of the track, making it go in a
straight line was very difficult
because the driver had to control
both engines throttles perfectly at
the same time. This was only a
minor drawback compared to the
other main consequence of this drive layout,
however: although some sources suggest
each engine could be switched to drive
both tracks, most indicate
that this was in fact not pos-
sible. The result was that if
one engine or drive was
Hotchkiss .303
No. 2 Mk. 1*
Service
Length 119 cm (with
shoulder stock)
Unloaded weight 12.25 kg
Rate of fire 500 rounds per
minute (cyclic)
Magazine 30 rounds or
50-round belt
Operation Gas
Cooling Air
The Medium A was intended for
an exploitation role: once a break-
through had been achieved in the
German lines by other forces, the
medium tanks would use their
speed to push through and attack
the enemy in the rear.
Whippets first saw action
at Mailly-Maillet Wood in
France on 26 March, 1918, with the
3rd Battalion of the British Tank
Corps. However, this was in a counter-attack
against attacking German forces, who had
launched their great offensive 5 days before,
and for the next few months Whippets
would have little opportunity to be used in
their intended role.
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5
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 Medium A Whippet
Only in August, when the Allies finally managed to
advance while the Germans retreated, did Whippets
start being used for purposes like the ones they were
built for.
The German army captured at least two Whippets
intact, but does not appear to have used them in com-
bat, preferring its own LKIII (Leichte Kampfwagen III)
design, which however never even reached prototype
stage before the end of the war.
After the Armistice of 11 November, 1918, some
Whippets were deployed to Russia in 1919, as part of
the Allied attempt to bolster the anti-Bolshevik
forces, and apparently a few were also sold to Japan
in the 1920s. By this time, the British army had dis-
posed of most of its Whippets, though some seem to
have remained in use until the 1930s.
The
photos
The photographs in this net.book are of three dif-
ferent Whippets preserved to the present day. One,
named Caesar II, can be seen at the Tank Museum at
Bovington Camp in the U.K. It is missing some of the
external fittings that would have been present in
1918, but otherwise appears to be in good condition.
The second photographed vehicle is an unnamed
one serving as a memorial at the South African
National Defence Forces Military College in the
Thaba Tshwane suburb of Pretoria City. This vehicle
is unusual in that it has been fitted with different
machine gun mounts than are normally seen on
Whippets, though the origins of these is a bit of a
mystery.
Finally, the third vehicle is number A347, at the
Army Museum in Brussels, Belgium. To anyone with
an interest in the First World War, a visit to this muse-
um is certainly worth the tripits collection of uni-
forms, weapons, equipment and artillery of the peri-
od is simply superb. The Whippet in the collection is
of interest because it is displayed with its rear door
open, allowing a view of the interior, and because it
appears to be in the original paint and markingsbut
also because some of its armour has been shattered
by the impact of a large-caliber shell.
Colors &
markings
The exact colour of British tanks in late World War I
is open to debate; most sources give it as either brown
or a brown-green (olive drab-like) colour. Almost all
the British tanks in the Tank Museum at Bovington are
painted a light shade of olive drab, but these have all
been repainted at various times in the past 85 years.
An earth-brown colour seems just as likely, though
they might also have been green. The Whippet at the
Brussels Army Museum, for example, is a dark green,
and appears to be in its original paint. However, as the
white and red markings on this tank make clearly evi-
dent, its paint has discoloured over the years,
making it a bit unreliable as a definite guide.
Markings on most tanks consisted of
white/red/white vertical stripes painted
onto the front of the track units; these were
the colours of the Tank Corps, and appeared
on most other British tanks as well. Some
Whippets also had the front of the fuel tank
or even the entire engine deck painted the
same way.
Serial numbers were carried by most tanks, painted
in white on the cab sides and/or rear. These usually
started with a capital letter A, and were followed by
a three-digit number, all known ones being between
200 and 400. (Since some 200 Whippets were built, it
is reasonable to assume numbers 200 through 399
were used, but there does not appear to be definitive
proof for this.)
Other markings seem to have varied per tank. Many
were named, and some carried large identification
numbers.
In German service, the tanks were painted in a cam-
ouflage pattern of grey, sand and brown (or green),
with large iron cross markings on the sides.
Colours and markings for the Japanese Whippets
are not known.
Modelling
the Whippet
The easiest way to build a model of
a Whippet is from the 1:35th scale kit
by Emhar (a 1:72nd scale version of
this kit was announced but not yet
available at the time of writing).
Though basically accurate, the kit is
a bit simplistic and not overly well-
detailed. Fit of parts could be better,
too, but its poorest feature is the
tracks, which are downright awfuleven if nothing
else is added to the kit, fitting replacement tracks will
improve it no end. Even if you want to use the kit
tracks, they are nearly impossible to glue down prop-
erly. However, a little work will turn this kit into a
good modelall it really needs is detail work and the
refinement of some parts. For those wanting to add
the missing stowage bins, their approximate dimen-
sions are 14 mm high and wide, with the right (star-
board) bin being 15 mm long on both sides, while the
left is 25 mm on its outboard side and butts up to the
hull rear on the inboard side.
Accurate Armour made a complete kit of the
Whippet in resin and metal in the early 1990s, but this
is no longer available due to the Emhar kit being
released in 1994. However, they do have a set of resin
tracks and grousers to enhance the Emhar kit.
5
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