Medium Mark A Whippet

Medium Mk A Whippet
Whippet Firefly of F Battalion in The Museum of the Army in Brussels (original colours)
Type	Medium tank
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1918-1930s
Production history
Designer	William Tritton
Manufacturer	Fosters of Lincoln
Produced	1917-1918
Number built	200 by 14 March 1919
Specifications
Weight	14 t
Length	6.10 m (20 ft)
Width	2.62 m (8 ft 7 in)
Height	2.75 m (9 ft)
Crew	3
Armour	14 mm
Primary armament	4 × 0.303 inch Hotchkiss machine guns
Secondary armament	none
Engine	2× Tylor Twin 4 cylinder side-valve JB4 petrol engine 2x 45 hp (67 kW)[1]
Power/weight	6.4 hp/tonne
Transmission	4 foward speeds and 1 reverse
Suspension	unsprung
Speed	13.4 km/h (8.3 mph)[1]

The Medium Mark A Whippet was a British tank of the First World War. It was intended to complement the slower British heavy tanks by using its relative mobility and speed in exploiting any break in the enemy lines.^[2] Possibly the most successful British tank of World War I, the Whippet was responsible for more German casualties than any other British tank of the war.^[3] Whippets later took part in several of the British Army's postwar actions, notably in Ireland and North Russia.^[3]

Description

This armoured fighting vehicle was intended for fast mobile assaults. Although the track design appears more "modern" than the British Tanks Mark I to V, it was directly derived from Little Willie, the first tank prototype and was unsprung. The crew compartment was a fixed square turret at the rear of the vehicle, and two engines of the type used in contemporary double-decker buses were in a forward compartment, driving one track each.

Steering

When driving in a straight line the two engines were locked; to make a turn the steering wheel braked one track and opened the throttle for the engine driving the other. Although in theory a simple solution to give gradual steering, in practice it proved impossible to control the speeds of the engines, causing the vehicle to take an unpredictable path. After they had flattened their first friendly private, drivers grew wary and stopped the vehicle and locked one track before every turn; this caused many track breaks, as the movement became too abrupt. The engines were also prone to stalling if the steering wheel was turned too abruptly.

Other features

The fuel tank was in the front of the hull. The sides featured large mud chutes which allowed mud falling from the upper treads to slide away from the tank, instead of clogging the suspension.

Armaments

Armament was four 0.303 in Hotchkiss Mk 1 machine guns, one covering each direction. As there were only three crewmen, the gunner had to jump around a lot, though often assisted by the commander. Sometimes a second gunner was carried in the limited space, and often a machine gun was removed to give more room, as the machine guns could be moved from one mounting position to another to cover all sides.

Production history

The Whippet was first produced in 1917. On 3 October 1916 William Tritton, about to be knighted for developing the Mark I, proposed to the Tank Supply Department that a faster and cheaper tank should be built to exploit gaps that the heavier but slow tanks made. This was accepted on 10 November and approved by the War Office on 25 November. At that time the name for the project was the Tritton Chaser. Traditionally the name Whippet is attributed to Sir William himself.^{[citation needed]} Actual construction started on 21 December. The first prototype, with a revolving turret taken from an Austin armoured car — the first for a British tank design, as Little Willie's original turret was not yet revolving — was ready on 3 February 1917 and participated (probably without one) in the famous "tank trials day" at Oldbury on 3 March. The next day, in a meeting with the French to coordinate allied tank production, the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces Field Marshal Haig ordered the manufacture of 200 vehicles, the first to be ready on 31 July. Although he was acting beyond his authority, as usual^{[citation needed]}, his decisions were confirmed. The first production tanks left the factory in October and two were delivered to the first unit to use them, F Battalion of the Tank Corps^[4] (later 6th Battalion), on 14 December 1917.

Variants

Major Philip Johnson, the unofficial head of Central Tank Corps Workshops in France, as soon as he received them began fitting one of the Whippets with leaf springs. Later, in 1918, he fitted this vehicle with sprung track rollers, Wilson's epicyclical transmission from the Mark V and a 360 hp V12 Rolls-Royce Eagle aero-engine. A top speed of about 30 mph (48 km/h) was reached . This project made Johnson the best qualified man to develop the later fast Medium Mark D, which looks like a reversed Medium A.

For a time it was assumed that after the war some Whippets were rebuilt as armoured recovery vehicles, but this was not the case. The Medium Mark B, a completely different design by Wilson, also had the name "Whippet". For a time it was common to describe any of the lighter tank designs as a Whippet, even the French FT-17. It had become a generic name.

The German Leichter Kampfwagen resembled the Whippet, but was a smaller vehicle with thinner armour.

Combat history

Whippets arrived late in the First World War, at a time when the entire British Army, crippled by the losses in Flanders, was quite inactive. They first went into action in March 1918, and proved very useful to cover the flight of the infantry divisions recoiling from the German onslaught during the Spring Offensive. Whippets were then assigned to the normal Tank Battalions as extra "X-companies" as an expedience. In one incident near Cachy, a single Whippet company of seven tanks wiped out two entire German infantry battalions caught in the open, killing over 400. That same day, 24 April, one Whippet was destroyed by a German A7V in the world's second tank battle, the only time a Whippet fought an enemy tank.

British losses were so high however that plans to equip five Tank Battalions (Light) with 36 Whippets each had to be abandoned. In the end only the 3rd Tank Brigade had Whippets, 48 in each of its two battalions (3rd and 6th TB). Alongside Mark IV and V tanks, they took part in the Amiens offensive (8 August 1918) which was described by the German supreme commander General Ludendorff, as "the Black Day of the German Army". The Whippets broke through into the German rear areas causing the loss of the artillery in an entire front sector, a devastating blow from which the Germans were unable to recover. During this battle, one Whippet - Musical Box - advanced so far it was cut off behind German lines. For nine hours it roamed at will, destroying an artillery battery, an Observation balloon, the camp of an infantry battalion and a transport column of the German 225 Division, inflicting heavy casualties.^[5]

Japanese Whippets.

After the war, Whippets were sent to Ireland during the Anglo-Irish War as part of the British forces there. Seventeen were sent with the Expedition Forces in support of the White Russians against the Soviet Union. The Red Army captured twelve, using them until the 1930s, and fitted at least one vehicle with a French 37 mm Puteaux gun. The Soviets, incorrectly assuming that the name of the engine was "Taylor" instead of "Tylor" (a mistake many sources still make) called the tank the Tyeilor. A few (perhaps six) were exported to Japan.^{[citation needed]}

Surviving vehicles

Five Whippets survive:

• A259 Caesar II, Bovington Tank Museum. This is the tank in which Cecil Harold Sewell won the Victoria Cross.
• A347 Firefly, The Royal Museum of the Army, Brussels. This tank, part of B-Company, is still in its original paint and markings. It still carries battle damage from when it was hit on 17 August 1918.
• A231. Base Borden Military Museum, Ontario, Canada
• United States Army Ordnance Museum (census number unknown).
• Army College, Pretoria, South Africa. This tank was originally dispatched to South Africa to put down labour unrest.

Rear of A347, Royal Museum of the Army, Brussels (2005)

A231. Base Borden Military Museum, Ontario, Canada (2007)

United States Army Ordnance Museum (2007)

Notes

References

• Jackson, Robert (2007). Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles. Parragon Publishing. ISBN 978-1-40548664-4. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mk A Whippet

• http://petruspulcher.monicadue.co.uk/whippet.html Walk-around gallery of the Whippet at the Bovington Tank Museum
• http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWwhippet.htm
• http://www.tankmuseum.co.uk/colww1.html
• Photo gallery at svsm.org
• MK A "Whippet" at Landships.com