My first posting here, looking on this site now for a while and enjoying the knowledge that is around here! I am building the Takom Mark IV Tadpole and have a few questions.
I hope there is someone over here that can answer them:
1. does the pictured Mark IV Tadpole with the white outlined dimensions of the normal Mark IV painted on the side have the mortar installed? Is there photographic evidence?
2. If the mortar is not installed, what would the backside look like? Is there a (standard?) platform over the crossed beams at the back? Would that be a wood platform or no platform at all?
3. It looks like that the (first?) Tadpole was tried out without the doors in the sponsons installed. Does anyone of you know a reason for leaving the doors of?
I've never seen a picture of the Mk.IV Tadpole with both the rear mortar and the standard Mk.IV outline on the track frames. I have the same picture as your image no.2 and you can clearly see it has the outline but no mortar... that's not to say it never happened just that I haven't seen a picture!
I can't comment on question 2 as I've never seen a clear, straight on image of the back end of the Tadpole without the mortar, I suspect that the platform would have been fitted to mount the mortar so it depends on if the mortar was fitted first or the outline was painted first but this is just speculation.
And finally the sponson doors would almost certainly have been omitted during trials as the tank would have been unbearably hot and full of petrol, oil and exhaust fumes inside, there are many pictures of rhomboids on trails with no sponsons on at all to help with ventilation.
Good luck with your project.
Bern
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Has anyone else noticed "new and improved" seems to mean it doesn't work as well as it used to?
Hi Willem,
Welcome to the forum, and just to try and put some of these things right, my great grandfather was at Hatfield when these trials were going on and as a child he would tell me about the big GREY monsters moving over the grounds at Hatfield House and this is where the name the Tadpole come about as it looked like a Tadpole!
This was the only place that the Tadpole ever run, it did not get to FRANCE. He did say that it was possible that it could have ended up at Bov'e for a short time but by then he was back in France until the war ended.
As to the mortar on the back, as far as he knew he never saw one!
Sorry, Old Lancer, but the tank demonstrated at Hatfield may have looked like a tadpole, but the Mark IV Tadpole is something different. Not sure off the top of my head if a Mark IV Tadpole got to France (though Tadpole tails did, in quantity) but a Mark V Tadpole did. Tanks with Tadpole tails were not however used in combat nor issued to the fighting battalions.
Hello Bern, Old Lancer and Gwyn,
Thanks for your replies.
Given the answers I will go for a model of a Tadpole with the white outline painted on and no rear mortar mounted. I will make no platform on those beams on the back.
Leaving the doors off to get better ventilation........ Thanks, I was not thinking about the obvious reason!
Greetings from Holland
Mortars would not have been fitted as issued material to the tank; the mortar would have come from an infantry support company along with its crew. How they would have managed to stay on the platform tossing about and being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from the exhaust is not covered anywhere to my knowledge. Most probably a harebrained scheme by someone who had not actually been in/on a moving tank. The problem of keeping the mortar tube, base plate, and ammo from crashing around and breaking bones was also not covered. Believe me, a mortar is a bulky and heavy object and VERY hard. The standard crew for a WWII mortar was three - PLUS ammo carriers - were they all expected to sit on the roof while the tank was moving?
The platform would not have been a mortar platoon's issue either and presumably would have been supplied by Central Workshops if needed as it would have to be bolted down to the framework. The mortar would have been free standing.
The cross-bracing (as shown on the Emhar kit) would have needed to be turned upside down so that the horizontal leg would be at the top to enable fixing the platform and transferring the stresses of firing a mortar to the tank body.
Whether or not a platform would have been fitted as standard is speculation, but it would have allowed the crew to carry extra gear/supplies.
It was an experiment only, and didn't develop further probably for exactly the reasons you've set out. Tadpoles were never issued to fighting battalions so the question of "issued material" doesn't arise.
It is blindingly obvious that the tadpoles were never issued out to fighting battalions
I was answering the questions raised regarding equipment. Not everybody has been in the Armed Forces and those who hadn't wouldn't know how the system worked/works.
There was no intention of saying that the equipment was issued, merely where it would have come from had the tadpole gone ahead.
What is blindingly obvious is that the last post is an over-reaction. One person may well be blind to something that is blindly obvious to another. My post was to clarify for anyone who did not know that Tadpoles were not issued to fighting battalions.
Quote: "Mortars would not have been fitted as issued material to the tank; the mortar would have come from an infantry support company along with its crew."
It doesn't help when statements are made that are so badly worded it's unclear whether they are stating what did happen or just give an opinion of what might have happened had Tadpoles been issued.
Hi all, these are my own thoughts, but when they was testing the tadpoles with the mortars maybe there thinking was in a supporting roll, maybe the idea was for the tadpoles to advance then stop - mortar - advance to trench. At this point in the war I dont think there was a standard tank (as we know them today) with a big gun in front & I dont know how acurat the artilarys was so maybe the idea of the mortar was to clear out more of the enemy before the tadpole hit the trenches??? They never saw front line action so its all up for grabs me thinks, Oh to have been a fly on the wall when they sat down to think these ideas up
Welcome by the way Wilem & cracking question
Rich Reid
Looking up on the use of mortars by British troops, I was astounded to find (or maybe I shouldn't knowing the incompetence of the Generals and their animosity to anything new) that the UK forces did not have an effective 3" mortar until the Stokes Mortar was developed; even then production was painfully slow and wouldn't have been manufactured at all if the Prime Minister hadn't got involved.
This was the type of mortar fitted to the tadpole at Dollis Hill and was a relatively scarce weapon with only 1 600 odd being in use along the whole of the Western Front by the Armistice, so more proof of the use of them on a tank being harebrained.
Other smaller and larger mortars were used (such as the 2" and the 4") were not particularly effective for general use and the 9,45" mortar was too heavy for general trench use and was manned mainly by the Artillery.
Note to all commentators - if you find my English to be bad, confusing, or unclear, please tell me so that I can correct the error or make the passage simpler to understand. If an English-speaking person has problems, so will those who have a different first language.
