There was some discussion over the names given to Mediums - Whippet, Hornet etc. in the Modelling section of this forum. I thought it might help to try and clarify a slightly muddy pool.
Whippet was originally the name that Tritton allocated to his design, it was not official. The Ministry of Supply originally designated it as the Tritton Chaser (sounds like a drink) and then the Medium A. Whippet was never the "official" designation and Foster's material always uses the name Whippet in inverted commas. It was a company designation. Nevertheless it became used fairly widely. A comparable example is that of the Sopwith Pup and Sopwith Camel neither of which designation was "official" but became almost universally used although many official papers still used the type designation of these aircraft. Whippet also became a generic term for any light tank so that there are examples of Renault FT17s being refered to as Whippets. The Medium B appears to have been called a Whippet because it was a light tank, again this does not appear to have been an official designation and Whippet does not appear to have been a company designation (possibly because it was not built by Fosters). The name Hornet was given to the Medium C by Foster's (probably by Tritton himself) and was a company designation and not a Ministry of Supply official title. The D was the D and only the D.
Thus we have three levels of naming - The Ministry of Supply official designation, a company name (Whippet and Hornet) and a generic name Whippet applied fairly generaly to light tanks and thus to the B by default.
I was thinking Whippet was a generic for small tank when I was reading (dipping into)'The Great War-The Illustrated History of the First World War' reprinted by Trident Press.
It has photos of FT17 Liason Tanks with Canadian troops,as well as British MkA both captioned as 'whippet' tanks.
This 322 chapter (cccxxii) work was originally printed in 1918,edited by H W Wilson
But only in the same way that Hoover is a generic for a vacuum cleaner - some Hoovers are realy Hoovers the rest take their description from them. Small light tanks were some times also refered to as mosquito tanks
"The Great War-The Illustrated History of the First World War' reprinted by Trident Press" H.W. Wilson
Hi Firefly, I believe this is actually a contempary account as it was published as magazines whilst the war was going on, buyers were encouraged to get their copys bound so originals(1914 vol 1-1919 vol XI) vary although are not expensive..... Im not sure if the Trident press version is complete.....
Also by Hw
Ironclads in Action 1860-1895 naval actions 2 volumes...excellent
Battleships in action 1896-1918 2 volumes cover russio-japan and first world war plus extras
Hi Ironsides, Trident Press version has colour plates listed,but is only printed in b&w. I'm new to this armour lark ,having come from(but still building) WW1 aircraft. BTW Centurion,I'd not come across 'mosquito' tanks, thanks for that.
One of the Chicago papers in 1918 has photos of FT17s which it refers to in several places as 'Whiplets', whether a typo of meaning 'smaller than a whippet' is unclear.
