I don't know if clatter is the right collective noun for Mk Is (perhaps a clank) but here is one - a section of four Mk Is complete, with anti grenade roofs, presumably getting ready to move off for the first action in 1916.
I don't know if clatter is the right collective noun for Mk Is (perhaps a clank)...
Maybe a fleet, on the basis that they are landships. Or an armada. Or a flotilla but I think that a flotilla should contain a few more landships. Perhaps a squadron...
Perhaps troop works pretty well since they are in Chimpanze Valley - troop of monkeys, troop of tanks. On a more serious note, the photo shows two tanks short of a full section of six. Trevor Pidgeon on page 78 of his excellent book says that he could not identify the tanks. I'm taking a guess on slender evidence that this is 4 section of c coy, three females which might be C21, C22 and C24; and a male second from the left, C19 Clan Leslie.
The photo of Clan Leslie in Fletcher's Osprey book on page 18 clearly shows a horseshoe mounted centrally at the top of the cab. (Pidgeon's book at pg 133 also shows C6 with a horseshoe mounted lower down). It looks to me like the horseshoe and camouflage pattern on the male match other photos of C19.
I can't remember if the Mark I in the Bovington Museum painted as Clan Leslie has a horseshoe mounted on its cab, but perhaps it should.
Nice spotting Paratus; I'll confess to having looked at this photo many times and missed that detail. For comparison, here is a detail shot of C19's bow and cab - I would agree that the horseshoe and matching camouflage pattern give a pretty good identification. Regarding the date and location of the photo, the topography would seem to be consistent with present day aerial photos of Chimpanzee Valley, where the tanks supporting the 6th and 56th Divisions laid up on Sept. 14, 1916. They left the valley on the evening of the 14th, proceeding to the front lines. C24, although part of No.4 section, was detailed to assist the Guards Div. at Ginchy, and laid up at a different location on the 14th, west of Trones Wood. The tanks present in Chimpanzee Valley on the 14th were C13(M), C14(F), C16(F), C19(M), C20(F) and C22(F).
C16 also seems to have had a horseshoe on the cab front plate. I can't see one on any of the female tanks in the Chimpanzee Valley photo, so presumably they are C14, C20 and C22. I wonder if the tall, slender officer in front of the second tank from the left is Basil Henriques, commander of C22.
