Landships II

Perhaps the final piece of the jigsaw.

In an earlier thread, I quoted A.J. Smithers as saying two slightly conflicting things about the choice of the Madsen for the Mk I.
 
First he said that it was tested alongside the Hotchkiss, etc., at the trials of Mother in December 1915, but later, when writing about the issuing of contracts in February 1916, he says, "The specifications, it will be remembered, spoke of Madsen guns."

Well, I've found this in A Peripheral Weapon?: Major Ernest Swinton sent a memorandum to Sir John French which the latter forwarded to the War Office on 22nd June, 1915. The memo was entitled, "The Necessity for Machine Gun Destroyers."

In it, Swinton described a vehicle which he calculated would weigh 16 tons fully laden, armed with a "2-pdr quick-firing Maxim and six Madsen rifles" (which is what the Madsen mg was often called).

On August 24th, 1915, even before Little Willie had been trialed, plans were afoot for what would become Mother. That day, Tritton sent a sketch of the rhomboid machine to d'Eyncourt, who approved it, but on the 26th Stern visited Tritton at Lincoln with "a specification" drawn up by Swinton. That's all that Smithers says, but it's reasonable to assume that Swinton wouldn't have changed his spec as regards the Madsen. Hence its inclusion in the trials in December, and its rejection for reasons we already know.

Does this sound fair?

-- Edited by James H at 22:44, 2007-08-27