Have just been reading A.J. Smithers's account of the demonstration of the mock-up of Mother in September 1915 at Wembley.
It says that the mock-up carried a wooden gun, but that "nobody knew where to mount it". It was only then that D'Eyncourt suggested the idea of sponsons. If that was the case, then where was the gun mounted in the first place? If sponsons were an afterthought, then what did the mock-up actually look like at the time of the demo?
Or have I got the chronology wrong?
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John Glanfield and David Fletcher give a somewhat different description of the Big Willie mock-up displayed at Wembley on 29/9/15, from that given by Smithers. They both suggest that sponsons like "bay windows" had been already been fitted, and that this feature had been suggested by d'Eyncourt (or, possibly, Tritton) shortly after Wilson and Tritton's initial design of the all around track vehicle. Unfortunately, no photos of the mock-up survive, and the actual shape of these sponsons is not known. Since the tank's armament was still uncertain, presumably they were different to the design seen on Mother. A supply of 6-pr guns was subsequently secured from the Admiralty, and on 5/10/15 Stern relayed the dimensions of d'Eyncourt's design for the prototype sponson to Tritton.
Thanks, Rhomboid. That's more or less the impression I had formed, that alterations must have been made to the mock-up before Mother was embarked upon. That must mean that there was a dummy gun at the demonstration, but it wasn't necessarily fitted to the vehicle. Smithers says that Stern gave the go-ahead for Mother on Sep 30th, and d'Eyncourt suggested the sponsons thereafter, whereupon Stern made a sketch from which Tritton produced the drawings.
Now Smithers says that the 6pdrs were offered by Admiral Singer (at the suggetion of Lt. Syme) at the same time as the sponson idea was adopted. The whole arrangement reportedly added 3 tons to Mother's projected weight, which suggests that they were an addition to Wilson's design. The "bay window" must have been a rather non-commital part of the mock-up at that stage. What a pity there are no pics or plans.
Smithers also mentions twice that General von Donop complained about the use of artillery without his approval, but it would seem that this was at the demo of the mock-up, so since the 6pdrs had not been acquired at that point he must have been complaining about the principle; in other words, about a wooden gun.
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The 6-pdr was the original choice of armament, but supplies were ear-marked for air defense. Glanfield suggests that examples of a 2.95" mountain gun and a 2-pdr Vickers Maxim pom-pom were fitted to the mock-up for the Sept. 29 demonstration, but a decision was made to use the 6-pdr gun instead, perhaps because of supply problems with these other weapons. Gen. von Donop (the Master General of Ordnance), who had not been a party to this decision, was approached to provide the guns. In mid-October, he complained to the CIGS about this lack of consultation. Fortunately, the Admiralty had a supply of the guns available.
The main objection to the other suggested guns was that the pompoms were mostly of Boer War vintage (some were actually captured Boer weapons) and had been pressed into service in desperation in the early days of the War, and the 2.95 was "obviously unusable". Syme looked at Navy 2pdrs and 3pdrs but selected the 6pdr. (Smithers)
Thanks, R. Shame we shall probably never know what the original looked like.
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