No, it's not the latest edition of Commando magazine.
I've read several times (including on the FSU site) that "in 1930 France 'sacrificed' her 90 remaining Mark V* tanks at Geneva."
One wonders how this might have been done, since I now discover that the Disarmament Conference was held between 1932 and 1934 and broke up without any agreements having been reached.
On the other hand, Jeudy says that the Mk V*s were withdrawn from service in 1930, being too expensive and troublesome to maintain.
At least one was still in running order in December 1939. Trials were conducted with a Mk V* in an attempt to create a mine-sweeper, in which it would seem that what appear to be scaffolding poles were stuck through various apertures, including the sponson mg ports, and garden rollers attached to the ends. The photos of the Tank with its tracks blown off and its nose buried in rubble would indicate that the experiment was not a success.
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In that, afterwards, they knew for certain where some of the mines were?
Y . . e . . s . . . .
Still not quite right.
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"Sometimes things that are not true are included in Wikipedia. While at first glance that may appear like a very great problem for Wikipedia, in reality is it not. In fact, it's a good thing." - Wikipedia.
Simplicity of design for trial/proof of concept I suppose. Flails were the 'obvious' solution but they involve a lot more engineering. And there were other minefield rapid breaching solutions - ploughing, 'torpedos' (as in 'Bangalore') and other explosive systems including the rocket-propelled deployment types. None is perfect for every purpose but are often presented as so being, at the start of the 'product cycle'. Hopeful expectation and all that - the stakes are about as high as they come and might excite risk-taking behaviour in operational use (if not in trials) unless discipline is very tight.
