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Landships II -> Landships WW1 Forum -> Tanks -> Vickers Tanks No.1 and No.2
Post Info TOPIC: Vickers Tanks No.1 and No.2
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Legend

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Vickers Tanks No.1 and No.2
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These tanks are said to have been made in 1921 and 1922 (or 1923). I have only ever seen these two photographs (both on the Tanks! site):

Tanks! has this to say, "An idea tested from 1921 to 1922 and based on the Medium B. The vehicle was found mechanically unrealiable and the project was dropped as a result. Still stuck on the idea of Male and Female tanks, Tank Number 01 was a Female and Tank Number 02 was a Male. It did provide valuble knowledge for future applications however." Which is taken from Chamberlain and Ellis' Tanks of The World 1915-45.

According to Chamberlain and Ellis, they were not based on the Medium B, merely resembled it. Tank No.1 was armed with 3 ball-mounted Hotchkiss MGs in the turret, and Tank No.2 was armed with a 3pdr gun and had mountings for 3 Hotchkiss MGs, plus a mounting in the roof for an anti-aircraft MG.

8.75 tons, 5 crew, 0.5in armour, 86hp water-cooled engine, 15mph.

And, yes, these were Britain's first tanks with a fully (360 degree) rotating turret.

I am hopeful that the archive collection that Ironsides has found will have some more photos or information about these handsome beasts.

 



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CharlieC


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David Fletcher in "Mechanised Force" notes that the Vickers No. 1 had a Williams-Janney transmission which notionally gave infinitely variable gear ratios independently to each track. This transmission had been tested unsuccessfully in the Mark VII tank - it was no more successful in the Vickers No.1. Also the tracks were quite primitive and not very robust. The Vickers tank and the gun armed No.2 had a large number of faults - in the end it was considered that it wasn't worth the effort to fix them since the tank was not significantly better than the existing Medium C.

Regards,

Charlie



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Stranger_NN


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6880a981c68f.jpg

 

Vickers Light Tanks No2 with 47- gun in turret



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LincolnTanker


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Quote from CharlieC - "Also the tracks were quite primitive and not very robust."

The lack of grousers on the track plates is amazing! confuse

That's an odd feature not to include.

edit - Just noticed on No. 2 that there seems to be a slight raised part in the centre of the plate.



-- Edited by LincolnTanker on Saturday 6th of August 2011 07:33:20 PM

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ChrisG


The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity (Dorothy Parker)
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