Attached are photos of a MK V that was used for a landmine demonstration in 1926. The press caption on the back reads,
"Shells and mines in test tear tanks to fragments at Camp Meade Maryland.
That mines and artillery can stop the dreaded tank of world war times was demonstrated by unique test conducted with a heavy Mark-Five British tank and a light French-Renault tank at Camp Meade Md."
The tank's number has been wiped out, but the shadow looks like it could be for "9004".
John
-- Edited by jagjetta on Tuesday 4th of October 2011 08:31:59 PM
Fascinating. This is a Mark V* Male, so 9004 isn't a possibility as that's a Mark V number.
The only Mark V* Males I know to have reached the States are 9591 (which is preserved so it's not that), 9602 and 9612. But since the last digit is definitely a four it's none of those. None of the Mark V* Females I know to have reached the USA had a last digit of four either so it's not a converted Female. The only Mark V* Males with four digit numbers were in the range 9501 to 9700. I suspect we have 9504 or 9604. I know nothing of 9504 but 9604 was used by the 301st Battalion AEF in France, and could conceivably have returned to the States with the unit post war. So, 9604 is my best guess.
fascinating work through the numbers, Gwyn! Wish I could (literally) shed more light on this one but you have certainly narrowed it down to one of two tanks. Nice work.
Gwyn, I'd say your first link (or address to paste) is not the same tank - or certainly, what we can see is of the left side of a V*, not the right as shown in Jagjetta's photos. The resulting damage is lesser as well; buckling of the plates, rather than a sizeable shattered hole.
Either it's a different tank, or they carried out tests on both sides of the tank - but we only have pics of the opposite side.
-- Edited by TinCanTadpole on Thursday 16th of August 2012 10:52:19 PM
I'd say confidently that your second find is indeed of 9604, or whatever the correct number for the tank in Jagjetta's photos is. If you look at the ragged edge of the armour plate, where it has shattered, you'll see the same pattern - plus the same strip of metal sticking out at the forward end of the damage (the strip that runs along the bottom edge of the plate) - and the way the plates next to the side door have been bent outwards is the same. What's different is the side of the tank it has occurred on! Since the photos show the number to be the correct way around, we can deduce that this damage occurred on the right side of the tank, not the left as appears to be the case in the second film clip (circa 1 min 15 sec), so it looks like someone accidentally "flopped" the film (got the negatives back to front). Incidentally, if it's of interest, I gather that when the blockbuster movie "Titanic" was made, they had to use the technique of flopping for the sequences where passengers were boarding at Southampton - because the near-full-size replica built of one side of the ship was of the starboard side, and someone pointed out that Titanic was berthed port side to. New costumes had to be made (mirror image) so that things would appear the correct way around once the footage was flopped.
Going back to the tanks, there are of course two different machines in the second video: the one with the unditching rails is 9604 (or whatever), whilst the other one, without rails, seems to be the same one as the first video Gwyn posted.
-- Edited by TinCanTadpole on Thursday 16th of August 2012 11:19:23 PM
I would like to know more my great great uncle was in 9604 during the war the commanding officer of tank LT Webb received a DSC during the while being attached to the tank
