Landships II

Thought I'd start a new section for this.

Here's D. Fletcher's description, condensed:

Four Mk Ds were ordered from Fowler's in August 1918, and six in September from Vickers, apparently through their Wolseley subsidiary. Tank Corps officers were shown a wooden mock-up at Woolwich. The tank was long and narrow with a circular compartment at the front, like a turret that did not rotate. Instead, it had machine-gun mounts covering the front and sides. There was no male version, since a large gun mounting low in the hull could not be sealed against water, and Fuller now wished the new tanks to be amphibious.

(Then there's the part about it having to reverse over parapets)

The first Medium D was completed in June 1919, with a Siddeley Puma engine. Two tanks from the Vickers order were modified during construction. One appeared towards the end of 1919 as the Medium D*, widened from 7ft 3in to 8ft 5in to make it more stable in the water. The Admiralty were not happy, so another machine designated Medium D** appeared in 1920, wider still, at 9ft.

An order for 75 Mk Ds was reduced to 45, to be fitted with RR engines. The order was reduced again, to 20, of which only three seem to have been built. These were known as the Mk D Modified, although based on the D**. They had RR Eagle Mk VIII engines. The main visual difference was an extra cupola on top of the fighting compartment.

The Light Infantry tank came later, followed by three lighter, cheaper machines known as the Tropical Tank, inspired by Johnson's trip to India with two Mk Ds.

That's it, more or less in a nutshell. As you would expect, DF's detail is impressive and convincing. Wonder what the Tropical Tank looked like?