In following up on Eclipse II, there is reference to Eclipse and the crew being the same in both; this I find to be dubious, given the time of Eclipse being put out of action and Eclipse II only appearing on the scene at Cambrai.
The question I have is would crews be interchangeable between Male and Female tanks? The only difference between them would be the 6pr crewman instead of a machine gunner.
As trained machine gunners wore their rating on their sleeve (in my great-uncle's case an "L" for Lewis gunner), what training/rating was given for the 6pr crewman.
One presumes that at least some training would have to be given and therefore two members of the crew would not be interchangeable between Male and Female?
With the high turnover in tanks, as well as the casualties, presumably tank crews were made up pretty often and not necessarily stay with one tank or even type of tank.
To my knowledge - likely gained somewhere on Landships - crews were trained very thoroughly and that included being able to take over the role of any other crew member; if that is correct, then perhaps it would be possible to put the crew of a male tank into a female one, since the gunner would have been trained to use the Lewis.
The First Tank Crews consisted of a commander; seven MGC gunners and a driver from 711 MT Coy ASC; one of the gunners was a spare man to esnure that the tank was able to go into action fully manned in the event of sickness or accident. That said at least two tanks took all nine men into action on 15 September.
From D Company adjutant's note book, it is clear that Vickers crewmen and 6lb gunners were specially trained. All others were (presumably) trained on the Hotchkiss Light Machine Gun.
Certainly crews did move from male to female tanks; I have not have found a switch the other way (but will look)
By Summer 1917 (in the Salient), there appear to be two crews per tank - a maintenance crew and a crew that took the tank forward into action. The maint crew were less experienced but were used as battle casualty replacements.
-- Edited by firsttankcrews on Friday 16th of May 2014 09:06:18 AM
I might be making a point that everyone knows already......
The 6 Pdr guns used on the Mark (x) tanks originally started out as anti-torpedo boat guns. There were a number of designs of this class of gun developed from the 1880s onwards.
They all were quite simple guns fired over open sights like a very large rifle so there wasn't the same level of training/skill required to lay the gun as for a field gun.
It wouldn't be unreasonable that most of a tank crew had sufficient training to be able to man the 6 Pdrs although it would take a lot of practice to be proficient
The amount of crew training provided in 1916 was very sparse - owing to the need to get the tannks into action quickly.
By May 1917, 2nd Tk Bde had set up a 6lb tank school in France to train its crewmen so your point about prociency is well made
I see from the 5th Bn War Diary that on 1oth July, 1917, 12 officers and 69 ORs went to Merlimont Plage for a three-day course on the 6-pdr battle firing, so this most probably meant that there weren't enough trained gunners, and possibly having more male tanks than female tanks. Three days isn't a very long time for more than just the basics.
The War Diary does not mention the Company No.s. of those involved, so they were most probably from the whole Bn.
I think there's a different interpretation. I note the course was on "battle firing" which could be interpreted as a course in using the 6 Pdr gun in operational conditions
for people who were previously qualified in the basics of the gun. The 6 Pdr wasn't a complex piece of equipment. I don't know much about the Vickers/Hotchkiss 6 Pdr but
the 57mm Nordenfelt the Germans used was very simple. I think you could teach someone to strip and assemble the breech mechanism of a Nordenfelt in a morning.
The original anti-torpedo boat guns had very flat trajectories. The 6 Pdr Nordenfelt had a max. elevation of 7 degrees at it's maximum range of 4000 yds. I suspect the
Vickers 6 Pdr had an even flatter trajectory since the propellent load was larger in the Vickers. Perhaps it would only take a couple of days on the range for most people
I think TCT is quite correct, al members of the "tank" crew knews the "basics" of the other members. It is still used today, a commander of a tank has to know how to drive with it (and have the licence) and how to shoot or load the gun.
