After reading about how female Mark tanks were obsolescent by 1918, I wondered what good the machine gun-armed Whippet must have been by the time it was used. It was even used postwar.
The Whippet was designed as a breakthrough tank adopting the same role as the cavalry in breaking into the rear of an enemies' lines and causing
the maximum amount of disruption. Since there was no need for gun armament in such a role since there wouldn't be fortifications to be dealt with
and the chances of encountering enemy tanks were fairly low the all MG armament was more than satisfactory.
The Whippet only got a few opportunities to operate in its designed role - see http://landships.info/landships/tank_articles.html?load=tank_articles/musical_box.html.
The Whippet was a fairly flawed design - the engine per track arrangement wasn't good since it required almost superhuman skill to adjust the throttles
so the thing would track in a straight line. It couldn't be safely operated with infantry since if an engine failed or stopped the tank would immediately spin around
without the driver being able to do much. The armour was too thin to enable it to take fire - the engagement of Whippets vs A7V and field guns south of Villers-Bretonneux
is instructive.
They were used after WW1 but I think that was more for a lack of a replacement (the Medium B was more or less a failure) than for any intrinsic value.
Regards,
Charlie
-- Edited by CharlieC on Friday 21st of April 2017 01:17:54 AM
