Landships II

ignore that the number isnt 799 clearly

Can't answer either of the questions in the original post but there is another photo of the same tank and another with the same covering of the sponson on the Landships site in the "On the Beute Mk IV" section. The link points straight to the photo.

-- Edited by Mark Hansen at 14:05, 2006-07-10

can some one magnify the number of the tank?

The picture shows a Mk.IV male captured and due to be transported to central workshop (BAKP 20). The wooden plates are inserted to keep German soldiers from creeping inside in order to unscrew items that they could hand over to their booty-collection-officer for a prize money.

Centurion wrote:

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Its a plausible explanation but it leaves some questions:
1. Why not just leave the gun shields in place? It would have the same effect.
2. For that matter why go to all the trouble of removing the gun before the tank reaches the workshops (where they would have the equipment to handle this)?
3. These appears to be someone in the tank anyway - isn't that a head in the roof hatch?
From what I've read anything moveable in the tank tended to get lifted in the first hours after capture anyway - thats why you see photos of guards over knocked out tanks. If the tank isn't guarded a few measly wooden boards arn't going to stop anyone with access to a crowbar or even a bayonet.

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I can't see a head in the roof hatch but it doesn't mean there isn't one there. It's possible they were getting it ready to move or had only recently stopped moving.

The wooden boards might not have stopped anyone determined to get a piece of the tank but it would have slowed them down and maybe give a chance for someone such as a sentry to yell "Halt!" before any more parts went missing. And wood was less valuable to the war effort than steel.

P.S.: Or perhaps the sentry would have just used Al Capone's advice on moving the would-be thief along. "You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone".

-- Edited by Mark Hansen at 22:12, 2006-07-10

mad zeppelin wrote:

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As for the gun missing, there are several explanations: Removed by the British when abandoning the tank (not very likely, they usually only took the sighting device away), already removed by other Germans out for booty, removed on order because at this stage it was clear that the 6 pounders would be replaced by 5,7 cm Nordenfelds anyway, so why drag them to Charleroi? All captured tanks were guarded from a certain stage on, but who guarded the guards? So better use some cheap wood in oder not to make it too easy.  

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Unfortunately  these explanations (and some in other postings) don't hold water if you look closely (to mangle a metaphor).

1. The 57mm guns used the same gun shields and mounting so why remove these as well?
2. You could only lock a Mk IV from the inside so if it was empty at least one door or hatch would have had to be left unlocked so any feloneous guards could get in anyway.
3. Some one has removed not only the Hotchkiss from the sponson but also its mounting and shield. If the tank was off to Charleroi for refurbishment this would have been needed.
4. Tanks were shipped from just behind the front line to the Charleroi workshops directly by rail (as many were not runners) and would only have been detrained on arrival in the workshops compound. This tank (and those in Marks photo) are clearly not just behind the front line but out on some city street. This is not compatible with them being on their way to Charleroi. To get from the front line to any city they would have have had to be entrained in the first place. The mystery deepens.
5. Any soldier daft enough to turn up well behind the battle lines bearing tank parts and claiming to have 'found' them on a destroyed British tank would be likely to find himself having an unpleasant chat with the Provost Marshall rather than any prize master.
6. Removing the 6 pounders, shields and all is not a trivial task. If the Britsh had time to do this they would almost certainly have been able to recover the tank (or at the very least lay charges and destroy it).

 

mad zeppelin wrote:

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The German did not lay a railway line to each and every tank found. The vehicles were dragged to central rail-points, preferably ones that had a ramp already, i.e. railway-stations. In some cases also makeshift devices were used to lift the tanks on railway waggons. But either way, you had to get the tanks to the railway tracks.

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But railheads just behind the front line as I said not in the middle of a city!

mad zeppelin wrote:

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There were three major collecting points: Cambrai, where the central rail station was used, for all the captured vehicles of the Cambrai battle. Ham und Roye for the vehicles captured after March 21st, 1918, in the Somme area. But in the Somme area there were also a lot of makeshift and smaller railstations in use, and some tank were brought into Ham and Roye on railcars already.

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Intersting but

1. You say there were three major collecting points but only mention two (Cambrai and Ham und Roye). (Is this a reverse of the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition running gag? - because if it is I didn't expect it )
2 Collection point is not the same as point of entrainment. As you yourself make clear tanks for Ham un Roye were entrained at makeshift stations. As the futhest and nearest didtance from the battle field to Cambrai station is about 5 and 9 miles respectively (as the Crow flys) I find it dificult to believe that disabled tanks were dragged that distance However there was a railway line that ran from the station right into the battle zone (and right through it but that section was probably kaput). German supply practice was to build temporary spur lines to allow heavy items to be shipped right up to most points on the front, this could also be used to ship tanks back to Cambrai. The Germans would probably also ship any 'runners' the same way.
3. Although the Allies were reluctant to shell French or Belgian towns, possibly because ofits housing of Hindenberg's advanced HQ made it more of a target, by late 1917 Cambrai had suffered significant damage (but not as much as in 1918 when the Germans set fire to it with incendary shells). The two photos in question don't look much like a typical shelled town.
4. The point about removing the guns before shipping back to Charleroi doesn't really make sense if they tanks are going by train to a place where all the facilities for removing them are based. What would they do with them in Cambrai and Ham und Roy? In any case this still doesn't answer why they would also remove the hotchkiss mounting. OIn the photo in Marks posting these are clearly still in place.

A point I forgot to make in my previous posting is that if the guns were removed prior to shipping back to Charleroi then surely any thing else removeable and stealable would also have been dismounted and secured from theft at the same time.