Turrets ...

I'm on a bit of an armoured car roll at the moment -

The FT-17 is often credited with being the first turreted AFV but was actually only the first turreted tank - the Rolls Royce armoured car beat it by a few years and probably influenced it. How so, then, if the British had already established the usefulness of turrets on AFVs (Dec 1914), did it not occur to them to use them on their new invention - the tank (Mk?, Whippet) ? It took those French to march in and take all the credit.

 

It was tought that the turret would make the tank topheavy and unstable.

Aglooka

 

The British might have thought that if a tank had a turret, it would give the enemy something to aim at, which if hit could easily disable the tank.
If however the tank was just one big block the enemy would just have to aim at the whole thing.

 

I believe that Little Willie - the first British tabnk was originally planned to have a turret, but it was not fitted for any of the photos I've seen. And then the tanks that did go into service were designed without...

 

There is a photo of "the Triton Machine" precursor of the Little Willie with the turret covered by a canvas cover.
It looks topheavy.

Aglooka

 

Given the internal layout of the 'rhombus' tanks, no turret was possible (the centre of the vehicle was taken up with the engine). Any other layout would have been less efficient at traversing the terrain (as proved by the French and German tanks). I think it was a trade-off between desirability and practicality.

 

I believe there was also a desire for the guns to be able to down and long the enemy trench line as they crossed it. Sponson mounts gave the tank a much smaller blind spot.

 

Ah - and of course a turret means you can only fire one way, while sponsoons mean you can fire both ways - ideal when crossing a trench full of enemy soldiers.

 

I think you'll find that the name is probably "Tritton", which IIRC was the Lincoln firm which made the first tanks.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

My bad, typing error

Aglooka

 

Good point - I never thought of that. Machine guns may be better for that though.

 

There was a machine gun in each sponson just behind the casemate with the gun.

Aglooka

 

Also for the reason of clearing trenches the vickers medium had two side mounted machine guns in ball mounts, see: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quart ... edium.html

Aglooka

 

Good link - the Vickers Medium looks pretty advanced for it's day when compared with some other inter war tanks.

Even a turret mounted coaxial Vickers - obviously there was a desperate need for the Besa at this point.