Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1918. NEW BRITISH TANKS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1870, 29 August 1918, Page 2

Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1918. NEW BRITISH TANKS.

IN the recent open fighting on the Western front prominence has been given to the good work done by “whippets,” which are light, speedy types of tanks, named after a small sporting dog. “In a naval sense,” says the Scientific American, “the usual tanks, or laudships, whether they be British, French, or German, have heretofore been of the battleship type; that is to say, they have been slow-moving, heavily armoured and powerfully armed craft, meant rather to stand up and fight to a finish than to.dash in and out of a, combat and to depend on quickness of movement as the main weapon. But in breaking up and pursuing bands of infantrymen in the open there has been a distinct call for a ‘destroyer’ type of tank, one that could travel at a comparatively high rate of speed, and that possessed a higher order of mobility in general. To the British, the originators of the tank idea, has remained the further honour of developing a tank of the fast'destroyer type. This type, known as the ‘whippet,” has already

mjulo its appearance on Hie baltlcJiold in the recent open lighting, nml its debut Ims been crowned will 1 success. The whippet hits caterpillur treads of the usual design, arranged on either side of a sort of flat car body. On the plat form of the Hat car is mounted a.single turret which houses the crow and 1 the several machine guns with which th« whippet is armed. The flat car body measures 18 feet in length, while the turret is six feet in height. The engine is placed at the rear of the gun turret, in a separate armoured housing. During a recent engagement near Cachy, on the Western front, the German iufUnlry was seen assembling before the British positions. Seven whippets were ordered to disperse the Teutons, and in hardly no time they were upon ■the foe. Meanwhile the Gormans, having the larger, slow-moving British tanks in mind, held their ground with the idea of playing machinegun tiro and hurling grenades at the approaching foe. But soon the whippets were on top of them, opening a tierce machine-gun fire on (he grey-clad groups, which soon broke and ran, pursued by the fast whippets. It is further reported that the whippets not only kept pace Avith the fleeing Germans, hut in some instances, overtook and crushed those who had escaped the machine-gun (ire. It appears that the whippet tank can readily make 12 miles an hour, and a fully equipped Teuton infantryman can hardly hope to maintain that speed for a prolonged period.”