you
well now what we've got here is the mark
1 tank it's actually the very first tank
ever built in 1916 and they were used
for the first time in the Battle of
flare corselet on the Somme
on the 15th of September 1916 so it
really is the oldest tank of all if you
like the first tank dilemma was you'll
notice the basic rhomboid shape that's
typical of all the British tanks in the
First World War but the most important
things about it in the armored
protection which is about 10 millimeters
is nothing really keep out small arms
fire but nothing greater the fact that
the tracks go all the way around the
hull and they have no suspension at all
you've got rollers in the side of the
tracks
which run straight on the tracks
themselves and they've just therefore
clattering across country but since the
thing could only do about three miles an
hour
nobody was terribly worried about
Springs anyway it didn't really matter
the tanks actually weighs 28 tonnes
it's powered by a Daimler six-cylinder
engine it's a petrol engine of course
and I ought to add that it's Damer of
Coventry nothing at all to do with the
German firm so just get that straight
there is that there was a British
Daimler quite independent of the Germans
and that's inside it takes eight men in
there for to drive a tank and for others
to work the guns
this is a male tank and 75 of these were
built the other 75 all females instead
they had sponsors on the side machine
guns in rather than those cannon that
you can see in this one now you ought to
point out this particular tank is now as
I say the only Mark one left anywhere
and it was in Hatfield parking
hartfordshire for quite a long time it
was given to them in recognition the
fact they held a tank display there in
January 1916 of the crew the driver who
sat here at the front on the right sat
next to the commander and they're the
only two who actually have seats
everybody else has to stand or crouch
the other 6b flew an outer disk um
in the rest of the tank not only is it
bumping around across country it's
incredibly noisy in there very dark and
this fumes floating about everywhere
really is unpleasant but you only in it
for a relatively short while and at the
time you're fighting not only for your
life but against other people so you've
got a lot to occupy your mind really and
in certain so far as you have a mind at
all in one of these things but that's
the the very earliest of Tanks it's got
a number of interesting features but one
of the most important ones is at the
back it's unique to the mark one tank
they never fit in them after that now
the tail assembly serves two purposes
basically it's like a little car with
two wheels which the tanks turning
around behind it and those two wheels
are used for steering
they actually throw the back of the tank
off-course exactly the same way as the
rudder of a small boat will help to
steer it around corners and so on so the
driver sits in his cabin he's got a
steering wheel in front of him like a
car and he can cause these two rear
wheels to turn so that they just steer
the tank realm large radius curves the
other feature of this tail assembly is
that the whole thing the wheels
themselves are on a frame which is
hinged to the back of the tank and that
works with a hydraulic press which comes
down from the back of the tank and
presses on the tail and will actually
lift it clear over the ground the idea
is that you can actually drive the tank
without the tail in action at all if you
want to and it's quite interesting a lot
of the early tank crews after they've
done their training had no idea that the
tail assembly was not part of the
mechanism of the tank so if the tail
assembly broke down they tended to say
that's it
the tanks finished we'll stop we won't
go into action when in fact he didn't
need it the tales of flaming nuisance it
just got in the way and the tank could
steer perfectly adequately without it a
bit more tiresome when it could be done
while we're here it may be also just
having a quick look at the roof
a framework of timber and chicken wire
or barbed wire netting stretched over
the top of the tank and it's designed to
prevent grenades from lodging on top of
the tank they thought the Germans being
an unkind lot would rush up and throw
grenades on top of the tank so they put
the wooden roof on to try and so deflect
them I don't think it ever happened so
it probably didn't need it and the a
wooden roof was only ever fitted to the
tanks belonging to C company never to
those of D company so if you ever see a
photo of a tank of the roof on
you can pre pretty sure it's for C
company tank the other thing is the name
of this tank we don't actually know the
identity of this particular tank it was
one of 75 males and it's painted up to
resemble c19 clan Liz Lee which was
Archie Hall for walkers tank but
innocent really it's just a piece of
local color if you like token of color
the actual rather gaudy color scheme on
the side of this tank which was painted
on when they were in England got so
class to be mad after the tanks had been
running a short while it became
absolutely useless and from say December
1916 they painted all the tanks in
overall brown color because there wasn't
any point in painting fancy artwork on
the sides of them
you