Landships II

Rob · Legend

At last! An Osprey on the Whippet!

elbavaro · Commander in Chief

YES! Good News!

Hedi · Lieutenant-Colonel

just pre-ordered

smile

wayne · Colonel

I ordered mine two weeks ago.

TeeELL · General

That is splendid news.

Rob · Legend

Have to say, pretty disappointed. Despite being named the Medium Mark A Whippet, it devotes a lot of the book to the Medium B, C and D, and even the US Studebaker tanks. The usually wonderful artwork has been replaced with awful looking (in my opinion) computer generated images which do absolutely nothing for me. Excellent text as is to be expected from Mr Fletcher, but a real missed opportunity in my opinion

d_fernetti · Hero

I actually enjoyed the book (text and photos) because I knew next to nothing to start with. As an introductory book it gives you a good account of the design, from its inception to te development (and it wasn't a dead end entirely like the rhomboid tanks). As for the artwork, I agree. I'd also loved to have good quality 3 view drawings in it instead of the mediocre computer generated images. Maybe it's easier to find a 3D modeller than a good drafstman?

Rob · Legend

Henry Morshead has illustrated other books in the usual Osprey way though, including the Rolls Royce armoured car book. I can't think of any Ospreys that have this CGI instead of artwork at all? It's a good introduction, yes, but why it was named the Medium Mark A Whippet Tanks and then cover four other Tanks is rather confusing - would have made more sense to call it 'British Medium Tanks of the Great War' (and even then wouldn't be completely correct as it includes the Studebaker....). Compared to the excellent previous ones by David Fletcher I can't help but feel let down, and definitely regret paying full whack for it

TinCanTadpole · Legend

Rob - how much is there on the Medium D, and more to the point, how many photos and what angles of the tank do they cover?

R Simmie · Lieutenant

Hello TinCanTadpole,

there are 6 photos in all, one of the wooden mock up we are familiar with. An absolutely beautiful 3/4 front view of a medium D, then sideview of Medium D with asbestos cladding in India, a sideview of Medium D* in open air park at Bovington (also appears in another photo of Medium C in the same park), top rear view of Medium D** in river and front View of Medium DM in factory. Number 2 and 4 are new to me. Unfortunately their size is limited by the size of the pages but I enjoyed this book. There is also a very nice front view of the Prototype Medium A with single turret and fuel tank at the rear.

I guess this is related to your ongoing drawings of these whimsical beasties!

R Simmie

James H · Legend

The memsahib was kind enough to treat me to the Kindle version, which is in black and white, so I hadn't realised the illustrations aren't up to much. The front view of the Whippet prototype with turret is, indeed, worth the money on its own. I, too, was surprised at the amount of space devoted to the other Mediums in a book supposedly devoted to the Mk A. If Gwyn's comment about the Mk V is anything to go by, it might have been a case of filling up the required number of pages. It doesn't do any harm to cover the other Marks, but a simple way round it would have been to give the book a title that reflects the contents. ". . . and British Medium Tanks of WWI" or suchlike.

However, the inclusion of the Studebaker is, I think, pushing it to the very limit, and I can't help but reflect that DF had no idea what it looked like until Landships informed him of Cheffy's photograph http://landships.activeboard.com/t3750586/studebaker-tank-most-forgotten-usa-tank-of-wwi/ Not even a thank you.

-- Edited by James H on Wednesday 9th of July 2014 01:53:17 PM

CharlieC · Legend

I've just compared the Osprey text on the Medium D and the Landships II article. I think our crowdsourced article is pretty good even in comparison to

DF's text. I didn't spot any glaring errors in the Landships text. Certainly DF doesn't mention the other tank designs influenced by Johnson's work

such as the US M1922 and the Char de Bataille prototypes.

Regards,

Charlie

TinCanTadpole · Legend

Thanks for your replies, gents. I would have replied sooner, but when I was online a couple of nights ago, there was a power cut that lasted until 2:30am.

Thanks R Simmie for your descriptions: Pics 1, 5 and 6 sound familiar, whilst pic 2 might be - does the pic have a blanked out background and the tank have no cupola?
Pics 2 and 4: you describe both as side views and say you've seen neither before, so I'd like to ask how square-on are the angles of the photos? Is the track rake clear, without distortion from perspective? I've tried adjusting other pics of the Medium D for perspective, then drawing a simple photoshop map of key points (such as axle positions), but when different maps were matched in scale, only some of the key points would match up.

As such, my last effort ground to a halt around February. To a large extent I think I was catching the side profile of the vehicle well, drawing at the unusual scale of 1:25.4 (1mm to the inch) for convenience, but after about three new starts, the issue arose of whether or not the tank would be tall enough. The rake of the track is a big issue, because it is rarely obvious in photos how steep the angle is. I've based my attempts on the assumption that the side view of the wooden mock-up is correct, but even then there is leeway for variation, because there is a little distortion in the photo at either end (the width and height of the idler disc are not identical as they ought to be for a circle), and if you stretch the photo a little to make the idler and sprocket discs circular, the rake of the track will decrease slightly. It's so complicated!

James - agreed, a title covering all four medium tanks would have been better.

Charlie - that's good to hear, I thought your article covered the subject nicely.

R Simmie · Lieutenant

Sorry for delay in replying...
The Pic #2 is taken outside with a railing fence in the background, It is totally new to me and shows a spanking brand new medium D without cupola but with drivers head sticking out the hole. It is a pale colour...possibly light grey or maybe just the lighting conditions make the Army Brown look light...It is a 3/4 front view and very clear showing lots of detail. I imagine it is a Bovington Tank Museum photo and should be available in larger prints from there. I presently am without a scanner so cannot send you a scan via e-mail at moment...maybe one of others in this topic could help?

RS

PDA · Legend

I have to say I disagree. The artwork looks pretty good to me, and previous titles by Fletcher have covered many tanks; Mark I covers Lincoln Machine No1 up to Mark III, Mark V covers V* and V** (if memory serves).

I received my copy only yesterday so have yet to read it, but flicking through, it looked just fine to me.

TinCanTadpole · Legend

R Simmie wrote:
Sorry for delay in replying...
The Pic #2 is taken outside with a railing fence in the background, It is totally new to me and shows a spanking brand new medium D without cupola but with drivers head sticking out the hole. It is a pale colour...possibly light grey or maybe just the lighting conditions make the Army Brown look light...It is a 3/4 front view and very clear showing lots of detail.

Managed to get a look at a couple of relevant pages on Google Books preview - the mock-up photo was new to me, although not especially interesting; photos two and four, however, are very good.

Four, the side view of the Mk D*, nicely captures the profile without the perspective distortions I've seen in other side views: as far as I can tell from a few minutes looking, the rake of the tracks, height at the sprocket, and angle of the rear track rise (the two-stage rise from ground to sprocket) are much as I had concluded from my drawing efforts.

As for two, the three-quarter view of a Mk D - well, it's a peach! well lit and crisp, and that particular specimen is an example I have not seen before. As I understand it, seven Mk Ds were started, of which five were completed; previous pics have shown what appear to be four different tanks, so this photo seems to show the only other D completed.

Three of the Ds were built by Fowler, the other two by Wolseley; there seem to be two different turret roof styles, which leads me to think that this fifth Medium D in the Osprey book is one of the two Wolseleys. It's not the one sent to India in 1922, because this one has short track return rails which only go back as far as the third (of four) return roller, rather than continuing to the end of the mud chute as on all other Ds.

From the little I've been able to see on Google's preview, the book looks worth buying.