Landships II

Ned · General

Mk. V's serial numbers in the Russian Civil war .

firsttankcrews · Major

Why do you think there are a couple missing?
What evidence do you have?

Ned · General

I don't see # 9334 which is in Lugansk, so what else is missing ?

Ned · General

I don't even see # 9344, or 9147 on the list. I read that 57 were given to the Southern White Russian army,

others were in the North and Northwest armies.

Gwyn Evans · Legend

There's probably lots missing Ned. We don't even have complete lists of tanks in each unit in the Great War.

Whether we know of them depends on three things:
1. Whether anyone made a record of them at the time;
2. Whether that record survived;
3. Whether that record can now be found.

Gwyn

Ned · General

Gwyn, I concur, that is why I asked here. Maybe there were some British records concerning them since they were the folks

that were helping the White russians.

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Ned

Well there are, but the records tend to be fragmentary. You get a number here, a number there, but rarely a list of all the tanks in one place at one time.

If you can get it, there's a book called "A Somewhat Unusual Journey" by Major H.S. Sayer. The original came with a CD of documents. It's about Sayer's experiences with the South Russia detachment and whilst it doesn't contain a complete list it does give some serial numbers. A quick flick through gives me 9009, which isn't on your list. I have also been fortunate to get in touch with relatives of men who were attached to these units and who have been able to provide some information. But as I say, if you're interested in this you have to be prepared to work from very many individual sources and assemble information from lots and lots of tiny snippets. (It's what I do!)

Gwyn

tanks3 · Major

Ned

I am a little suspicious about the accuracy of the list, a copy of which you have posted. I am particularly interested in the Medium A's. The list shows 242 and 245 being in Russia. I believe that is wrong and should be 342 and 345. Otherwise I agree with the other numbers.

Tanks3
.

Ned · General

Tanks3, from what Gwyn and you wrote, it could very well be the case of a typo when the original records were written back in 1919 by the russians.

Or for that matter the actual paperwork could be in such a poor condition that the author had trouble reading it. This is almost 100 years ago.

I don't know why the 2 numbers could be wrong. But I will try to find other articles (in russian) and post it here dealing with the serial numbers.

-- Edited by Ned on Sunday 24th of September 2017 04:26:58 PM

-- Edited by Ned on Sunday 24th of September 2017 04:27:37 PM

Ned · General

Gwyn, thanks for the reply, yes 9009 isn't on the list. Everything i have come across said that the russians got 57 Mk Vs' for the southern army..

the northern ones seem to be a bit more confusing. in some of the articles the russians say the got either 71, or 73 Mk Vs', again a bit confusing.

I'll look into getting a copy of the Journey book, it sounds intriguing.

Gwyn Evans · Legend

tanks3 wrote:
Ned

I am a little suspicious about the accuracy of the list, a copy of which you have posted. I am particularly interested in the Medium A's. The list shows 242 and 245 being in Russia. I believe that is wrong and should be 342 and 345. Otherwise I agree with the other numbers.

Tanks3
.

I agree. 342 and 345 were definitely in Russia. 242 I suspect went to Ireland though I can't prove it. I have no knowledge of 245's service history.

Gwyn

JamesAPrattIII · Lieutenant-Colonel

The Osprey books on Russian Civil War armor have the White Armies in South Russia getting 73 or 74 tanks. Mk V and Whippets. The Reds captured :
South Russia 56 MkV and 17 Whippets
Archangel Meduim B 1613 and Mk V 9085
Georgia 2 Mk Vs could be nos 9146 and 9330

The osprey books also have:
Whippet A322

Mk V 9283

Not on this list

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Georgia would have been regarded as South Russia at that time.

Also tanks used by the North West Russia detachment were donated to the fledgling Latvian and Estonian Armies.

Gwyn

Ned · General

Can someone with better eyes then mine (or a photo editor) take a look at this picture and let me know what the serial number is on it ?

CharlieC · Legend

The image resolution is pretty low so there's not a lot of information to use.

My guess is 908(1)/(3)

Charlie

Ned · General

Yes, it is low quality, wish they had better cameras in those days.. .

Michael Taylor · Lieutenant-Colonel

Oh, they did. I have a print taken directly from a Canadian photograph of captured German transport in 1918. (The print is stamped on the back, identifying the source.)9 The vehicle manufacturer's plate is visible, and legible under magnification. Glass plate negatives an silver nitrate ho;d a lot of information, but it is unfortunate that we usually see images in a degraded form.

Gwyn Evans · Legend

This is one photo of a number taken of this tank on that occasion. It is 9085. The number is partially obscured on the tank itself.

Gwyn

Ned · General

Thank you.

JamesAPrattIII · Lieutenant-Colonel

The David Fletcher book "Medium MK A Whippet" has the Whippets captured by the Reds being used against the Poles, the Japanese and internal rebellions. They were operational until 1922. The book has the Medium B seeing little service with the RKKA.

Ned · General

In the book TANKS IN THE CIVIL WAR by Maxim Kolomiets, he shows various pictures of the Mk A , I'm putting together a list of what happened to some of them.

tanks3 · Major

Ned

I would be interested to see what you come up with. Also can you share the pictures of the Medium MK A's?

Tanks3

Ned · General

Tanks3 I'll see what I can do, I just don't want to brake any copyright rules..

JamesAPrattIII · Lieutenant-Colonel

Since the Soviets didn't start making tanks until 1927 I would say they would repair any tank they could get their hands on and repair it. They had a number of former White army tank crewmen who either defected or were taken prisoner and let out of the camps to operate these tanks.

The above osprey books says of the tanks not all were operational a few were battle scared hulks and several needed extensive repair. The 2 tanks in Georgia were in bad repair. Audacious # 9168 and 7 others were captured at Sevastopol on 20 nov 1920 9168 was "holed and burned. The tanks were repaired at Kharkov in 1920 and Moscow in 1921. The 3rd TR had 19 Mk Vs until 1930. In 1931 they were sent to depots schools and firing ranges ect. In 1938 the last were sent to museums or bombing ranges.

There is a running example in the 1930s movie We Are From Kronsdadt.

JamesAPrattIII · Lieutenant-Colonel

In the book "Churchil'ls Secret war with Lenin" by Damien Wright
It has Mk V 9303 as the one on display at Archangel it has the MG sponson on the left side.

some errata for the book:
page 296-7 has Medium A tanks in North Russia where only Mk V and medium Bs were sent
Page 398 has a Medium B with Denikin in South Russia when he never received any
page 423 Has aircraft being crushed in crates by a tank at the evacuation of Ekateridor according to the book "Gone to Russia to Fight" the only account that mentions this is "Last Train Over Rostov Bridge" which is a very heavily fictionalized memoirs by M Aten

non armor errata:
Page 294 He calls HMS Fox a Battleship it is a cruiser
page 307 he has the Russian Battleship Petropavlsk being hit by CMBs during the Kronstadt Raid in 1919. The British have claimed this since 1919 and every account since this repeats this in part they didn't have access to Russian records until the book "Russian and Soviet Battleships" which says the torpedos ran under the ship and hit the quay and the battleship was undamaged.
page 344 the German submarine U 13 was lost cause unknown or hit a mine it was not rammed by the Battleship Zealandia see uboat.net
page 383 the aircraft in the center of the picture is a HF 30
page 415 the author can't understand that pilots and others make false ect claims
page 424 Raymond Collishaw was not in command of the RAF in the desert during El Alemain in 1942. He was in command of the RAF in the Desertt in the 1940-41 period