Landships II

James H · Legend

Interesting Collection of British Tank Photos.

CharlieC · Legend

All the vehicles were at Dollis Hill. At a guess I'd say 1919 - the "Zeppelin" could be the R33/R34 which first flew in early 1919.

The Gun Carrier prototype later went to the Crystal Palace - that might give an upper bound on the photo dates.

Regards,

Charlie

Roger Todd · Legend

What a splendid find!

Meanwhile, A Pedant Writes...

The airship is one of the rigid R23 class (consisting of R23 to R26), easily recognised by the cylindrical hull for most of its length (i.e. parallel sides) and possessing an external keel under the hull, like the early pre-war German zeppelins (the later R33 and R34 were based on war-time German 'super' zeppelins, with properly streamlined hulls and internal keels). The R23 class was built by Vickers, a development of their No.9r airship (Britain's first successful rigid after the Mayfly fiasco) which was designed by a young Barnes Wallis. Talented chap, I wonder what became of him...?

Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry on the R23 class.

-- Edited by Roger Todd on Thursday 19th of April 2018 11:45:28 AM

CharlieC · Legend

Good that someone knows something about airships...

A larger version of the image seems to show "2(4?)" on the nose of the airship.

Vaguely remember something about that Barnes Wallis chap - something about designing a big airship - the R100

Charlie

Extra bit - the Imperial War Museum opened on 9th June 1920 at the Crystal Palace and the Gun Carrier prototype was part

of the collection. The Gun Carrier was later cut up for scrap when the IWM moved to South Kensington.

-- Edited by CharlieC on Thursday 19th of April 2018 12:36:43 PM

-- Edited by CharlieC on Thursday 19th of April 2018 12:57:18 PM

Roger Todd · Legend

Although it's nowt to do with this collection of photos, I thought you might be interested in this image of R23 taking part in experiments with a tank converted into an airship tug (note the short mooring mast rigged up on the tank's roof). Also of note are the swivelling propellors on the airship's control car.

And someone has done a rather nice conversion job on an Emhar female to depict the airship tug! Is the model-maker someone on this very forum...?

EDIT: My original image was too large to attach, so attached is a half-size version.

-- Edited by Roger Todd on Thursday 3rd of May 2018 04:20:55 PM

James H · Legend

Have a look here. Scroll down to the 5th post.

http://landships.activeboard.com/t61012694/mk-iv-airship-tug/

J

Roger Todd · Legend

Ah, excellent, cheers!