I've been reminded of the suggestion that some Mark IVs were captured by the Germans and later recaptured and used against them. Is that the case?
Asking for a friend. No, I really am asking for a friend.
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The Germans changed the armament by replacing the 6 Pounders with the 57mm guns used in the A7Vs and the Lewis guns were replaced with reworked
Lewis MGs which used German ammunition. It would seem like too much work to recycle an obsolete tank (the Mark Vs were entering service) back into British
There's photographic evidence of two Beute-Mk.IV at Erin, both beinge males. Wagen 219 of Abt. 15 is one of them. That's the tank that got hit in the fuel tank, caught fire, and was hastily abandoned by the crew on October 8th, 1918. It certainly wasn't a runner, but due to the circumstances its guns ought to have been in working order still. The second vehicle is No. 1 of Abt. 11. It's not clear whether it participated in the action at October 8th at all. Most probably it was one of the four tanks disabled by shelling in the days before the action. Three of them couldn't be extricated. This may have been a runner, but hardly would have had working guns.
The idea may have been to combine the two vehicle into one runner with working guns - and test it in comparison with the British males. Was the idea executed? No evidence exists. Events - the rapid collapse of Germany - may have made such plans (so they ever existed) obsolete.
The notion, however, that re-captured captured Mk.IVs were used in combat can be refuted. Those few that were re-captured in an acceptable state belong to the booty of late October and early November 1918, much too late to salvage, repair and re-issue them before armistice.
