The Worlds First Tank - The Mk. I Pedrail Mobile Fort….Well, very nearly.
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The thing about history is that it doesn't often change. Which can be annoying. Fortunately, for those of use who only have a loose grip on reality, other pasts emerge from the fog of inconvenient facts.
We all know what was the first ever tank, but it very nearly wasn't….
In 1915 development started in the British Big Wheel Landship project, oddly enough proposed by the Royal Naval Air Service. There were two main designs, one had a wheeled chassis and the other had tracks. Other than a wooden mock-up, the wheeled one didn't progress beyond the design phase. The one with tracks actually got built (I like the idea that the Royal Naval Air Service proposed a big wheel landship which had tracks. Looks like they were even more confused than I am). The tracks were a complicated affair. The English designer Bramah Joseph Diplock, rather than being the nutty fruit-cake that I'm normally drawn to, was a gifted inventor. He patented a design for tracks in 1899, intended for traction engines, called 'Pedrail' which is what first attracted the attention of the War Office.
It didn't help development when the design brief for the vehicle kept changing. It started off as a machine to transport troops across the battlefield. Then it became a mobile fort; then back to an armoured personnel carrier; then they decided they wanted a fully gunned-up monster tank; at several points in this farce it was intended to be a mobile flamethrower ….and then they lost interest entirely. The design was getting too complex, the prototype wasn't preforming very well and by then Churchill was waving his Little Willie around, showing the big boys how it should be done.
The original plans only show the cutaway side view. The solid looking one shown above that is a very incomplete profile from the Tank Encyclopedia. No details are shown like crew assess; vision slits; exhausts or armament, so I've had to resort to 'best guess'. I also had some help from some modellers with far too much time on their hands from All Scale Modeller.
Oh yes, there is a slight issue with the scale. For a couple of reasons I've gone with 1/52.3561 scale. What do you mean you haven't heard of it? Admittedly one of the lesser know scales but I'm sure it'll catch on.
I wonder why you don't get many box-scale scratch-builds?
Build report is here:
brexitmodeller.com/f..tchy-again/#comments
Okak, okay, I have been known to tell the occasional historical porkie in the past, just Google 'Pedrail Landship' if you don't believe me.
