Post Description

The Mark IV was based, mechanically, on the prototype tank Mother, which in an ideal world should have been improved upon by 1917. The problem was the eternal conflict between the ideal and the expedient. Everyone agreed that the four-man driving system, introduced with Mother in 1915, was tiresome and inefficient, but what to do about it? Lt Walter Wilson knew the answer, but Maj Albert Stern, head of the Mechanical Warfare Department, overruled him. Lacking technical acumen, and unable to see the brilliant simplicity of Wilson's scheme, Stern ordered this first production tank to use the same system as Mother, while experiments were carried out to find the most effective form of transmission. The matter was decided in favour of Wilson's design in competitive trials at Oldbury in March 1917, but that was too late to influence the Mark IV. Stern had unwittingly managed to delay the improvement of British tanks by a good 18 months.