The Medium Mark A Whippet was a tank employed by the British in World War I. Intended for fast mobile assaults, it was intended to complement the slower British heavy tanks by using its relative mobility and speed in exploiting any break in the enemy lines.
Whippet Firefly of F Battalion in The Museum of the Army in Brussels (original colours)
Whippets of 3rd Battalion at Maillet-Mailly on 26 March 1918. Some, in action earlier in the day, were the first Whippets to be used. (Infantry are of the New Zealand Division.)
Japanese Whippets
The fast Whippet-Mark V hybrid constructed by Johnson
British heavy tanks of the First World War
British heavy tanks were a series of related armoured fighting vehicles developed by the UK during the First World War. The Mark I was the world's first tank, a tracked, armed, and armoured vehicle, to enter combat. The name "tank" was initially a code name to maintain secrecy and disguise its true purpose. The tank was developed in 1915 to break the stalemate of trench warfare. It could survive the machine gun and small-arms fire in "no man's land", travel over difficult terrain, crush barbed wire, and cross trenches to assault fortified enemy positions with powerful armament. Tanks also carried supplies and troops.
A British Mark I "male" tank near Thiepval on 25 September 1916, fitted with wire mesh to deflect grenades and the initial steering tail, shown raised. Photograph by Ernest Brooks
The Mark IV tank Lodestar III at the Belgian Royal Museum of the Army, Brussels (2005). This tank retains its original paint.
British Mark I tank with the Solomon camouflage scheme
Mark II; tank no. 799 captured near Arras on 11 April 1917