Medium Mark B
The Medium Mark B was a medium-weight British tank of the First World War .
The medium Mark B , built in a slightly modified rhomboid shape with two rotating caterpillars, had a total weight of 18 tons and a crew of four men (commander, driver and two weapons operators). The pentagonal, non-rotating tower with four machine guns was striking. The tank, designed by Major Wilson , reached a top speed of around 9.6 km / h and was the first British tank to have the combat and engine compartments separated, which improved the operating conditions of the crews.
The tank made by Metropolitan / Vickers in Birmingham, the prototype of which was completed in August 1918, did not make it to the front. Its construction was discontinued after the further development of the Mark A to the Mark D , which was estimated to be more advantageous . The 45 Mark B tanks produced were used by the British Expeditionary Corps in the Baltic States after 1918 and later given away to Latvia , where they were in service until the early 1930s and then scrapped.
Trivia
Although these tanks were never used in World War I, four of them, delivered straight from the factory and still without side bay windows, took part in the British Victory Parade in London after World War I as a delegation of the Royal Tank Corps .