Re: Anyone considered Tin?

[William and Melissa Johns <gizmology-at-gizmology.net>]

At 09:12 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote:
>Whats a Med.A never heard of a tank buy that name. I simply base the 
>armour piercing rounds from a report made by one of the MkIV male 
>commaders who said that his tank was pocketed with holes from the armour 
>piercing MG rounds of the two A7v and forced the two Mk IV females to 
>retreat with large holes in thier sides.


   The Mediums were also called 
"Whippets".  http://www.landships.freeservers.com/whippet_info.htm

   Mitchell believed the Germans fired armor piercing rounds from the A7V 
he encountered:

>Suddenly a hurricane of hail pattered against our steel wall, filling the 
>interior with myriads of sparks and flying splinters. Something rattled 
>against the steel helmet of the driver sitting next to me, and my face was 
>stung with minute fragments of steel. The crew flung themselves flat on 
>the floor. The driver ducked his head and drove straight on.
>
>Above the roar of our engine sounded the staccato rat-tat-tat-tat of 
>machine guns, and another furious jet of bullets sprayed our steel side, 
>the splinters clanging against the engine cover. The Jerry tank had 
>treated us to a broadside of armour-piercing bullets!

   - http://www.landships.freeservers.com/tankvstank.htm.

   The armor piercing rounds the Germans used were the k-type (tungsten 
carbide core), 7.92mm fired from regular rifles and machine guns before 
1917.  The Mk IV had increased armor to deal with this round, so the 
Germans switched to a 13mm round fired from a special Mauser antitank 
rifle.  By the time the tank battle at Villers-Brettoneaux (sure, YOU spell 
it!) took place, the 13mm round would have been in use.  I don't know if 
they ever made machine guns that could fire this round, so perhaps it 
wasn't the A7V that delivered the "broadside", but the infantry lurking nearby.

   In that same battle (the whole shebang, not just the tank-vs-tank part), 
two of the A7Vs were lost when they tipped over (how embarrassing).  One is 
the "Mephisto", which is in Australia now.  The A7V that Mitchell's tank 
shot, the "Nixie" (means "mermaid") was damaged and abandoned, but after 
the engagement, it was reclaimed by the crew (those who survived) and 
driven from the field, only for one of the the engines to seize and cause 
it to be abandoned again.  A German demolition crew was sent out to destroy 
it, but they got confused and blew up the other A7V that had tipped over 
(not the "Mephisto" - the "Heidi" perhaps?  Or WAS it the "Mephisto", and 
they did a lousy job of it?  I can't remember.) instead. The Nixie was 
recovered by the British, if I recall.

   I knew all this by heart back in college ... now I can hardly remember 
any of it.  I wonder if I can still find my notes...

   When I finish my Mk V, I think I'll add an A7V to the fleet.

Bill


"If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for 
the same reason, we call it intelligence."  --  Will Cuppy