![]() ![]() Fuller was now at the War Office and continued to champion the tank adding on a requirement for amphibious use. With the end of the war the immediate need for the Mark D disappeared. This was tested on a converted Mark V, which reached 20 mph (32 km/h) Wire ropes were also used to connect the track links together, allowing them to flex during turning manoeuvres and for the individual links to pivot on rough ground. To give a suspension that could flex without adding the weight of individual springs for each roller, Johnson, based on his pre-war experience with Fowler ploughing engines, used steel cable ropes wound between the rollers and terminated in springs. He had experimentally fitted leaf springs to both a Mark IV heavy tank and a Medium Mark A "Whippet" and also fitted powerful Rolls-Royce Eagle aeroplane engines to a Whippet Johnson's ideas were tested by conversion of a Mark V tank Major Johnson, working at the Mechanical Warfare Department's grounds at Dollis Hill, identified that a more powerful engine and a sprung suspension would be needed. Fuller calculated this fast tank, which he called Medium Mark D in the text, would have to manage 20 mph (32 km/h) - substantially faster than any tank then in service - and that it would be no more than 20 tons in weight. J F C Fuller's plan 1919 (circulated in mid-1918) was for the heavy tanks to engage and pin the German troops allowing faster tanks to penetrate the flanks and encircle the enemy isolating them from the chain of command precipitating a breakdown of morale and fighting capacity. It should not be confused with export Vickers Medium Mark D tank, built in one unit for Ireland in 1929. ![]() The unusual suspension proved problematic and the earlier tanks were replaced by a Vickers design - the Medium Mark I - in the 1920s The Armistice ended the war in 1918 and it would never be tested in combat but development continued for the post-war needs of the British Army. It was envisaged as a vehicle to be used in " Plan 1919" an offensive on the Western Front which would use large numbers of heavy and medium tanks to break through the German defences, destroy lines of communication crippling the German army and thus end the war. Medium Mark D was a British tank developed at the end of the First World War. ![]()
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