Overview and classification
The Medium Mark C, usually called Hornet, was a British medium tank developed toward the end of the First World War. It was intended to improve the combination of mobility, crew accommodation and protected machine-gun fire available from earlier designs. The vehicle reached trials before the war ended, but its meaningful unit history belongs to the postwar period rather than to a First World War combat campaign. Sources
The machine-gun tank that was built differs from the proposed gun-armed Male. The account also retains later experimental uses, but a test arrangement or research assignment is not automatically a standardized production variant. Sources
The name remains uncertain in a tank encyclopedia: this Medium Mark C is not the later Vickers Medium Mark C. Sources
Development and the end of wartime demand
The Hornet grew from the search for a more effective medium tank after the Whippet. Sir William Tritton's Foster organization and engineer William Rigby feature in the published design account, while Wilson's Medium Mark B formed part of the competing development context. These were different design programs, not successive names for the same prototype. Sources
The working chronology places design discussions and acceptance activity in the early months of 1918, with a prototype by August. Its trials photographs establish an actual vehicle rather than a wholly unrealized drawing. The cited accounts do not firmly establish the exact acceptance milestones and production meaning of individual dates. Sources
Orders expanded beyond the original request, but the Armistice changed the practical demand for new tanks. The references contain a tension between statements that no vehicles were completed before the Armistice and its own earlier prototype chronology. The article therefore distinguishes prototype completion from series production rather than repeating an absolute statement that would erase the photographed trial machine. Sources
Hull and internal arrangement
The vehicle had a fixed fighting superstructure toward the front and an engine compartment at the rear, separated by a bulkhead. That division was intended to improve the working environment compared with designs in which the fighting crew shared their space more directly with the machinery. The raised observation position was not a rotating gun turret. Sources
These features belong to the effort to make the vehicle a coordinated fighting machine rather than merely a mobile collection of weapons. They cannot establish an unsupported claim of standard wireless equipment; a radio installation is not securely established as baseline equipment here. Sources
Crew comfort also needs proportion. Separation of the engine was an improvement in arrangement, not proof that the vehicle was quiet, cool or easy to maintain under every condition. Sources
Power, mobility, and weapons
The Hornet used a Ricardo engine generally rated at 150 horsepower in the cited sources. Common summary figures give a top speed around eight mph and a range near 140 miles. Sources
The main built arrangement used Hotchkiss machine guns in the fixed superstructure. Four fitted guns are the published working figure, but five appears in some summaries. The cited accounts do not firmly establish Gun ports, spare positions and actual mounted weapons. Sources
A gun-armed Male with a 6-pounder was proposed but not completed in the available accounts account. It requires proposed specifications rather than values copied from the machine-gun tank as though the installation had been accepted and tested. Similarly, an image of the Hornet entering water illustrates a trial obstacle, not an established amphibious configuration or sustained swimming capability. Sources
Manufacturing and postwar employment
The production account distinguishes orders from unfinished wartime work and later assembly. It commonly describes thirty-six vehicles in an initial completion or partly completed group and fourteen assembled subsequently from available material, leading to a total of fifty. The status and dates of those groups remain important; the total cannot be recast as fifty tanks already ready for combat before the Armistice. Sources
The Hornet equipped the postwar British tank establishment, including the 2nd Tank Battalion in the published account, before replacement by newer equipment. Its service cannot be made more dramatic by assigning it to First World War battles or unverified foreign campaigns. Claims about Russia, Ireland or other destinations remain unconfirmed. Sources
Photographs of tanks during British domestic unrest belong to another kind of service evidence. They can establish presence, location and a photographed state, but not automatically that the pictured vehicle fired on demonstrators. The Glasgow material therefore requires careful captions that distinguish deployment and intimidation from an unsupported combat narrative. Sources
Experiments and historical significance
Accounts record a later smoke-generation experiment and the retention of vehicles for research or recovery-related purposes. They do not justify inventing a universally fitted smoke system or a production recovery-tank variant. Sources
The Hornet's significance is not a record of wartime victories. It represents a late-war attempt to improve the medium tank and an early postwar platform for preserving armored skills while budgets and equipment priorities changed. Sources
The proposed Male also illustrates how an unrealized armament option can be historically important without being a manufactured vehicle. Covering it explicitly broadens the reference work while keeping the boundary between development intention and physical completion visible. Sources
A purposeful image collection
The account supplies several trial views that can show different aspects of the Hornet: its approach to a steep bank, movement through water, rear structure and side profile. The high rear view is not an interior photograph, and the water obstacle is not proof of amphibious service. Sources
A sectional drawing offers a different kind of evidence by relating crew and machinery spaces. The underlying design and its later reproductions have different dates. Its source attribution and publication history still need attention before unrestricted reuse is assumed. Sources
The Glasgow image can illustrate postwar presence with a carefully limited caption. It does not close the need for a documented unit-training photograph or a reliable contemporary view of the actual crew compartment. Sources
Photographs and image credits
Background reading and references. Each photograph has its own source and credit.
Sources and further reading
Background reading and references. Each photograph has its own source and credit.
- TE-MC — Tank Encyclopedia, “Medium Mark C Hornet.” — (accessed 2026-05-30)
- LAND-MC — Landships II, “Medium Mark C.” — (accessed 2026-05-30)
- IWM-1191 — Imperial War Museums, IWM 1191 / object 1060000180, “Tanks Medium C Hornet and prototype Little Willie.” — Film catalogue evidence for autumn 1918 trials at William Foster Works, Lincoln
- IWM-1193 — Imperial War Museums, object 1060000182, “Tank trench-crossing trials.” — (accessed/search result 2026-05-30)
- TM-WHIPPET — The Tank Museum, “Whippet.” — (accessed 2026-05-30)
- TM-MARKV — The Tank Museum, “Mark V.” — and (accessed 2026-05-30)
- TM-MARKV — The Tank Museum, “Mark V.” — and (accessed 2026-05-30)
- TM-MARKII — The Tank Museum, “Tank Medium, Mark II*.” — (accessed 2026-05-30)
- GLASGOW-STORY — TheGlasgowStory, “Tanks in the Cattle Market, 1919.” — Local historical context for Glasgow 1919 deployment
- WIKI-MC — Wikipedia, “Medium Mark C.” — (accessed 2026-05-30)
- WM-CAT — Wikimedia Commons, Category:Medium Mark C tank. — (accessed 2026-05-30)
- WM-GLASGOW — Wikimedia Commons, “Tanks in the Cattle Market in Glasgow.jpg.” — (accessed 2026-05-30)
- WM-MedMarkC — Wikimedia Commons, “MedMarkC.jpg.” — (accessed 2026-05-30)
