Hi there.
Someone asked in another thread, "What makes a tank "male" or "female"?". I did not want the OP's thread to get hijacked so decided to answer that question here.
WW1 British tanks were of three main types:
MALE = 6 ponder guns in each of the side sponsons
Female = machine guns in the side sponsons, no large caliber guns like the MALEs
Hermaphodite = 6 pounder gun in one side sponson and machiine guns in the other.
Tactics included the MALEs running in and turring parrel to the trenchs and using their 5 poujnders whilst the FEMALES gave suppressing fire with their machineguns.
There were experiments with longer tanks for crossing wider trenches but these tanks were not manouverable enough.
There were also experiments with tanks carrying a mortar between the tracks at the rear. This was not very successful.
Based on this close support role for the tanks British post-war tanks evolved into two types the heavilly armoured Infantry Tank wit a top speed equal to that of a running infantryman and the Cruiser Tank which was lightly armoured and was seen as a replacement for the Cavalry. This Cruiser designation is why most WW2 British tank names started with a C. If the name, such as Matilda, started with a letter other than a C it was an Infantry support tank. Later in the war British tanks sought to combine the two duties but the kept the C designation which why the latest British tank name, the Challenger, still starts with a C. The odd exceptikon to this seems to be the WW2 Churchill tank which was really an infantry support tank. I trhink that it was the first British designed tank that was envisioned to fullfil both roles. Other WW2 British Cruiser tanks were the Crusader, the Cromwell and the Centaur and the Coventer. The last WW2 British tank was the Centurion and was followed after the war by the Cieftan and then the Challenger.
Cheers from Peter