Willie. A gun turret above the hull would have made the centre of gravity too high when climbing a German trench parapet (which were typically four feet high), so the tracks were arranged in a rhomboidal form around the hull and the guns were put in sponsons on the sides of the tank. The reworked design was also able to meet the Army requirement to be able to cross an wide trench. A mockup of Wilson's idea was shown to the Landship Committee when they viewed the demonstration of Little Willie. At about this time, the Army's General Staff was persuaded to become involved and supplied representatives to the Committee. Through these contacts Army requirements for armour and armament made their way into the design. The prototype Mark I, ready in December 1915, was called "Mother" (also known at various times as "The Wilson Machine", "Big Willie", and officially "His Majesty's Land Ship Centipede"). Mother was successfully demonstrated to the Landship Committee in early 1916; it was run around a course simulating the front including trenches, parapets, craters and barbed wire obstacles. The demonstration was repeated on 2 February before the cabinet ministers and senior members of the Army. Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, was skeptical but the rest were impressed. Lloyd George, at the time Minister of Munitions, arranged for his Ministry to be responsible for tank production. The Landship Committee was re-constituted as the "Tank Supply Committee" under the chairmanship of Albert Stern; Ernest Swinton, who had promoted the idea of the tank from the Army angle was also a member. General Haig sent a staff officer Hugh Elles to act as his liaison to the Supply Committee. Swinton would become the head of the new arm, and Elles the commander of the tanks in France. The first order for tanks was placed on 12 February 1916, and a second on 21 April. Fosters built 37 (all "male"), and Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon, and Finance Company, of Birmingham, 113 (38 "male" and 75 "female"), a total of 150. When the news of the first use of the tanks emerged, Lloyd George commented, Description The Mark I was a rhomboid vehicle with a low centre of gravity and long track length, able to negotiate broken ground and cross trenches. The main armament was carried in sponsons on the hull sides. The hull was undivided internally; the crew shared