The third set of difficulties came from the M.W.S.D.’s own Tank designers, and from technical experts of the Fighting Side in France. Both constantly asked for small alterations in design. Often these alterations were necessary; frequently they were more or less frivolous even when they came from what might be considered the best source, that is, from those who fought the Tanks. If the M.W.S.D. was sometimes accused of adopting an academic attitude towards the results of the “acid test” of battle, it may as truly be said of the Fighting Side that they often underrated the difficulties and problems of manufacture and failed to appreciate how often quality could only be obtained by a disproportionate sacrifice of quantity. III About the end of December 1916, when the dual control of Tank affairs had been working for nearly three months, it became obvious that the system was not one that would easily stand the strain of active operations. The Tank Corps had outgrown it, and the shoe would soon begin to pinch. General Elles thus summarised the position in his report of December 31: “_In France._ The fighting organisation is under a junior officer who _faute de mieux_ has become responsible for initiating all important questions of policy, design, organisation and personnel through G.H.Q., France, and thence through five different branches at the War Office. “_In England._ Administrative and training organisation are under a senior officer, located 130 miles from the War Office, with a junior Staff Officer (Staff-Captain) in London to deal with the five branches above mentioned. “The system is working now because Headquarters in France have been free from the questions of operations for most of the last six weeks, and have, therefore, been in a position to deal imperfectly and at a distance with the larger aspects of the whole matter. “This will not be possible when operations become a more pressing obligation, as they are now doing. “Then, this duty must devolve either on the five War Office branches, not one of which, I submit with all respect, can have any comprehensive grip of the subject, or on the G.O.C., Administrative Centre, who is out of continued personal touch either with the War Office or the requirements in this country, and is, moreover, debarred by his charter from really having any control or direction except at the instance of his Junior. “In actual fact, the Director-General of Mechanical Warfare Supply, an official of the Ministry of Munitions, at the head of a very energetic body, becomes the head of the whole organisation. This officer, owing to his lack of military knowledge, requires and desires guidance, which none of the five departments at the War Office can, and which the G.O.C., Administrative Centre, is not in a position to, give him.