Who invented the tank. The world's first tanks: to the birthday of the death machine. Little and Big Willy

In modern wars, tanks are one of the main types of combat vehicles, and until recently they were generally the most common mechanized weapons on the planet.

But how did people even come up with the idea to climb into a hefty metal box on tracks and go kill each other? Let's try to figure it out.

Tank Leonardo da Vinci and armored train on tracks

The idea of ​​creating mobile fortresses came to people's minds from the time of the first mass wars. At first it was chariots, then fighting towers on elephants, and later the famous wagenburgs appeared, which were effectively used in the Hussite wars. But, all these carts were driven by horses or elephants, which were extremely vulnerable and unpredictable.

Already in those days, people began to think about self-propelled fire fortifications, and the famous inventor of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, also could not ignore this topic. He created a project of a machine made of wood and steel, moving on muscular traction. It looked like a mushroom cap bristling with cannons. Of course, it was impossible to create such a thing for the technologies of the 15th century, and the project remained only in the form of the author's fantasy. By the way, in 2009, American engineers, as part of a popular science film, nevertheless created working tank Leonardo da Vinci.

Buyen's armored train

The next stage, preceding the appearance of tanks, was the caterpillar armored train of the Frenchman Edouard Bouyen, who in 1874 proposed putting several wagons connected to each other not on rails, but on a common caterpillar, arming this monster with guns and supplying a crew of two hundred people. And although the project was rejected, the author himself believed that his invention would change the course of wars. Later, this happened, although not with his combat vehicle.

World War I and the first English tanks

With the advent of the first cars, the idea of ​​​​using them in wars became obvious to everyone. Therefore, already before the First World War, almost all the armies of the leading powers had their own fleet of armored vehicles, and real armored trains were also in use.

The disadvantages of these combat vehicles were natural. Armored cars have the impossibility of driving over rough terrain and overcoming obstacles and trenches, while armored trains have attachment to rails. Therefore, when, in the course of protracted battles, the armies of the opposing countries began to dig in more and more, build many kilometers of anti-personnel barriers from mines and barbed wire, use machine guns and shrapnel shells that literally mow down the advancing infantry, it became clear to the engineers that something had to be done.

When, in 1915, British Colonel Ernest Swinton proposed using an armored vehicle on caterpillar tractors to overcome trenches, Winston Churchill seized on this idea and created the Land Ships Committee, which urgently began development.

Hetherington machine

The most curious thing is that the same Churchill almost buried the future of tanks when he wanted to realize the idea of ​​​​Major Thomas Hetherington, who proposed creating a thousand-ton monster on huge wheels, fourteen meters high and armed with ship cannons. Experienced engineers explained to Minister Churchill that this colossus would be immediately shot from cannons, so the developers turned to Swinton's idea of ​​​​creating a machine based on the American Holt-Caterpillar caterpillar tractor, which had long been used in the army as a tractor.

The so-called "Swinton tank" was developed in strict secrecy, and already on September 9, 1915, a prototype called "Lincoln car number one" passed the first field tests, where a bunch of design flaws were discovered, after the elimination of which the first working prototype of the tank appeared - Little Willy, so named after the developer Walter Wilson. The machine also had many shortcomings, and when it was converted to the requirements of the combat situation, Big Willie was created, which was accepted into service and sent to war under the name Mark I.

The Battle of the Somme and the debut of British tanks

What was Big Willie like? It was a thirty-ton steel box on diamond-shaped tracks, eight meters long and two and a half meters high. It did not have the rotating turret we are used to, as it was believed that it would make the tank too visible, so the armament was installed in sponsons along the sides of the vehicle.

The first English tanks were divided into "males" and "females". The "males" had two 57-mm cannons, while the "females" had only machine guns. The armor was bulletproof, up to ten millimeters. Well, the speed of the tank was simply “racing” - 6.4 km per hour on the highway.

But both sluggishness and small armor did not prevent the tanks from scaring German soldiers to death at the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916, when 32 combat vehicles attacked enemy fortifications, tearing barbed wire, rattling terribly, and shooting enemy soldiers from cannons and machine guns.

Although the disadvantages of the rapid introduction of tanks into operation immediately became clear - after all, there were initially 49 of them, but 17 broke down before the start of the battle. And out of 32 that went on the attack, 5 got stuck in a swamp, and 9 simply broke down without the participation of the enemy. Nevertheless, the debut was considered excellent, and a total of 3177 Mark tanks of various modifications were created during the war.

Tank toilet and pigeon mail

Little Willy

The first tanks were not a model of comfort. As one of the commanders of the English tank of the First World War, a former sailor, said, such a tank rocked on the move like a combat boat in a storm. Moreover, during the battle, the temperature inside rose to 50, and sometimes 70 degrees Celsius, so heat stroke and hallucinations haunted the crews at every turn. Yes, and the windows for observation were often broken, and shrapnel wounded the eyes of the tankers.

Communication was also carried out in a specific way - cages with carrier pigeons were kept in tanks for it, although the birds often died from the heat, and then infantry messengers were used, which of course was very inconvenient and dangerous.

The very name "tank" appeared due to the fact that the development of the combat vehicle was carried out in the strictest secrecy, and the equipment was transported by rail under the guise of self-propelled fuel tanks intended for the Russian army. They were even written in Cyrillic, though with the mistake “carefully Petrograa”. One of the original names for combat vehicles was "water carrier" - "water tank" or "water carrier", which fully reflected the camouflage legend. But then it turned out that the abbreviation "WC" in English corresponds to the commonly used expression "water closet" - that is, a toilet with a water flush.

No one wanted to sit in an office under such a sign and constantly fight off those who wanted to relieve themselves, and then the word "tank" (tank) appeared.

German tanks and the first oncoming tank battle

At first, the Germans did not take seriously the idea of ​​fighting with tanks, but when they realized it, they began to urgently rivet their cars. And everything would be fine, but there was just too little time and money, so the result was an extremely strange metal monster - A7V, a huge steel box, a three-meter-high wagon on tracks, seven meters long and weighing thirty tons, with 57 mm cannon sticking out of the nose, and five machine guns. There were 18 people in the crew!

The most interesting thing is that the colossus had thirty-millimeter armor and speed on the highway - as much as 12 km per hour. German soldiers nicknamed their tank "heavy camp kitchen" for its huge size, terrible heat inside and constant smoke from all the cracks.

But it was these creepy self-propelled pans that hosted the first oncoming tank battle in history, which took place on April 24, 1918 at Villers-Bretonnet, when three German A7V tanks collided with three British Mark IV heavy tanks and seven Whippet light tanks.

For both sides, the battle was completely unexpected, and the British suddenly discovered that the machine gun armament of the two "females" and all the light tanks could not do anything with the German armor. Therefore, having received several holes, the "females" retreated, and the "male" - the only one who had cannon weapons - rushed into battle.

The experience and maneuverability of the English tank had already affected here, which, with a successful shot, was able to damage one German vehicle, which the crew then abandoned, and force the rest to retreat, so that, formally, the victory remained with the British.

The German tanks were not bad, but here's the problem - by the end of the war, 21 of them were made, while the British had 3177 tanks, as we wrote above. And this is not counting the tanks of France.

This is how the formidable fighting machines of our time began their journey - like funny and at the same time terrible rumbling metal boxes crawling across the battlefield at a snail's pace and communicating with each other with the help of carrier pigeons.

The fact that the first English tanks decided to call the "tank" for the sake of secrecy is known to many today. A much greater veil of secrecy is covered with tank designs, invented even before the "Little Willie" and "Big Willie" went to the test. Today we will tell you about these once top secret projects.

Boirot machine

Although the first tanks went into battle in 1916, the idea to use vehicles on the battlefield was born as soon as the approaches to the enemy trenches were entangled with numerous rows of barbed wire. Of course, the shells fired from the guns would have torn it apart, but only a lot of them were needed for this. And then the French engineer Louis Boirot in December 1914 proposed an unusual machine for this, with full right to claim the title of the very first experimental tank of the First World War. It is enough to look at her photograph to understand that Monsieur Boirot had a rich imagination. It was an eight-meter frame of six base plates connected by hinges. Inside it was a pyramidal structure with an 80 horsepower engine and seats for two crew members. Thanks to the wheels, it slowly rolled inside this frame, and its plates crushed the barbed wire. But its speed was only three kilometers per hour ... In addition, it was almost impossible to control it. And, of course, the dimensions were large, because of which it was a good target for artillery, which is why it was abandoned immediately after the tests conducted in February 1915.

The second model looked more compact, had an armored hull, a machine gun, and could climb through trenches six feet (about two meters) wide. However, its speed was even lower than that of the first one - only one kilometer per hour, and the turning radius - 100 meters, which was completely unacceptable.

Tank "Breton Preto"

Upon learning of the failure of Boirot's machines, another Frenchman, engineer Jules Louis Breton, proposed cutting wire with a mechanical cutter in the form of a mechanically driven vertical saw. The device was named "Breton Preto" (after the name of the author and manufacturer), and mounted on a five-ton wheeled tractor, which was armored and equipped with a machine gun in the turret. During the tests, this tractor got stuck in a trench, from where it was barely removed.

Tank Aubrio and Gabet

Two more French engineers, Aubrio and Gabe, in the same 1915, based on the Filtz agricultural tractor, built a strange fighting vehicle that looked like an armored turret with a motor in front and two large-diameter drive wheels. The armament of the tower consisted of a 37-mm rapid-fire gun, and the crew consisted of two people: the driver and the commander, who also served as a gunner. The most unusual thing in the car was the propulsion system, which consisted of an electric motor powered by a cable! Yes, yes, there were no batteries or a current generator inside - when moving, the installation pulled a cable that was unwound from a special drum. It is clear that the combat vehicle, dragging such a “tail” behind it, was completely unsuitable for the needs of the army. Why the inventors themselves did not understand this is incomprehensible!

Tank Frot

In March 1915, engineer P. Frot from the North Canal company proposed to build a symmetrical wheeled combat vehicle weighing 10 tons with two control posts so that it could move back and forth on the battlefield without turning around. An engine with only 20 horsepower was placed in the center of the hull. The crew was to consist of nine people, including four machine gunners and three assistants. The speed of the car was 3-5 kilometers per hour, but it actually could not move over rough terrain.

"Land cruiser" Hetterington

In England, the first draft of the "land cruiser" was presented by the captain of the Royal Naval Aviation Service, Thomas Hetterington. The thickness of his armor was 80 millimeters. Each of the three towers housed two 102 mm guns. But there were only three wheels: two in front, with a diameter of 12 meters - leading and one rear - steering. Two diesel engines were supposed to provide the "cruiser" with a speed of up to 12 kilometers per hour. When the project was considered, it turned out that the mass of the machine could reach 1000 tons, and in addition, with a height of 14, a length of 30 and a width of 24 meters, it would be an excellent target for German artillery. Therefore, the British built a reduced model of ... wood, and they decided to stop all work on the Hetterington "cruiser", which they did in June 1915.

"Field Monitor" and "Trench Destroyer"

In Russia, as is known, Captain Lebedenko’s Tsar Tank was built, which impressed with its nine-meter-high wheels, but the Americans developed a project for a “150-ton field monitor” on wheels with a diameter of six meters, and, moreover, with two (!) engines.

As conceived by the designers, two 152-millimeter naval guns, which were usually installed on cruisers, should have stood on it at once! Auxiliary armament was a whole battery of 10 Colt machine guns of the 1885 model. Four of them in twin installations were located in two towers, and the remaining six were supposed to shoot through embrasures in the hull.

However, 150 tons seemed not enough for the Americans, and they developed a project called "Trench Destroyer" weighing already 200 tons, that is, even more solid than the German super-heavy tank "Colossal"! It was assumed that this would be an armored "wagon" on the chassis of the "Holt" tractor, but longer. Armament was to consist of six 75-mm French guns of the 1897 model of the year, a flamethrower, another 20 Browning machine guns with circular fire; crew - 30 people. It is clear that they did not let him out, no matter how pleasing to the eye!

"Tank-skeleton" and others

But in the USA they built a nine-ton "skeleton tank", which had large caterpillar contours connected with pipes. Between them was a small armored cubical cabin with a turret for a 37 mm gun. The designers considered that enemy shells would fly between the tubular supports, and would not hit the hull and turret, but due to its large size, its patency would be the same as that of the English "rhombic" tanks. Then they built a three-wheeled tank with a steam engine, and, most surprisingly, almost exactly the same machine, similar to a tricycle, was made by the Germans. But the tank remained a tracked vehicle. The wheels, even if they were large, did not suit him!

Macfay's tanks

The projects of Robert Francis McFay, a talented Canadian engineer, who, however, had a grumpy and quarrelsome character, were not accepted either. Already on his first project there was a propeller, that is, the car was conceived as an amphibian! There is a screw on his other project, and it was supposed to be raised and lowered in order to protect it from breakage when it hits the ground. Interestingly, the main feature of his last two cars was a three-track chassis.

In this case, the front caterpillar had to play the role of a steering device, that is, turn in different directions, and also change its position relative to the body in a vertical plane. The designer provided a special cutter for barbed wire and a “nose” of armor plates that folded up to protect the steering caterpillar and its drive wheel.

His other project was a tank already on four tracks, but the two front ones were located one behind the other. The front track had a slope of 35 degrees and was supposed to make it easier to overcome vertical obstacles, and all the rest gave a low pressure of the heavy machine on the ground.

Armament on it could be installed both in the hull and in the ledges on the sides of it. But this project seemed too sophisticated, so in the end it was also abandoned. But in general, an interesting car could turn out, in any case, probably no worse than the serial English tank Mk. I, and all other tanks of this series.

Here, it turns out, how many things were invented by the designers at the very beginning of the First World War, but these and many other proposals remained only on paper, although not all of them were crazy!

During the First World War, there was an urgent need to create armored vehicles that would have high firepower and excellent maneuverability. It was tanks that became a model of powerful weapons, excellent mobility and reliable protection. And who created the first tank in the world, and what was its design?

All-terrain vehicle Porokhovshchikov

The very first tank in the world was created by A.A. Porokhovshchikov, who was a Russian designer and pilot. The idea to create such a machine came to him when he saw soldiers running under enemy machine-gun fire. The designer came up with the idea that it would be better to entrust the enemy’s trenches with a combat vehicle, which would be “dressed” in armor and equipped with a machine gun.

The creation of such a combat vehicle began in February 1915. The very first tank in the world was called the "All-Terrain Vehicle". The car entered its test run in the same year at the end of spring (in May). Structurally, the "Vezdekhod" had all the necessary elements that are still present in combat vehicles today (body in armor, weapons in the turret, caterpillar mover, etc.).

The supporting structure of the very first tank in the world was a welded frame made with 4 rotating drums, “wrapped” with a caterpillar belt of a sufficiently large width. With the help of a special tensioner and a tension drum, the caterpillar belt was stretched. Two swivel steering wheels controlled the tank. When he moved on a hard surface, he had to rely on the drive drum and these wheels. When driving on soft ground, the combat vehicle seemed to “fit” on the tape.

The ATV was 360 centimeters long, 2 meters wide, and one and a half meters high (excluding the tower). The car weighed about 4 tons. The Porokhovshchikov combat vehicle passed its first tests with great success, but for some reason they did not continue to master it. And a little later, the very first experimental tank was the English development, which was designed in September 1915.

Little and Big Willy

Little Willie was an armored tractor that was successfully tested in September 1915. The idea for its creation was expressed by British Colonel Swindon.

However, the armored vehicle had to be modified somewhat, as a result of which the tank turned into Big Willie or the Mark I tank. It can rightfully be considered the very first tank in the world to be mass-produced. Mark I was sent to the front line in 1916.

Mark I was 8 meters long. It was made in the form of a steel rectangular box, which had diamond-shaped tracks on the side. This design allowed the combat vehicle to overcome difficult areas on the battlefield and move trenches with ease.

Armor with a thickness of 10-12 millimeters served as protection against rifle and machine-gun fire. The armament of the tank itself consisted of one cannon and four machine guns. At the same time, only the “males” of Big Willy had such weapons, while the “females” were deprived of guns and had fewer machine guns.

The inside of the tank looked like the cabin of a ship. You could walk in it without bending over. The commander and driver of the tank were located in a separate compartment. To start the engine of Big Willy, the strength of three people was required, who twisted the handle until the engine started.

Mark I could move at a speed of 6 km / h. On rough terrain, the car moved at a much lower speed - 2-3 km / h. Even despite the low speed of movement, the tank was shaking terribly - this happened due to the fact that the armored part was made of road wheels. No means of communication were provided. In addition, the reliability of the design of the tank was too low, and the machines often failed. Also considered a disadvantage of the Big Willie were narrow tracks that quickly fell through soft ground, forcing the tank to be "stranded". There was no ventilation inside, which is why the soldiers often (even under machine gun fire) jumped out to breathe fresh air and take a break from the smell of exhaust gases.

Despite all the shortcomings, the tank was actively used at the front - in the battle of 1916, 18 of these combat vehicles were used. After that, a demand came to London that such tanks be delivered to the front line already in the amount of 1000 copies. In the future, the design of the Big Willie was improved each time, and the more modern model was significantly ahead of the previous one in terms of technical parameters.

topkin.ru

The very first tanks History

The very first tanks

Self-propelled armored van

A modern army cannot be imagined without tanks. They are the main striking force of the ground forces. But the history of the use of these combat vehicles has not even reached the centenary milestone yet.

The idea of ​​protecting a foot soldier from enemy fire has been developed for a long time. Siege towers, used since ancient times, are proof of this. But a vehicle was needed that could move in the combat formations of the infantry and support it with its own fire.

One of the progenitors of modern tanks can be considered the great Leonardo Da Vinci. His self-propelled armored van, according to calculations, was supposed to be driven by the muscular strength of people, through levers and gears. The design involved the placement of light artillery pieces and an observation tower. The wooden and metal plating of the hull was supposed to reliably protect the crew from arrows and firearms. True, the practical implementation of the project did not come.

Crawler

The idea of ​​creating armored mechanisms was revived in the 19th century, when engines were already widespread, first steam, and then internal combustion and electric.

The first known project that combined the current elements of the tank - a caterpillar track, an engine, artillery and machine gun weapons and armor protection, was developed by the French engineer Edouard Bouyen in 1874. His car was supposed to weigh about 120 tons, and reach speeds of up to 10 km per hour. The planned armament is 12 cannons and 4 mitrailleuses (the predecessor of the machine gun). The number of crew was amazing - 200 fighters! This project was patented, but remained on paper.

The impetus for the development of tank troops was given by the battles of the First World War. After a relatively short maneuvering period, a protracted positional one set in. There was a crisis of military thought. The saturation of the infantry with rapid-fire rifles, machine guns, artillery, engineering equipment of defensive lines led to the fact that neither side was able to break through the front. Dense rifle and machine-gun fire literally mowed down the advancing troops. At the cost of huge losses, it was possible to achieve only small tactical successes. Some completely new methods of breaking defensive orders were needed. It was then that the first tanks entered the arena of war, along with poison gases.

The British are considered the ancestors of tanks. It was they who first put them into mass production and used them on the battlefield. However, the question of superiority is rather controversial. The fact is that the Russian engineer Porohovshchikov developed back in 1914, and in 1915 he created a model of an "all-terrain vehicle" with a caterpillar track, weighing 4 tons, with a crew of 2 people. The project was highly approved, tested, but for some obscure bureaucratic reasons, it was not brought to mass production. The tests took place in May 1915, that is, a few months earlier than the British.

Nevertheless, it is England that is considered the official birthplace of tanks. That's where the modern name comes from. In this regard, by the way, there are differences. According to one version, the tank (in English it means cistern, tank) was so named in connection with the external resemblance to a metal tank. Another version says that this happened during a secret operation to transfer military vehicles to the theater of operations, when they were transported under the guise of containers with liquids.

The very first tanks were called Mark I, and were divided into "females" (with machine guns) and "males" (with mounted guns). The weight of the combat vehicle reached 8.5 tons. The height of the tank was 2.5 meters, width up to 4.3 meters, length - up to 10 meters with a wheeled "tail". The layout of the tank was carried out according to the diamond pattern. An engine with a capacity of 105 horsepower could move this armored miracle over rough terrain at speeds up to 6 km / h. The crew of 8 was protected by 12 mm frontal armor, which at that time was good cover from small arms and machine gun fire. They were armed with 1 gun and 4 machine guns ("males") or 5 machine guns ("females"). A series of tanks amounted to 150 units.

The first combat use of tanks took place on September 15, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Although design flaws were immediately identified, the effect was still amazing. Armored monsters terrified the defending German soldiers. Within one day of the battle, the British managed to achieve tactical success, breaking the enemy defenses to a depth of 5 km, suffering losses 20 times less than what happened before.

Thus, the combat significance of tanks was proven. The development of armored vehicles continued actively in all major states. Soon it was simply impossible to imagine the armed forces without tanks.

In a few years, tank troops will celebrate their centennial anniversary. The appearance of an armored combat vehicle has changed unrecognizably. But the main requirements are the same - these are speed, maneuverability, security and firepower.

samogoo.net

The world's first tank. History of appearance

In this article, we will find out how and when it appeared world's first tank. This year marks one hundred years since the birth of the idea of ​​having tracked combat vehicles, called tank, and being the basis of the ground forces for a whole century.

The need for armored vehicles with high cross-country ability and firepower arose at the end of 1914, when the front line of the First World War stabilized, and defensive weapons demonstrated a clear superiority over the capabilities of the advancing soldiers.

tank "Little Willie" (Little Willie)

The British colonel Swindon was the first to express the idea of ​​​​creating a tracked armored vehicle, and the very next year, tests of the Little Willie tank began, which, after improvements turned into "Big Willie" or Mark I, world's first production tank. The machine was designed and built by William Foster. In 1916, the tank was accepted into service and sent to the front.

tank Mark1 (or BigWillie)

The world's first tank had a hull length of 8 meters, and was a steel rectangular box with caterpillars covering the hull, which, when viewed from the side, formed a rhombus. This design ensured maximum maneuverability on the battlefield, including when overcoming trenches.

Steel armor with a thickness of 10-12 mm provided protection from rifle and machine-gun fire. And own machine armament located in two side sponsons, where there was one 57mm gun each, and in the embrasures of the hull, where four machine guns were placed. Tanks with such weapons were nicknamed "males", a " females"differed in the absence of guns and the number of machine-gun weapons.
The engine of the car allowed to move at speeds up to 6 km/h, and on rough terrain no more 2-3 km/h. Communication facilities were not provided. The very same design not very reliable, and tanks often broke down.

This is how the ancestor of the modern T-90, Abrams, Challengers and Leopards looked unsightly.

facts-world.ru

The first tanks in the world - from da Vinci self-propelled guns to toilet tanks

In modern wars, tanks are one of the main types of combat vehicles, and until recently they were generally the most common mechanized weapons on the planet.

But how did people even come up with the idea to climb into a hefty metal box on tracks and go kill each other? Let's try to figure it out.

Tank Leonardo da Vinci and armored train on tracks

The idea of ​​creating mobile fortresses came to people's minds from the time of the first mass wars. At first it was chariots, then fighting towers on elephants, and later the famous Wagenburgs appeared, which were effectively used in the Hussite wars. But, all these carts were driven by horses or elephants, which were extremely vulnerable and unpredictable.

Already in those days, people began to think about self-propelled fire fortifications, and the famous inventor of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, also could not ignore this topic. He created a project of a machine made of wood and steel, moving on muscular traction. It looked like a mushroom cap bristling with cannons. Of course, it was impossible to create such a thing for the technologies of the 15th century, and the project remained only in the form of the author's fantasy. By the way, in 2009, American engineers created a working Leonadro da Vinci tank as part of a popular science film.

Buyen's armored train

The next stage, preceding the appearance of tanks, was the caterpillar armored train of the Frenchman Edouard Bouyen, who in 1874 proposed putting several wagons connected to each other not on rails, but on a common caterpillar, arming this monster with guns and supplying a crew of two hundred people. And although the project was rejected, the author himself believed that his invention would change the course of wars. Later, this happened, although not with his combat vehicle.

World War I and the first English tanks

With the advent of the first cars, the idea of ​​​​using them in wars became obvious to everyone. Therefore, already before the First World War, almost all the armies of the leading powers had their own fleet of armored vehicles, and real armored trains were also in use.

The disadvantages of these combat vehicles were natural. Armored cars have the impossibility of driving over rough terrain and overcoming obstacles and trenches, while armored trains have attachment to rails. Therefore, when, in the course of protracted battles, the armies of the opposing countries began to dig in more and more, build many kilometers of anti-personnel barriers from mines and barbed wire, use machine guns and shrapnel shells that literally mow down the advancing infantry, it became clear to the engineers that something had to be done.

When, in 1915, British Colonel Ernest Swinton proposed using an armored vehicle on caterpillar tractors to overcome trenches, Winston Churchill seized on this idea and created the Land Ships Committee, which urgently began development.

Hetherington machine

The most curious thing is that the same Churchill almost buried the future of tanks when he wanted to realize the idea of ​​​​Major Thomas Hetherington, who proposed creating a thousand-ton monster on huge wheels, fourteen meters high and armed with ship cannons. Experienced engineers explained to Minister Churchill that this colossus would be immediately shot from cannons, so the developers turned to Swinton's idea of ​​​​creating a machine based on the American Holt-Caterpillar caterpillar tractor, which had long been used in the army as a tractor.

The so-called "Swinton tank" was developed in strict secrecy, and already on September 9, 1915, a prototype called "Lincoln car number one" passed the first field tests, where a bunch of design flaws were discovered, after the elimination of which the first working prototype of the tank appeared - Little Willie, named after the developer Walter Wilson. The machine also had many shortcomings, and when it was converted to the requirements of the combat situation, Big Willie was created, which was accepted into service and sent to war under the name Mark I.

The Battle of the Somme and the debut of British tanks

What was Big Willie like? It was a thirty-ton steel box on diamond-shaped tracks, eight meters long and two and a half meters high. It did not have the rotating turret we are used to, as it was believed that it would make the tank too visible, so the armament was installed in sponsons along the sides of the vehicle.

The first English tanks were divided into "males" and "females". The "males" had two 57-mm cannons, while the "females" had only machine guns. The armor was bulletproof, up to ten millimeters. Well, the speed of the tank was simply “racing” - 6.4 km per hour on the highway.

But both sluggishness and small armor did not prevent the tanks from scaring German soldiers to death at the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916, when 32 combat vehicles attacked enemy fortifications, tearing barbed wire, rattling terribly, and shooting enemy soldiers from cannons and machine guns.

Although the disadvantages of the rapid introduction of tanks into operation immediately became clear - after all, there were initially 49 of them, but 17 broke down before the start of the battle. And out of 32 that went on the attack, 5 got stuck in a swamp, and 9 simply broke down without the participation of the enemy. Nevertheless, the debut was considered excellent, and a total of 3177 Mark tanks of various modifications were created during the war.

Tank toilet and pigeon mail

Little Willy

The first tanks were not a model of comfort. As one of the commanders of the English tank of the First World War, a former sailor, said, such a tank rocked on the move like a combat boat in a storm. Moreover, during the battle, the temperature inside rose to 50, and sometimes 70 degrees Celsius, so heat stroke and hallucinations haunted the crews at every turn. Yes, and the windows for observation were often broken, and shrapnel wounded the eyes of the tankers.

Communication was also carried out in a specific way - cages with carrier pigeons were kept in tanks for it, although the birds often died from the heat, and then infantry messengers were used, which of course was very inconvenient and dangerous.

The very name "tank" appeared due to the fact that the development of the combat vehicle was carried out in the strictest secrecy, and the equipment was transported by rail under the guise of self-propelled fuel tanks intended for the Russian army. They were even written in Cyrillic, though with the mistake “carefully Petrograa”. One of the original names for combat vehicles was "water carrier" - "water tank" or "water carrier", which fully reflected the camouflage legend. But then it turned out that the abbreviation "WC" in English corresponds to the commonly used expression "water closet" - that is, a toilet with a water flush.

No one wanted to sit in an office under such a sign and constantly fight off those who wanted to relieve themselves, and then the word "tank" (tank) appeared.

German tanks and the first oncoming tank battle

At first, the Germans did not take seriously the idea of ​​fighting with tanks, but when they realized it, they began to urgently rivet their cars. And everything would be fine, but there was just too little time and money, so the result was an extremely strange metal monster - A7V, a huge steel box, a three-meter-high wagon on tracks, seven meters long and weighing thirty tons, with 57 mm cannon sticking out of the nose, and five machine guns. There were 18 people in the crew!

The most interesting thing is that the colossus had thirty-millimeter armor and speed on the highway - as much as 12 km per hour. German soldiers nicknamed their tank "heavy camp kitchen" for its huge size, terrible heat inside and constant smoke from all the cracks.

But it was these creepy self-propelled pans that hosted the first oncoming tank engagement in history, which took place on April 24, 1918, at Villers-Bretonnet, when three German A7V tanks collided with three British heavy Mark IVs and seven Whippet light tanks.

For both sides, the battle was completely unexpected, and the British suddenly discovered that the machine gun armament of the two "females" and all the light tanks could not do anything with the German armor. Therefore, having received several holes, the "females" retreated, and the "male" - the only one who had cannon weapons - rushed into battle.

The experience and maneuverability of the English tank had already affected here, which, with a successful shot, was able to damage one German vehicle, which the crew then abandoned, and force the rest to retreat, so that, formally, the victory remained with the British.

The German tanks were not bad, but here's the problem - by the end of the war, 21 of them were made, while the British had 3177 tanks, as we wrote above. And this is not counting the tanks of France.

This is how the formidable fighting machines of our time began their journey - like funny and at the same time terrible rumbling metal boxes crawling across the battlefield at a snail's pace and communicating with each other with the help of carrier pigeons.

disgustingmen.com

History of tanks, tank building. The first tank and the creation of the concept of modern tanks

The end of the XIX - the beginning of the XX century is characterized by the rapid scientific progress of mankind. Steam locomotives and cars are actively used, they have invented an internal combustion engine and are actively trying to rise into the sky. All such inventions sooner or later become interested in the military.

History of the development of armored vehicles by country

The history of tanks of other countries

Stages of development of tank building

The steam locomotive was the first to be used. First, for the transfer of troops, and later, a cannon was installed on the railway platform, and armored shields were installed for protection. So it turned out the first armored train, which was used by the Americans in 1862 during the civil war in North America. The use of armored trains imposes its own limitations - railway tracks are needed. The military began to think about combining high firepower and mobility in a vehicle.

The next step was the booking of ordinary cars with the installation of machine-gun or light cannon weapons on them. They were to be used to break through the front line of the enemy's defenses and deliver manpower.

The main problem in the history of the development of tank building before the First World War was the lack of motivation and misunderstanding of the possibilities of using armored vehicles. Back in the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the basics of using an armored cart: “We will build closed chariots that will penetrate enemy lines and cannot be destroyed by a crowd of armed people, and infantry can follow behind them without much risk and any baggage.” In practice, no one took "expensive iron toys" seriously, as the British Minister of War once called the prototypes of tanks.

The reasons for the creation of the first tank and its purpose

Tanks received real recognition during the First World War.

The First World War was a positional war, it is characterized by a multi-layered continuous line of defense with machine guns and architectural structures. For a breakthrough, artillery preparation was used, but due to the short firing range, it could suppress, and even then rather conditionally, only the firing points of the front line. When capturing the first line, the invaders inevitably encountered the next one, to suppress which it was necessary to bring up artillery. While the attackers were engaged in artillery, the defending troops mobilized reserves and recaptured the occupied line, and they themselves began to go over to the attack. Such an unsuccessful movement could continue for quite a long time. For example. In February 1916, the Battle of Verdun, for which the Germans had been preparing for almost two months, involved more than one thousand guns. For ten months of confrontation, more than 14 million shells were used up, and the death toll on both sides exceeded one million. With all this, the Germans advanced as much as 3 kilometers deep into the French defenses.

The military clearly faced the question of the need for a vehicle that could break through the enemy’s defense lines with complete suppression of firing points or at least promptly deliver artillery to the next lines.

For obvious reasons, armored trains could not be used, and armored cars quickly showed their failure - weak armor and ineffective weapons. Strengthening armor and armament significantly increased the weight of the car, which, along with wheel suspension and weak engines, reduced the cross-country ability of armored vehicles to zero. The use of a caterpillar loader (caterpillars) helped to improve the situation somewhat. The track rollers evenly distributed the pressure on the soil, which significantly increased the patency on soft ground.

To increase firepower and maneuverability, military engineers began to experiment with the size and weight of the new combat vehicle. Tried to combine tracks with wheels. There were several rather controversial projects among them. For example. In Russia, the designer Lebedenko, and independently in England, Major Hetherington, designed a tank on three huge wheels for greater cross-country ability. The idea of ​​both designers was to simply cross the ditch with a combat vehicle, so Lebedenko proposed to create a tank with wheels with a diameter of 9 meters, and Hetherington, respectively, 12 meters. Lebedenko even created a prototype, but during the tests he ... got stuck in the first hole.

Due to the imperfection of the armored vehicles presented, the debate about the need for their development and reconciliation among the military continued until September 15, 1916. This day was a turning point in the history of tank building and warfare in general. During the Battle of the Somme, the British first used their new tanks. Of the 42 two that were available, 32 participated in the battle. During the battle, 17 of them failed for various reasons, but the remaining tanks were able to help the infantry advance 5 kilometers deep into the defense along the entire width of the offensive, while losing manpower amounted to 20 times! less than calculated. For comparison, we can recall the battle at Verbena.

World's first Mark I tank

This tank was Mark I, named, in honor of one of the creators, "Big Willie", being, in some way, the progenitor of all tanks, and also received the nickname: "Mother". The tank was a huge diamond-shaped box with tracks around the perimeter. For course firing on the sides of the tank, in sponsons, depending on the modification, machine guns or cannons were installed. The crew of the tank consisted of 8 people, it weighed 27-28 tons, and the speed was 4.5 km / h (over rough terrain 2 km / h).

Such an imperfect tank in all respects laid the foundation for mass tank building all over the world, no one doubted the need for such combat vehicles. Later A.P. Rotmistrov wrote that the British were unable to develop a tactical success into an operational one only because of the small number of tanks.

The term "tank" is translated from English as "tank" or "chan". So they began to call combat vehicles during their delivery to the front lines. For the purpose of secrecy, the tanks were transported under the guise of "self-propelled water tanks for Petrograd." On railway platforms, they really looked like large tanks. Interestingly, in Russia, before the English "tank" took root, it was translated and called - a tub. In other armies, their names were fixed - “Panzerkampfvagen” PzKpfw (armored wagon) among the Germans, among the French “ball de comba” (combat wagon), among the Swedes - “stridrvagn” (combat wagon), the Italians called it “carro d'armato" (armed wagon).

After the Mark I, tanks received a lot of attention, although the tactics and strategy for their use had not yet been developed, and the capabilities of the tanks themselves were rather mediocre. But after a very short time, the tank will become a key item on the battlefield, there will be light and heavy tanks, multi-tower clumsy giants and high-speed wedges, floating and even flying tanks.

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tanki-tut.ru

First Tank - Who invented it?

The first tanks were based on the design of the Englishman John Cowan, who in 1855 received a patent for an armored car with a steam engine that looked like a turtle. For military operations, this structure I was poorly adapted. Everything changed with the advent of the internal combustion engine. The prototype of a modern tank with all-wheel drive, a rotating turret and a built-in machine gun was created in 1906 at the Vienna factory "Austro-Daimler". The military authorities did not agree to adopt it, since the armored bulk could only move on paved roads. Then the Austrian Ponter Burshtyn designed a small fighting vehicle capable of moving quickly on caterpillars - closed bands of hinged metal links; tapes were worn on the sides of the car on two wheels. But the General Staff refused this development.

Combat test in world war

The first battle tanks were used by the British at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

The design of the motorized, iron-clad machine dates back to a design by Ernest Swinton. The tank weighed 27 tons, and its speed was focused on infantry escort. He was able to protect against massive shelling and crush enemy positions. Although engine building for heavy vehicles was still in its infancy, and caterpillars were made after the model of American tractors, British infantry tanks broke through difficult sections of the front. However, they did not play a decisive role in the First World War.

• 3000 BC: Sumerians construct a four-wheeled war chariot that crushes the enemy.
• 1482: Leonardo da Vinci invented a closed fighting machine that was driven by a crankshaft.
• 1934: The German Wehrmacht begins production of the Panzer 1 tank.
• 1940: The production of the T-34 tank began in the Soviet Union.
• 1944: The Allies used amphibious tanks in the Normandy landings.

mjjm.ru

birthday machine of death « Encyclopedia of safety

Everyone who entered the dark metal box for the first time was sure to hit his head on the ceiling. It was then that the tightness in the tanks became the talk of the town, but here everything was new. Even this kind of "combat" baptism, which did not pass a single infantryman, sapper, signalman, sent for retraining. Exactly 100 years ago, at the Battle of the Somme, tanks crawled through the funnels and trenches for the first time. Thus a new type of war was born.

A tank is an armored vehicle with weapons, and by the first quarter of the 20th century, when the tank was born, there was nothing fundamentally innovative in this vehicle. The benefits of having a well-defended combat unit on the battlefield, whether it be the Roman "tortoise" or the armored heavy cavalry of the medieval West, were appreciated even in pre-industrial times. The first car, Cugno's steam cart, was built before the French Revolution. So, theoretically, a certain prototype of the tank could also participate in the Napoleonic wars. However, by that time everyone had long forgotten about shields and armor, and the cart crawling slower than a pedestrian could not be compared with the swiftness of the cavalry.

machine gun argument

When, after a peace that lasted half a century in Western Europe, a big war suddenly broke out, many at first did not understand that a terrible massacre was coming, not much like the battles of the times of Austerlitz and Waterloo. But something happened that had never happened before: on the Western Front, the warring parties, unsuccessfully trying to outflank each other, built a continuous front line from Switzerland to the North Sea. In mid-1915, the British and French on one side and the Germans on the other entered a hopeless positional clinch. Any attempts to break through the echeloned defenses buried in the ground, hidden in pillboxes, fenced with barbed wire, forced the attackers to wash themselves with blood. Before sending the infantry into the attack, foreign trenches, of course, were diligently treated with artillery, but no matter how dense and crushing its fire was, it was enough for a couple of machine guns to survive so that they successfully brought down the chains of the attackers to the ground. The infantry in the offensive clearly needed serious fire support, it was necessary to quickly identify and suppress these machine guns spitting death. Then it was time for the tank.

Those who would like to feel like the first tankers and immerse themselves in the history of tank building,
will be able to do this in the game World of Tanks, when a special mode with the legendary Mark IV is opened in September.

It cannot be said that nothing was done in this sense before the appearance of the tank on the battlefield. For example, they tried to arm and armor cars. But even if the low-powered vehicles of those times could withstand the weight of armor and weapons, it was extremely difficult for them to move off-road. But the "no-man's land" between the first rows of trenches was not specially prepared for vehicular traffic by anyone, and besides, it was quite pitted with explosions of shells and mines. We had to work on patency.

In the 19th century, several British and Russian inventors, in particular Dmitry Zagryazhsky and Fyodor Blinov, offered their designs for a caterpillar mover. However, the ideas of the Europeans were brought to commercial implementation on the other side of the Atlantic. One of the pioneers of American tracked vehicles was the company of Benjamin Holt, which in the future renamed itself Caterpillar.

Churchill came up with this...

Holt tractors were by the beginning of the war something unusual in Europe. They were actively used as tractors for artillery pieces, in particular, in the British army. The idea to turn a Holt tractor into an armored vehicle on the battlefield came as early as 1914 to Major Ernest Dunlop Swinton, one of the most zealous supporters of what would be called a "tank" in the future. By the way, the word "tank" (English "tank") was coined as the code name for the new machine in order to mislead the enemy. Its official name at the time of the launch of the project was Landship - that is, "land ship". It happened so because Swinton's idea was rejected by the general army leadership, but the first Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, decided to act at his own peril and risk and take the project under the wing of the fleet. In February 1915, Churchill created the Land Ships Committee, which developed the terms of reference for an armored fighting vehicle. The future tank had to reach speeds of up to 6 km / h, overcome pits and ditches at least 2.4 m wide, climb parapets up to 1.5 m high. Machine guns and light artillery pieces were offered as weapons.

Overview for the commander and driver
opened through slots protected by two steel plates.

Interestingly, the idea of ​​using the chassis from the Holt tractor was abandoned as a result. French and German designers built their first tanks on this platform. The British, on the other hand, gave the development of the tank to a company from William Fosters & Co. Ltd., which had experience in creating tracked agricultural equipment. The work was carried out under the guidance of the chief engineer of the company, William Tritton, and a mechanical engineer attached to the military department, Lieutenant Walter Wilson. They decided to use an extended track chassis from another American tractor, the Bullock. True, the tracks had to be seriously strengthened, making them completely metal. A box-shaped metal case was placed on the tracks, and it was supposed to raise a cylindrical tower on it. But the idea did not pass: the tower shifted the center of gravity upwards, which threatened to overturn. An axle with a pair of wheels was attached to the caterpillar platform at the back - a legacy inherited from civilian tractors. If necessary, the wheels were hydraulically pressed against the ground, lengthening the base when passing bumps. The entire structure was pulled by a 105-horsepower Foster-Daimler engine. The prototype Lincoln 1, or Little Willie, was an important step in the design of the tank, but left some questions unanswered. Firstly, if there is no tower, where to put weapons? Recall that the first British tank was developed under the supervision of the fleet, and ... a purely naval solution was found. They decided to place the weapons in sponsors. This is a nautical term, meaning the structural elements of the ship that protrude to the side, in which the armament is located. Secondly, even with the extended chassis from Bullock, the prototype did not fit into the given parameters for passing bumps. Then Wilson came up with an idea that later turned out to be a dead end, but this time it determined the British priority in tank building. Let the body of the combat vehicle become diamond-shaped, and the tracks will rotate around the entire perimeter of the diamond! Such a scheme allowed the car to roll over obstacles, as it were. On the basis of new ideas, a second car was built - Big Willie, nicknamed Mother (English "mother"). This was the prototype of the world's first Mark I tank, which was adopted by the British army. The “mother”, as expected, gave birth to heterosexual offspring: the “male” tank was armed with two 57-mm naval guns (and again naval influence!), As well as three 8-mm machine guns - all weapons of the Hotchkiss company. There were no cannons on the "female", and the machine gun armament consisted of three 8-mm Vickers and one Hotchkiss.

The first tank incorporated a number of solutions,
borrowed from the navy. It was equipped with a wooden "deck" and sponsons to accommodate the guns. Actually, the official name of the MK1 tank was Landship - “land ship”

The torments of the first tankers

“The chassis and power plant of the Mark I tank,” says Wargaming’s historical consultant Fedor Gorbachev, “allowed it to move around the battlefield off-road, overcome wire fences and trenches up to 2.7 m wide - these tanks favorably differed from their modern armored vehicles. On the other hand, their speed did not exceed 7 km / h, the lack of suspension and damping means made them a rather unstable artillery platform and complicated the work of the crew. According to the Tanks Driver's Handbook, there were four ways to turn the tank, while the most common and gentle to the mechanisms required the participation of four crew members in this process, which affected the vehicle's maneuverability in a bad way. The armor provided protection against handguns and fragments, but was penetrated by armor-piercing bullets "K" (massively used by the Germans since the summer of 1917) and artillery.

The world's first tank, of course, was not a model of technical excellence. It was created in an unrealistically short time frame. Work on a hitherto unknown combat vehicle began in 1915, and already on September 15, 1916, tanks were first used in combat. True, Mark I still had to be delivered to the battlefield. The tank did not fit into the railway dimensions - the "cheeks" -sponsons interfered. They, each weighing 3 tons, were transported separately on trucks. The first tankers recalled how on the eve of the battle they had to spend sleepless nights bolting sponsons to combat vehicles. The problem of removable sponsons was solved only in the Mark IV modification, where they were pushed into the hull. The crew of the tank consisted of eight (rarely nine) people, and there was not enough space inside for such a large crew. In front of the cab there were two chairs - the commander and the driver; two narrow passages led from them to the stern, bypassing the casing that covered the engine. The walls of the cabin were used as cabinets, where ammunition, spare parts, tools, supplies of drink and food were stored.

The Germans ran

“In the first battle - at Flers-Courcelette - Mark I tanks achieved limited success and could not break through the front, but the effect they had on the fighting sides was significant,” says Fedor Gorbachev. - The British in one day on September 15 advanced deep into the enemy defenses by 5 km, and with losses 20 times less than usual. In German positions, cases of unauthorized abandonment of trenches and escape to the rear were recorded. On 19 September, the commander-in-chief of British forces in France, Sir Douglas Haig, asked London for more than 1,000 tanks. Undoubtedly, the tank justified the hopes of its creators, despite the fact that it was quickly forced out of combat units by the heirs and was later used for crew training and in secondary theaters of military operations.

It cannot be said that it was the tanks that changed the course of the First World War and tipped the scales in favor of the Entente, but they should not be underestimated either. Already in the Amiens operation of 1918, which led to the breakthrough of the German defense and, in fact, to the imminent end of the war, hundreds of British Mark V tanks and more advanced modifications participated. This battle was the harbinger of the great tank battles of World War II. British diamond-shaped "Stamps" fought in our country during the civil war. There was even a legend about the participation of the Mark V in the Battle of Berlin, but later it turned out that the Mark V discovered in Berlin was stolen by the Nazis and taken to Germany from Smolensk, where it served as a memorial in memory of the civil war.

The tank did not make a radical change in the fighting
First World War, but turned out to be a serious support for the advancing infantry in a positional crisis.

Time is inexorable in everything, erasing memory if people forget about something significant in their history. It is good that the veterans of the Great Patriotic War, approaching the centenary, and the T-34 tank, leading the parade of military equipment on Victory Day, remind us of the last terrible war. Such combat vehicles, which have traveled thousands of kilometers of front-line roads in Russia and Europe, stand on pedestals in many cities of the country. Looking at them, questions often arise: a tank in the world, who are its creators?

This is how you can briefly characterize the general idea from viewing photographs depicting the first tanks created at the beginning of the 20th century:

If we add to this that the speed of these first combat vehicles ranged from 2 to 8 km / h, and the armament consisted of 1 - 3 machine guns per armored "wagon", then the picture becomes even more complete. It seems, why were such unsuccessful designs used in hostilities? The answer to this is simple:

• Even experienced soldiers, seeing the rumbling metal boxes for the first time, fell into a panic.
• The imperfect armor of the first tanks easily withstood bullets from enemy rifles and machine guns, and the artillery was not ready to fight them, due to the lack of direct fire skills.
• The main obstacles for the infantry, built during the trench war in 1916-1917 (barbed wire fences, trenches with machine-gun nests), the tanks overcame without much difficulty, breaking through the long-term defense of the enemy, while the losses of the advancing troops decreased many times over.

The advantages of using new military equipment prevailed, so the opposing countries, with varying degrees of success, designed, produced and used the first tanks.

Germany, Russia and other Entente

The first two countries, both in the First and Second Great Wars, suffered huge losses. Dividends were received by others - merchants from across the ocean, gentlemen from foggy Albion pitting everyone, the French, who are good at staying on the sidelines.

Exhausted in the first years of the war, Germany and Russia could not afford to invest huge amounts of money, the capacities of metallurgical, machine-building, weapons factories, engineering, labor resources into the production of new military equipment that had not yet been sufficiently tested on the battlefield. Therefore, the matter did not move further than the development of a set of drawings, the assembly of prototypes:

Things were quite different for Russia's "faithful" allies in the Entente:

In total, during the years of the First World War, these states produced almost 7 thousand tanks of all types:

• England - 2905 pcs.
• France - 3997 pcs.

Although the very first tank in the world was created in England, the French Renault FT-17 turned out to be the most successfully designed, close to the modern concept of a combat vehicle. This is confirmed by the fact that its modifications were subsequently made in many countries, including the Soviet one, and the last cases of use in hostilities date back to 1945.

Everyone who entered the dark metal box for the first time was sure to hit his head on the ceiling. It was then that the tightness in the tanks became the talk of the town, but here everything was new. Even this kind of "combat" baptism, which did not pass a single infantryman, sapper, signalman, sent for retraining. Exactly 100 years ago, at the Battle of the Somme, tanks crawled through the funnels and trenches for the first time. Thus a new type of war was born.

A tank is an armored vehicle with weapons, and by the first quarter of the 20th century, when the tank was born, there was nothing fundamentally innovative in this vehicle. The benefits of having a well-defended combat unit on the battlefield, whether it be the Roman "tortoise" or the armored heavy cavalry of the medieval West, were appreciated even in pre-industrial times. The first car, Cugno's steam cart, was built before the French Revolution. So, theoretically, a certain prototype of the tank could also participate in the Napoleonic wars. However, by that time everyone had long forgotten about shields and armor, and the cart crawling slower than a pedestrian could not be compared with the swiftness of the cavalry.

machine gun argument

When, after a peace that lasted half a century in Western Europe, a big war suddenly broke out, many at first did not understand that a terrible massacre was coming, not much like the battles of the times of Austerlitz and Waterloo. But something happened that had never happened before: on the Western Front, the warring parties, unsuccessfully trying to outflank each other, built a continuous front line from Switzerland to the North Sea. In mid-1915, the British and French on one side and the Germans on the other entered a hopeless positional clinch. Any attempts to break through the echeloned defenses buried in the ground, hidden in pillboxes, fenced with barbed wire, forced the attackers to wash themselves with blood. Before sending the infantry into the attack, foreign trenches, of course, were diligently treated with artillery, but no matter how dense and crushing its fire was, it was enough for a couple of machine guns to survive so that they successfully brought down the chains of the attackers to the ground. The infantry in the offensive clearly needed serious fire support, it was necessary to quickly identify and suppress these machine guns spitting death. Then it was time for the tank.

Those who would like to feel like the first tankers and immerse themselves in tank building,
will be able to do this in the game World of Tanks, when a special mode with the legendary Mark IV is opened in September.

It cannot be said that nothing was done in this sense before the appearance of the tank on the battlefield. For example, they tried to arm and armor cars. But even if the low-powered vehicles of those times could withstand the weight of armor and weapons, it was extremely difficult for them to move off-road. But the "no-man's land" between the first rows of trenches was not specially prepared for vehicular traffic by anyone, and besides, it was quite pitted with explosions of shells and mines. We had to work on patency.

In the 19th century, several British and Russian inventors, in particular Dmitry Zagryazhsky and Fyodor Blinov, offered their designs for a caterpillar mover. However, the ideas of the Europeans were brought to commercial implementation on the other side of the Atlantic. One of the pioneers of American tracked vehicles was the company of Benjamin Holt, which in the future renamed itself Caterpillar.

Churchill came up with this...

Holt tractors were by the beginning of the war something unusual in Europe. They were actively used as tractors for artillery pieces, in particular, in the British army. The idea to turn a Holt tractor into an armored vehicle on the battlefield came as early as 1914 to Major Ernest Dunlop Swinton, one of the most zealous supporters of what would be called a "tank" in the future. By the way, the word "tank" (English "tank") was coined as the code name for the new machine in order to mislead the enemy. Its official name at the time of the launch of the project was Landship - that is, "land ship". It happened so because Swinton's idea was rejected by the general army leadership, but the first Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, decided to act at his own peril and risk and take the project under the wing of the fleet. In February 1915, Churchill created the Land Ships Committee, which developed the terms of reference for an armored fighting vehicle. The future tank had to reach speeds of up to 6 km / h, overcome pits and ditches at least 2.4 m wide, climb parapets up to 1.5 m high. Machine guns and light artillery pieces were offered as weapons.

Overview for the commander and driver
opened through slots protected by two steel plates.

Interestingly, the idea of ​​using the chassis from the Holt tractor was abandoned as a result. French and German designers built their first tanks on this platform. The British, on the other hand, gave the development of the tank to a company from William Fosters & Co. Ltd., which had experience in creating tracked agricultural equipment. The work was carried out under the guidance of the chief engineer of the company, William Tritton, and a mechanical engineer attached to the military department, Lieutenant Walter Wilson. They decided to use an extended track chassis from another American tractor, the Bullock. True, the tracks had to be seriously strengthened, making them completely metal. A box-shaped metal case was placed on the tracks, and it was supposed to raise a cylindrical tower on it. But the idea did not pass: the tower shifted the center of gravity upwards, which threatened to overturn. An axle with a pair of wheels was attached to the caterpillar platform at the back - a legacy inherited from civilian tractors. If necessary, the wheels were hydraulically pressed against the ground, lengthening the base when passing bumps. The entire structure was pulled by a 105-horsepower Foster-Daimler engine. The prototype Lincoln 1, or Little Willie, was an important step in the design of the tank, but left some questions unanswered. Firstly, if there is no tower, where to put weapons? Recall that the first British tank was developed under the supervision of the fleet, and ... a purely naval solution was found. decided to place in sponsors. This is a nautical term, meaning the structural elements of the ship that protrude to the side, in which the armament is located. Secondly, even with the extended chassis from Bullock, the prototype did not fit into the given parameters for passing bumps. Then Wilson came up with an idea that later turned out to be a dead end, but this time it determined the British priority in tank building. Let the body of the combat vehicle become diamond-shaped, and the tracks will rotate around the entire perimeter of the diamond! Such a scheme allowed the car to roll over obstacles, as it were. On the basis of new ideas, a second car was built - Big Willie, nicknamed Mother (English "mother"). This was the prototype of the world's first Mark I tank, which was adopted by the British army. The “mother”, as expected, gave birth to heterosexual offspring: the “male” tank was armed with two 57-mm naval guns (and again naval influence!), As well as three 8-mm machine guns - all weapons of the Hotchkiss company. There were no cannons on the "female", and the machine gun armament consisted of three 8-mm Vickers and one Hotchkiss.

The first tank incorporated a number of solutions,
borrowed from the navy. It was equipped with a wooden "deck" and sponsons to accommodate the guns. Actually, the official name of the MK1 tank was Landship - “land ship”

The torments of the first tankers

“The chassis and power plant of the Mark I tank,” says Wargaming’s historical consultant Fedor Gorbachev, “allowed it to move around the battlefield off-road, overcome wire fences and trenches up to 2.7 m wide - these tanks favorably differed from their modern armored vehicles. On the other hand, their speed did not exceed 7 km / h, the lack of suspension and damping means made them a rather unstable artillery platform and complicated the work of the crew. According to the Tanks Driver's Handbook, there were four ways to turn the tank, while the most common and gentle to the mechanisms required the participation of four crew members in this process, which affected the vehicle's maneuverability in a bad way. The armor provided protection against handguns and fragments, but was penetrated by armor-piercing bullets "K" (massively used by the Germans since the summer of 1917) and artillery.

The world's first tank, of course, was not a model of technical excellence. It was created in an unrealistically short time frame. Work on a hitherto unknown combat vehicle began in 1915, and already on September 15, 1916, tanks were first used in combat. True, Mark I still had to be delivered to the battlefield. The tank did not fit into the railway dimensions - the "cheeks" -sponsons interfered. They, each weighing 3 tons, were transported separately by trucks. The first tankers recalled how on the eve of the battle they had to spend sleepless nights bolting sponsons to combat vehicles. The problem of removable sponsons was solved only in the Mark IV modification, where they were pushed inside the hull.The crew of the tank consisted of eight (rarely nine) people, and there was not enough space inside for such a large crew.In front of the cab there were two chairs - the commander and the driver; two narrow passages led to the stern, bypassing the casing that covered the engine.The walls of the cabin were used for lockers where ammunition, spare parts, tools, supplies of drink and food were stored.

The Germans ran

“In the first battle - at Flers-Courcelette - Mark I tanks achieved limited success and could not break through the front, but the effect they had on the fighting sides was significant,” says Fedor Gorbachev. - The British in one day on September 15 advanced deep into the enemy defenses by 5 km, and with losses 20 times less than usual. In German positions, cases of unauthorized abandonment of trenches and escape to the rear were recorded. On 19 September, the commander-in-chief of British forces in France, Sir Douglas Haig, asked London for more than 1,000 tanks. Undoubtedly, the tank justified the hopes of its creators, despite the fact that it was quickly forced out of combat units by the heirs and was later used for crew training and in secondary theaters of military operations.

It cannot be said that it was the tanks that changed the course of the First World War and tipped the scales in favor of the Entente, but they should not be underestimated either. Already in the Amiens operation of 1918, which led to the breakthrough of the German defense and, in fact, to the imminent end of the war, hundreds of British Mark V tanks and more advanced modifications participated. This battle was the harbinger of the great tank battles of World War II. British diamond-shaped "Stamps" fought in our country during the civil war. There was even a legend about the participation of the Mark V in the Battle of Berlin, but later it turned out that the Mark V discovered in Berlin was stolen by the Nazis and taken to Germany from Smolensk, where it served as a memorial in memory of the civil war.

The tank did not make a radical change in the fighting
First World War, but turned out to be a serious support for the advancing infantry in a positional crisis.