1. THE HISTORY OF TANK WARFARE 5 Armored fighting vehicles are a relatively recent development of military capability. Superceding the horse cavalry shortly after the First World War, new theories on armored warfare slowly displaced the age-old concepts of infantry and cavalry driven offensive battle by the eve of the Second World War. <strong>The</strong> history of armored warfare, like any other technological advancements designed for the military, have suffered at the hands of politicians, languished on the books of economists and been compromised by the higher echelons of command. Fortunately, for the armor theorists, their ideas were eventually proven sound and the tank took its place as a major battlefield component, forging the way for maneuver warfare and the further development of combined arms theory.
WORLD WAR I 6 Although the tank first came into use during the First World War, the basic principles of armored warfare had been used for hundreds, even thousands, of years. <strong>The</strong> notion of a heavily armed and armored mobile force which could strike deep into enemy territory was first embodied by the heavy cavalry and chariot units of ancient times, as well as by the infantry tactic known as the “tortoise” which was used to assault fortified installations. However the need for a self-propelled armored vehicle was recognized much earlier in history. <strong>The</strong> Spanish used horse-towed sleds with small cannons mounted on them to provide close artillery support for their troops in the field. <strong>The</strong> famous inventor and artist Leonardo de Vinci recognized the need for a heavily armored and mobile engine of war and drew up plans accordingly. In World War I, the need became apparent for a vehicle that could resist the machinegun, a weapon that had completely dominated the fleshand-blood battlefield of man and horse. At first, the use of simple armored cars was common, however, it was soon obvious that these vehicles, based on the limited suspensions of the current automobile and truck, were impractical on a battlefield which was covered with bomb craters, trenches, and barbed wire. A new solution was needed and, thanks to the invention of the caterpillar track, the tank was born. <strong>The</strong> First <strong>Tank</strong>s. <strong>The</strong> British were the first to recognize the need for an armored vehicle capable of traversing the battlefield. <strong>The</strong>ir first design, ordered by Winston Churchill (then First Lord of the Admiralty), called the No. 1 Lincoln machine, was built in 1915 and subsequently modified through the addition of superior tracks to become the ‘Little Willie’. This vehicle could easily cross a five-foot (1.52 m) trench and climb up a four-and-a-half foot (1.37 m) obstacle. For performance and armament, it had a top speed of 3.5 MPH (5.6 km/h), light armor, and fittings for a 40mm gun in a small turret. This early design was superceded by Big Willie, a now-familiar design utilizing the rhomboidal-shaped chassis and tread system with guns mounted on the hull sides instead of in a turret. <strong>The</strong> frontal armor was only 10mm thick, with a crew of eight men, a top speed of 4 MPH (6.4 km/h), two 57mm guns in hull sponsons, and four pivoting machineguns. This basic vehicle was tested in early 1916 and ordered into production in two versions; the “male” version, mounting the twin 57mm guns, and the “female” version which replaced the two cannons with two more machineguns. Although used mainly for local testing, the British armies first major use of tanks in combat took place on November 20, 1917, at the Battle of Cambrai, where the British used 400 tanks to penetrate almost ten kilometers into German lines. <strong>The</strong> German Army had their own tank in development, the A7V, which had a maximum of 30mm of armor, a 57mm gun in the hull front, six machineguns, and a crew of 18 men. <strong>The</strong> A7V was unwieldy, with generally poor performance, and a requirement for an enormous crew of 18 men. As a result, less than 35 were actually produced. <strong>The</strong> French, also seeing the need for such a vehicle early in the war, had produced several heavy tank designs and one exceptional light tank design, the Renault FT-17. This tank, along with the British Mk.VI, a late-war version of the Big Willie, was adopted by the US Expeditionary Forces, which did not come up with an indigenous design until after the war ended in 1918. <strong>The</strong> FT-17 was the first “modern-style” tank design, mounted with a 37mm gun in a small, one-man turret, with the hull suspended between low tracks, and the engine situated in a rear compartment. <strong>The</strong> crew consisted of a muchoverworked commander/gunner/loader and a driver. Italy had also produced an improved version of this vehicle known as the Fiat Tipo 3000 Modello 1921, which did not enter service until after the war.
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