Tank Development and Its Impact on Warfare, 1776–1918

The development in warfare that had a profound impact on the conduct of war between 1776 and 1918 — and that was most important to the evolution of warfare — was, in the opinion of this writer, the armored tank. Granted, the very first tank, "Little Willie," was commissioned by the British in 1915 and was not put into use until the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916; and, granted, the tank did not have a "profound impact" on WWI itself. But the tank's emergence in 1916 did indeed have a profound impact on the evolution of warfare into the 20th and 21st centuries. The tank excellently fits the description of a pivotal development in the field artillery theater of warfare.

The development of the tank was truly a watershed in military history. This paper will therefore examine the development of the tank, as well as the apparent short-sightedness of the United States military in terms of producing enough tanks to meet the challenges posed by the Germans. Most Americans today, when they think of tanks, think of the WWII-vintage models that featured so prominently in films such as Saving Private Ryan. For younger Americans, images of the newest generation of tanks — captured by embedded reporters racing across the southern Iraqi desert at the start of the U.S. invasion — are equally familiar. Tanks are very much a part of the American public's perception of warfare, just as they are central to the experience of soldiers in the field.

Looking back at the Civil War, in which the young American nation shed the institution of slavery at the cost of approximately 620,000 lives on both sides, the only weapon that came close to what we now know as the tank was the sea-going U.S.S. Merrimack. Later rechristened the U.S.S. Virginia, she was known as the first "ironclad" — a revolutionary concept at the time — though the Civil War was ultimately won on battlefields, not at sea, and not by iron-plated attack vehicles.

Nearly forty years after the Civil War, the very first "drawing board" version of what we now call a tank was the brainchild of E.J. Pennington, who in 1896 (Paesani, 1998) conceived and designed an "oval-shaped vehicle with four wheels hidden by metal plates and two hull-mounted machine guns." Though the project never came to fruition, it demonstrated that military innovation was very much on the minds of designers whose countries needed defending.

Next in the lineage of tank development (Paesani, 1998) was F.R. Simms' 1898 armored vehicle, which mounted a "Maxim machine gun" on a motorized "De Dion-Bouton quadricycle" — reportedly the first gasoline-powered armed vehicle in history. Also in 1898, Major R.P. Davidson designed an armor-protected tricycle fitted with a Colt machine gun. In 1902, F.R. Simms assembled a steel-plated, boat-shaped vehicle with two Maxim machine guns that — for the first time in military history — rotated 360 degrees on turrets.

In 1902, a semi-armored car called the Automitrailleuse appeared at the Paris Car Exhibition but never progressed beyond the prototype stage. In 1904, R.P. Davidson created a steam-engine vehicle with an armor-plated machine gun mounted on the front, and in 1909, the Hotchkiss firm built four "protected" cars for the Turkish Sultan, each with a rear-facing machine gun.

Six years after that crude Hotchkiss-built vehicle, the British — not the Americans — recognized the need for, designed, and built the first motorized armored fighting vehicle. In February 1915, the British established the Landship Committee to investigate designing a "massive troop transporter." The requirements they established called for an armored vehicle capable of traveling at 4 MPH, climbing a 5-foot-high parapet, crossing an 8-foot-wide trench, and being armed with machine guns and cannons.

Early in 1916, "Little Willie" was ready for trial runs. This was a 14-ton armored vehicle with a ten-foot-high armored box powered by a 105 HP Daimler engine. The rotating turret concept, proposed in earlier designs, was abandoned due to weight considerations. Instead, 57 mm guns were installed, the vehicle was increased to 30 tons, and on February 12, 1916, the British government ordered 100 "Big Willie" vehicles.

By August 30, fifty "Big Willie" tanks had been delivered to France. Each carried a crew of eight soldiers, "four of whom were needed to handle the steering, by differential braking." These vehicles could travel at 4 MPH — matching the pace of infantry on the march — and represented a genuine leap forward in armored warfare technology.

The first use of tanks in actual battlefield conditions was on September 15, 1916, during WWI, when 49 British Mk.1 ("Big Willie") tanks were deployed at the Battle of the Somme. Most of the machines broke down, however, and of the forty-nine tanks shipped, only thirty-two actually participated in the first attack. In short, they accomplished relatively little — though they served as field artillery pathfinders for later, more effective models.

Why did these new field artillery weapons fail? Many observers felt that British Commander Field Marshal Douglas Haig, himself a horse cavalryman, did not appreciate the potential of tanks. Meanwhile, the first French tank offensive — at Nivelle on April 16, 1917 — "was a major failure." The Schneider and St. Chamond tanks lacked the capability to cross trenches and were "torn to pieces by concentrated German artillery fire."

Nevertheless, tanks achieved notable success at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, with the British Mark IV. The very first tank-versus-tank battle took place on April 24, 1918, in a skirmish between three German A7Vs and three British Mk.IVs at Villers-Bretonneux, France — a landmark moment in the history of armored warfare.