The Porokhovshchikov tank can be considered not only the first Russian tank, but also the first tank in general, since its idea arose and was implemented earlier than in other countries. In addition, Porohovshchikov largely anticipated the development of tanks in the future. And if we started the history of the tank from the English car, and not from the Porokhovshchikov tank, it is only because his tank was not used in the Russian army. Porokhovshchikov's tank was forgotten, and it was remembered only many years later, when tanks were already widely used in all armies.

At the very beginning of the First World War, in August 1914, the master of the Russian-Baltic Machine-Building Plant in Riga, Porohovshchikov, turned to the headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Russian Army with a proposal for an original project for a high-speed combat tracked vehicle for off-road driving. Then he turned to the Special Committee for the Strengthening of the Fleet, promising to create an all-terrain tracked armored vehicle. Porohovshchikov did not provide any significant documents then, and only on January 9, 1915, after long delays at a reception at the head of supplies of the North-Western Front, General Danilov, the inventor already had ready-made drawings and an estimate for the construction of a combat vehicle called the All-terrain vehicle.

Apparently, Porohovshchikov's preliminary calculations pleased the top military leadership: in addition to high cross-country ability, Porohovshchikov also promised the buoyancy of the machine. The project was approved - permission for the construction of the ATV was received on January 13, 1915, 9660 rubles 72 kopecks were allocated, and the design data were specified in a special report No. -Cosello. On February 1, in the Riga car repair shops of the Russo-Balt plant, which were located at the barracks of the Nizhny Novgorod Infantry Regiment, 25 artisan soldiers and the same number of skilled workers began to manufacture a prototype of the world's first tank, developed by the famous pilot and designer Alexander Aleksandrovich Porokhovshchikov.

The design of the ATV was unusual. The welded frame rested on one wide caterpillar made of rubberized fabric, stretched on four drums, and the front drum was noticeably raised above the supporting surface. The fifth drum pressed the caterpillar from above. The rear drum was leading, rotation was transmitted to it through a gearbox and a cardan shaft from a 10 hp carburetor engine. The specific pressure on the ground should have been only about 0.05 kg / sq. cm. On the sides of the caterpillar were placed two columns with small wheels, which the driver controlled using the steering wheel - in this way the entire hull was turned.

The car was equipped with a streamlined body with an air intake niche in front. Interestingly, the armor of the ATV was multi-layered: it consisted of a front cemented 2 mm steel sheet, a shock-absorbing pad of hair and algae, and another steel sheet with a total thickness of 8 mm.
The design of this tank already provided for all the main elements of modern combat vehicles - an armored hull, weapons in a rotating turret, an internal combustion engine, a caterpillar mover. The car was equipped with a streamlined body with an air intake niche in front. On a good road, the ATV had to move on the rear drum and wheels, and on loose soil lie down on the caterpillar. Such a scheme, with relative simplicity, had one global drawback - in fact, the ATV could only move in a straight line, since turning the steering wheels to the left and right could lead to their complete breakdown.

The supporting structure of the tank was a welded frame with four hollow rotating drums, around which one wide track was rewound. The belt tension was adjusted using a tensioner and a tension drum. The machine was controlled using two swivel steering wheels placed at the sides. In Porokhovshchikov's tank, side clutches were used for the first time to turn - mechanisms that later began to be installed on most tanks; on some machines, they have survived to this day.
When moving on hard ground, the tank relied on these wheels and on the drive drum, and on soft ground it “lay down” on the track. The length of the car was 3.6 meters, width - 2 meters, height (without turret) - 1.5 meters, the final weight was assumed to be 3.5-4.0 tons, crew - 1 person, machine gun armament, bulletproof armor. A 15 kW engine, a planetary transmission, a combined wheel-caterpillar mover (one caterpillar and two steered wheels) ensured a maximum speed of 25 km/h.

On May 18, 1915, Porohovshchikov tested his car on a track on a good road, the transition to wheels was not made. When tested, its speed reached 25 km / h (neither the English nor the French first tanks had such a speed). After minor modifications, we decided to hold an official demonstration of the all-terrain vehicle, which took place on July 20, 1915
Later, Porohovshchikov improved his car, making it wheel-tracked: on the roads, the car moved on wheels and the rear drum of the caterpillar, when an obstacle was encountered in its path - the ATV lay down on the caterpillar and “crawled” over it. This was several years ahead of the tank building of that time. Porohovshchikov made the hull of the tank waterproof, as a result of which he could easily overcome water obstacles.
Then (in the spring of 1915) Porokhovshchikov offered armor own design: "The armor is a combination of elastic and rigid layers of metal and special viscous and elastic gaskets." Boiler iron was annealed "according to the method that constitutes the inventor's secret", and as a gasket "after a huge number of experiments" he chose dried and pressed sea grass. The author especially emphasized the low cost of "iron armor", the ability to bend and cook it.
In 1916, he conducted tests in Petrograd - on December 29, 1916, he reached a speed of 40 miles per hour, which was an exceptionally high figure.
The most interesting development of Porokhovshchikov was the shape of the hull and the design of the armor: it was made multi-layered. However, in the winter of 1916, the military stopped funding the work. And tanks with spaced multilayer armor appeared only in the early 70s of the XX century ... There is also a version that Porohovshchikov's drawings were used by British engineers for their developments.
The experimental machine, intermittently, continued to be tested until December 1915, after which a corresponding report was sent to Lieutenant General Kovalenko. In particular, it was stated that “the built copy of the ATV did not show all the qualities that are due to report No. 8101, for example, it could not walk on loose snow about 1 foot (30 cm) deep, and no water test was done ... "
Meanwhile, Porokhovshchikov's car was not considered combat, due to the lack of armor and weapons on it, and in the documents it appeared as a "self-propelled" - that is, a car. According to the designer himself, the first sample of the "Russian tank" he created did indeed have a number of shortcomings, but all of them were reasons for abandoning the project. In his opinion, much better results could have been achieved if the ATV had a larger distance between the drums, a more powerful engine and a grooved track.
They decided to abandon further work on the Vezdekhod, especially since 18,090 rubles had been spent during this time. The military department ordered Porokhovshchikov to return to the treasury the money allocated for the construction of the machine, and send the ATV itself to the GVTU.

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 a cart crawling slower than a pedestrian could not compare with the swiftness of the cavalry.

machine gun argument

When, after a peace that lasted for Western Europe half a century, a big war suddenly broke out, many at first did not understand that a terrible massacre was coming, little 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 to 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,
can do it in 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.

Several British and Russian inventors, in particular Dmitry Zagryazhsky and Fyodor Blinov, proposed their designs for a caterpillar mover in the 19th century. 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. as tractors for artillery pieces they were actively used, in particular, in the British army. The idea to turn the 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 "tanks" in the future. By the way, the word "tank" (English "tank") was coined as a code name new car 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 the armored combat 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, official name tank MK1 was Landship - "land ship"

The torments of the first tankers

"chassis and power point The Mark I tank, - says the historical consultant of Wargaming Fedor Gorbachev, - made it possible 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 on 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 manual firearms 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 cockpit were used for 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 the 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 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.

October 25, 2013

Self-propelled armored van

It is impossible to imagine a modern army without tanks. They are the main force 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 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 huge losses managed 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 a good cover from fire small arms and machine guns. 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.

After few years tank forces celebrate their centenary. The appearance of an armored combat vehicle has changed unrecognizably. But the main requirements are the same - these are speed, maneuverability, security and firepower.

Little Willie (Mk. I) - the first tank in the World.

After the first mobile battles of 1914, the fronts stabilized, and what military historians called the "positional stalemate" ensued. Machine guns, barbed wire, heavy artillery fire brought terrible losses to the advancing troops. Instead of breaking through the enemy front, its “gnawing” began, when for some 100-200 meters of territory taken from the enemy, thousands, tens of thousands of soldiers had to be lost. The troops dug into the ground, and the commanders began to look for a means that would help break the impasse. And such a remedy was soon found. It was called "tank".

"Mobile Forts"

Back in the Middle Ages, cunning military men tried to build mobile fortresses that would protect fighters from enemy fire. These are the fighting wagons of the Taborites, and the walk-towns of Russian soldiers.

Brilliant - Leonardo da Vinci designed something like a horse-drawn tank, from where artillerymen, securely covered by shields of oak boards, could fire at the enemy. A sort of tower on wheels. But things did not go beyond the project.

"Man gone mad"

Seriously about the creation of armored vehicles that could accompany the fire of their infantry on the battlefield, they started talking only before the First World War. There were projects developed by Russian, Austrian, French and British military engineers. But they did not receive support from the higher command. The attitude of the generals towards this idea is well indicated by the resolution imposed on the project submitted to the British War Office. With an unshakable hand, one of the high-ranking officials of the ministry wrote: "The man has gone mad."

It took several monstrous "meat grinders" for the commanders of the troops to come to the conclusion: it is no longer possible to fight like this. Otherwise, there will simply be no soldiers left in the army. It was necessary to find a means that would bring the war out of the "positional impasse".

"Land Ships"

Oddly enough, it was not the land commanders who became interested in the idea of ​​​​building an armored tracked vehicle, but sailors. More specifically, the First Lord of the Admiralty of Great Britain, Sir Winston Churchill. Yes, yes, the same one who later became Prime Minister of England during the Second World War.

It was he who, having received a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Swinton, a military engineer, immediately appreciated the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bbuilding a “land battleship” expressed in it. Churchill used all his influence to bring this idea to life.

In 1915, in February, under the Admiralty, on the initiative of Churchill, the Land Ships Committee was founded, and finally the matter got off the ground. The opinion of the front-line soldiers, who spoke about the terrible losses in an attempt to attack the impregnable positions of the Germans on the Western Front, had an effect on officials from the War Ministry. And on June 15, 1915, a joint committee of the army and navy for the construction of armored military vehicles was created. However, the development initiative still remained with the representatives of the Admiralty, and Lieutenant Colonel Swinton, appointed secretary of the Imperial Defense Committee, became the coordinator of the work.

The first tanks "Little Willie" and "Big Willie"

At the end of June, William Foster and Company received an order from the committee to develop a machine using an engine from a heavy Foster-Daimler tractor and a chassis from an American Bullock tractor. The engineer William Tritton supervised the work. All work was carried out in complete secrecy.

On September 28, 1915, a wooden model was made, and by the end of November, the first tank, nicknamed "Little Willie", was ready for testing. The machine could overcome a ditch up to 1.52 meters wide, a wall 60 centimeters high and a slope up to 20 degrees. But the command of the British troops in France put forward a demand: to overcome a ditch of 2.44 meters and a wall 1.37 meters high. It was necessary to look for a new solution.

Then the idea came up to give the caterpillar bypass the shape of a parallelogram, and in order to increase the height of the hook, put the upper branch over the hull. Since in this case the tower mounted on top would raise the center of gravity of the armored vehicle too high, it was abandoned, and the weapons were placed in the side ledges - sponsons.

The new car was nicknamed "Big Willie". And January 30, 1916 new tank sent for factory testing. A few days later, both "Willys" were demonstrated to the highest government and military officials in Britain. The military liked Big Willie more. On February 12, official tests were already carried out. The first combat vehicle was adopted under the index Mk. I (Mark I). The War Department for Supply issued an order for 100 units.

Why "Tank"?

From the very beginning, new combat vehicles were considered secret invention, and everyone who was in any way related to the latest military invention was obliged to keep a deep secret.

Already at the beginning of the construction of "Big Willie" there was a need to somehow name the car. In appearance, it resembled a large tank or cistern. In English, "tank" or "tank" - tank. Therefore, everyone unanimously began to call the newly invented combat vehicle that way.

Interestingly, by sending factory-made Mk. I, on railway platforms they were carefully wrapped in a tarpaulin, on which they wrote in Russian: “Caution! Tank. Destination - Petrograd. It was believed that in this way it would be possible to confuse German spies who would hardly be interested in any water tanks there.

"Boy" and "Girl"

The conditions of service for the crews of the first British tanks were terrible. The combat vehicles did not have an engine room. Both the crew and the engine were in the same building. The temperature inside the tank rose to 50°C. People fainted from gunpowder smoke and exhaust gases, and sometimes it even ended lethal outcome. The gas mask or respirator that was part of the standard equipment of the crew did little to help, and it happened that during the battle the tankers jumped out of the car, not paying attention to enemy fire, just to get at least a few breaths of fresh air.

Crew Mk. I consisted of eight people, of which one was a tank commander. The commander also served as a gunner from a frontal machine gun. Because of the loud noise, the commands were transmitted by hand signals.

Communication between the command post and the tank was carried out by pigeon mail - for this, a special hole was provided in the sponson for the pigeon, or one of the crew members was sent with a report. A little later, they began to use the semaphore system.

Tanks Mk. I were built in two versions of weapons. The first - without artillery weapons. Only machine guns were installed in the sponsons. The second option is with cannons and machine guns. Accordingly, they received nicknames: the machine-gun version is “female”, the cannon version is “male”. But more often the tankers called them more chastely - "boy" and "girl". Later, when British tanks had to face German armored vehicles, a cannon was installed on machine-gun tanks in one of the sponsors. And such tanks were nicknamed "hermaphrodites".

First tank battle

Despite all their shortcomings, the first tanks turned out to be exactly those combat vehicles that helped the infantry out of the “positional impasse”. Slowly, at the speed of a pedestrian, moving through the trenches and barbed wire, carrying out machine-gun and artillery fire, the formidable fighting vehicles initially caused panic among the German soldiers.

The first combat use of tanks took place on September 15, 1916. In the Battle of the Somme, 49 Mk. I were supposed to break through the German defenses, but only 32 cars were able to start moving, and only nine made it to the German positions.

At the sight of slowly crawling, rumbling and clanking tanks, invulnerable to rifle and machine-gun fire, the German soldiers were seized with horror. Many jumped out of the trenches and fled. Others raised their hands and surrendered. Following the tanks, hiding behind their armor, was the English infantry. In this battle, the British managed to wedge into the enemy defenses 5 kilometers in depth.

The first experience of using tanks showed that they have many disadvantages, but also a great future. One of the first to realize this was General Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France. Almost immediately after the battle, he sent a telegram to London demanding that another thousand of these machines be sent.

In modern military conflicts, tanks play an important role in achieving victory over the enemy. These combat vehicles began to be actively used at the beginning of the last century.

In this article, we will look at the very first tanks in the world, differing in form, type of movement and the number of combat units. Lovers of different and will be interested.

The first tanks in the world were strikingly different from the tanks we are used to seeing. At the initial stage of their development, they were war chariots.

After that, mobile towers and wagenburgs were constructed - field fortifications from wagons. However, all these structures moved due to the traction force of animals, which could simply be killed on the battlefield.

For this reason, people thought about creating fortifications that could move without help or elephants.

Tank Leonardo da Vinci

At the end of the 15th century, the great (see) managed to design a tank made of wood and metal. In shape, it resembled a spinning top.

Along the perimeter of the circle, the inventor placed guns. Such an unusual machine had to be driven by complex mechanisms. This allowed the tank to move on the surface autonomously.

However, Leonardo's ideas were so far ahead of the time in which he lived that the project remained only on paper. An interesting fact is that in 2009, American engineers were able to recreate the tank according to the drawings of the great Italian.

Armored train on tracks

In the 19th century, the caterpillar armored train of Edouard Bouyen was introduced, which became the prototype of the world's first tanks. As conceived by the inventor, tightly interconnected trains were supposed to move not along rails, but along a closed track.

The train was supposed to be equipped with powerful guns, while the crew could reach 200 people. And although the brainchild of Buyen was never created, the scientist believed that such a train could radically change the philosophy of war.

When they began to produce at the beginning of the last century, at the same time they began to develop the first tanks. At this time, armored cars were very popular.

However, their disadvantage was that they could practically not overcome obstacles in the form of trenches, vegetation or barriers.

Buyen's armored train

When machine guns began to be used in military conflicts, anti-personnel mines and other projectiles, the engineers had to think about creating such a machine that no type of weapon could stop.

The first English tanks Willy

In 1915, British Colonel Ernest Swinton proposed using an innovative armored vehicle to overcome the trenches. Its creation was based on the principle of operation of the Holt-Caterpillar caterpillar tractor, which was then used as a tractor.

When the project fell into his hands, he appreciated the colonel's idea. Soon the development of the world's first tracked tank began. The implementation of the project was strictly classified.

Less than six months later, the British managed to create one of the world's first tanks called Lincoln Machine No. 1.

When the tank began to be tested, the designers saw many shortcomings in it, which were later eliminated. The new modernized car became known as "Little Willy", in honor of its creator Walter Wilson.

However, the second model also had many disadvantages. As a result, the engineers again made a number of amendments, after which the Big Willie tank appeared, the production of which took place under the name Mark-1. It was this tank that participated in the First World War (1914-1918).

Its weight reached 30 tons, and the caterpillar system was made in the form of a rhombus 8 m long and 2.5 m high. An interesting fact is that, unlike modern tanks, its turret did not rotate.

"Little Willie"

The first British tanks were divided into "males" and "females". The "males" were equipped with 57-mm guns, while the "females" had only machine guns. The armor was only about 10 mm, and the speed did not exceed 6.4 km / h on a flat surface.

When in the Battle of the Somme, September 15, 1916, 32 British tanks attacked German positions, they easily destroyed their enemy. "Big Willie" easily moved through the trenches, destroying German soldiers from cannons and machine guns.

Mark-1

It is worth noting that initially 49 tanks were supposed to enter the battle, but 17 of them failed before the start of the battle. In addition, 5 cars were mired in a swamp, from which they could not get out on their own, and 9 simply broke down.

However, the first tank in the world to be baptized by fire delighted the British. As a result, more than 3,000 Mark-1 tanks of various models were created.

Tank toilet and pigeon mail

As you know, the first tanks in the world were deprived of any amenities. As they rode, they swayed violently from side to side, like a ship in a storm.

In addition, the temperature inside the tank could rise to 50⁰С or even 70⁰С. Small observation windows, which often broke and injured crew members, also deserve special attention.

An interesting fact is that the first tankers often contacted the headquarters with the help of carrier pigeons.

The very word "tank" arose due to the secrecy of the production of military vehicles. They were transported by railways disguised as fuel tanks. One of the first names was "water carrier" - "water tank", which was consistent with a fictional story.

Later it turned out that the abbreviation "WC" was more like the well-known expression "water closet" - that is, a flush toilet. No one wanted to be near such a name and constantly fight off those who wanted to go out of need. As a result, the word "tank" appeared, that is, "tank".

German tanks and the first oncoming tank battle

Initially, the Germans did not plan to use tanks in the war, but when they realized their mistake, they immediately started producing them.

However, due to poor funding and the lack of worthy projects, they created a bulky combat vehicle - the A7V, which was striking in its scale.

This tank, more like a wagon on tracks, had the following characteristics:

• height - 3 m;
• length - 7 m;
• weight - 30 tons;
• gun caliber - 57 mm;
• machine guns - 7 pcs.;
• armor thickness - 30 mm;
• highway speed - 12 km / h;
• crew - 18 people.

Ordinary soldiers called this tank "camping kitchen" for its enormous size, unbearable heat and constant smoke. However, it was the A7Vs that took part in the world's first tank battle.

The battle took place on April 24, 1918 at Villers-Bretonne. In the battle, 3 German "kitchens" faced 3 British Mark-4 heavy tanks and 7 Whippet light tanks.

german tank A7V

In that battle, the British formally won, but each of the tanks had its own advantages and disadvantages. It turned out that the machine guns of the “females” could not inflict any damage on the “A7V”, and therefore they were forced to leave the battle. Only the "male" managed to knock out the enemy tank, since cannon guns were installed on it.

The German "A7V" turned out to be quite good cars, but their number was only 21 pieces. At the same time, the British were armed with more than 3,000 tanks. And that's not even counting the French cars.

These were the first tanks in the world, strikingly different from modern military equipment.

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