Tanks: A Century of Tank Warfare

By Oscar E. Gilbert and Romain V. Cansière

“For all the history buffs on warfare of the last century, Tanks is a perfect choice . . . packed with fascinating information” (San Francisco Book Review).
 
This Casemate Short History—by the authors of Tanks in Hell: A Marine Corps Tank Company on Tarawa—provides an informative and entertaining introduction to this iconic weapon of the last hundred years.
 
Tanks first ventured into battle on the Somme in 1916, and by the end of the war, countries were beginning to choose “heavy” or “light” tank designs to suit their preferred doctrine. Design then stagnated until World War II brought about rapid change. Tanks would prove integral to fighting in almost every theater; the Germans swept across Europe using tanks to spearhead their blitzkrieg method of war, until Soviet tanks proved more than their match and led to some epic tank battles on a huge scale.
 
After World War II, tank designs became increasingly sophisticated and armor undertook a variety of roles in conflicts, with mixed results. American armor in Korea was soon forced into an infantry support role, which it reprised in Vietnam, while Soviet armor was defeated in guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan. However, tanks played a pivotal role in the American “shock and awe” doctrine in two wars in Iraq, and tanks remain a crucial weapons system on the battlefield.
 
“Comprehensive despite its conciseness. For example, it addresses the employment of tanks in lesser-known conflicts such as the Indio-Pakistani and Sino-Vietnamese wars. The book provides context for contemporary tank operations and offers a perspective on the way ahead.” —Military Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Casemate Publishers
• Release date: Aug 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781612004914

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-18 AND THE BIRTH OF THE TANK

Tanks in common with all other auxiliary arms are but means of aiding infantry, on whom the fate of battle forever rests, to drive their bayonets into the bellies of the enemy.

Colonel George S. Patton, 1918

T

HE BRITISH WERE THE FIRST TO

develop a functioning tank, but it was an idea whose time had come, and the French were close behind. All designs were directed toward solution of the strictly tactical problem of breaching German barbedwire defenses, but the tank doctrines of the two major Allied powers—France and England—diverged as the result of design innovations. A third Allied power, the United States, proposed a sound doctrine based on a combined-arms force built around tanks, but it entered the war too late and the concept would not come to fruition for two decades.

In the East, Imperial Russian attempts to design a functional combat vehicle failed through shortcomings of industrial technology, although designs ranged from the innovative to the bizarre. Of the Central Powers only Germany developed a functional tank, but their General Staff ignored tanks until it was too late. Their single serviceable tank design was poorly conceived, and coherent doctrine non-existent.

By October 1914, the fighting on the Western Front had stalled. British Lieutenant Colonel Ernest D. Swinton conceived the idea of an armored and armed vehicle based on the American Holt tractor that a friend had described as a Yankee tractor which could climb like the devil. Swinton’s concept was given the cold shoulder by the War Office, but caught the attention of the ambitious First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Churchill’s fleet was largely sitting idle, and he was anxious to somehow get his Royal Navy more involved in the land fighting.

The Landships Committee was established to develop a fighting vehicle, and it was this artifact that eventually created the name tank. In 1903, H. G. Wells had published The Land Ironclads that described large armored vehicles. This created something of a furor in the security services, so a code name had to be adopted. The story was spread that the box-like vehicles were water carriers for use in the Middle East. Unfortunately the abbreviation would be WC (British for a water closet or toilet) so tank was adopted instead.

Several early prototypes failed until William Tritton developed a drive system based on the American Bullock Creeping Grip Tractor. The prototype was christened Little Willie, a derogatory nickname for the German Crown Prince. A rotating gun turret was considered but quickly abandoned, as it raised the center of gravity with the risk of overturning. After Little Willie proved unsatisfactory, Lieutenant Walter G. Wilson suggested the rhomboid track frame characteristic of British tanks, with the track return passing up and over the top of the vehicle. The prototype was known as His Majesty’s Landship Centipede and Big Willie until the name Mother stuck.

After the Army belatedly became involved, naval influence declined, but naval terminology remained permanently attached to tanks: hull, turret, sponson, deck, bow, et cetera. Under the Army’s influence it was decided that a variety of armaments would be mounted for destroying enemy machine-gun positions. One problem was that the rhomboid design severely limited the fields of fire for weapons mounted in the hull. As a solution, armament was mounted in awkward sponsons that protruded from the sides, a feature then common for the secondary batteries on large warships.

Most British tank designs were the characteristic rhomboid. Designed for crossing trenches and obstacles, the design was far from practical in mobile warfare. The Germans were always lacking in sufficient numbers of tanks, and have pressed this captured British tank into service. (U.S.M.C. History Division)

British Tank Doctrine

For all their pioneering work in developing the first operational tanks, the British Army continued to perceive the tank as the solution to a specific tactical problem—breaching trench lines. Rather than massing tanks, they were typically allocated in small groups with seldom more than 30 vehicles—and often as few as eight—allocated to an army group. The postwar writings of J. F. C. Fuller, who was to become one of the leading advocates of armored warfare, reflect this strictly local tactical mindset.

Even the fundamental design features of British tanks reflected the trench-breaching doctrine, and the rhomboid design of most British tanks limited performance in open warfare.

The French Heavy Tank Program

The significance of the French tank program has been largely ignored. Jean-Baptiste Estienne was one of the shining lights of the French Army, and turned his fertile mind to the protection of infantry from machine-gun fire. In a staff presentation he predicted that … the victory in this war will belong to which of the two belligerents which will be the first to place a gun of 75 [mm] on a vehicle able to be driven on all terrain.

What Estienne was not aware of was that the French government was working at cross-purposes. Since May 1915 the Schneider Company was at work on a barbed-wire breaching vehicle. Sergeant Jacques Quellennec had seen men pointlessly slaughtered in the first battle of the Marne, and used his contacts—his father, engineer Edouard Quellennec, mechanic Charles Marius Fouche of the Service Automobile, and Eugene Brillie of the Schneider Company and designer of armored cars, to push forward his ideas for a tracked armored vehicle.

In early December 1915 Estienne and Philippe Pétain witnessed a test of the prototype of the new Schneider CA (later CA 1) tank. It was designed primarily for flattening barbed wire, with a secondary role to eliminate enemy machine-gun positions. Estienne immediately grasped the vehicle’s potential, and quickly had a more strategically decisive role in mind.

By mid-December Estienne had proposed formation of an armored force, and drawn up specifications for the vehicle’s capabilities, including that of towing an armored sled carrying 20 infantrymen. In late December Estienne met with industrialist Louis Renault, who declined any involvement, saying his firm was overcommitted to producing other vehicles.

Development continued until early 1916, when a dispute led Schneider and the French Army to part ways. Schneider went on to produce the Schneider CA heavy tank, clearly a derivative of the Holt, with a boxy armored body, a boat-like prow for crushing barbed wire, and a short-barreled 75-mm Blockhaus Schneider mounted in a barbette on the right side. The distinctive feature of the Schneider was a huge piece of angle iron protruding like a horn from the bow.

The original French heavy tanks were designed primarily for breaching wire obstacles. The prominent horn on the Schneider CA was to push higher wire down and under the tracks. (Association du Souvenir de Sommepy-Tahure)

There were improvements based on combat experience, and the redesign and conversion of older vehicles continued until the end of the war. The more prominent changes included spaced armor (two plates with an air space between) to defeat German armor-piercing rifle rounds. The internal fuel tanks turned the tank into a death trap when holed by German weapons, so the fuel tanks were moved to the rear and outside the main compartment. As with all tanks of the period the engine was located inside the crew compartment for ready access. A new ventilation system was provided, which meant that crews no longer began to succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning after about an hour of operation. Production of the Schneider was spotty, in part because effort was focussed on producing spare parts for existing vehicles, but largely because production capacity was diverted to artillery tractors.

A competing Army design became the St. Chamond, intended to upstage the Schneider by being larger and heavier. The new tank was designed around a specially designed Canon de 75-mm TR Saint Chamond mounted to fire through the bow plate, and four machine guns as opposed to the two of the Schneider. A 90 hp petrol engine generated power for two electric motors. The design made for much easier steering and more torque at low speeds, but could not remedy the fact that the vehicle was underpowered, and that the elongated bow limited trench-crossing capability.

When the new tank was tested in April 1916, major problems were the tank’s ergonomics. The driver sat high above the ground with his head and shoulders in a cupola on the left front roof. A second cupola blocked vision to the right, but worst of all, the isolated driver also functioned as tank commander, a ridiculous combination of responsibilities.

Estienne knew nothing about the competing designs. His elation at an order for 400 new heavy tanks turned to dismay when he learned the design details: I am painfully surprised that an order of this importance has been placed without asking the opinion of the only officer who, at the time had undertaken a detailed study of the technical and military aspects involved….

The St. Chamond heavy tank had a bow-mounted 75-mm field gun. The design, with two cupolas, severely limited the driver/tank commander’s vision to the right. (Association du Souvenir de Sommepy-Tahure)

Early use of the tank in combat revealed additional problems, and there were continuous modifications to the St. Chamond, particularly conversion to the standard French 75-mm field gun. A sloping roof was designed to counter the German tactic of throwing satchel charges onto the top, and elimination of the second cupola. But nothing could remedy the tank’s fundamental design flaws. In the final stages of the war the St. Chamond found its niche as an assault gun.

Although some of his design concepts were incorporated, Estienne played no role in the final technical development. He had instead turned his efforts to resolving the thousands of details necessary to bring the tank to maturity, from refining doctrine, to establishing training facilities, and assuring a flow of spare parts. His championship of the new idea and organizational skills earned him the title of the father of the French armored forces.

The French Light Tank Program

The tank idea planted in Louis Renault’s mind had continued to stir. Estienne and Renault met again on July 16, 1916 and Renault himself later drew up the basic specifications of a vehicle that would influence tank design for the next century. Then he unleashed his most talented design and production experts. The result was the revolutionary FT, for faible tonnage, or light tonnage. (The vehicle is often erroneously called the FT-17, a term that somehow became commonplace in the 1940s, but was never an official