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When was the first tank made? History of tanks, tank building

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. This building I was poorly suited for military operations. 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 Austro-Daimler plant in Vienna. The military authorities did not agree to adopt it, since the armored mass could only move on paved roads. Then the Austrian Ponter Burshtyn designed a small combat vehicle capable of moving quickly on tracks - closed belts made of hinged metal links; the tapes were put on the sides of the car on two wheels. But the General Staff rejected this development as well.

Combat test in world war

First battle tanks used by the British in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

The design of the motorized, iron-plated machine goes back to a design by Ernest Swinton. The tank weighed 27 tons, and its speed was aimed at accompanying infantry. It was capable of protecting against massive shelling and crushing enemy positions. Although engine technology for heavy vehicles was still in its infancy, and tracks were modeled after American tractors, British infantry tanks broke through difficult areas of the front. However, they did not play a decisive role in the First World War.

3000 BC: The Sumerians designed a four-wheeled war chariot that crushed the enemy.
1482: Leonardo da Vinci invented an enclosed fighting machine that was driven by a crankshaft.
1934: 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 during the Normandy landings.

At the very beginning of the First World War, in August 1914, the master of the Russian-Baltic Engineering Plant in Riga, Porokhovshchikov, approached the headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Russian Army with a proposal for an original design for a high-speed combat tracked vehicle for off-road driving.

At the same time, he turned to the Special Committee for Strengthening the Fleet, promising to create an all-terrain tracked armored vehicle. Porokhovshchikov did not provide any significant documents at that time, and only on January 9, 1915, after long delays at a reception with the chief of supplies of the North-Western Front, General Danilov, the inventor already had ready-made drawings and estimates for the construction of a combat vehicle called the “All-terrain vehicle.”

Apparently, Porokhovshchikov’s preliminary calculations pleased the top military leadership: in addition to high maneuverability, Porokhovshchikov also promised the vehicle’s buoyancy. The project was approved - permission to build the “All-terrain vehicle” was received on January 13, 1915, 9660 rubles 72 kopecks were allocated, and the design data were specified in special report No. 8101. The construction of the vehicle was supervised by the head of the Riga department for housing allowances for troops, military engineer Colonel Poklevsky-Kozello. On February 1, in the Riga auto repair shops of the Russo-Balt plant, which were located at the barracks of the Nizhny Novgorod Infantry Regiment, 25 soldier-craftsmen and the same number of hired skilled workers began manufacturing a prototype of the world's first tank developed by famous pilot and designer Alexander Alexandrovich Porokhovshchikov. The design of the "All-terrain vehicle" was unusual. The welded frame rested on one wide track 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 the driving one, rotation was transmitted to it through a gearbox and driveshaft 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 there were two columns with small wheels, which the driver controlled using a steering wheel - thus turning the entire body.

The car was equipped with a streamlined body with an air intake niche in front. Interestingly, the all-terrain vehicle’s armor was multi-layered: it consisted of a front cemented 2-mm steel sheet, a shock-absorbing pad made of hair and algae, and another steel sheet with a total thickness of 8 mm.

The design of this tank already included all the basic elements of modern combat vehicles - an armored hull, weapons in a rotating turret, an internal combustion engine, and a tracked propulsion system. The car was equipped with a streamlined body with an air intake niche in front. On a good road, the “All-terrain vehicle” had to move on the rear drum and wheels, and on loose soil rest on the caterpillar. Such a scheme, despite its relative simplicity, had one global drawback - in fact, the “All-terrain vehicle” could only move in a straight line, since turning the guide wheels 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 caterpillar belt was rewound. The belt tension was adjusted using a tension device and a tension drum. The vehicle was controlled using two rotary steering wheels located at the sides. In Porokhovshchikov's tank, side clutches were used for turning for the first time - mechanisms that later began to be installed on most tanks; on some machines they have been preserved to this day.

When moving on hard ground, the tank rested on these wheels and on the drive drum, and on soft ground it “lay down” on the caterpillar track. The length of the vehicle was 3.6 meters, width - 2 meters, height (without turret) - 1.5 meters, final weight was assumed to be 3.5-4.0 tons, crew - 1 man, machine gun armament, bulletproof armor. Engine power 15 kW, planetary transmission, combined wheel-track propulsion (one track and two steered wheels) ensured maximum speed 25 km/h..

May 18, 1915 Porokhovshchikov tested his car on a track on a good road, without switching to wheels. When tested, its speed reached 25 km/h (neither the first British nor French tanks had such a speed). After minor modifications, they decided to hold an official demonstration of the “All-terrain vehicle”, which took place on July 20, 1915

Later, Porokhovshchikov improved his car, making it a wheeled-tracked vehicle: on the roads the car moved on wheels and the rear drum of the caterpillar, when it encountered an obstacle on its way - the “all-terrain vehicle” lay down on the caterpillar and “crawled” over it. This was several years ahead of tank building at that time. Porokhovshchikov made the tank's hull waterproof, as a result of which it could easily overcome water obstacles.

At the same time (in the spring of 1915) Porokhovshchikov proposed armor of his own design: “The armor is a combination of elastic and rigid layers of metal and special viscous and elastic gaskets.” The boiler iron was annealed “according to a method that is the secret of the inventor,” and as a gasket “after an enormous number of experiments,” he chose dried and pressed sea grass. The author especially emphasized the cheapness of “iron armor” and the ability to bend and weld it.

In 1916, he conducted tests in Petrograd - on December 29, 1916, he reached a speed of 40 versts per hour, which was an exceptionally high figure.

Porokhovshchikov’s most interesting development 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 multi-layer armor appeared only in the early 70s of the 20th century... There is also a version that Porokhovshchikov’s drawings were used by British engineers for their developments.

The experimental vehicle continued to be tested, intermittently, 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 All-Terrain Vehicle did not show all those qualities that are stipulated by report No. 8101, for example, it could not walk on loose snow about 1 foot (30 cm) deep, and no tests of running on water were done...”

Meanwhile, Porokhovshchikov’s vehicle was not considered a combat vehicle, due to the lack of armor and weapons on it, and in the documents it appeared as a “self-propelled gun” - that is, a car. According to the designer himself, the first sample of the “Russian tank” he created did have a number of shortcomings, but all of them were reasons for the departure from the project. In his opinion, much better results could have been achieved if the All-Terrain Vehicle had a larger distance between the drums, a more powerful engine and a grooved track.

They decided to abandon further work on the All-Terrain Vehicle, especially since 18,090 rubles were spent during this time. The military department ordered Porokhovshchikov to return the money allocated for the construction of the vehicle to the treasury, and send the “All-terrain vehicle” itself to the State Technical University.

Andrey Chernomorsky

Russian Lugansk

The word "tank" comes from English word tank, that is, “tank” or “tank”. The origin of the name is as follows: when the first tanks were sent to the front, British counterintelligence started a rumor that in England the tsarist government had ordered a batch of tanks for drinking water. And the tanks set off railway under the guise of tanks It is interesting that in Russia the new combat vehicle was originally called “tank” (one translation of the word tank).

The first mechanical cart of this kind was probably invented in 1769 by the Frenchman Cugnot, who installed a steam engine on the cart. He managed to achieve a speed of 4 km, but he was forced to stop every 20 minutes to increase the steam pressure. When the inventor, showing his invention to representatives of the French government, knocked down a stone wall, he was put in prison.
The caterpillar propulsion device was invented by a native of the peasant class of the Saratov province, Fedor Abramovich Blinov (1827-1902).
In 1877, Blinov invented the “crawler car,” a kind of tracked trailer moved by a steam-horse team; a prototype was built in the summer of 1880 and tested, including in swampy areas. The effect was very, very promising, in particular, in a double-horse carriage, a “wagon” could transport cargo, which required at least ten horses to transport on a wheeled cart.

The first real step towards creating a tank was a steam-powered self-propelled carriage on endless caterpillar rails, invented by an American in 1888; in turn, the caterpillar was invented by the Englishman Richard Lovell Idgeworth, who patented it in 1770.
In 1888, the Samokhod was manufactured, which was essentially the first caterpillar tractor. The engine was two 12 hp steam engines. at 40 revolutions each, boiler at 6 atm. was with an oil furnace. The movement from the steam engines to the drive sprockets of the caterpillar tracks was transmitted by cast iron gears. Each caterpillar was driven separately. The rotation of the “self-propelled” was ensured by turning off or on the corresponding machine. The machine was demonstrated at the agricultural exhibition in Saratov in 1889, an improved model was presented at the Nizhny Novgorod exhibition in 1896, and the author received a certificate of commendation for his invention; However, there was no mass construction of tracked tractors in the Russian Empire.

The predecessor of the tank in terms of many parts, especially the control mechanism, was the tractor with the creation of the internal combustion engine. Its further development was quite clear, since the combination of this engine with a caterpillar chain made it possible to construct a vehicle capable of moving without roads and on marshy ground due to the distribution of the weight of the vehicle over a large area.
But I would still recognize the final and irrevocable primacy of the machine made in England, 1910, in a single copy. This unit was intended for hauling cargo in Alaska - the roads there were bad, wheeled tractors did not have the necessary maneuverability, and horses and dogs could not carry large loads. However, the thermal power plant built in Yukon was in need of coal, and there was nothing to deliver it in winter when the river was frozen. Therefore, Hornsby, who by that time already had experience in building a slightly smaller-scale caterpillar steam tractor (10 tons of dead weight with an engine of only 20 hp) - created such a land locomotive, which was supposed to transport coal from the sea to the station all winter...

The giant's mass was 40 tons, and Steam engine developed 80 hp On a flat road and without a load, the tractor could accelerate to 40 km/h, and the total weight of the train consisting of a tractor and eight (!) trailers weighing 12.5 tons each was, as is easy to calculate, 140 tons. The result for 1910 is not just good, it’s fantastic! With the dead weight of each trailer being about 5 tons, in one run the train delivered, as is easy to calculate, 60 tons of coal

Even before the World War, the War Department carried out various experiments with caterpillar tractors equipped with internal combustion engines, although it did not pursue direct combat goals, and in 1903 the writer H. Wells predicted and vividly described strange combat vehicles, similar to tanks.
In 1912, the Australian Mole proposed to the War Ministry a project for a crawling combat tracked vehicle. Thanks to the use of pins at the ends and flexible track chains for driving around curves, this vehicle apparently had advantages over tanks. However, this sensational proposal was soon forgotten, and Molay's project had no influence on the actual invention of the tank; the War Ministry did not take any part in it, and Molet's proposal was not known at all until the end of the war.
There is also a well-known story about a plumber from Nottingham who presented a project for an all-terrain vehicle to the War Ministry several years before the World War. This plumber received several of the usual letters in such cases, but heard nothing further. A few years after the end of the war, the project was discovered in one of the dusty cabinets with the resolution: “This man is sick.”

The Germans can also lay claim to the invention of the tank, since in 1913 a certain Gebel designed an armored land cruiser, terrifying with its bristling guns. This cruiser crossed to Poznan through triangular obstacles 90 feet high. (about 27 m). In 1914, he made an attempt to repeat the display of his car in front of general public at the stadium in Berlin, but while overcoming a short rise of 30°, the car stopped, and no efforts of the inventor could make it start moving again. The public became tired of the long wait and began to protest and demand the entrance fee back; Even stones were thrown at the unfortunate inventor, and he no longer dared to show his invention publicly.
Long before the First World War, the Russian Ministry of War received a project for an extraordinary combat vehicle, developed by the son of the famous Russian chemist, Vasily Dmitrievich Mendeleev.
The Mendeleev combat vehicle project is a talented project of a super-heavy tank, the design of which was a decade ahead of all the development of tank technology. Many elements of the periodic machine look modern these days.
Mendeleev designed a tank weighing 170 tons, serviced by a team of 8 people. It was a huge armored box, with tracks necessary for movement, an engine and ammunition hidden inside.
During movement, the caterpillars, using compressed air, were supposed to lift the armored hull above the ground and ensure the movement of the tank at speeds of up to 24 km per hour.
In addition to the cannon, Mendeleev intended to arm the tank with a machine gun installed in a special retractable armored turret that allowed all-round firing.

All these preliminary attempts yielded no results, because they lacked the terrible impulse of war, but World War made the invention of the tank inevitable.
In October 1914, the regiment. Swinton - a man of great vision and imagination, working as a war correspondent for the British Expeditionary Army - came as an "eyewitness" to the recognition of the need for an armored vehicle that would be able to force its way through barbed wire, cross trenches and destroy or crush machine gun nests.

One of his friends wrote to him about an American Holt tractor that could climb steep slopes.
Swinton came up with the idea of using this machine, and on October 20, 1914, he sent a project for tracked machine gun fighters to the War Office. They had to be heavily armored, armed with cannons, machine guns, and be able to cross trenches and destroy barbed wire barriers.

Thus the idea of a tank was born. Its history (while this idea took shape and became a real tank 15 months later) is the story of a long struggle with bureaucracy. To develop a new chassis, I had to turn to W. Foster & Co. (Lincolnshire), which in those years was engaged in the assembly of Hornsby tractors. These vehicles were unique in that they were essentially tracked steam locomotives and were used as tractors for “land trains.” In addition, the company produced wheeled tractors for field artillery.

Testing of the prototype began on September 10, 1915 and did not end very well. The total length of the vehicle was 8 meters, weight - 14 tons. The tank had low cross-country ability, and the chassis turned out to be poorly suited for increased loads. Nevertheless, maximum speed Lincoln Machine No.1 was 5.5 km/h, which was slightly higher than the required figure.

The length of the tractor chassis was not enough to overcome trenches and craters, so it was crossed with a wheel pair, attaching it to the rear of the body.

Two engineers, Tritton and Lieutenant Wilson, working day and night, completed the Little Willie project. Regiment. Swinton, having examined a life-size model of him in Lincoln, described it as follows in his letter to the General Staff:
“The sailors have produced the first copy of a tracked vehicle that is capable of crossing ditches 135 cm wide and rotating around its axis, like a dog with a flea on its back.”

During the war, the “neutral” United States became a real arsenal for the Entente countries, and the “technicians” knew about the needs caused by the world war, almost better than military observers. In addition, the United States had a developed mechanical engineering industry, the potential of which was further increased due to foreign orders. So the development of all-terrain combat vehicles was carried out regardless of the opinion of the military leadership.

One of the most technically advanced American developments in the field of tracked combat vehicles can be considered the Holt gas-electric tank.

The tank had a compartment for infantry and a separate door for its disembarkation.

The tractor itself was the well-known Holt 75 model of 1909, produced by C.L.Best under license. The tractor turned out to be so successful that it was widely used in the American and British armies until 1919 inclusive, and during Civil War Holt 75 was supplied to the Russian “white” armies. The last examples of these vehicles, although no longer army ones, were decommissioned only in 1945!

The fate of this tank, called the Best 75 Tracklayer, remains quite vague. Only one thing was clear - the American army, after examining the prototype made of non-armored steel, came to the conclusion that they absolutely did not need such a monster.

The next ones were again the Americans from the Holt company, who developed their own wheeled tank project at the end of 1916. The work was carried out with the direct participation of the Army Corps of Engineers and with the assistance of Stanley Steamer. The tank received a massive hull, in the bow of which they decided to place two 2-cylinder steam engines of the Double system with a power of 75 hp each. Each of the engines had an individual drive to one wheel with a diameter of 2.4 meters, made entirely of steel, and was installed vertically. Since both wheels were unsteerable, a third “drum” type wheel was provided for turning the tank, mounted on a rotating bracket in the rear of the hull.

The construction of the first prototype was delayed and was completed only in the winter of 1918. The tank was sent to a training ground in Aberdeen, where the military began testing the tank, which... ended just before it began. The American vehicle suffered the same fate as Lebedenko's wheeled tank - barely moving, the Steam Wheeled Tank drove about 50 feet (15 meters) and became firmly stuck in the ground. It was obvious that the power of the steam engines was clearly not enough to get the tank out of this “trap.” Representatives from the army who were present were very upset by this fact and refused further work on the Steam Wheeled Tank.

Another miracle of American technology.

Alas, during the First World War, our country was not part of the elite club of great tank powers. The fact that Germany, our main enemy, was also not a member of this club is little consolation (the Germans produced 21 (twenty-one) during the entire war serial tank own construction).

But several prototypes of different designs were produced. At the very beginning of the war, in August 1914, the master of the Russian-Baltic Engineering Plant in Riga, Porokhovshchikov, approached the headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Russian Army with a proposal for an original design for a high-speed combat tracked vehicle for off-road driving. At the same time, he turned to the Special Committee for Strengthening the Fleet, promising to create an all-terrain tracked armored vehicle. Porokhovshchikov did not provide any significant documents at that time, and only on January 9, 1915, after long delays at a reception with the chief of supplies of the North-Western Front, General Danilov, the inventor already had ready-made drawings and estimates for the construction of a combat vehicle called the “All-terrain vehicle.”

On May 18, 1915, Porokhovshchikov tested his car on a good road on a caterpillar track, without switching to wheels. When tested, its speed reached 25 km/h (neither the first British nor French tanks had such a speed). After minor modifications, they decided to hold an official demonstration of the “All-terrain vehicle”, which took place on July 20, 1915. Contrary to Porokhovshchikov’s calculations, the capabilities of his vehicle were very far from combat ones. Even worse, the turning mechanism on the move turned out to be extremely unreliable and during testing, in a number of cases, the driver had to use a pole. The design of the chassis was considered imperfect, since the caterpillar often jumped off the drums. Already during the testing process, Porokhovshchikov tried to eliminate this drawback by making three annular guide grooves, and on the inner surface of the caterpillar, respectively, three centering protrusions.

In 1916, he conducted tests in Petrograd - on December 29, 1916 he reached a speed of 40 versts/hour, which was an exceptionally high figure.

But no one will dispute the fact that it was in Russia during the First World War that the world’s largest tank was created - 17 meters long, 9 meters high, 60 tons of weight!

The idea of building such an unusual machine came from the captain Russian army Nikolai Nikolaevich Lebedenko during his service in the Caucasus, even before the war. He appreciated the cart - vehicle local residents. There were no roads in the usual sense of the word in the Caucasus at that time, but the cart, a cart with two wheels with high rims, easily overcame all the bumps and potholes on what were considered roads there.

On August 27, 1915, the first sea trials of the giant tank took place near Dmitrov. The first and the last. The car walked ten meters along the road, but instantly got stuck on soft ground - the rear guide truck was stuck in a ditch. The large wheels were unable to pull it out, even despite the use of a powerful propulsion system, which consisted of two captured Maybach engines of 250 hp each. With. each taken from a downed German airship.

The first production tank was already Soviet. And traditionally seamless.

Russian "Renault"(Also "Renault Russian", "Tank M", "Tank KS" (Krasnoe Sormovo); in a number of sources it is called “Tank “Freedom Fighter Comrade” Lenin"", after the proper name of the first tank of the series) - the first soviet tank and the first Russian tank put into mass production. Classified as light tanks for direct infantry support. Was almost full copy French light tank Renault FT-17. Produced in 1920-1921 at the Sormovo plant ( Nizhny Novgorod) in a small series of 15 cars. Despite the official adoption by the Red Army in 1920, the Renault-Russians did not take part in any military operations. They were in service until 1930. It is also interesting that its machine gun armament was made on the basis of the Fedorov universal assault rifle.

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Already in late XIX centuries there were all the technical prerequisites for the invention of such a formidable weapon as tank. By this time, the internal combustion engine, caterpillar propulsion, armor, cannons and machine guns had been invented. Before the start of the 1914 war, the Holt tracked tractor was created, which was the predecessor of the tank. At the very beginning of the First World War, the warring parties faced the question of breaking the positional deadlock, creating a weapon with which to break through the front and achieve the desired victories.

The idea of creating an armored tracked combat vehicle that could easily overcome enemy ditches, trenches and wire fences was first expressed by the English Colonel Swinton. On October 20, 1914, he presented his proposals to the War Ministry. After careful study and discussion, the ministry accepted his idea as a whole. The basic requirements for the future combat vehicle were immediately formulated: to have small dimensions, bulletproof armor and caterpillar tracks, move at a speed of at least 4 km/h, overcome wire fences, ditches, trenches, craters up to 4 meters wide, have 2 machine guns and a cannon.

The company William Foster and Co. created a tank based on the Holt tracked tractor in a record time (40 days). The main designers of the tank, called "Little Willie", were Lieutenant Wilson and Engineer Tritton. During testing, the car showed good driving performance and in November the Holt company decided to begin manufacturing the car. The disadvantage was the small width of the obstacle to be overcome in the form of a ditch or trench. In order for the tank to easily overcome 4-meter trenches, steep elevations and vertical embankments, the designers increased the length of the vehicle by 1 m, giving the shape of a parallelogram to the outline of the caterpillar and running it over the hull. At Deincourt's suggestion, the weapons were placed in the side half-turrets - sponsons. This is how it appeared new tank— “Big Willie.” The hull and chassis of the tank were covered with armor 5-10 mm thick. Inside, the “land cruiser” looked like the engine room of a small ship; the driver and commander had a separate control room in front. The Daimler engine, transmission and gearbox took up a lot of space, and initially there were also fuel tanks inside the cars. Between the roof and the top of the engine was an ammunition shelf. When driving, gasoline vapors and exhaust gases accumulated inside the tank; due to the running engine, the temperature rose to 50 degrees. Acrid powder smoke filled the tank after the gun fired. The crew of the car suffered from overheating and burned out. Heavy tank often landed on the ground and stones due to the narrow tracks, there was no radio communication and even an internal intercom. Observation from the tank was carried out through unprotected slits, which did not provide inspection, but was the cause of facial wounds for tank crews.

The tank was controlled by 4 people: the driver, his 2 assistants and the commander. The tank was equipped with three gearboxes, one was near the driver and served to change the speed of movement, the other two stood on the sides of the vehicle and were used to change the speed of the tank and its rotation. The tracks were braked using two brakes; the tank commander was responsible for this. On September 15, 1916, tanks were used for the first time at the Battle of the Somme. Thanks to the participation of tanks in the attack, infantry losses were 20 times less.

This was followed by a number of modifications of the Mk (“Big Willie”), subsequent models were more advanced. Thus, the MkC tank weighed 19.5 tons and reached a speed of 13 km/h. It was armed with 4 machine guns and had a crew of 4 people. The last amphibious tank, MkI, created in 1918, had a rotating turret, 3 machine guns and 4 crew members. Weighing 13.5 tons, it had a speed of 43 km/h on land and 5 km/h on water. During the war years, the British created 13 different modifications and produced 3 thousand tanks.

The best tank of the First World War is considered to be the Renault FT, from the Renault company, which became the prototype of future tanks. Weighing only 6 tons, it reached a speed of 9.6 km/h, It was armed with a machine gun (later a cannon), and the crew consisted of two people. For the first time, on-board radio stations were installed on these tanks, which instantly increased the controllability of tank units. The layout of the main components of the tank is classic: engine, transmission, control compartment in front, drive wheel in the rear, and a rotating turret in the center. The German company Bremerwagen was unable to establish mass release tank A7V.

The Russian version of the tank was proposed by the master of the machine-building plant Porokhovshchikov back in August 1914. When tested, his car developed a speed up to 25 km/h. The first English and french tanks They didn’t have that kind of speed. Then the master improved his tracked vehicle, creating it as a wheeled-tracked vehicle, anticipating tank building of that period by several years. Porokhovshchikov's tank was waterproof and easily overcame all kinds of water obstacles. Unfortunately, the Russian industry was not ready to produce such complex vehicles and the tank was not used in the Russian army.

October 25, 2013

Self-propelled armored van

It is impossible to imagine a modern army without tanks. They are the main ones impact force ground forces. But the history of the use of these combat vehicles has not even reached the century mark.

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 we needed a vehicle that could move in infantry combat formations and support it with its fire.

One of the ancestors 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 power of people, through levers and gears. The design involved the placement of light artillery pieces and an observation tower. The wooden and metal lining of the hull was supposed to reliably protect the crew from arrows and firearms. True, the project did not come to practical implementation.

Crawler

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

The first known project, which combined the current elements of a tank - caterpillar tracks, engine, artillery and machine gun armament 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 (predecessors 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 forces was given by the battles of the First World War. After a relatively short period of maneuver, a protracted positional period began. There was a crisis of military thought. Saturation of infantry with rapid-fire rifles, machine guns, artillery, engineering equipment 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, only small tactical successes were achieved. Some completely new methods of breaking into defensive formations were needed. It was then that the first tanks entered the war arena, along with poisonous gases.

The British are considered the founders of tanks. It was they who first put them into mass production and used them on the battlefield. However, the issue of primacy is quite controversial. The fact is that the Russian engineer Porokhovshchikov developed back in 1914 and in 1915 created a model of an “all-terrain vehicle” with a caterpillar drive, weighing 4 tons, with a crew of 2 people. The project was highly approved and tested, but for some unclear bureaucratic reasons it was not brought to mass production. The tests took place in May 1915, that is, several months earlier than the British.

However, England is considered the official birthplace of tanks. It went from there modern name. By the way, there are discrepancies on this matter. According to one version, the tank (in English this means tank, tank) was so named in connection with external resemblance with a metal tank. Another version says that this happened during a secret operation to transport combat vehicles to the theater of military 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 gun armament) 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, length up to 10 meters with a wheeled “tail”. The layout of the tank was carried out according to a diamond-shaped pattern. The 105 horsepower engine could move this armored miracle over rough terrain at speeds of up to 6 km/h. The crew of 8 people was protected by 12 mm frontal armor, which at that time was 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”). The series of tanks amounted to 150 units.

First combat use tanks took place on September 15, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Although design flaws were immediately identified, the effect was still amazing. The armored monsters terrified the defending German soldiers. During one day of battle, the British managed to achieve tactical success, breaking through the enemy’s defenses to a depth of 5 km, suffering losses 20 times less than what had 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 will celebrate their centenary. The appearance of the armored fighting vehicle has changed beyond recognition. But the main requirements are the same - speed, maneuverability, security and firepower.

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