German tanks of the first world war. The first tanks of the First World War and the beginning of the development of armored vehicles

No one expected a world war, no one prepared for it, and it was even more difficult to foresee the nature of the coming battles.

The task is to break through the defense

Already in the autumn of 1914, Swinton, a British army officer posted to France, began to realize that main problem the advancing infantry will cover the distance between the front edges of the attacking and defending forces. Go to full height at the enemy, hidden behind the parapets of full-profile trenches and armed rapid-fire machine guns, it is difficult, and by the end of this path no more than half of the personnel will remain from any unit. The soldiers' bodies needed to be covered with something, and to accomplish this task he proposed the simplest solution. You need to take an ordinary agricultural machine, a Holt tractor made in the USA, and cover it with armor. It is interesting that these first tanks of the First World War were forced to be reproduced in 1941, when they were called “NI” (“out of fear”).

The idea was not very successful, since the requirements for the chassis when designing agricultural equipment did not correspond to the complexity of the rough terrain over which it was necessary to move during the offensive. But this did not make the task less relevant; it just had to be solved differently.

The first are the British

The main thing that the designers Nesfield and Makfi took into account when designing fundamentally new sample military equipment is the ability to overcome wide ditches and trenches. The diamond-shaped silhouette of armored monsters, known from films about them, became a manifestation of the originality of the engineering thinking of English inventors. The first tanks of the First World War were called "Big Willie" and "Mark", their distinctive feature In addition to the characteristic trapezoidal shape of the armored hull, the weapons were located on the sides, in special protrusions. At the same time, the name of a new type of armored vehicle (English: “Tank”) arose, translated meaning “tank” or “tank.”

France doesn't give up!

French tanks from World War I were designed with great variety technical solutions and fantasies. Initially, they were going to be built as low-speed mobile artillery mini-batteries, protecting the infantry with their silhouette and providing fire assistance to them. However, the designers soon came to the conclusion that it was necessary to build relatively light machines capable of quick maneuver. "Renault - FT17" most closely matches modern ideas about this class of weapons, if only because it has a rotating artillery turret located above the armored hull. Similar vehicles of the Royal Romanian Army took part in the attack on the USSR in 1941, when two FT-17s, preserved from the Civil War, long ago became exhibits in Soviet museums.

The Germans are pressing

As for the fighting qualities that the First World War possessed, their characteristic difference was the powerful artillery weapons, which later became business card German armored vehicles. Main sample, A7V, was huge, you had to enter it like an armored train car, through the door. Two mechanics constantly monitored the operation of the engines; in addition to them, there was an artillery crew inside the hull. The commander, machine gunners and driver together made up a crowded crew. The car was slow and slow.

Common defects of different designs

All the first tanks of the First World War had a serious drawback: it was practically impossible to stay in them for a long time due to heavy gas pollution and high temperature, created work engine located in the same space as the crew. Powerful motors had not yet been created, and assembly technologies did not involve other methods of joining parts other than riveting. The armor withstood the impact of a bullet, sometimes a light projectile, but the effect of any field artillery caliber over three inches had a detrimental effect on equipment and personnel.

In Russia, tanks began to be built later than in other industries. developed countries, but have achieved very serious success in this matter. But that is another story…

We will talk about tanks of the First World War. The First World War became the impetus for the emergence of new tactics of warfare, new weapons, equipment and much more. Heavy and infantry machine guns, flamethrowers, armored vehicles, including tanks, appeared, military aviation, chemical weapons, new artillery and much more. In the post we will talk about the first world of tanks, In This post will look at the main tanks of the First World War:

UK: Mk.1, Mk.4, Mk 5, “Whippet”.
France - Renault FT-17.2C, SA-1 "Schneider", Saint-Chamond.
Germany - A7V.
Italy - Fiat 2000, Fiat 3000.

British tanks

Mk-1 "Male".

The British tank Mk-1 “male” is the very first tank in the world.
The first English tank, designated Mk 1, was put into production towards the end of 1915, when the war began to enter the so-called “positional stage”.
On both sides of the front, opponents dug into the ground, entangled in rows of barbed wire and bristling with machine guns. Any attack cost huge losses, incommensurate with the results achieved. Many military men understood that armored combat vehicles could solve this problem. In addition, numerous and very diverse armored vehicles were already operating on the fronts, the successes of which only confirmed the above statement. However, the maneuverability of heavy armored cars left much to be desired. It was precisely for breaking through defense lines that the Mk 1 tank was made.
The armament was placed in flat half-turrets - sponsons installed on both sides of the vehicle. Based on the obtained combat experience in 1917, the Mk 4 with reinforced armor was created. In May 1918, the Mk.5 with 18 mm armor and a 150-horsepower engine, which allowed it to reach speeds of up to 10 km/h, began to arrive in units. For the first time, this vehicle was equipped with a commander’s cupola.

Characteristics of Mk-1 “Male”:

Weight - 28.45 tons. Length - 8 m.
reservation - 10-12 mm.
Engine power - 105 l\s.
Speed ​​- 6 km/h.
Weapons:
2 cannons of 57 mm caliber.
4 machine guns.
Crew - 8 people.

(the photo above shows British tanks destroyed and captured by the Germans).

This is the mask the commander of a British tank wore to protect his face from pieces of metal flying off the armor inside the tank when hit by bullets or shells from outside.

Medium tank MK.A "Whippet".

To operate in a zone behind the line of enemy fortifications, a high-speed tank was required, with greater maneuverability, less weight and dimensions. The project of a medium tank was made by W. Foster's company in Lincoln even before an order was received for it from the military. A prototype was manufactured in December 1916 year, and already in June 1917 there was an order for 200 Mk.A tanks. Since there were difficulties with the production of rotating turrets, they were replaced with a tower-like wheelhouse. The Mk.A was much more reliable than a heavy tank: tankers joked that greyhounds were the only vehicles who are able to return to the unit themselves after an attack.

Medium tank Mk.A "Whippet", characteristics:

Weight - 14 tons.
Length - 5 m.
Armor - 14 mm.
Speed ​​- 13 km/h.
Armament - 4 machine guns.

German tank

In October 1916, the German military department, concerned about the very successful use of British and French tanks, the instructions of a special technical commission consisting of representatives of leading German companies such as Daimler, Bussing, NAG, Opel, Holt-Caterpillar, headed by the head of the 7th department of the General Directorate of the War Ministry (on- abbreviated in German as A 7V - hence the name of the armored vehicle) develop a project for your own heavy tank.

The design work was carried out in great haste and was completed by the end of the year. On January 16, 1917, a finished chassis with a wooden mock-up of an armored hull was demonstrated in Berlin-Marienfeld, and already on January 20, the War Ministry prepared an order for the construction of 100 armored vehicles, and it was assumed that only 10 weapons would be armored.

Since the layout of the vehicle was based on symmetry in the longitudinal and transverse planes, in general the A7V tank (see photo) was more of a “mobile fort”, well suited for all-round defense, rather than a means for breaking through enemy defenses and supporting the advancing infantry army. Armoring of the chassis and inclined armor plates suspended above the bottom at the front and rear, together with a high center of gravity, significantly reduced the vehicle's maneuverability. The tank moved confidently on loose soil only on level ground and easily overturned even with the slightest lateral roll.

Until the end of the war, only 20 A7V tanks were built (each of which was assigned given name), who managed to take part, with varying degrees of success, in a number of important battles of the final stage of the First World War. Form tank attacks launched in March 1918 near Saint-Quentin and on April 24 near Villers-Bretonnet ended successfully, then on July 15 near Reims all 20 tanks participating in the offensive (A7V and captured) were knocked out

Hello friends. In light of the great interest in the history of the First World War in Lately, for your attention a short article about the origins of the tank era. The First World War marked the turning point of two eras. It changed the map of Europe, irrevocably took the lives of about 10 million people, upended all the usual ideas about the world of that time, and perhaps the world itself.

In our history, this war is also marked in many ways by the fact that during this period, two new types of weapons were used for the first time in combat operations - chemical and tank. This newest weapons restructured the entire military theory and practice, made the customs of the then war even harsher, and the new possibilities of man to destroy his own kind even more terrifying.

In the midst of this war, in the winter of 1916, the headquarters of the combined armies of the Entente began to develop a joint campaign designed to once and for all take the entire strategic initiative into their own hands and bring the war to a victorious conclusion. A strategic decision was made to use the maximum of available forces and assets, including those at the implementation stage, to conduct main operations. The main objective of the planned offensive was to capture all German communications centers and move the combat zone to the French coast.

The Somme River was chosen as the site of the main joint operation between England and France. The terrain conditions were poor for maneuvers - hills and uneven terrain, but the Allies calculated that their numerical superiority over the enemy would allow them to overcome all negative factors. To ensure complete success of the operation, 6 cavalry and 32 infantry divisions were involved. Strong fire support operations were supported by 2.2 thousand guns, 1.2 thousand mortars, 300 aircraft. And most importantly, for the first time it was planned to use the new kind heavy ground weapons - tanks.

The operation took place on July 1 and continued until November 18, 1916. The Germans were well prepared, and the Allied victories became controversial. The British offensive was repulsed, but the French captured several settlements and a couple of positions. But the German army, under the leadership of K. von Bülow, was able to organize defense in the shortest possible time and pulled together additional reserves.

By September 12, the Allies overthrew the German line, but they no longer had enough strength to develop the main offensive. Then a new type of weapon, never used before, came to the rescue. Exactly 97 years ago, on September 15, 1916, the British carried out the very first tank attack in human history. True, due to lack of experience, the crews of the vehicles were still very poorly prepared. But the tanks themselves were completely unmaneuverable, bulky and slow. At night, 49 vehicles advanced to the front, of which only 32 moved to their original positions. Only 18 tanks took part in supporting the attack, the rest, despite the terrifying appearance, simply could not overcome natural obstacles. But even this relatively small number had a powerful influence on the development of the battle. Thanks to tank support, British forces on a front almost 10 km long advanced 5 km inland. The entire operation took almost 5 hours. British manpower losses were much lower compared to earlier operations.

When carrying out their attack, the British used Mk.1 vehicles, an experimental model of which was created in 1915. The creators called this tank “Little Willie”. After several tests, the vehicle was declared fit for combat. The first operational samples of this tank were released in 1916, and at the same time an order was placed by the British command for one hundred similar vehicles. The Mk.1 tank was produced in two main modifications: “Male” (“male” tank had a machine gun and two 57-mm cannons) and “Female” (“female” tank was equipped only with machine gun weapons). The armor was 6-10 mm, it could withstand shrapnel and bullets, but a direct hit from a shell was fatal for it. This colossus weighed 30 tons, the length was 10 m, and the speed was 6 km/h, it could overcome trenches and wire fences. The crew consisted of eight people, and the engine was located in the same hull with the crew. The temperature inside the iron beast sometimes reached 50 degrees. The crew's equipment necessarily included a gas mask, since the crew lost consciousness from the small amount of oxygen and toxic gases.

The next major use of tanks by British forces occurred on November 20, 1917 in the Cambrai area. This was the first truly massive tank attack.

The entire Third Tank Corps, equipped with 476 armored “bridges,” took part in this offensive. According to the drawn up plan of the operation, it was expected that after breaking through the German defenses, they would capture Cambrai and enter Belgium.
In the morning, the tank corps attacked German positions. Surprise attack large quantity armored vehicles worked rather as a weapon of demoralization. Stunned by such a situation, the enemy offered almost no resistance - the defenders had neither experience in fighting tanks nor the appropriate weapons, and most importantly, they were in a state of shock. The tanks made a terrible impression on the Germans, causing genuine horror and panic. On the evening of November 20, tanks, accompanied by infantry, advanced 10 km and headed towards Cambrai. In total, 8 thousand prisoners, about 100 guns and hundreds of machine guns were captured. But a little later, the inconsistency in the actions of the infantry and tanks became clear, and the British attack stopped. And by November 29 it stopped completely. On November 30, the German command launched a powerful counter-offensive and soon the lost sections of the front were returned. Then the British brought another 73 tanks into battle. The tanks advanced in small groups of 3 vehicles, in the shape of a triangle, followed by infantry in three lines: the first captured the trenches, the second destroyed the enemy infantry, and the third provided the rear.

First tank battle with the use of tanks on both sides happened at the very end of the war, on April 24, 1918. This battle between British tanks Mk.1 and German A7V tanks near the village of Villers-Bretonneux. Artillery and infantry did not take any part in this battle at all. Thanks to the higher maneuverability of the vehicles and better coordination of the crew, the British won.

The order to begin production of these combat vehicles in Germany was received by Josef Vollmer. They had to meet a number of requirements: a reliable engine, minimal noise, the ability to replenish ammunition within a few hours, a relatively small silhouette, sealing and quick engine replacement.

The tank created by Volmer was named LK-I (“ light tank"), at the same time were ready for release and more heavy tanks LK-II. It was planned to make one third of the tanks only with machine guns, and all the rest with cannons. They did not have the opportunity to take part in hostilities right away - the war had already ended before the tanks were produced. A kind of paradox emerged - Germany, which had the opportunity to make tanks that were not inferior to the enemy, stopped their production due to the low flexibility of the industry. If Germany had had a sufficient number of lighter tanks, it is unknown how the course of the war would have unfolded.

In the battles of the First World War, tanks clearly demonstrated their main capabilities. In addition to significant physical damage, they brought severe psychological confusion to the ranks of the defenders. It became clear that the enormous potential of the new combat vehicle had yet to be revealed in the coming decades.

First World War brought a huge technical breakthrough in the military industry. Its course, especially the events of 1915, showed the need to create more mobile units in the armies.

Tanks - new progressive weapons for battle

The first tanks of the First World War appeared in 1916. This technical result was achieved by English and French engineers. Before talking about their characteristics, we need to understand why the first tanks appeared in the First World War. Fighting began vigorously, but the activity lasted literally a month. After this, the battles began to be mainly of a positional nature. This development of events did not suit any of the warring parties. The methods of warfare that existed at that time, as well as military equipment did not allow us to solve the problem of breaking through the front. It was necessary to look for a radically new solution to the problem.

The military leadership of England (and, in general, France) was wary of the initiatives of engineers to build armored vehicle on wheels or on tracks, but over time the generals realized the need to increase the level of technical equipment of their armies.

British tanks of the First World War

During the war, British engineers created several models of armored vehicles. The first option was called "Mark-1". The "baptism of fire" took place on September 15, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The first tanks of the First World War were still technically “damp”. According to the plan, it was necessary to use 49 tanks in battle. Due to technical problems, 17 tanks were unable to take part in the battle. Of the 32 tanks, 9 were able to break through the German defenses. After the first battle, problems that needed to be eliminated immediately became visible:

The armor should be stronger. The metal of the Mark-1 tank could withstand bullets and shell fragments, but in the event of a direct shell hit on the vehicle, the crew was doomed.

The absence of an engine room separated from the “salon”. While driving, the temperature in the tank was 50 degrees, all exhaust gases also went into the cabin.

What could this tank do? In principle, there is still a little to do: overcome wire and trenches up to 2 meters 70 centimeters wide.

Modernization of British tanks

The first tanks of the First World War were modernized during the course of hostilities. The Mark-1 tanks were no longer used in battles, because changes immediately began to be made to the design. What has been improved? It is clear that, given the continuation of hostilities, it was not possible to immediately improve the design of tanks. By the winter of 1917, production of the Mark-2 and Mark-3 models began. These tanks had more powerful armor, which ordinary projectile I couldn’t break through anymore. In addition, more powerful guns were installed on the tanks, which gradually increased the effectiveness of their combat use.

In 1918, mass production of the Mark-5 model began. The tanks of the First World War gradually became more combat-ready. For example, only the driver now controlled the tank. Speed ​​specifications have improved because engineers installed a new four-speed gearbox. The temperature inside this tank was no longer so high because a cooling system was installed. The engine was already to some extent separated from the main compartment. The tank commander was in a separate cabin. The tank was also equipped with another machine gun.

Tanks of the Russian Empire

In Russia, which also took part in the hostilities, work on the creation of the tank was in full swing. But it is worth noting that Russian tanks The First World War never appeared on the battlefields, although they were very much needed tsarist army. main reason- absolute technical inability. Russian engineer Lebedenko was noted for creating the largest tank in the world in 1915, weighing more than 40 tons. It was called "Tsar Tank". During testing at the test site, the tank, equipped with two 240 l/s engines, stalled. They couldn't start it. Special technical characteristics, except for its size, the model had nothing.

German tanks from the First World War

By the end of the First World War, Germany, which lost the war, also acquired its own tanks. It's about about the A7B model. If you look at the tanks of the First World War, photos of which are in this article, you can see that at that time this model was very modern. The front of the tank is protected by 30 mm of armor, which made it difficult to penetrate this vehicle. The commander was on the upper platform (1.6 meters above ground level). The firing range was up to two kilometers. The tank was equipped with a 55-mm cannon, the ammunition load of which included 100 high-explosive fragmentation shells. In addition, the cannon could fire armor-piercing and grapeshot shells. With the help of a cannon, the tank could easily destroy enemy fortifications.

March 21, 1918 took place tank battle between the Germans and the British. The first German tanks of the First World War, as it turned out, were much more combat-ready than the British Mark 5. It is easy to understand the reason for the enormous advantage of the Germans: the British did not have guns on their tanks, so they could not shoot at the enemy so effectively.

A harbinger of progress

The French Renault tank produced in 1917 was already similar in shape to the modern one. The tank, unlike English models, could reverse. The crew entered and exited through the hatch ( British tanks during the First World War were equipped with doors on the side of the tank). The tank's turret could already rotate, that is, shooting took place in different directions (the tank could shoot left and right, and forward).

The first tanks of the First World War could not be absolutely technically perfect, because humanity always moves towards the ideal through mistakes and modifications.