All-In [29879]

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Military Pron - Tank Origins

Aug 24, 2021, 12:38 AM

These poasts are gonna cover one of my favorite topics, tanks. I mean, who doesn’t love them? They’re mechanical, and they blow shid up. Need more?

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We’ll take a look at a little history, some theory on their use, then the best part, how they work!

I built every plastic tank model ever made when I was a kid, then promptly burned them all with matches and Kingsford lighter fluid. (Thank you Henry Ford, btw)

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But that burning smell? It smelled like victory.

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The Brits developed the first tanks in WW1 to break the stalemate of trench warfare, and, though slow, ponderous, and prone to breakdown, they were pretty darn effective. Radios, however, still had a ways to go.

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The basic idea of a vehicle that could traverse extremely rough or broken terrain, like trenches, came from, of all places, farming. Benjamin Holt, out in the Central Valley in California, had been for years supplying tractors which could ride over plowed fields. He even put his name on the radiator. Foreign militaries eventually took note of the unusual machines. And Holt’s company soon became known as Caterpillar.

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The very first tank ever, the British “Willie”

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Kind of like a boxcar with tracks

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Here’s some of those Boxcar Willies ridin’ the rails to the front lines.

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What the Limeys found though was that when used in ones or twos tanks could be easily picked off by German artillery, but when used in masses tanks were great.

An early male British tank, with a big gun, and a female, with a machine guns. Seriously, that’s how they named them. That chicken coop on the top is to deflect hand grenades, and the big wheel in the back is to assist in steering. Soon enough, both these additions were dropped.

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A male Mark I

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A female Mark I

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They were quite a design achievement. That odd rhomboid shape is specifically to them help cross trenches, and the guns are on the sides, not the top, so they can point down easier while the tank is angled up climbing over obstacles.

To hide their true combat nature from nosey German spies, they were called “Water Carriers”, or Water Tanks”, and the name stuck. Just ignore the guns on them.

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A good look inside. Driver at the front, engine in the middle, gunners on the sides and rear. They were hot and cramped and slow, and you had a pretty good chance of dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, but they worked.

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Here they are en masse, at Cambrai, in France. It was a smashing victory, and the way of the future. Those bales up front and on top are to help them cross muddy ground.

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Imagine that wall of steel coming at you for the first time. The Germans shid their drawers the first time they saw them and ran away, flying by the very messy seat of their pants.

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Just think about how disturbing the debriefing after that battle must have been.

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Victory!

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British tanks were so successful though that the Germans quickly got in on the act.

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Oooh! Death’s Head. Intimidating.

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Or not. German WWI tanks pretty much sugged. While the Brits and French built thousands, the Germans only built 20 in WWI.

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Only 20 years later, in less than half the span of the UGA football championship drought, the Germans would themselves have thousands of tanks- in WW2.

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WWI German tanks were sort of an armored mobile home. Very spacious and cozy though. That guy in the back looks like he’s taking a nap.

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But both sides found that while tanks solved the problem of busting through the enemy line, they did not solve another problem, what to do with the hole.

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It was great to punch a hole in the enemy’s line, but when your tank is as fast as an old man walking with a cane, the enemy just walks up and fills in the hole you just made with more of their troops.

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In the old days, chariots or cavalry solved that problem.

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Cannons to the left of me! Cannons to the right of me!

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So what you really needed was two types of tank. A slow turtle to break through the front, and a fast “cavalry” tank to exploit the breach. But the Germans weren’t allowed to design tanks after the war, the French decided to build walls instead, and America decided we were never going to fight in Europe again.

So that left the British and the Russians to develop tanks after WW1.

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The French solution to the tank problem. Build a wall. The Maginot Line.

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Impressive, but for 9 billion dollars, does it even move?

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Give it to the French, no one could consider this massive investment on the German border to be considered an offensive threat.

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Mr. Maginot himself, French Minister of War

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Of course the only problem with a wall is that unless you can convince Belgium to build one too, someone could just drive right around it. Just think of Belgium as a 150 mile hole in your wall.

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The American solution to the tank problem. Stay away. A sort of “limited” isolationism.

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But the British were all over tank design, and came up with a few different models:

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The Matilda I, a walking-speed mobile bunker, for breaking the line

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And eventually, the Matilda II, a very fine tank, and an even better mobile bunker. There was not a gun in existence that could crack this shell. Well, no gun intended for land use anyhow. Those odd looking slots on the side are for mud, dirt, and sand to drop of the tracks.

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And once the Matildas broke the line, these guys would race through and raise he77 on supplies, communications, railroads, airfields, everything soft they could reach and blow up.

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A British Crusader tank. Light, cheap, fast, and pretty good as long as nothing was shooting at it.

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The Russians were working along the same lines as the British. In fact, most of the theory of “Deep Battle”, the idea of busting through and raising he77, came from the Reds. The Germans actually learned the idea of a Blitzkrieg from the Russians. But then Stalin killed all his genius tank eggheads in the purges of the 1930’s. Sad face.

Anyway, their answer was this:

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The KV-2, named for Kliment Voroshilov, the inventor. It was pretty damm good at busting through stuff.

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Here’s Kliment himself. Kinda famous in the Soviet Union

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The BT-7. It was even called a “Cavalry Tank”. Like the British Crusader, it was fast and good if it didn’t have to fight anybody. BT is Russian for something that means high speed tank. It could even run with its tracks off if you had good roads. See how the front wheels turn?

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Plus, you can always count on the Russians to go totally overboard with anything they do. The biggest planes, the biggest ships, the biggest guns, and “Land Battleships.”

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Like this monster, the T-28

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Or its bigger brother, the T-35. You just don’t need a tank with five turrets. Too much, too much, too much.

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Meanwhile, the Germans were cheating. And this was before Hit ler even came to power. All during the 20’s, they went over to the Russian city of Kazan, far behind Moscow, and observed and participated in illegal tank research and trials.

Naughty, naughty, the Versailles Treaty specifically said no tanks and no planes.

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The dreaded German Bicycle Tank, circa 1925, somewhere deep in Russia

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Or even worse, the foot Panzers!

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Practicing for war, or laying out a parking lot?

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Caught you red-handed (lol, red, cause Russia, see?) you sour kraut. You selling ice-cream bars out of that wagon?

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Apparently, even bicycle tanks have mechanical breakdowns. Luckily, you can just pump the tires I guess.

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Now, the French did make a few tanks, but since they were never planning on attacking anyone they didn’t make very many. Too bad they put their efforts in walls. But the French tanks were good enough that we bought some to test out.

The same guys who made this:

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Made this tiny 2-man tank. The Renault FT-17. That little doo-dad on the back is to help when crossing extra-wide trenches.

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Three of our guys REALLY loved them. Eisenhower, Patton, and MacArthur saw real potential in the little mechanical rovers.

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Patton even had his picture taken with one.

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But then fate intervened. Our tank research practically stopped at the end of the War to End All Wars. And since America was never again going to war in Europe again, we let the Europeans worry about thinks like tanks.

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Then the final axe blow. In 1920 it was declared that only the Army could conduct tank research, and since they didn’t want them, nothing was going to happen, at all.

Eisenhower moved on with his infantry career. MacArthur went on to be King of the Philippines. And Patton, who in particular wanted an independent tank branch in the Army, joined the Cavalry branch of the Army.

The light was flickering out. It looked like the end of the way for American tanks.

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The Cavalry branch realized they couldn’t make the slow, ponderous walking-speed Infantry tanks the army had nixed.

But, no one prohibited them from making “Combat Cars.” A loophole! And that’s where we’ll pick up next.

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Tank tops count as tanks, too

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Military Pron - Tank Origins

Tanks.

I liked the beginning

The German Death's Head resembles the Animal House

I hate that I've missed some of these lately. It seem like

Good one. I assume there will be a part two............

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