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Warfare begins in World War One when the armored all-terrain fighting Vehicles were introduced as
a response to the problems of trench warfare ushering in a new era of mechanized Warfare
though initially crude and unreliable tanks eventually became the Mainstay of ground armies
so let's have a look at some of the earliest tanks developed by the British French and German armies
hello I'm Mike droberg a Marine Corps veteran filmmaker history
Enthusiast and investigator of the supernatural
and we will answer these questions on today's episode of Forgotten history [Music]
the British mark one through four 150 mark one through four variants were built divided into
male and female types with 75 of each mail tanks Had sponsons Each one mounting a 57 millimeter six
pounder gun female tanks on the other hand mounted two cumbersome sponsons designed to carry two
Vickers water cooled heavy machine guns instead tiny Escape door at the back both had a wheel
tail assembly at the back which could be used for steering and as a counterbalance when going over
a ridge or even additional support when crossing a wide trench Mark 1 tanks went into action for
the first time on 15 September 1916 on the Somme later in 1916 the wheel Tails which are proving
to be more trouble than they were worth were removed and it was found that the tanks ran just
as well without them other modifications included fitting stronger brakes and better track rollers
and removing the teeth from The Idler wheels at the front some minor actions took place later in
the year and 15 Mark 1 tanks were e-marked to take part in the Battle of Arras in April 1917.
after that as new tanks were coming along the surviving marks were relegated to subsidiary roles
as Supply or Wireless tanks the Mark's top speed was 3.7 miles per hour and it had a crew of eight
the British whippet was the first fast tank and was intended to use speed to break through the
German defenses the British Mark tanks were very slow their job was to fight away through
the mud and wire of no man's land with infantry following on foot behind the tanks only need to
go at the walking pace of an infantry man the Army then decided that a faster tank was required to
take advantage of the gaps created by the heavy tanks and the Infantry this was the role of the
Whippet it had a top speed of 8 miles per hour more than twice as fast as the heavy tank like
the mark so it was nicknamed the Whippet it had two bus engines and it was designed in 1917 and
first went into battle in March of 1918. it had a crew of three and was armed with four 303-inch
Hotchkiss machine guns the French Schneider ca1 was inspired by the need to overcome the stalemate
of trench warfare which on the Western Front prevailed during most of the Great War it was
designed specifically to open passages for the Infantry through barbed wire and then to
suppress German machine gun nests like most early tanks the Schneider was built like a simple armored
box it lacked a turret with the main Armament a short 75 millimeter cannon and a sponson on the
right side the vehicle is considered a very imperfect design because of the poor layout
insufficient Firepower and cramped interior and inferior Mobility due to an overhanging
nose section which had been designed to crush through the belt of barbed wire but in practice
caused the tank to get stuck improved designs were almost immediately initiated but the production
of the Schneider was eventually canceled it had a crew of six and a top speed of 5 miles per hour
the French saint chamond developed in parallel with the Schneider CA was the second tank built
by the French in 1917. it was the most heavily armed Allied tank of the war
it was also one of the pioneering generation of armor boxes which actually never succeeded
anywhere other than demonstrating inability to cope with rough terrains of the Holt chassis with
a long Hull and a feeble 90 horsepower engine for nearly 25 tons of solid steel its prospects never
matched the reality of trench warfare the whole project started under the close survey of Colonel
Emil remailho A Gifted artillery engineer who had strong financial interests in the Saint Chamond
company it was producing a locally built enhanced version of the famous model 1897 Canon the world's
first field artillery gun fitted with hydronomic recoil mechanisms later widely copied and built
under license abroad Colonel ramailho insisted from the start departing from the original Schneider
design that the saint-chamond be equipped with his gun production began in March 1917 and ended in
March 1918. after the 377th vehicle the remainder were converted into Supply tanks and Recovery
Vehicles they saw their first action at laffaux Mill on May 5th 1917 several were stuck in various
trenches but three succeeded in total following deliveries 12 artillery groups were raised
however its obvious limitations quickly cause regular complaints from various officers and
relaying Crews it was phased out as an offensive tank on the sole Prophet because of the
mass-produced Renault ft however their precious 75 millimeter gun and their speed on roads and
moderately flat terrains made them ideally suited as a mobile assault gun to deal with German
batteries in the summer of 1918 the Allies were on the counter-offensive and the Saint-Chamond
found open terrain suitable for it they fought on sometimes with other tanks and U.S troops until
the Armistice it had a crew of nine and a top speed of 8 miles per hour the French Renault ft was
the first tank to have its Armament inside a fully rotating turret the Ft was a radically different
design to previous British and French tanks rather than a large heavy vehicle the concept behind it
was for a small and light tank that would be more maneuverable harder to hit and could be fielded in
large numbers the tank was built by the French car company Renault it has many features that
you can still see on Modern tanks a fully rotating turret which was equipped with a eight millimeter
Hotchkiss machine gun the driver at the front and the engine and gearbox at the back it had
a crew of Two and a top speed of 4.78 miles per hour thousands of these tanks were ordered but
most were not finished until after the war and they ended up being exported all over the world
the German delays in developing their own tank were due to a report following the examination
of a knocked out British Mark II tank in 1917 the British Mark II tank had been built as a
training vehicle with a soft metal armor plate nevertheless instructions were given for them
to be transported to the battlefield and used in combat the Germans conducted firing trials
on this tank and concluded that it was not a serious threat because the armor could be
penetrated by Machine Gun fire artillery and direct fire from an anti-aircraft and field
guns the advances made at cambree with the fully armored mark IV tank changed their appraisal of
the usefulness of the tank the German started process of recovering as many mark IV tanks as
possible rearming them with German guns and using them against their previous owners they also built
20 Sturmpanzerwagen a7v breakthrough tanks the a7v was first used in combat on 21 March 1918.
five tanks under the command of Hauptmann greiff were deployed north of Saint Quentin Canal
three of the a7vs suffered mechanical failures before they entered combat the remaining pair
helped stop a minor British breakthrough in the area but otherwise saw little combat that
day it had a minimum crew of 18 and upwards of 25. a maximum speed of 9.3 miles per hour
and was armed with a 5.7 centimeter maximum Nordenfelt and six 7.9 millimeter machine guns
German designers realized they needed a more agile light tank to perform a Cavalry roll work
started on designing the lighter Kampfwagen a light tank the tank was also known as the lk2
it had a crew of three and was armed with a 57 millimeter maximum Nordenfelt it had a top Road
speed of 10 miles per hour although they were designed in 1917 and manufactured in 1918 they
never saw combat with the Imperial German army during World War One thanks for watching today's
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