tanks are one of the most formidable
psychological inventions that war has
ever created nothing quite freaks out an
enemy like watching a fleet of gigantic
armored cannons rolling towards them to
think of it 20 million people succumb to
death during their debut in the first
world war but between unreliable early
tanks and practically unstoppable modern
tanks there have been a lot of crazy
innovations and mistakes others show
what happens when a nation becomes so
powerful that it allows its best
inventors to run away with their
imaginations welcome to nutty history
and today we bring you the true but
nutty story of how tanks came to be
imagine telling a medieval knight that
one day they would be able to combine
the defense of a castle with the
mobility of a horse the closest thing
they would ever envision would probably
be an ultra athletic war elephant
technically one european general created
something that resembled a tank and used
it in the battlefield his name was jan
zizka troknova kalicha he was checked
and at the turn of the 15th century he
armored up wagons and placed cannons
inside them but it's a leap to state
that this was a tank as we understand it
for one thing it didn't have anywhere
near the mobility of a tank instead it
worked by horses pulling the wagon when
the wagon was in its place on the
battlefield the horses would be removed
and the wagon would just stay in the
same spot technically these wagons were
more like semi-portable defenses instead
it would take a genius to imagine
something that could be called a tank in
the way that we understand it and that
genius was leonardo da vinci in 1487
leonardo da vinci took inspiration from
the humble turtle noticing how the
animal's shells aided their protection
so he sketched up what is now called
leonardo's fighting vehicle
to modernize it looks more like a ufo
than a tank but it definitely was
supposed to function like a tank the
circular vehicle would be operated by
four men using two cranks to make the
wheels move forward
along the base of the tank was supposed
to be a row of cannons instead of the
modern swiveling single cannon along the
top of modern day tanks
the frame of the tank was to be made of
wood with metal plates reinforcing it
the sloping nature of the walls of the
tank aided the ability for it to deflect
enemy projectiles of course leonardo's
tank was never made and a number of
issues with the design meant that it
wouldn't work very well anyway for
instance its wheels would almost
definitely sink into anything but the
firmest ground
instead it would take hundreds of years
for the world to work out how to
implement leonardo da vinci's idea in a
way that would actually be practical and
even then the first tanks had major
flaws
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in the early 20th century the first car
started to appear in the wealthiest of
nations in 1903 a french soldier named
leon levesque shore saw cars rushing by
and had an idea what if you could use an
engine to propel a heavily armored
cannon yes this was basically what
leonardo had envisaged but with a single
cannon instead of many and with an
engine instead of a crank the cashier's
design even included caterpillar tracks
over the wheels a key feature in early
functional tanks at first he saw
interest from the technical artillery
committee of france but they wouldn't
commit to funding a prototype so he kept
on reworking his design over the course
of several years
but in 1908 the committee finally said
they had no interest in the project
because they thought it was too similar
to a tractor just imagine how different
history and the world's perception of
the french would be if the le cabbage
shower project had actually made it into
production by the time world war one
broke out if the french had surprised
the germans and their allies with tanks
when they were just starting to dig
trenches then we could speculate the war
could have been over in no time we'd
also probably be thinking of the french
as being the bravest and most
intelligent military power in the world
instead of as willie the janitor once
said she's eating surrender monkeys
instead it wasn't until millions of
lives had been lost in world war 1 when
the first tanks arrived on the
battlefield tanks were a strategic
stroke of genius by the british army to
turn the tide of the war for german
soldiers on the other hand this was like
the folk tales of battle mages orcs and
monsters to combine into one behemoth
bean and come true to life come to think
of it you know what that sounds like
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now back to the video
when world war one broke out and all the
sides found themselves deadlocked the
rival powers realized that they finally
needed a crazy new invention to win both
france and britain started developing
tank ideas the british completed a tank
prototype in 1915. this prototype was
named little willy strangely enough this
was the nickname that the british press
had called the son of the leader of
germany prince wilhelm so basically this
would have been like a us army naming
the first drone bombers after obl sun
lil willy weights 16.5 tons for
comparison the main battle tank of the
us army in 2022 the m1 abrams weighs
between 60 to 73 tons the british army
tested little willy and soon found out
they had some major problems on their
hands first of all the tank could only
achieve a maximum speed of 2 miles an
hour making it almost half as slow as a
walking human they also found out that
its caterpillar tracks sagged whenever
it tried to cross a trench causing the
tracks to dislodge this was a major
problem as the tank was primarily
intended to drive over trenches on top
of this the engine of the tank filled
the inside with poisonous carbon
monoxide making the crew slowly
suffocate without realizing it but the
crews were aware of the extreme heat
which would eventually reach 122 degrees
fahrenheit or 50 degrees celsius
luckily the british did not scrap the
idea instead they built a bigger tank
weighing 30 tons which they called big
willy which was also a nickname for
kaiser wilhelm soon the british army
stopped naming tank prototypes after the
leaders of the enemy probably realizing
that it made the bad guy sound good but
the name willie stuck for a while with
the british tank drivers calling their
vehicles willys for a long time this was
also the time when tanks became known as
tanks when the first tanks were built to
keep them a secret the factory workers
were told that they were building water
tanks and it turns out that name was
much more appealing than willie so the
british army adopted it as the official
name
the official batch of british tanks
which were officially called mark ones
first saw action on september 15 1916 in
the battle of flair coslet only some of
the problems with the prototypes had
been overcome and even then the
solutions were not great for instance to
counter the dangers of carbon monoxide
poisoning the crews wore gas masks and
to slightly mitigate the risk of the
carbon monoxide causing fires to break
out crews were prohibited from smoking
inside the tanks just remember that
battlefields often feature lots of fire
and explosions making the tanks
basically moving catastrophes they were
armed with two six-pound naval guns that
had originally been intended to destroy
torpedoes and three light machine guns
the fumes from these guns only made the
carbon monoxide levels within the tanks
worse 49 tanks had been built and
shipped to the battlefield but even
before the battle began the tanks began
failing 17 broke down and were
completely unusable before the first
charge the remaining 32 let the assault
toward german trenches but most of these
also broke down or got stuck long before
reaching the enemy but amazingly nine of
the tanks made it to the german trenches
and despite the breakdowns these nine
successful tanks both motivated the
british soldiers and terrified the
german soldiers after all nothing like
these gigantic blocks of moving metal
had ever been seen on a battlefield
before a group of them had appeared to
cross no man's land with ease with no
amount of bullets stopping them smashing
through defenses which had withstood
years of attacks the british soldier
sydney taylor's testimony really sums up
the feeling this is what he said about
being in that battle it was a funny
sensation to see a dozen tanks coming
over shell holes no stopping didn't
matter what they came over they got over
it all right and it was horrifying it
gave you a funny sensation to think that
all these were coming and they were on
our side they weren't against us it was
a wonderful sensation really to see them
but it was horrifying you know
when the tanks reached the german lines
many of the german soldiers fled in
terror thinking that the machines were
indestructible others hid below ground
praying to be spared
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the french army mocked the british for
sending what were clearly half finnish
inventions into war the french who were
also working on their own tanks said if
the british had waited a little longer
and made their tanks better than they
would have been much more effective
instead now the germans were aware of
what tanks were meaning they could
prepare for the next attack but as it
turns out the german army and people
were completely confused by the british
tanks first of all the fleeing german
soldiers told their generals crazy
stories exaggerating just how powerful
the tanks were this was probably
partially due to the impression that the
machines had given off and also because
the soldiers wanted to do anything to
avoid being seen as cowards which could
lead to major consequences including
execution
additionally the tanks that had made it
only added to the confusion one soldier
saw a destroyed tank and stated that the
vehicle must have moved on on only a
single caterpillar track not realizing
that the other track had been destroyed
so the germans had no idea just what a
working tank was supposed to look like
and then of course was british
propaganda flooding the airwaves
claiming that the tanks were unstoppable
killing machines
and of course these confusing accounts
meant that the german army had no idea
just how prone to breaking down the
tanks were or the fact that only several
dozen had been produced instead the
german army had to accept that britain
had created a vehicle that could cross
the trenches and that britain might have
hundreds or even thousands of these in
reserve they also knew that these
inventions would only get better sure
some had broken down but next time the
british would have improved them to the
extent where many more would
successfully reach their trenches
so the battle of fleur's corsalette
proved to the world that tanks could and
would become a key part of wartime
operations even those in the british
army who had been doubtful about the
effectiveness of tanks were convinced
that they were necessary to win the war
this included the head of the british
army field marshal douglas hague who
reluctantly admitted that tanks were
better than horses and industrialized
war he also ordered 1 000 more tanks to
be made as soon as possible the french
also decided to rush their own tank
designs into production the first french
tanks arrived in april 1917
only this time there were 128 vehicles
ready for action
this french tank the schneider ca1
weighed 13.6 tons the 75 millimeter
cannon on the schneider c81 tank didn't
rest at the top but on the right hand
side
this cannon was so small that nowadays
it's considered to be an assault gun
like the british tank the schneider ca1
was also terrible at just about
everything but its biggest problem was
that it struggled to move thanks to its
weird front design this front section
had a long nose section that was
supposed to have been for flattening
barbed wire but which never actually
worked the inside of the tank was
incredibly cramped and uncomfortable
despite these problems they took part in
the novell offensive but the french were
able to improve their own tank designs
in fact by the end of the war they had
created arguably the most influential
tank design in all of history the
renault ft
on may 31st 1918 30 of these lighter
tanks rolled onto the battlefield for
the first time ever by now the germans
had become used to seeing tanks on the
battlefield and they were preparing to
defend themselves against this new fleet
when something crazy happened the
turrets housing the tank cannons began
to move from side to side the turret
could rotate and aim effectively at
enemy targets these tanks were therefore
much more precise and deadly a number of
other innovations made the renault ft
much better than any tank that had come
before
for example the tank was much better
ventilated with the engine being
equipped with a fan that could
effectively force fumes from the tank's
interior to the outside
other nations soon realized that the
renault ft was a superior design and
began to order them for themselves the
us generals saw the tank in its testing
stage and ordered the construction of 4
400 tanks that slightly modified the
renault ft's design but by june 1918
none of these tanks had been completed
therefore france lent 144 of their own
renault fts to the us army the german
army also rushed their own tanks into
production in march 1918 the first five
of these called the a7v reached the
trenches
three of them broke down before they got
close to no man's land the other two
stopped a few british forces by the end
of the war germany had managed to create
20 tanks but only 10 of these could
actually attack
the others just transported cargo the
germans also managed to capture 170
tanks made by the other side but by the
end of the war britain and france
clearly had many many more tanks than
germany could hope to build or capture
of course the tank wasn't the only thing
that ensured that germany lost world war
one rapid advancements in aviation and
america's decision to join the
battlefield were also major contributing
factors but clearly tanks shifted the
balance of power on the battlefield of
course in the next world war germany had
had plenty of time to make tanks as the
allies soon discovered and as the next
video will make clear
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