The history of the tank includes all vehicles intended to advance under enemy fire while remaining protected.
Beginning The principle of armoured warfare can be compared with attempts to protect soldiers from enemy projectiles that existed since ancient times. The development of the explosion engine makes it possible to transport an armored vehicle more easily than with horses. It is reported that a steam tractor mounted on two tracks was used during the Crimean War in 1854.
Development
World War I generated new demands for armoured self-propelled weapons which could navigate any kind of terrain, and this led to the development of the tank. The great weakness of the tank predecessor, the armoured car, was that it required smooth terrain to move upon, and new developments were needed for cross-country capability.
The tank was originally designed as a special weapon to solve an unusual tactical situation: the stalemate of the trenches on the Western Front. "It was a weapon designed for one simple task: crossing the killing zone between trench lines and breaking into enemy [defences]."Williamson Murray, "Armored Warfare: The British, French, and German Experiences," in The armoured tank was intended to be able to protect against bullets and shell splinters, and pass through barbed wire in a way infantry units could not hope to, thus allowing the stalemate to be broken.
Few recognised during World War I that the means for returning mobility and shock action to combat was already present in a device destined to revolutionise warfare on the ground and in the air. This was the internal combustion engine, which had made possible the development of the tank and eventually would lead to the mechanised forces that were to assume the old roles of horse cavalry and to loosen the grip of the machine gun on the battlefield.
With increased firepower and protection, these mechanised forces would, only some 20 years later, become the armour of World War II. When self-propelled artillery, the armoured personnel carrier, the wheeled cargo vehicle, and supporting aviation—all with adequate communications—were combined to constitute the modern armoured division, commanders regained the capability of manoeuvre.
Numerous concepts of armoured all-terrain vehicles had been imagined for a long time. With the advent of trench warfare in World War I, the Allied French and British developments of the tank were largely parallel and coincided in time.Collision of empires Arnold D. Harvey p. 381
Early concepts
Leonardo da Vinci is often credited with the invention of a war machine that resembled a tank.Moon, Francis C. (2007). The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Franz Reuleaux, Kinematics of Machines from the Renaissance to the 20th Century. Springer. In the 15th century, a Hussite called Jan Žižka won several battles using armoured wagons containing cannons that could be fired through holes in their sides, but his invention was not used after his lifetime until the 20th century.Sedlar, Jean W. (1994), A history of East Central Europe: East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, University of Washington Press. p. 234. In the 17th century, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz devised his "fire cart", which incorporated the gunpowder engine for propulsion, anticipating the 20th-century incorporation of the internal combustion engine for the same purpose.
In 1903, a French artillery captain named Léon Levavasseur proposed the Levavasseur project, a canon autopropulseur ("self-propelled cannon"), moved by a caterpillar system and fully armoured for protection. Powered by an 80 hp petrol engine, "the Levavasseur machine would have had a crew of three, storage for ammunition, and a cross-country ability", but the viability of the project was disputed by the Artillery Technical Committee, until it was formally abandoned in 1908 when it was known that a caterpillar tractor had been developed, the Hornsby of engineer David Roberts.
H. G. Wells, in his short story The Land Ironclads, published in The Strand Magazine in December 1903, had described the use of large, armed, armoured cross-country vehicles equipped with pedrail wheels (an invention which he acknowledged as the source for his inspiration), to break through a system of fortified trenches, disrupting the defence and clearing the way for an infantry advance:
In the years before the Great War, two practical tank-like designs were proposed but not developed. In 1911, the Austrian engineering officer Günther Burstyn submitted a proposal for a fighting vehicle that had a gun in a rotating turret, known as the Motorgeschütz.See: Malnig, Helmut W. (2009) "Der erste Kampfpanzer der Welt: Gunther Burstyn und sein "Motorgeschütz" " [The world's first battle tank: Gunther Burstyn and his "motorized gun"], Truppendienst, 309 (3) [in German]. Available at: Austrian Federal Army: Truppendienst Austrian patent no. 53,248 (filed: 1911 March 1; issued: 1912 April 25). German patent no. 252,815 (issued: 1912 February 28). (Anon.) (1922) "Who invented the tank?" Army Ordnance, 4: 36. In 1912, the Australian civil engineer Lancelot de Mole's proposal included a scale model of a functional fully tracked vehicle. Both of these were rejected by their respective governmental administrations.
The first working tracked passenger war vehicle, the first modern tank was made in Hungary by inventor Pál Lipták in 1913, as a specialization of the war tractors of the era. It had a built-in, rotating turret for its cannon and a flamethrower was also added at one point. The first test firings were held in 1915, but the military scrapped the idea, worried that the rivets would not withstand a major hit.
American tracked tractors in Europe
Benjamin Holt of the Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton, California was the first to file a US patent for a workable crawler type tractor in 1907.Holt, Benjamin, "Traction engine," U.S. Patent no. 874,008 (filed: 1907 February 9; issued: 1907 December 17). The centre of such innovation was in England, and in 1903 he travelled to England to learn more about ongoing development, though all those he saw failed their field tests. Holt paid Alvin Orlando Lombard for the right to produce vehicles under Lombard's patent for the Lombard Steam Log Hauler.
Holt returned to Stockton and, utilizing his knowledge and his company's metallurgical capabilities, he became the first to design and manufacture practical continuous tracks for use in tractors. In England, David Roberts of Hornsby & Sons, Grantham, obtained a patent for a design in July 1904. In the United States, Holt replaced the wheels on a Holt steamer, No. 77, with a set of wooden tracks bolted to chains. On November 24, 1904, he successfully tested the updated machine ploughing the soggy delta land of Roberts Island.
When World War I broke out, with the problem of trench warfare and the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front, the pulling power of crawling-type tractors drew the attention of the military. Holt tractors were used to replace horses to haul artillery and other supplies. The Royal Army Service Corps also used them to haul long trains of freight wagons over the unimproved dirt tracks behind the front. Holt tractors were, ultimately, the inspiration for the development of the British and French tanks.
By 1916, about 1,000 of Holt's Caterpillar tractors were used by the British in World War I. Speaking to the press, in claiming the British tanks in use in 1916 were Holt-built, Holt vice president Murray M. Baker said that these tractors weighed about and had . By the end of the war, 10,000 Holt vehicles had been used in the Allied war effort.
French
The French colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne articulated the vision of a cross-country armoured vehicle on 24 August 1914:
Some privately owned Holt tractors were used by the French Army soon after the start of World War I to pull heavy artillery pieces in difficult terrain, but the French did not purchase Holts in large numbers. It was the sight of them in use by the British that later inspired Estienne to have plans drawn up for an armoured body on caterpillar tracks. In the meantime, several attempts were made to design vehicles that could overcome the German barbed wire and trenches.
From 1914 to 1915, an early experiment was made with the Boirault machine, with the objective of flattening barbed wire defences and riding over gaps in a battlefield. The machine was made of huge parallel tracks, formed by 4×3 metre metallic frames, rotating around a triangular motorized centre. This device proved too fragile and slow, as well as incapable of changing direction easily, and was abandoned.
In France, on 1 December 1914, Paul Frot, an engineer constructing canals for the Compagnie Nationale du Nord, proposed to the French Ministry a design for a "landship" with armour and armament based on the motorisation of a compactor with heavy wheels or rollers. The Frot-Laffly was tested on 18 March 1915, and effectively destroyed barbed wire lines, but was deemed lacking in mobility. The project was abandoned in favour of General Estienne's development using a tractor base, codenamed "Tracteur Estienne".
In 1915, attempts were also made to develop vehicles with powerful armour and armament, mounted on the cross-country chassis of agricultural tractors, with large wheels having coarse treads, such as the Aubriot-Gabet "Fortress" (Fortin Aubriot-Gabet). The vehicle was powered by electricity (complete with a supply cable), and armed with a Navy cannon of 37mm, but it too proved impractical.
In January 1915, the French arms manufacturer Schneider & Co. sent out its chief designer, Eugène Brillié, to investigate tracked tractors from the American Holt Manufacturing Company, at that time participating in a test programme in England, for a project of mechanical wire-cutting machines. On his return Brillié, who had earlier been involved in designing armoured cars for Spain, convinced the company management to initiate studies on the development of a Tracteur blindé et armé (armoured and armed tractor), based on the Baby Holt chassis, two of which were ordered.
Experiments on the Holt caterpillar tracks started in May 1915 at the Schneider plant with a 75-hp wheel-directed model and the 45-hp integral caterpillar Baby Holt, showing the superiority of the latter. On 16 June, new experiments followed, which were witnessed by the President of the Republic, and on 10 September, by Commander Ferrus. The first complete chassis with armour was demonstrated at Souain on 9 December 1915, to the French Army, with the participation of Colonel Estienne.
On 12 December, unaware of the Schneider experiments, Estienne presented to the High Command a plan to form an armoured force, equipped with tracked vehicles. He was put in touch with Schneider, and in a letter dated 31 January 1916 Commander-in-chief Joffre ordered the production of 400 tanks of the type designed by Brillié and Estienne, although the actual production order of 400 Schneider CA1 was made a bit later on 25 February 1916. Soon after, on 8 April 1916, another order for 400 Saint-Chamond tanks was also placed. Schneider had trouble with meeting production schedules, and the tank deliveries were spread over several months from 8 September 1916. The Saint-Chamond tank would start being delivered from 27 April 1917.
British
In 1914, the British War Office ordered a Holt tractor and put it through trials at Aldershot. Although it was not as powerful as the Foster-Daimler tractor, the Holt was better suited to haul heavy loads over uneven ground. Without a load, the Holt tractor managed a walking pace of . Towing a load, it could manage . Most importantly, Holt tractors were readily available in quantity. The War Office was suitably impressed and chose it as a gun-tractor.