Why wasn't the Tank a war winner in WW1 ?

DublinDes

Wondering, the above. It surprises me that it didn't manage to break through the German's defenses causing their lines to be over run and hence win the war. Could you imagine the German soldiers who first seen them coming at them, " Mein Gott, ze British have monsters/dinosaurs attacking us now !!! " and would you blame them for then legging it back across the Rhine ASAP
BTW, if anyone has any account of the Germans first reaction to their first encounter with the tank from a German soldiers view it would be interesting if you could post it.
So, why wasn't it the war winner ?

Leadership

DublinDes wrote: »

So, why wasn't it the war winner ?

They were too unreliable and had other problems that prevented them being a War winner.

Problems included

• Working environment was hostile and could not be used on sustained operations (Heat, Noise & fumes)
• Mud!!! Modern tanks would struggle in the same conditions
• Lack of numbers initially - Gave the Germans time to develop armour piercing bullets and tactics
• Armour was plate steel - If hit by a round or shell then a shard of steel would break off inside the tank and bounce around until it a human(s) or a key mechanical part
• Tactics were poor - Infantry often overtook the slow tanks (would you walk slowly through no mans land under fire?) and lost the protection of the tanks
• Vibration caused poor accuracy of guns and often guns would fall off or even shear off the mounts
• Command and control - Vision was poor and the tanks were hard to control in formation. Even a tank on its own was hard to command.

If the First tank battle of the Somme had featured 100 of these then the war would have probably been over in days. Unfortunately with only 6 tanks and only two reaching the Germans they are not quite as scary as they really are.

Fratton Fred

DublinDes wrote: »

Wondering, the above. It surprises me that it didn't manage to break through the German's defenses causing their lines to be over run and hence win the war. Could you imagine the German soldiers who first seen them coming at them, " Mein Gott, ze British have monsters/dinosaurs attacking us now !!! " and would you blame them for then legging it back across the Rhine ASAP
BTW, if anyone has any account of the Germans first reaction to their first encounter with the tank from a German soldiers view it would be interesting if you could post it.
So, why wasn't it the war winner ?

I think that is pretty much what they did think, but the tanks were so unreliable and badly utilised the gains they made were never really exploited. There is an article in the Daily Mail today (I got it free, I don;t buy it, honest) about the Whippet Tank known as Music Box. The article isn;t online but i found this summery.

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/GreatBritain/whippet.html

......The epic story of "Musical Box" was the greatest single tank action of the I World War. Whippet number 344 of the 6 Tank Battalion with the crew of three: Lt. C. B. Arnold - commander, W. J. Carney - driver, and C. Ribbans - gunner, performed a real cavalry style raid behind German lines. They moved at zero hour on the 8 of August with the rest of the troops across the country, passing the railway at Villers - Bretonneux after which they became detached from the main body of their battalion. Arnold noticed some Mark V tanks and Australian infantry of the 60 Brigade under fire of the German artillery battery. He attacked without hesitation passing in front of guns and next behind them. A machine gun fire from "Musical Box" killed 30 soldiers and allowed infantry to move forward. Arnold and his crew for the next 9 hours attacked the German rear installation, infantry, and wagons, on many occasions coming to the rescue of the British cavalry. They dispersed a whole battalion of infantry in a camp in a small valley encountered between Bayonvillers and Harbonnieres. They attacked a transport column of German 225 Division inflicting heavy casualties. Conditions inside the tank after many hours of uninterrupted action become so difficult that the crew used mouthpieces of their standard gas mask for breathing. At that time German guns entered the fight and "Musical Box" was soon ablaze. The crew baled out and started rolling on the ground to extinguish their burning uniforms. Approaching Germans shot driver Carney and took Lt. Arnold and Ribbans prisoner. The burned out wreck of the Whippet tank was later found by advancing British troops. The action by Lt. Arnold proved that great results could have been obtained by aggressively led tanks, unfortunately tying Whippets to cavalry proved to be a wrong method of employment for the formidable weapon

Try and get over to Bovington, it is a long time since I was last there, but there are quite a few WWI tanks on display

Manic Moran

Mud!!! Modern tanks would struggle in the same conditions

You'd be surprised.

I think the lads above have pretty much answered the questions. Bear in mind also that the concept of armoured vehicles were not actually entirely foreign, the Germans would have understood what was going on when the first few MkIs came at them. The first tanks were developed by the Royal Naval Air Service (of all people) after the success they had with armoured cars in Northern Belgium. Indeed, they were initially titled His Majesty's Land Ships. (It's why tanks have nautical terms like 'hull' and 'sponson.') They were larger than armoured cars, yes, and had tracks, but the concept of a vehicle resistant to small-arms fire was not new.

Of course, it's still a bit of a bummer to face a tank when you're unable to deal with it, so 'tank shock' did have some effect, but from the earliest engagements, the Germans discovered that their artillery pieces made quite effective anti-tank guns so they were never entirely incapable of dealing with tanks, at least in smaller numbers. Even the bog-standard infantryman had a chance, with the development of Armour-piercing ammunition for his Mauser rifle. "War Stories of the American Tankers" has a few annecdotes from WWI, you'll note that there was a very high attrition rate for tanks from enemy fire.

Tanks like Music Box, Whippets, were conceived more for a cavalry role than a penetration role. They were faster and less heavily armed than their counterparts (Relative terms!), but were more reliable. The heavier tanks were just too heavy and unreliable to do much more than get to the battlefield and make it to the enemy lines. Sure, when used en-masse they would almost always break the German line at that location, but the Germans simply would fall back to the next position. There was a lot of effort expended to get those tanks to get those couple of miles and then reconstitute them.

They certainly helped at the tactical level, but strategically, they had yet to develop into a viable system.

Bovvy has the best collection of pre-WWII armour I've seen. Missing a few items which Samur has (Mainly French), and of course, the one A7V is in Australia (with a replica in Munster)

NTM