Could anyone have suspected on September 15, 1916, that on that day many books on military theory were out of date at once? Because the first tank received the baptism of fire. And the cry of a nameless German "The devil is coming!" proclaimed the appearance of a new king of land war. Following the British, the French and Germans created tanks, but the "rhombuses" were forever the first among the first. In total, there were nine cars in this line. Some made it to the war, others remained prototypes. The episodes collected in this material briefly tell about the history of the "diamond-shaped" family.
Mark I. What Hidden the Shadow of the Somme
September 15, 1916 - the day the first tanks received the baptism of fire. This spectacular attack is well known: foggy morning on the Somme River, German shock from the steel monsters emerging from the darkness, the exclamation "The devil is coming!" Much less often people remember how Mark I tanks fought later. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of their use in the fall of 1916 in some cases was even higher than in the debut battle.
On September 25 and 26, 13 Mark I tanks entered the battle in the Guvedecourt and Le Sarah area. And although 12 of them never reached the enemy, only one machine-gun Mark I Female was enough to clear the enemy trench in less than an hour and capture 370 German soldiers. In another battle, three Marks launched a frontal attack. One was knocked out by German artillery, two were stuck. But the very fact of the presence of tanks was enough for the Germans to capitulate. This was how the fear of tanks worked, which flourished at that time among the Kaiser's soldiers.
In fairness, it should be noted that the tanks produced a stunning effect on the Germans only in the first weeks after their debut. Soon the enemy learned not to be afraid of them, and the flaws in the design that prevented the tanks from fighting, damaged the reputation of the newest weapon in the eyes of the British themselves.
Mark II and Mark III. Without a tail, but with a log
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Britain built a total of only a hundred Mark II and Mark III tanks - 75 less than "units". Because of this, in the historical literature, they are often called examples of small-circulation technology of the transition period. Meanwhile, for the first time, several unique features appeared in the design of "twos" and "threes".
Mark II, for example, lost the famous wheeled "tail", supposedly needed to make it easier for the tank to overcome the trenches. According to legend, one of the tanks' tail was shot off in battle, but the crew continued to move, and it turned out that the wheels behind the vehicle were of no practical value. The designers reduced the length of the tank by two meters - also without sacrificing cross-country ability! Instead of the "tail", a spare parts box was placed at the stern (for storing spare parts and tools). The exhaust pipes, which curved on the roofs of the first tanks, were also brought to the stern.
In the design of the Mark III, its creators set out to increase the thickness of the frontal armor through the use of armor screens. But, although the technological holes for their installation and streaked the cases of the "triplets", the screens themselves were not installed on them. But it was on the Mark III that a self-pulling beam first appeared - a thick wooden beam, reinforced on the roof. It was used as a support when rescuing a stuck tank. This tool turned out to be surprisingly tenacious and was used throughout the further history of this technique.
Mark IV. The first "thousand"
The order for the construction of the Mark IV tank was formed by the military in September 1916, almost immediately after the debut of the "rhombuses" on the Somme. Compared to the Mark I, the Quartet has made several major changes.
First of all, the designers strengthened the armor, so that rifle and machine-gun fire was no longer terrible for the tank. Due to the beveled bottom shape, the weapon sponsons stopped clinging to the ground when the car was laterally rolling. In addition, they were equipped with special rails, thanks to which the sponsons could not be disassembled before being transported by rail, but simply pushed into the hull. Unfortunately, the new design turned out to be fragile - sometimes fasteners broke off in battle, and the sponson rolled into the hull with a crash, crushing the tankers. The gas tanks were moved to the stern to reduce the fire hazard of the vehicle.
By May 1917, Mark IVs arrived in France and entered service with the British army. The new tank proved itself worthy in battle. The armored giants easily made wide gaps in the barbed wire, leading the infantry behind them. One tank demonstrated its power in a very unusual way in November 1917. He overcame a one and a half meter fence, drove, smashing trees, through an orchard and turned the corner of the house when turning.
The service life of the cars was still limited to 100-112 kilometers, but compared to the Mark I, this was a serious step forward.
Mark IV turned out to be a truly massive modification of the "diamond", more than a thousand tanks of this type were built in total.
Mark IV in the battles of Cambrai. An attempt to "make it beautiful"
In the summer of 1917, the idea of an exemplary tank attack matured at the headquarters of the British Panzer Corps. The military wanted to send cars into battle in such circumstances in which they could show themselves in all their glory, achieving unconditional success. The area in the north-east of France, near the city of Cambrai, seemed to be a suitable section of the front. The plow of war had not yet had time to plow the local landscape, the soil was dry and hard.
The Mark IV tanks were tasked with breaking through the German defensive line of Hindenburg. It was conceived as a local tank raid, but grew into a large-scale military operation.
The tanks were transferred to the 3rd Army of Lieutenant General Sir Julian Byng in perfect secrecy. The roar of their engines was drowned out by machine-gun bursts. For the operation, the machines needed more than a million liters of gasoline and oil, about half a million shells - the suppliers delivered all this to the near rear on time.
The beginning of the tank attack on November 20, 1917 resembled a heroic epic. The commander of the Tank Corps himself, General Hugh Ellis, sat in the lead Mark and led the other five hundred Rhombuses. The tanks tore through the barbed wire like threads, mile after mile. Hundreds of German prisoners of war wandered into the British rear. And then things took a nasty turn.
The highlander infantry of the 51st Division had engaged in battle at the village of Flesqueer, at the edge of the hilly ridge, and lagged behind the tanks. The Germans, in turn, pulled up fresh reserves and began heavy shelling from over the crests of the hills. Mark IV tanks that climbed on them opened their weakly protected bottoms and burned even from machine gun fire. The British attacking wedge crumpled against Cambrai, and ten days later the Germans counterattacked and reclaimed their occupied territories. With interest.
Mark V and the first "real" tank engine
At the end of 1917, the development of new models of "rhombuses" stalled. The weapons manufacturers were also to blame, who were afraid that tanks would make their rifles, machine guns and cannons unnecessary, and therefore did not hesitate to put a stick in the wheels of tank production. But even the will of the "weapon barons" could not stop the development of armored vehicles, and in December 1917, another "diamond" Mark V, also known as the "Ricardo tank", was ready for launch into the series.
Operation at the front has clearly shown that tanks need a higher power engine, capable of operating without interruption in a wide range of loads, and also simple enough to be repaired on the front line. At the same time, the engineers could not count on the fact that they would be allowed to use alloy steel or aluminum in the design of the engine: the aviators laid their hands on these materials. The first to develop a real tank engine was the designer Harry Ricardo. Its motor fully met the requirements of the military. And together with the new Wilson-designed gearbox, the Ricardo engine greatly simplified the control of the tank.
Other innovations in the Mark V include the optical telegraph, which replaced the signal flags. From May 1918 to the end of the First World War, the British army received 400 Mark V - two hundred gun "males" and machine gun "females".
On April 24, 1918, the first tank duel took place: Mark IV against a German A7V. The battle showed that machine-gun tanks are only good against infantry. As a result, some of the "fives" lost their "gender identity" due to the replacement of a machine gun with a cannon in one of the sponsors. Frontline soldiers jokingly called such asymmetrical tanks "hermaphrodites".
Are tanks afraid of dirt
In the early morning of July 31, 1917, the British army launched an attack on the Ypres River in the direction of the French city of Paschendal.
The terrain on the way of the British offensive abounded in swamps and copses. Even in times of peace, it would have been necessary to lay log gats for tanks here. And now, when the system of drainage canals was destroyed by artillery, this would not help either. The command of the Tank Corps warned that the vehicles would not pass the man-made mud swamp. Moreover, the weather also put a pig in the form of a heavy downpour, which further erodes the soil. Unfortunately, no one was going to cancel the tank attack.
By midday the tanks stopped. Many of them plunged into the water for the most sponsons, so even the logs for self-recovery did not help. And the Germans did not get lost in defense, firing dense artillery fire at the motionless "rhombuses". The infantry that followed the Mark IV were also hopelessly stuck in the mud. The Germans pulled up the outlandish Schumann armored carts (mobile firing points), which fired at the British, to the battlefield. German airplanes circled over the battlefield, trying to hit the tanks from low altitude. The commander of one of the "rhombuses" could not stand it, took off the machine gun from the car and began to shoot back from the enemy aircraft.
The British attack on Paschendal failed, but documents indicated that the Germans were afraid of tanks because they thought they were armed with flamethrowers - the terror of the infantry. The surviving tanks were in the rear for repairs until August 1917.
Mark V in the Hundred Day Offensive
The final chord in the score of the First World War was the Hundred-Day Offensive of the Entente forces on the Western Front. It took place from August to November 1918 and began near Amiens, where the Allies, with their attacks, decided to recapture one of the main Parisian transport arteries from the Germans. It was the largest military operation of the First World War in which tanks took part.
The entire Panzer Corps approached the front line. In addition to new products (medium tanks Mk. A Whippet), 334 Mark V "rhombuses" went to break through the German defense. On August 8, 1918, the tanks moved forward. And although interaction with the infantry was still lame so much that some tank commanders had to ride alongside their vehicles on horseback to coordinate actions, the staggering density of 23 Marks per kilometer of front made up for the inconsistencies.
The tanks went to the German positions following the artillery barrage. The German trenches were drowning in smoke and fog, which interfered with the anti-tank artillery. Aware of their superiority, British tankers sometimes got out of their vehicles and gestured to enemy soldiers to surrender in an amicable way. German artillery tried to cut off the infantry and artillery from the tanks, firing at them with chemical projectiles with sneezing gas "blue cross". The shelling did not give a noticeable effect.
A quarter of British tanks were out of order on the first day of the offensive. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority, these were precisely combat losses, only 5% of the vehicles were lost due to breakdowns. Despite all the problems of the allied forces, the Germans did not survive. The hundred-day offensive ended on November 11, 1918 with the signing of the Compiegne Peace Treaty and the surrender of Germany.
Mark VIII, post-war Anglo-American
The sixth and seventh modifications of the "Mark" did not reach mass production, remaining prototypes. The Americans decided to have a hand in creating the next car of the diamond-shaped family. They entered the First World War on the side of the Entente in the spring of 1917, immediately became passionately interested in tanks and decided to purchase 600 Mark VI machines for their army. Then they thought, canceled the order and offered the British to develop a new "diamond" together. As a result, the G8 did not have time to participate in the First World War: by the end of the war, only five tanks were ready. After the end of hostilities, production of the Mark VIII completely "moved" to the United States.
Externally, the tank stood out somewhat against the background of older relatives due to the design of the chassis. The caterpillars still covered the hull, but due to the elongated stern, the tank began to resemble more a drop than a diamond. The Americans literally made it easier for the crew to breathe: they placed the 338-horsepower Liberty engine in the rear of the car and separated it with a partition. The Mark VIII designers completely abandoned the division of tanks into "females" and "males". The sponsons of all vehicles had 57-mm guns, and the machine-gun armament was located in the turret on the roof, plus it was possible to install machine guns in ball mountings embedded in the side doors.
Until 1930, the Mark VIII Liberty was the only American heavy tank. He was never in the war - the Americans occasionally took the Mark VIII to the training grounds. And when World War II began, the United States transferred 90 vehicles of this type to the Canadian army. Those, in turn, used them for educational purposes.
Mark IX. Landing "rhombus"
In addition to technical flaws, a serious problem with the use of the first tanks in battle was the inconsistency of their actions with the infantry. The point was not even that the soldiers did not know how to work together with armored vehicles. The tankers simply sat in relative safety behind the armor of their vehicles, and the infantrymen were open to all bullets and shrapnel.
Military engineers responded to this need by developing an amphibious version of the diamond-shaped tank. The sponsons were removed from the car, leaving only machine guns in the forehead and stern. This freed up space so that 30 soldiers could hide behind 10-12 mm armor or 10 tons of cargo could fit. The crew of the diamond-shaped armored personnel carrier consisted of four people, and the driver's seat was adjusted for the fact that in continental Europe, in contrast to Great Britain, right-hand traffic. To increase comfort, a fan and a drinking water tank were installed inside the Mark IX. Alas, the neighborhood with a red-hot engine completely negated these conveniences.
By the end of World War I, the Mark IX diamond-shaped armored personnel carrier existed in only a few copies. One of them managed to visit the Western Front in 1918, where he served as an ambulance. It is known that the soldiers nicknamed the outlandish car "Pig" (English Pig).
Author: Yuri Bakhurin
