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Andy Strickland

Dr. Susan Grayzel

HIS 450-2

December 3, 2012

World War I Machine Guns and Tanks

There are many things that made World War I different from other wars up

until that time. One of the numerous things that had an immense impact on World

War I, is the usage of machine guns and tanks. Machine guns and tanks added a

whole new dimension to warfare. Who initially invented these weapons and

vehicles? How did these weapons and vehicles change the ways in which wars were

fought/tactics? What were the perception of these weapons and vehicles? How did

each army use these weapons and vehicles? To what effect were these weapons

used in the trenches? By examining their usage, this paper demonstrates the

evolution and immense impact these weapons and vehicles had on the style of

warfare in World War I.

The initial creator of the machine gun was Richard Jordon Gatling; an

American who in 1861 coined what was referred to as a “revolving rifle” or better

known as the “gatling gun”. These revolving rifles contained anywhere from four to

ten barrels. The barrels were placed parallel to each other and arranged on a

common axis about which they revolved in such a manner that each barrel was

brought in succession into the firing position. In 1866 a French man named Reffye,

came up with the “mitraileuse”. These mitraileuses were merely machine guns that

were more mobile.

These are simply a gatling gun being towed around by horses or on a two-wheeled

base somewhat like a cannon. These guns looked good in theory, however, due to

their limited mobility, these guns were unsuccessful and turned out to be an

excellent target for enemy artillery. 1

American Col. I. N. Lewis also produced a machine gun. This was claimed a

revelation for the allied troops in World War I as Lewis’s machine gun was air-

cooled and could be fired for long periods of time without overheating. It was also

only twenty-five pounds, which wasn’t a big burden for a soldier. Even with its

limitations, Lewis’s machine gun was still thought of as the greatest invention

brought into warfare. 2

Throughout World War I many leading Generals did not see a need for

machine guns or a reappraisal of tactical thinking. This was because of the presence

of opposing forces. The machine gun was not invented for the First World War, but

this was the first war that accepted these weapons as a useful piece of military

hardware. The machine gun, which eventually came to dominate and even to

personify the battlefields of World War I, was a fairly primitive device when World

War I began in August 1914. At the beginning of the war, machine guns were

considered by the military as a weapon that did not allow for chivalrous action. It

allowed for no heroes, and therefore was not a weapon that should be used.

1 Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Print. (16, 25-26, 62,71, 82

2 Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Print. (40, 74)

However, as the war wore on attitudes changed. Early on, machine guns of all

armies were very large and thus not very mobile. It became obvious these weapons

were not for use by rapidly advancing infantry troops. Each weighed somewhere in

the 30kg-60kg range often without their mountings, carriages and supplies. Some

were so heavy that it took several men to lift them. In 1914, machine guns were

usually positioned on a flat tripod and would require a gun crew of four to six

operators. They could fire 400-600 small-caliber rounds per minute. This figure

would eventually double by the war's end with the invention of a fabric belt or a

metal strip feeding ammunition into the weapon. Yet, these early machine guns

would rapidly overheat and become inoperative without the aid of cooling

mechanisms. This unstable performance led troops to fire the weapon in smaller

burst rather than sustained burst. These smaller burst helped keep the gun cooler,

and helped with the accuracy of the gun with there being less recoil.

Given this performance issue, troops began looking for methods of

cooling. This usually took place in two forms, water-cooled and, as the war

developed, air-cooled. Water jackets would provide for the former (which held

around one gallon of liquid) and air vents would be built into the machine gun for

the latter. Water cooled machine guns would still overheat relatively quickly,

sometimes within two minutes, with the consequence that large supplies of water

would need to be on hand in the heat of a battle. When a crews supply of water ran

out, it was not unknown for them to solve the problem by urinating into the jacket.

The earliest air-cooled machine guns were unsuccessful. Firing just a few rounds

would make the barrel so hot, that cartridges would explode inside of the barrel.

Whether air or water-cooled, machine guns still jammed frequently. This was

especially true in hot conditions or when used by inexperienced operators. These

conditions led to machine guns being produced in two separate ways. The first

would be the heavy type of machine gun. These machine guns were needed to be

capable of long sustaining fire. The second way was the automatic rifle. These

weapons were expected to be extremely light. Consequently machine guns would

often be grouped together to maintain a constant defensive position. Estimates of

their equivalent, accurate, rifle, firepower varied, with some estimating a single

machine gun to be worth as many as 60-100 rifles. However, a more realistic figure

is around 80, still an impressively high figure. 3

The French adopted the machine gun early in 1910. However, the French

General in charge of Infantry was quoted as saying, “This device makes no difference

at all”. He would soon eat those words. In 1914, there was a limited supply of

machine guns allotted for the French army with only being able to acquire 2,500 of

them. However, the French soon realized the how useful the machine gun was,

which led to more production. 4

The British were just as limited in the number of weapons they had. Only two

guns were allotted per battalion. However, on October 22, 1915, the British army

handed down an order setting up a separate Machine Gun Corps. Heavy machine

guns were formed as companies throughout the new corps. By 1918 these new

companies had accrued 6,432 officers and 124,920 others. Throughout the war the

3 Crowell, Benedict. America's Munitions 1917-1918: Report of Benedict Crowell, the Assistant Secretary of War, Director of Munitions. Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1919. Print. (158-177)

4 Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Print (61)

number of guns in each company increased. In late 1915 each battalion contained

four Lewis light machine guns. That increased to eight in June 1916 and in July, a

battalion headquarters section added four more guns. By December, one out of

every four platoons contained a Lewis gun. Eventually by 1918, that number had

narrowed down to one in every two. 5

With the enormous growth in the use of machine guns, the tactics of using

these weapons became more sophisticated. These new tactics helped the Corps staff

work out complicated forms of supporting fire. This not only helped prevent Vickers

guns from only repelling enemy attacks, but kept constant fire on the trenches and

rear areas. The first day of the Somme Offensive amply illustrated this, although the

lesson appeared to be lost to the British high command. On the opening day of the

offensive the British suffered a record number of single day casualties, 60,000, the

great majority lost under withering machine gun fire.6

Understandably most historical accounts of the First World War have tended

to emphasize the defensive strengths of the machine gun. Throughout the war,

efforts were made to produce an infantry assault version, such as the Lewis Light

Machine Gun. However, these efforts were generally unsatisfactory. Although the

Lewis light machine gun was lighter at around 12 kg they were still considered too

heavy and bulky for rapidly advancing infantry. Attempts to transport light machine

guns by wheeled carriages or pack animals were ultimately unsuccessful. The

infantry eventually did with these methods away.

5 Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Print (63, 68)6 Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Print. (114-115, 133, 167)

By 1918 however one-man portable machine guns were put to some use.

These machine-guns each weighed around 9-14kg. As the war developed, machine

guns were adapted for use on tanks on broken ground, particularly on the Western

Front. This is where a majority of the machine guns were deployed.

Light machine guns were adopted too for incorporation into aircraft from

1915 onwards. For example, the Vickers, particularly with the German adoption of

interrupter equipment, which enabled the pilot to fire the gun through the aircraft's

propeller blades. In response to the increasing success of machine guns mounted on

aircraft, it was perhaps inevitable that machine guns should similarly be developed

as anti-aircraft devices (in France and Italy), sometimes mounted on vehicles. 7

In 1915, the French Nieuports had mounted guns shooting through their

propellers. If they did not wreck them, the bullets would eventually chew through

the blades and lead them to wreck. This led to the invention of the synchronizing

device. This device helps in controlling the fire of the fixed machine gun so that the

bullets miss the blades. However, “synchronizing” is not the accurate term. The

device is also referred to as an “interrupter”, which is also an inaccurate term. Most

technicians prefer to use the name “gun control”. The inventor of the synchronizer is

very debatable, however, Germans in the Fokker monoplanes were the first to use it.

Roland Garros is given credit for the original invention.

There are two different types of “synchronizers”. One is known as the

hydraulic, and the other is known as the mechanical. However, they are very similar


in how they operate. There are many factors that play into aviation machine guns.

First, these weapons must be reliable in the most extreme of conditions. Having a

gun jam on the ground was bad enough, but it was completely unacceptable for one

to jam in the air. There is absolutely no way in fixing one while in the air, which

leaves the pilot pretty much a sitting duck for his adversary. Secondly, the gun must

be able to fire from any position. Machine guns on the ground are fired from one

normal position, horizontally, but with the movements an airman makes in alluding

enemies, he needs this gun to be able to fire from any position. Third, these aviation

machine guns must operate in a plethora of temperatures. Unlike ground machine

guns, these weapons need to be able to perform smoothly despite the high altitudes

and the contraction of their metal parts. Lastly, these guns need to be able to fire at a

much greater speed than ground machine guns. Five hundred shots per minute is

acceptable for a machine gun used in ground service, but aviation machine guns

have been bumped up to fire as high as 950 to 1,000 shots per minute. Therefore,

the faster rate of fire, the better chance of shooting down the enemy.

The allies used the Lewis gun extensively as the flexible gun for their plane.

These guns were operated on a universal mount which allowed them to point in any

direction. This gun was basically the Lewis ground gun, but modified.8

Similarly machine guns began to be added to warships as a useful addition to

naval armaments. The Germans also found themselves with a need to increase the

number of machine guns as the war progressed. The Germans were already more


advanced in their usage of machine guns than the allies at the beginning of the war.

However, like the allies, they too found their machine guns were unable to meet the

demands of modern warfare. The Germans began World War I with the same

amount of machine guns in their infantry. However, unlike the British, they had

organized their machine gunners into companies. This act gave the impression of

total guns per thousand men. Like the British, each year, the number of machine

guns in each division increased. In 1916 each division had 72 heavy guns. By 1918

that number had reached 350. The Germans also made good use of light machine

guns and automatic rifles. Whole battalions were equipped in 1915 with 129

Muskete automatic rifles. In 1916 light machine gun sections were also formed and

armed with the Bergmann gun. Each section contained 9 guns. Eventually there

were 111 sections total.

Starting in 1916, the Bergmann was issued in limited numbers to German

troops in the field. However, the Bergmann machine guns found themselves out of

production in 1918, with the end of World War I. The Bergmann MG 15 machine gun

is a short-recoil operated, air cooled, belt fed machine gun. The finned barrel is

enclosed within a tubular jacket with cooling slots. The bolt is locked using a

vertically moving locking-block located within the barrel extension. When forced

down by cams in the receiver, the locking block engages cuts made on the top

surface of the bolt, securely locking it to the barrel extension. Upon recoil, the cams

in the receiver, thus unlocking the bolt, force the locking block up. A lever-type bolt

accelerator helps provide for improved reliability. The Bergmann MG 15 fires from a

closed bolt, and in automatic mode only. The firing mechanism is of the hammer

type, and a manual safety is located at the right side of the receiver. Germans were

led to believe that the British Expeditionary Forces had a larger complement of

machine guns than they really did. A German report said, “Over every hedge, bush,

and fragment of wall floated a thin film of smoke betraying a machine gun rattling

out bullets” (120). No matter how talented a rifleman you were, it was really no

match for the large amount of machine guns.

Tactical preconceptions definitely played a big role in World War I. Before

World War I, the higher command had no dealings with the power of an automatic

weapon like machine guns. Their inability to understand what it means to match up

to an enemy with machine guns led to many deaths. One writer is quoted as saying,

“It was as simple as this: three men and a machine gun can stop a battalion of

heroes” (123). British commanders were unable to grasp this concept, and over this

three-year period, this led to many deaths. An example of this would be one of the

first British offensives that took place at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915. The

offensive was initially doomed from the start because of lack of men and equipment,

but really the reason the offensive did not work was because two machine guns and

around a dozen Germans wiped out two battalions of British infantry. This was

something over 1,500 men. Many experiences similar to this one were recorded

throughout the war. However, Allied higher command did not learn anything from

these massacres. Higher command simply thought more men, shells, and more spirit

would simply fix things. This happened again at the Battle of Loos, but still no one

questioned the British tactics. They did however, replace the commander in chief. 9

9Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. New York: Pantheon,1975 (120-123)

In Erwin Rommel’s Attacks, there are several instances where he mentions

machine guns and the tactics he and his troops used in the war. Rommel was very

precise in his tactics. In the night attack against Klautana Pass, Rommel located

positions for his company’s machine guns around a hundred yards from the pass at

a higher elevation. Rommel and his troops prepared very hard and carefully.

However, even with all his preparation, Rommel’s attack was a failure. Rommel

states, “I was very angry at this failure. It was the first attack since the beginning of

the war in which I had failed.” 10

Again at Cimolais, Rommel and his men set up position for another attack.

Here, Rommel set up his machine guns in bushes north of Cimolais. At 0900,

Rommel ordered the machine guns to open fire. As the machine gun squad opened

fire and the position Rommel had his troops in, the Italians panicked and begin to

move. This is exactly what Rommel wanted. As the Italians panicked and began to

run, the effectiveness of the machine guns increased. The machine guns did their job

and pinned the enemy down. Most of the Italians trying to escape were mowed

down by the machine guns. With the strategic placement of his men, and the use of

the machine gun, Rommel led his men to victory. The ability to suppress the enemy

and support other troops played a huge role in this victory. 11

10 Rommel, Erwin. Attacks. Vienna, VA: Athena, 1979. Print. (282)

11 Rommel, Erwin. Attacks. Vienna, VA: Athena, 1979. Print. (289-292)

In Herbert Sulzbach’s With The German Guns, Sulzbach states, “The idea of

providing us gunners with machine-gun training is that each German battery is now

being issued with two machine-guns for defence in hand-to-hand fighting”. 12

Now, I would like to talk about the tank. No one individual was responsible

for the development of the tank. Its design can be drawn back to the eighteenth

century. Rather, a number of gradual technological developments brought the

development of the tank, as we know it closer until its eventual form was unveiled

out of necessity by the British army. The motive for developing the tank in World

War I was in response to the stalemate that trench warfare had created. There was

hope that these “armored vehicles”, would bring an end to the stalemate and

hopefully eliminate trench warfare.

An initial vehicle, nicknamed Little Willie was constructed in Great Britain, at

William Foster & Co., during August and September, 1915. The prototype of a new

design that would become the Mark I tank, was demonstrated to the British Army on

February 2, 1916. Although initially termed "land ships" by the Landship

Committee, production vehicles were named "tanks", to preserve secrecy. The term

was chosen when it became known that the factory workers at William Foster

referred to the first prototype as "the tank" because of its resemblance to a steel

water tank. While the British took the lead in tank development, the French were

not far behind, fielding their first tanks in April, 1917 and going on to produce more

tanks than all the other combatants combined. However, the Germans were slower

12 Sulzbach, Herbert. With the German Guns: Four Years on the Western Front, 1914-1918. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1981. Print. (132)

to develop tanks. There main concern being concentrating on anti-tank weapons to

use against British and French tanks, and producing only 20 of their own A7V’s.

The first tanks were highly mechanically unreliable. There were problems

that caused considerable attrition rates during combat deployment and transit. The

heavily shelled terrain was impassable to conventional vehicles, and only highly

mobile tanks such as the Mark and FT’s performed reasonably well. The Mark I's

unique shape, caterpillar tracks, and 26 feet length meant that it could navigate

obstacles, especially wide trenches, that wheeled vehicles could not. The Mark V

tank was also built with enough space inside for a small squad of infantry.

Colonel Swinton, working together with the Landships Committee and the

Inventions Committee, agreed to with the design of this new weapon with remained

nameless. They commissioned Lieutenant Walter Wilson of the Naval Air Service

and William Tritton of William Foster & Co. to produce the first “landship” in

secrecy. Because of its shape of a shell and its resemblance of water carriers, it was

given the codename “tank”. Assigned in December 1915 the name stuck. Swinton

laid down certain key criteria that he argued must be part of the finished design.

The tank must boast a minimum speed of four miles per hour, be able to climb a

five-foot high obstacle, successfully span a five-foot trench, and critically, be immune

to the effects of small-arms fire. Furthermore, it should possess two machine guns,

have a range of twenty miles and be maintained by a crew of ten men.

As stated earlier, the first tank was given the nickname 'Little Willie' (soon

followed by 'Big Willie') and, as with its predecessors, possessed a Daimler engine.

Weighing around 14 tons and bearing 12 feet long track frames, the tank could carry

three people in cramped conditions. In the event its top speed was three miles per

hour on level ground, two miles per hour on rough terrain (actual battlefield

conditions in fact). However, the 'Little Willie' was notably restricted in that it was

unable to cross trenches. This was a failure because this was one of the main

reasons for the development of the tank. This handicap was, however, soon

remedied under the energetic enthusiasm of Colonel Swinton. The first combat tank

was ready by January 1916. Lloyd George ordered production of the heavy Mark I

model to begin. A year later, the lighter renowned 'Whippets' entered service. 13

Meanwhile the French, who were aware of British tank experimentation,

proceeded with their own independent designs, although they remained somewhat

skeptical as to its potential. Their focus at the time was firmly on the production of

ever more battlefield artillery. Nevertheless, the French had their own Colonel

Swinton, in Colonel Estienne. He persuaded the French Commander in Chief, Joseph

Joffre, that the tank had battlefield potential as an aid to the infantry. Joffre agreed

with the result that an initial order for 400 French Schneider. This was their first

tank, named after the factory that produced them. Also approved was the order for

400 St. Chaumond. These tanks, however, were not used until April 1917. Five

months after its combat demonstration to the British, in June 1916 the first

production line tanks were ready. They were albeit too late for use at the start of

that year's 'big push', the Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916.


History was made on September 15, 1916 when Captain H. W. Mortimore

guided a D1 tank into action at the notorious Delville Wood. Shortly afterwards

thirty-six tanks led the way in an attack at Flers. Although the attack was itself

successful, the sudden appearance of the new weapon stunned their German

opponents. These early tanks proved notoriously unreliable. In part this was

because the British deployed them before they were truly battle ready in an attempt

to break the trench stalemate. They often broke down and became ditched, or stuck

in a muddy trench more often than anticipated. Conditions for the tank crews were

also very rough. These tanks generated an enormous amount of heat. Fumes often

nearly choked the men inside. Nevertheless the first tank operators proved their

worth by operating under these treacherous conditions.

In April 1917 the French deployed 128 tanks in their Aisne Offensive.

Unfortunately, however, the tanks did not distinguish themselves in this battle, once

again proving highly unreliable. Tanks were even deployed during the very swampy

conditions of the Third Battle of Ypres. These tanks sank in the mud and the muck

and were essentially useless.

Tanks had been used in many previous battles, including The battle of

Somme, and The battle of Passchendaele. However, these battles were considered

rather unsuccessful with the tanks turning out to be unreliable, heavy, and slow. The

battle of Cambrai is where tanks really reached their potential. This battle is known

as a landmark in the history of warfare. It opened up basically a whole new era of

warfare for tank enthusiast. British Colonel J.F.C Fuller, chief of staff of the Tank

Corps, was responsible for the tanks' role in the battle. They made an

unprecedented breakthrough but, as ever on the Western front, the opportunity was

not exploited. Ironically, it was the soon-to-be-supplanted horse cavalry that had

been assigned the task of following up the motorized tank attack. 14

Tanks became more effective as the lesson of the early tanks was absorbed.

The British produced the Mark IV in 1917. Similar to the early Marks in appearance,

its construction was considered to produce a more reliable machine, the long-

barreled naval guns were shortened and armour was increased just enough to

defeat the standard German armour-piercing bullet.

The continued need for four men to drive the tank was solved with the Mark

V which used Wilson's epicyclic gearing in 1918. Also in 1918 the French produced

the Renault FT, the result of a co-operation between Estienne and Louis Renault. As

mentioned before, it had the innovative turret position, and was operated by two

men. At just 8 tons it was half the weight of the Medium A Whippet but the version

with the cannon had more firepower. It was conceived for mass production, and the

FT would become the most produced tank of World War I by a wide margin, with

over 3,000 delivered to the French Army. The Americans used large numbers and

several were also loaned to the British.

In July 1918, the French used 480 tanks (mostly FTs) in 1918 at the Battle of

Soissons, and there were even larger assaults planned for 1919. The Entente had

hoped to commit over 30,000 tanks to battle in that year.

14 Reid, Brian H. "The Beach, Jim. "British Intelligence and German Tanks,1916-1918." War In History 14.4 (2007): 454-75. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/27464215/british-intelligence-german-tanks-1916-1918>.

France at the same time developed its own tracked AFVs, but the situation

there was very different. In Britain a single committee had coordinated design, and

had to overcome the initial resistance of the Army, while the major industries

remained passive. Almost all production effort was thus concentrated into the Mark

I and its direct successors, all very similar in shape. In France, on the other hand,

there were multiple and conflicting lines of development which were badly

integrated, resulting in three major and quite disparate production types. A major

arms producer, Schneider, took the lead in January 1915 and tried to build a first

armoured vehicle based on the Baby Holt tractor but initially the development

process was slow until in July they received political, even presidential, support by

combining their project with that of a mechanical wire cutter devised by engineer

and politician Jean-Louis Bréton. In December 1915, the influential Colonel Estienne

made the Supreme Command very enthusiastic about the idea of creating an

armoured force based on these vehicles; strong Army support for tanks would be a

constant during the decades to come. Already in January and February 1916 quite

substantial orders were made, at that moment with a total number of 800 much

larger than the British ones.

French Saint-Chamond tanks had long bodies with a lot of the vehicle

projecting forward off of the short caterpillar tracks, making them more liable to get

ditched in trenches.

Army enthusiasm and haste would have its immediate drawbacks however.

As a result of the involvement of inexperienced army officers ordered to devise a

new tank based on the larger 75 hp Holt chassis in a very short period of time, the

first French tanks were poorly designed with respect to the need to cross trenches

and did not take the sponson-mounting route of the British tanks.

The first, the Char Schneider CA 1 equipped with a short 75 mm howitzer,

had poor mobility due to a short track length combined with a hull that overhung

front and rear. It was unreliable as well; a maximum of only about 130 of the 400

built were ever operational at the same time. Then industrial rivalry began to play a

detrimental role. It created the heavy Char St Chamond, a parallel development not

ordered by the Army but by the government through industrial lobby, which

mounted much more impressive weaponry, its 75 mm was the most powerful gun

fielded by any operational tank up till 1941, but also combined many of the

Schneider CA's faults with an even larger overhanging body. Its innovative petro-

electrical transmission, while allowing for easy steering, was insufficiently

developed and led to a large number of breakdowns. 15

Industrial initiative also led to swift advances. The car industry, already used

to vehicle mass production and having much more experience in vehicle layout, in

1916 designed the first practical light tanks, a class largely neglected by the British.

It would be Renault’s excellent small tank design, the FT, that incorporated a proper

climbing face for the tracks that was the first tank to incorporate a top-mounted

turret with a full 360-degree traverse capability. In fact the FT was the first truly

'modern' tank having a layout that has been followed by almost all designs ever

since: driver at the front; main armament in a fully rotating turret on top; engine at

the rear.

15 Zaloga, Steve, and Tony Bryan. French Tanks of World War I. Oxford: Osprey, 2010. Print.

Previous models had been "box tanks", with a single crowded space

combining the role of engine room, fighting compartment, ammunition stock and

driver's cabin. A very similar Peugeot prototype, with a fixed casemate mounting a

short 75mm cannon, was trialed in 1918 but the idea was not pursued. The FT

would have the largest production run of any tank of the war, with over 3700 built,

more numerous than all British tanks combined. That this would happen was at first

far from certain; some in the French army lobbied for the alternative mass

production of super-heavy tanks. Much design effort was put in this line of

development resulting in the gigantic Char 2C, the most complex and technologically

advanced tank of its day. Its very complexity ensured it being produced too late to

participate in World War I and in the very small number of just ten, but it would be

the first tank with a three-man turret; the heaviest to enter service until late in

World War II and still the largest ever operational.

French production at first lagged behind the British. After August 1916

however, British tank manufacture was temporarily halted to wait for better

designs, allowing the French to overtake their allies in numbers. When the French

used tanks for the first time on April 16, 1917, during the Nivelle Offensive, they had

four times more tanks available. But that would not last long as the offensive was a

major failure; the Schneiders were badly deployed and suffered 50% losses from

German long-range artillery. The Saint-Chamond tanks, first deployed on 5 May,

proved to be so badly designed that they were unable to cross the first line of

German trenches.16

16 Zaloga, Steve, and Tony Bryan. French Tanks of World War I. Oxford: Osprey, 2010. Print.

The A7V’s were a tank introduced by Germany in 1918, near the end of

World War I. One hundred vehicles were ordered during the spring of 1918, but

only 20 were delivered. It was nicknamed “The Moving Fortress” by the British

because of the shape of the hull. They were used in action from March to October of

that year, and were the only tanks produced by Germany in World War I to be used

in operations. 17

In Sir Albert Gerald Stern’s book, Tanks 1914-1918: the log-book of a pioneer,

he looks at the evolution of the tank. Stern talks about how the tank is very

constrictive. The tanks are very complex, small, and crowded on the inside. He is

quoted as saying, “Again the tank is like a slug. The slug as every biological student

knows, is unexpectedly complicated inside. The tank is crowded with inward parts

as a battleship. It is filled with engines, guns, and ammunition, and the interstices,

men.” These tanks were small and very uncomfortable. They moved at very slow

speeds. If enemy forces had any type of anti-tank weaponry, they could easily take

out these tanks.18

In conclusion, the impact that machine guns and tanks had on World War I

was an immense one. I believe the impact and the evolution of these weapons and

vehicles had a great impact on not only World War I, but future generations of

warfare. Without these developments and the evolution of these weapons and

vehicles, warfare would not be what it is today. From the first Gatling gun, to the

17 Reid, Brian H. "The Beach, Jim. "British Intelligence and German Tanks,1916-1918." War In History 14.4 (2007): 454-75. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/27464215/british-intelligence-german-tanks-1916-1918>.

18 Stern, Albert Gerald. Tanks, 1914-1918; the Log-book of a Pioneer,. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919. Print.

modernized browning machine gun, these evolutions had a great impact on this war.

These new inventions and tactics/concepts that were used throughout this war had

a tremendous impact on the outcome. In my opinion, the “synchronizer” on the

airplane had one of the greatest impacts on the war. These brought a whole new

element to warfare. Now, not only were there planes in warfare, these planes were

equipped with machine guns. These new developments and new technologies had a

huge impact on this war and future wars to come. Without these new technological

developments, the course of World War I and future wars could have been

extremely different.

Bibliography

Crowell, Benedict. America's Munitions 1917-1918: Report of Benedict Crowell, the Assistant Secretary of War, Director of Munitions. Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1919. Print.

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