The First World War was very much a static war, commanders were constantly looking for ‘the breakthrough’, the tank was supposed to provide that capability.

The following page will expand as I get more information on these beasts.

Male and Female Tanks The art of driving My photos from Tank Museum and IWM

F. Mitchell, MC in his book, “Tank Warfare” written in 1933, said; “War brings out the worst and the best in men, and under its murderous pressure things are accomplished which in times of peace would be called incredible. But in the Great War, 1914-18, the British were the only nation to produce an entirely new weapon.  British inventive brains, combined with the solidity of British engineering ability, brought forth the Tank, that strange monster of iron which has revolutionized the art of warfare.”

The tank on the left is an early Mark 1 with the two trailing wheels that were intended to assist with steering. These were found to be ineffectual, and were dropped on later models.  This example and the one below, from the tank museum (my photo) are ‘male’ tanks with the 6 pounder gun in the large sponson on the side, one each side of the vehicle. Also clearly visible in the lower photo near the front curve of the track is the cut-out allowing access to the large adjustment screw for adjusting track tension by moving the front track sprocket.  The covering on top of the tank was for deflecting grenades. It was later removed.

As can be seen from the two photos, the Tank was shaped like a parallelogram with tracks going round the complete hull, driven by a driving gear at the back, the front sprocket was an idler gear. The tanks were very heavy, over 20 tons, but with the weight spread over the length of track in contact with the ground. On either side of the tanks there were ‘sponsons’ carrying the main armament, there were also machine guns at the front.

The tanks were known as ‘male’ and ‘female’. The difference being that the ‘male’ had larger sponsons housing a 6 pounder gun and a machine gun in each, with two machine guns at the front. The ‘female’ had the two machine guns at the front, but then had narrower sponsons with two machine guns in each, a total of 6 machine guns.  These ponderous vehicles traveled at around 2 mph on average.  The crew consisted of 8 men, and it must have been a hell of an environment in that metal shell, close to the engine, with the guns firing. At the front were the commander and the driver, while further back were the gunners and one man to assist with gear changing. The following is an extract from Mitchell’s book and gives an idea of what it was like to drive an early Tank;

“When a tank was going into action, the driver first turned on the petrol and three or four of the crew swung round the big cranking handle until, with a great roar, the engine started up.

The tank had a range of four speeds, from three-quarters of a mile an hour on bottom gear to four miles an hour on top gear, its average speed across broken country being two miles an hour.  The driver was himself able to change from first to second speed, but if he wished to go faster he could only obtain third and fourth speeds by banging on the engine cover with his right hand. When he had attracted the attention of the gearsmen sitting at the back of the tank, he lifted up one or two fingers in the air to indicate to them which speed he required. They then altered their gear levers accordingly, whilst he helped them by careful manipulation of the clutch.

With the differential unlocked it was possible to make small changes of direction by the use of hand-brakes, which were controlled by the tank commander.  When making a full turn, or “swinging”, as it was called, the differential was locked and the gearsman on, say, the right-hand side was signaled to put his gears into “neutral”. (The sign for this was a closed fist). The right-hand track was then disconnected, and the whole of the drive went on the other track.  The officer then pulled the right-hand brake, and the right track, being at a complete standstill, the whole tank swung round in that direction, practically upon its own axis.

A skillful driver could make these turns without stopping the machine, but generally the tank stopped and then turned. As four men (the officer at the hand-brakes, the driver at the throttle and clutch, and the two gearsmen at the secondary gears) were necessary for this slow and clumsy operation, much time and labour was wasted, and tempers were often considerably frayed.  When surrounded by the enemy, many valuable opportunities were missed, and the fighting capacity of the tank was reduced by half.”

Going into battle tanks carried a good deal of stores; a spare drum of engine oil and one of gear oil, two small drums of grease, three water-cans, spare barrels for the Vickers guns, one spare gun, carrier pigeons in baskets, signalling flags, and a lamp-signalling set.  In addition to this, room had to be found for two days’ rations and the equipment of the crew, which included padded leather “anti-bruise” helmets. Also, the male carried 324 rounds of 6 pounder ammunition and 6,300 rounds of small arms ammunition; whilst the females absorbed as much as 31,000 rounds of S.A.A., all of which had to be carefully stacked in racks lining the interior. (Mitchell).  With their different armaments the male was best against machine-gun nests, while the female was primarily for use against infantry.

Photo by J Dillon from the Tank Museum.

In his book, ‘Subaltern on the Somme’ Max Plowman tells of a lecture on Tanks;

“The lecture on Tanks was a little disappointing. We were all agog to hear about these new land-caterpillars that, according to the papers, have done such marvellous things in the recent push on the Somme, knocking down houses and trees, careering over trenches and frightening the Germans out of their wits. But the Tanks’ officer put rather a damper on our hopes.

He started off by pooh-poohing the newspaper reports as exaggerations of the patriotic imagination, and explained that tanks have to go very carefully, or they get stuck in T-places where communication-trenches join the line.  He also said they were quite vulnerable underneath and on top, and instead of painting the glowing picture of infantrymen marching in their wake triumphantly to Berlin, he cynically told us our chief duty in regard to the tanks would be to provide a squad to march in front of them and drag the wounded out of the way: a none too health job, he added, as of course a tank draws the enemy fire. Finally he reminded us that of course tanks were too heavy to use on very soft ground, and, with the winter coming on, their general employment would probably be delayed till the spring.”

A tank of the time, photo taken in the Imperial War Museum.  The ‘windows’ for the driver and commander either side of a mounting for a forward firing machine-gun.  Photo by J Dillon (excuse the artistic licence with the cloud effect to get rid of the building detail.)

Photo above shows the side ‘sponson’ with the forward firing cannon, the mounting for a machine-gun and the exit door. There is a ‘sponson’ on either side, these can be taken off for transport of the tanks by rail. Photo by J Dillon.

Two views of the cannon on the side ‘sponson’, one each side of the tank.  This was a ‘male’ tank as they were known, the ‘female’ having extra machine-guns rather than the cannon. Photos J Dillon.