TANKS
There is no race-horse that can keep up with an automobile, no deer
that can out-run a locomotive. A bicyclist can soon tire out the
hardiest of hounds. Why? Because animals run on legs, while machines
run on wheels.
As wheels are so much more speedy than legs, it seems odd that we do
not find this form of locomotion in nature. There are many animals that
owe their very existence to the fact that they can run fast. Why hasn't
nature put them on wheels so that when their enemy appears they can
roll away, sedately, instead of having to jerk their legs frantically
back and forth at the rate of a hundred strokes a minute?
But one thing we must not overlook. Our wheeled machines must have a
special road prepared for them, either a macadam highway or a steel
track. They are absolutely helpless when they are obliged to travel
over rough country. No wheeled vehicle can run through fields broken by
ditches and swampy spots, or over ground obstructed with boulders and
tree-stumps.
But it is not always possible or practicable to build a road for the
machines to travel upon, and it is necessary to have some sort of
self-propelled vehicle that can travel over all kinds of ground.
Some time ago a British inventor developed a machine with large wheels
on which were mounted the equivalent of feet. As the wheels revolved,
these feet would be planted firmly on the ground, one after the other,
and the machine would proceed step by step. It could travel over
comparatively rough ground, and could actually walk up a flight of
stairs. We have a very curious walking-machine in this country. It is
a big dredge provided with two broad feet and a "swivel chair." The
machine makes progress by alternately planting its feet on the ground,
lifting itself up, chair and all, pushing itself forward, and sitting
down again.
Although many other types of walking-machines have been patented,
none of them has amounted to very much. Clearly, nature hopelessly
outclasses us in this form of propulsion.
Years ago it occured to one ingenious man that if wheeled machines must
have tracks or roads for their wheels to run on, they might be allowed
to lay their own tracks. And so he arranged his track in the form of an
endless chain of plates that ran around the wheels of his machine. The
wheels merely rolled on this chain, and as they progressed, new links
of the track were laid down before them and the links they had passed
over were picked up behind them. A number of inventors worked on this
idea, but one man in particular, Benjamin Holt, of Peoria, Illinois,
brought the invention to a high state of perfection. He arranged a
series of wheels along the chain track, each carrying a share of the
load of the machine, and each mounted on springs so that it would
yield to any unevenness of the ground, just as a caterpillar conforms
itself to the hills and dales of the surface it creeps over. In fact,
the machine was called a "caterpillar" tractor because of its crawling
locomotion.
But it was no worm of a machine. In power it was a very elephant. It
could haul loads that would tax the strength of scores of horses.
Stumps and boulders were no obstacles in its path. Even ditches could
not bar its progress. The machine would waddle down one bank and up the
other without the slightest difficulty. It was easily steered; in fact,
it could turn around in its own length by traveling forward on one of
its chains, or traction-belts, and backward on the other. The machine
was particularly adapted to travel on soft or plowed ground, because
the broad traction-belts gave it a very wide bearing and spread its
weight over a large surface. It was set to work on large farms, hauling
gangs of plows and cultivators. Little did Mr. Holt think, as he
watched his powerful mechanical elephants at work on the vast Western
wheat-fields, that they, or rather their offspring, would some day play
a leading role in a war that would rack the whole world.
* * * * *
But we are getting ahead of our story. To start at the very beginning,
we must go back to the time when the first savage warrior used a plank
of wood to protect himself from the rocks hurled by his enemy. This
was the start of the never-ending competition between arms and armor.
As the weapons of offense developed from stone to spear, to arrow, to
arquebus, the wooden plank developed into a shield of brass and then
of steel; and then, since a separate shield became too bothersome to
carry, it was converted into armor that the warrior could wear and so
have both hands free for battle. For every improvement in arms there
was a corresponding improvement in armor.
After gunpowder was invented, the idea of armor for men began to
wane, because no armor could be built strong enough to ward off the
rifle-bullet and at the same time light enough for a man to wear. The
struggle between arms and armor was then confined to the big guns and
the steel protection of forts and war-ships.
But not so long ago the machine-gun was invented, and this introduced
a new phase of warfare. Not more than one rifle-bullet in a thousand
finds its mark on the battle-field. The Boers in the battle of Colenso
established a record with one hit in six hundred shots. In the
excitement of battle men are too nervous to take careful aim and they
are apt to fire either too high or too low, so that the mortality is
not nearly so great as some would expect. But with the machine-gun
there is not this waste of ammunition, because it fires a stream of
bullets, the effect of which can readily be determined by the man who
operates the volley. The difference between the machine-gun fire and
rifle fire is something like the difference between hitting a tin
can with a stone or with a stream of water. It is no easy matter to
score a hit with the stone; but any one can train a garden hose on the
can, because he can see where the water is striking and move his hose
accordingly until he covers the desired spot. In the same way, with the
machine-gun, it is much easier to train the stream of bullets upon the
mark, and, having once found the mark, to hold the aim. That is one
reason why the destruction of a machine-gun is so tremendous; another,
of course, being that it will discharge so many more shots per minute
than the common rifle.
[Illustration: (C) Underwood & Underwood
British Tank Climbing out of a Trench at Cambrai]
In the Russo-Japanese War, the Russians played havoc with the attacking
Japanese at Port Arthur by using carefully concealed machine-guns,
and the German military attachés were quick to note the value of
the machine-gun. Secretely they manufactured large numbers of
machine-guns and established a special branch of service to handle
the guns, and they developed the science of using them with telling
effect. And so, when the recent great war suddenly broke out, they
surprised the world with the countless number of machine-guns they
possessed and the efficient use to which they put them. Thousands of
British soldiers in the early days of the war fell victims to these
death-dealing machines. Two or three men with a machine-gun could defy
several companies of soldiers, especially when the attackers had to cut
their way through barbed wire entanglements. It was clearly evident
that something must be done to defend the men against the machine-gun;
for to charge against it meant, simply, wholesale slaughter.
[Illustration: (C) Underwood & Underwood
Even Trees were no Barrier to the British Tank]
[Illustration: Press Illustrating Service
The German Tank was very heavy and cumbersome]
At first the only means of combating the machine-guns seemed to be
to destroy them with shell-fire; but they were carefully concealed,
and it was difficult to search them out. Only by long-continued
bombardment was it possible to destroy them and tear away the barbed
wire sufficiently to permit of a charge. Before an enemy position was
stormed it was subjected to the fire of thousands of guns of all
calibers for hours and even days.
But this resulted in notifying the enemy that a charge was ere long to
be attempted at a certain place, and he could assemble his reserves for
a counter-attack. Furthermore, the Germans learned to conceal their
machine-guns in dugouts twenty or thirty feet underground, where they
were safe from the fire of the big guns, and then, when the fire let
up, the weapons would be dragged up to the surface in time to mow down
the approaching infantry.
It was very clear that something would have to be done to combat the
machine-gun. If the necessary armor was too heavy for the men to carry,
it must carry itself. Armored automobiles were of no service at all,
because they could not possibly travel over the shell-pitted ground of
No Man's Land. The Russians tried a big steel shield mounted on wheels,
which a squad of soldiers would push ahead of them, but their plan
failed because the wheels would get stuck in shell-holes. A one-man
shield on wheels was tried by the British. Under its shelter a man
could steal up to the barbed wire and cut it and even crawl up to a
machine-gun emplacement and destroy it with a hand-grenade. But this
did not prove very successful, either, because the wheels did not take
kindly to the rough ground of the battle-field.
* * * * *
And here is where we come back to Mr. Holt's mechanical elephants. Just
before the great war broke out, Belgium--poor unsuspecting Belgium--was
holding an agricultural exhibit. An American tractor was on exhibition.
It was the one developed by Mr. Holt, and its remarkable performances
gained for it a reputation that spread far and wide. Colonel E.
D. Swinton of the British Army heard of the peculiar machine, and
immediately realized the advantages of an armored tractor for battle
over torn ground. But in the first few months of the war that ensued,
this idea was forgotten, until the effectiveness of the machine-gun
and the necessity for overcoming it recalled the matter to his mind.
At his suggestion a caterpillar tractor was procured, and the military
engineers set themselves to the task of designing an armored body to
ride on the caterpillar-tractor belts. Of course the machine had to be
entirely re-designed. The tractor was built for hauling loads, and not
to climb out of deep shell-holes; but by running the traction-belts
over the entire body of the car, and running the forward part of the
tractor up at a sharp angle the engineers overcame that difficulty.
In war, absolute secrecy is essential to the success of any invention,
and the British engineers were determined to let no inkling of the new
armored automobiles reach the enemy. Different parts of the machines
were made in different factories, so that no one would have an idea of
what the whole would look like. At first the new machine was known as
a "land-cruiser" or "land-ship"; but it was feared that this very name
would give a clue to spies, and so any descriptive name was forbidden.
Many of the parts consisted of rolled steel plates which might readily
be used in building up vessels to hold water or gasolene; and to give
the impression that such vessels were being constructed the name "tank"
was adopted. The necessity of guarding even the name of the machines
was shown later, when rumors leaked out that the tanks were being built
to carry water over the desert regions of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Another curious rumor was that the machines were snow-plows for use in
Russia. To give some semblance of truth to this story, the parts were
carefully labeled, "For Petrograd."
Probably never was a military secret so well guarded as this one, and
when, on September 15, 1916, the waddling steel tractors loomed up
out of the morning mists, the German fighters were taken completely
by surprise. Two days before, their airmen had noticed some peculiar
machines which they supposed were armored automobiles. They had no
idea, however, that such formidable monsters were about to descend upon
them.
The tanks proceeded leisurely over the shell-torn regions of No Man's
Land, wallowing down into shell-holes and clambering up out of them
with perfect ease. They straddled the trenches and paused to pour down
them streams of machine-gun bullets. Wire entanglements were nothing
to them; under their weight steel wire snapped like thread. The big
brutes marched up and down the lines of wire, treading them down into
the ground and clearing the way for the infantry. Even trees were no
barrier to these tanks. Of course they did not attack large ones, but
the smallish trees were simply broken down before their onslaughts.
As for concrete emplacements for machine-guns, the tanks merely rode
over them and crushed them. Those who attempted to defend themselves in
the ruins of buildings found that the tanks could plow right through
walls and bring them down in a shower of bricks and stone. There was no
stopping these monsters, and the Germans fled in consternation before
them.
There were two sizes of tanks. The larger ones aimed to destroy the
machine-gun emplacements, and they were fitted up with guns for firing
a shell. The smaller tanks, armed with machine-guns, devoted themselves
to fighting the infantry. British soldiers following in the wake of
the bullet-proof tank were protected from the shots of the enemy and
were ready to attack him with bayonets when the time was ripe. But the
tanks also furnished an indirect protection for the troops. It was not
necessary for the men to conceal themselves behind the big tractors.
Naturally, every Hun who stood his ground and fought, directed all
his fire upon the tanks, leaving the British infantry free to charge
virtually unmolested. The success of the tank was most pronounced.
In the meantime the French had been informed of the plans of their
allies, and they set to work on a different design of tractor. It
was not until six months later that their machines saw service. The
French design differed from the British mainly in having the tractor
belt confined to the wheels instead of running over the entire body
of the tank. It was more blunt than the British and was provided
at the forward end with a steel cutting-edge, which adapted it to
break its way through wire entanglements. At each end there are two
upward-turning skids which helped the tank to lift itself out of a
hole. The larger machines carried a regular 75-millimeter (3-inch)
field-gun, which is a very formidable weapon. They carried a crew of
one officer and seven men.
Life in a tank is far from pleasant. The heat and the noise of
machinery and guns are terrific. Naturally, ventilation is poor and the
fumes and gases that accumulate are most annoying, to say the least.
Sometimes the men were overcome by them. But war is war, and such
discomforts had to be endured.
But the tank possessed one serious defect which the Germans were not
slow to discover. Its armor was proof against machine-gun fire, but
it could not ward off the shells of field-guns, and it was such a
slow traveler that the enemy did not find it a very difficult task to
hit it with a rapid-fire gun if the gunner could see his target. And
so the Germans ordered up their guns to the front lines, where they
could score direct hits. Only light guns were used for this purpose,
especially those whose rifling was worn down by long service, because
long range was not necessary for tank fighting.
[Illustration: (C) Underwood & Underwood
The Speedy British "Whippet" Tank that can travel at a speed of twelve
miles per hour]
[Illustration: (C) Underwood & Underwood
The French High-Speed "Baby" Tank]
When the Germans began their final great drive, it was rumored that
they had built some monster tanks that were far more formidable than
anything the Allies had produced. Unlike the British, they used the
tanks not to lead the army but to follow and destroy small nests of
French and British that were left behind. When the French finally
did capture one of the German tanks, which had fallen into a quarry,
it proved to be a poor imitation. It was an ugly-looking affair,
very heavy and cumbersome. Owing to the scarcity of materials for
producing high-grade armor, it had to make up in thickness of plating
what it lacked in quality of steel. The tank was intended to carry a
crew of eighteen men and it fairly bristled with guns, but it could
not manoeuver as well as the British tank; for when some weeks later a
fleet of German tanks encountered a fleet of heavy British tanks, the
Hun machines were completely routed.
[Illustration: Courtesy of "Automotive Industries"
Section through our Mark VIII Tank showing the layout of the interior
with the locations of the most important parts in the fighting
compartment in the engine room]
It was then that the British sprang another surprise upon the Germans.
After the big fellows had done their work, a lot of baby tanks appeared
on the scene and chased the German infantry. These little tanks could
travel at a speed of twelve miles an hour, which is about as fast as an
ordinary man can run. "Whippets," the British called them, because they
were like the speedy little dogs of that name. They carried but two
men, one to guide the tank and the other to operate the machine-gun.
The French, too, built a light "mosquito" tank, which was even smaller
than the British tank, and fully as fast. It was with these machines,
which could dart about quickly on the battle-field and dodge the
shell of the field-guns, and which were immune to the fire of the
machine-gun, that the Allies were able to make progress against the
Germans.
When the Germans retired, they left behind them nests of machine-guns
to cover the withdrawal of their armies. These gunners were ordered to
fight to the very end. They looked for no mercy and expected no help.
Had it not been for the light tanks, it would have been well nigh
impossible to overcome these determined bodies of men without frightful
losses.
Since America invented the machine-gun and also barbed wire, and
since America furnished the inspiration for the tank with which to
trample down the wire entanglements and stamp out the machine-guns,
naturally people expected our army to come out with something better
than anything produced by our allies. We did turn out a number of
heavy machines patterned after the original British tank, with armor
that could stand up against heavy fire, and we also produced a small
and very speedy tank similar to the French "baby" tank, but before we
could put these into service the war ended. The tanks we did use so
effectively at St.-Mihiel and in the Argonne Forest were supplied by
the French.