The first combat use of tanks. A brief history of tanks The year of the first massive use of tanks in battle

Since the First World War and to this day, tanks have dominated the fields of wars and local conflicts. In the USSR, tank building was well established. Tanks were modernized and became more and more efficient.

First tanks

Tanks found for the first time combat use on the fields of the First World War. However, neither Russian nor German troops ever used tanks on the Eastern Front. The first stage in the development of tank building in Soviet Russia was the copying of captured samples captured during the Civil War. Thus, based on the Renault tanks captured in the battles near Odessa in 1919, a series of 12 tanks was created at the Sormovsky plant in Nizhny Novgorod. The next step was the creation of the MS-1 tanks, which found their first combat use in battles on the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1929. By the end of the thirties they began to be used as fixed firing points.

Searches and solutions

The second stage can be called the period 1929 - 1939, when our own tanks were created on the basis of projects acquired abroad. Some cars contained significant borrowings, others - much less. The main task was to give the Red Army a large number of tanks that are easy to manufacture and operate. This is how the relatively simple and mass-produced Soviet light tanks “T-26” and “BT” appeared, which proved themselves well in military conflicts of the interwar period.

The period of the 1930s for the whole world and not only for the USSR was a time of searching for solutions to what exactly a tank should be. There were a variety of ideas and concepts: from tactical and technical data to methods of application. The idea of ​​​​creating a multi-turret tank in the USSR was reflected in the appearance of the T-28 and T-35 tanks, designed to break through enemy fortifications.

"T-28" performed well during the Polish campaign and in difficult conditions Soviet-Finnish War. However, after the war with Finland, they settled on the idea of ​​​​creating a single-turret tank with projectile-proof armor. A great success was the creation of the V-2 diesel engine, which was installed during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War for all Soviet medium and heavy tanks. So, back on November 3, 1939, People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov and People's Commissar of Medium Engineering Ivan Likhachev reported to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks that Soviet tank builders in short term“We achieved truly outstanding results by designing and building tanks that have no equal.” We were talking about the T-34 and KV tanks.

First in the world

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, tank production was launched in Kharkov, Leningrad and Stalingrad (before the war they began to master the production of T-34). And by the beginning of World War II, the USSR surpassed any army in the world in the number of tanks. In addition, one of the features of the USSR was the massive (for example, in comparison with Germany) production of armored vehicles, which also played a significant role in the military conflicts of the late 1930s.

Refusal of light tanks

The period of the Great Patriotic War is characterized by a number of trends. Firstly, during the evacuation of industry to the east of the country and huge losses in tanks in the first months of the war, the creation and production of simple and cheap combat vehicles was required. This became the second most popular tank after the T-34, the T-60, created on the basis of the T-40 amphibious tank.

Armed with a 20 mm automatic cannon and a 7.62 mm machine gun, the tank played an important role in the Battle of Moscow. Its further development was the T-70 and T-80 light tanks with enhanced armor protection and a 45-mm cannon.

However, after 1943, further design and production of light tanks in the USSR was considered inappropriate due to their great vulnerability, although Germany and the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition continued to produce such vehicles in varying proportions.

"Thirty-four"

The second trend has become very fast development and the aging of tanks - if in 1941 the Soviet T-34 and KV with 76 mm guns were almost invulnerable in tank battles, then from mid-1942 the picture changed - it was necessary to create more powerful tanks. The USSR took the path of creating, if not an ideal, but simple and mass-produced tank, which became the T-34/76 and T-34/85.

"T-34" became the most mass tank Second World War. In total, about 48 thousand Thirty-Fours were produced during the war years. For comparison: there are 48 thousand Sherman tanks, and about 9.5 thousand German T-IV tanks.

The T-34 really turned out to be the best option for domestic industry, army and specific combat conditions from the Caucasus to the Arctic.

Similar trends were reflected in the creation of heavy IS tanks. In addition, if before the Great Patriotic War self-propelled guns did not occupy a significant place in the Red Army's weapons system, then from the middle of the war, on the contrary - self-propelled guns begin to play a significant role and they are launched mass production.

After the war. Three tanks

The post-war period is characterized by a generalization of the experience of the Second World War. Conceptually, heavy and medium tanks were left in service, and from the early 1960s there was a transition to the creation of a main tank.

In the USSR of the 1970-1980s, there were essentially three main tanks. The first was the T-64 (produced in Kharkov) - a fundamentally new machine in which a number of truly revolutionary ideas were embodied. However, the tank remained too difficult to master and operate. However, the vehicle was not removed from service and remained in western districts THE USSR.

The second vehicle was the T-80 developed at the Kirov plant; the first vehicles were produced there, and mass production was launched in Omsk. The tank had a gas turbine engine, and due to the increased speed, the chassis also changed.

The third, and one of the most famous models, was the T-72, which was modernized several times. Its production was established in Nizhny Tagil. The post-war period is also characterized by large-scale exports Soviet armored vehicles, due to both economic and political reasons. In a number of countries it has been established and own production. First of all, this concerns the Warsaw Pact countries and partly China. Relatively simple and cheap soviet tanks found widespread use in wars and local conflicts in Africa and Asia.

It makes sense to talk about Russian developments of that time.

At the beginning of the last century, the whole world lived in anticipation of a war the likes of which humanity had never yet known. On the eve of this war, states united into military-political alliances, fought “small” wars, honed the combat skills of their armies, and invented new types of weapons. One of them is the tank, which first appeared on the battlefields in 1916 and changed all the prevailing ideas about war at that time.

Russia was the first to develop new car: in 1911, the son of the brilliant Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev, Vasily, developed a project super heavy tank, which combined all the advanced engineering solutions of that time. Here are the technical characteristics of this tank: weight 173.2 tons; armor weight 86.46 tons; weapon weight 10.65 tons; crew 8 people; length with gun 13 m, hull length 10 m, height with raised machine-gun turret 4.45 m, height with lowered machine-gun turret 3.5 m, hull height 2.8 m; gun ammunition 51 rounds; armor thickness 150 mm (front) and 100 mm (sides, rear, roof); engine power 250 l. With.; maximum speed 24 km/h; average specific ground pressure 2.5 kg/cm2.

The tank was supposed to be armed with 120 mm naval cannon, which was mounted in the bow of the hull. A machine gun turret mounted on the roof, which could rotate 360°, was raised outward and lowered inward, also using a pneumatic drive. A compressor driven by an engine provided the required amount of compressed air in the power compartment.

To transport a tank across railway it could be placed on railway ramps and move under its own power.

It is admirable that a talented Russian engineer looked far ahead, arming his brainchild with a large-caliber gun (guns of this caliber, 122-125 mm, are installed on almost all modern domestic tanks). The tanks that crawled onto the battlefields of the First World War were much weaker armed, but they successfully carried out combat missions. Undoubtedly, the Mendeleev tank, if it were put into mass production, would become the most outstanding weapon that war, invulnerable and formidable. It is interesting that many of the engineering solutions outlined in the project of Vasily Mendeleev’s tank were implemented much later and no longer in our country. For example, air suspension was used in the light English airborne tank "Tetrarch", and the Germans in 1942 copied the system of lowering the hull to the ground exactly, with almost no changes, using it in the super-heavy 600-mm self-propelled mortar "Thor". However, the priority here still remains with Russia.

In 1914, already at the height of the fighting of the First World War, the Main Military Technical Directorate received two projects for tracked armored vehicles. The first is the “All-terrain vehicle” of the Russian inventor A.A. Porokhovshchikov.

After much delay, on January 13, 1915, Porokhovshchikov was allocated 9,660 rubles for the construction of an all-terrain vehicle. And on February 1, 1915, in workshops located in the barracks of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment, stationed in Riga, the designer had already begun building a prototype. Three and a half months later, the all-terrain vehicle left the workshops and its testing began. This day - May 18, 1915 - should be considered the tank's birthday.

The world's first tank had all the basic elements of modern combat vehicles: a hull, weapons in a rotating turret, and an engine. The body is streamlined, the armor thickness is 8 millimeters. Very significant angles of inclination of the armor made it more resistant to armor-piercing weapons. Chassis protected by bulwarks. The prototype hull consisted of several layers of steel with a layer of hair and sea grass and was not penetrated by machine gun fire.

A. A. Porokhovshchikov's all-terrain vehicle with a combat weight of 4 tons with a crew of two people reached speeds on the highway of up to 25 kilometers per hour.

On a hard road, the “All-terrain vehicle” moved quite confidently, despite the weak engine (10 hp), and on December 29, 1916, it reached a speed of 40 versts/hour, which was exceptional high rate. At the same time, the car could not move at all on loose snow. Porokhovshchikov applied for funds to build an improved model, the All-Terrain Vehicle-2, already with an armored hull and an armament of four machine guns, but this was refused. In its conclusion about the “All-terrain vehicle-2”, the GVTU rightly (which happened infrequently) pointed out a number of shortcomings of the project, such as: the impossibility of simultaneous combat operation of three machine guns in the turret (or “conning tower”, as the inventor himself called it), the lack of a differential at the mover, slipping of the rubber belt on the drum, and in general its vulnerability, low cross-country ability of the vehicle when driving on loose soil, extreme difficulty in turning, etc. It is possible that in the future A. Porokhovshchikov would have been able to eliminate the most serious shortcomings, but there was no time for this in 1917. And the front, first of all, needed a special positional tank, capable of tearing through multi-row wire barriers, overcoming wide ditches and generally “ironing” the enemy’s defenses.

Porokhovshchikov’s all-terrain vehicle was tested several months earlier than the British tested their “little Willie.” But the English tank, tested on January 30, 1916, was immediately put into service under the brand name MK-1.

In September 1916, the first reports appeared in the press about the use of a new weapon by the British - the “land fleet”. These messages were published in the newspaper “New Time” dated September 25 (old style) 1916. In connection with these messages, the article “Land Fleet - Russian invention", which revealed to the general public the unsightly role of the Main Military-Technical Directorate in delaying Russian work on the creation of new weapons - all-terrain combat vehicles.

The second project, embodied “in hardware” in the Russian Empire, is the “Tsar Tank” by N.V. Lebedenko, aka “Bat”. The idea for this unique structure was born to Captain Lebedenko during his service in the Caucasus, when he first saw the carts of local peasants. Being a well-connected person, he “reached out” to the “Father of Russian Aviation” himself, Nikolai Egorovich Zhukovsky. He recommended his nephews to him - students B.S. Stechkin and A. Mikulin. Software development appearance It was like a gun carriage enlarged several times with two huge 9-meter drive wheels with tangential spokes (by the way, the strength of these wheels was calculated personally by N.E. Zhukovsky) and a smaller, man-sized steering wheel. The Tsar Tank was armed with two guns and machine guns. Each wheel was powered by its own Maybach engine with a power of 240 Horse power(!). The main disadvantages of this tank were quite high pressure on the ground and the spokes are slightly vulnerable to enemy artillery. During the design process, B. Stechkin and A. Mikulin managed to implement a number of brilliant technical solutions. At the beginning of 1915, a brilliantly calculated project was presented at the State Higher Technical University, and the self-propelled model, reduced several times, successfully overcame obstacles in the form of pencil boxes and books in the playroom of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich.

And finally, the day of sea trials has arrived. 60 versts north of Moscow, near ancient city Dmitrov, near the Orudevo station, an area was cleared in the forest, which, for the purpose of secrecy, was surrounded by a palisade and an earthen rampart. In August 1915, on the appointed day, in the presence of numerous representatives of the army and the military ministry, the car driven by Mikulin began to move quite confidently, immediately, like a match, breaking a birch tree that was in the way. This event was met with applause from those present. However, after walking several tens of meters, the miracle tank got stuck with its rear wheel in a shallow hole and was unable to move further, despite all the efforts of the Maybach engines, red from the effort - even their efforts were not enough to pull out the Tsar Tank.

After such a major failure, interest in the Lebedenko tank immediately died out, the tank was abandoned in the same place where it was tested; in 1923, what was left of the “Bat” by that time was dismantled, and only the remains of the earthen rampart now remind us of the ambitious project of Captain Lebedenko.

As a result of this, during the First World War, Russian tanks never appeared on the battlefields. But armored vehicles were produced in large numbers, which took an active part in both the First World War and the one that began in Russia. Civil War. Typically, a fairly significant part of them were produced on the chassis of the first domestic cars from the Russo-Balt company. Several types of such armored vehicles were produced, but the GVTU received the greatest financial and moral support from the project of engineer Kegress, who proposed converting all military equipment to half-tracks. But this reasonable decision was not destined to come true until 1917 - two revolutions prevented it.

Only in 1919, the Putilov plant produced 6 Austin-Putilovsky-Kegress armored cars, which in the same year entered into battle on the side of the Bolsheviks in battles against the troops of N.N. Yudenich near Petrograd. In the West, such a combat vehicle was called a “Russian type of tank.”

First World War brought a huge technical breakthrough in the military industry. Its course, especially the events of 1915, showed the need to create more mobile units in the armies.

Tanks - new progressive weapons for battle

The first tanks of the First World War appeared in 1916. This technical result was achieved by English and French engineers. Before talking about their characteristics, we need to understand why the first tanks appeared in the First World War. Fighting began vigorously, but the activity lasted literally a month. After this, the battles began to be mainly of a positional nature. This development of events did not suit any of the warring parties. The methods of warfare that existed at that time, as well as military equipment did not allow us to solve the problem of breaking through the front. It was necessary to look for a radically new solution to the problem.

The military leadership of England (and, in general, France) was wary of the initiatives of engineers to build armored vehicle on wheels or on tracks, but over time the generals realized the need to increase the level technical equipment their armies.

British tanks of the First World War

During the war, British engineers created several models of armored vehicles. The first option was called "Mark-1". The "baptism of fire" took place on September 15, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The first tanks of the First World War were still technically “damp”. According to the plan, it was necessary to use 49 tanks in battle. Due to technical problems, 17 tanks were unable to take part in the battle. Of the 32 tanks, 9 were able to break through the German defenses. After the first battle, problems that needed to be eliminated immediately became visible:

The armor should be stronger. The metal of the Mark-1 tank could withstand bullets and shell fragments, but in the event of a direct shell hit on the vehicle, the crew was doomed.

The absence of an engine room separated from the “salon”. While driving, the temperature in the tank was 50 degrees, all exhaust gases also went into the cabin.

What could this tank do? In principle, there is still a little to do: overcome wire and trenches up to 2 meters 70 centimeters wide.

Modernization of British tanks

The first tanks of the First World War were modernized during the course of hostilities. The Mark-1 tanks were no longer used in battles, because changes immediately began to be made to the design. What has been improved? It is clear that, given the continuation of hostilities, it was not possible to immediately improve the design of tanks. By the winter of 1917, production of the Mark-2 and Mark-3 models began. These tanks had more powerful armor, which a conventional shell could no longer penetrate. In addition, more powerful guns were installed on the tanks, which gradually increased the effectiveness of their combat use.

It started in 1918 mass production Model "Mark-5". The tanks of the First World War gradually became more combat-ready. For example, only the driver now controlled the tank. Speed ​​specifications have improved because engineers installed a new four-speed gearbox. The temperature inside this tank was no longer so high because a cooling system was installed. The engine was already to some extent separated from the main compartment. The tank commander was in a separate cabin. The tank was also equipped with another machine gun.

Tanks of the Russian Empire

In Russia, which also took part in the hostilities, work on the creation of the tank was in full swing. But it is worth noting that Russian tanks of the First World War never appeared on the battlefields, although they were very much needed tsarist army. main reason- absolute technical inability. Russian engineer Lebedenko was noted for creating the largest tank in the world in 1915, weighing more than 40 tons. It was called "Tsar Tank". During testing at the test site, the tank, equipped with two 240 l/s engines, stalled. They couldn't start it. Special technical characteristics, except for its size, the model had nothing.

German tanks from the First World War

By the end of the First World War, Germany, which lost the war, also acquired its own tanks. It's about about the A7B model. If you look at the tanks of the First World War, photos of which are in this article, you can see that at that time this model was very modern. The front of the tank is protected by 30 mm of armor, which made it difficult to penetrate this vehicle. The commander was on the upper platform (1.6 meters above ground level). The firing range was up to two kilometers. The tank was equipped with a 55-mm cannon, which had 100 rounds of ammunition. high-explosive fragmentation shells. In addition, the cannon could fire armor-piercing and grapeshot shells. With the help of a cannon, the tank could easily destroy enemy fortifications.

March 21, 1918 took place tank battle between the Germans and the British. German firsts The tanks of the First World War, as it turned out, were much more combat-ready than the British Mark 5. It is easy to understand the reason for the enormous advantage of the Germans: the British did not have guns on their tanks, so they could not shoot at the enemy so effectively.

A harbinger of progress

The French Renault tank produced in 1917 was already similar in shape to the modern one. The tank, unlike English models, could reverse. The crew entered and exited through the hatch ( British tanks during the First World War were equipped with doors on the side of the tank). The tank's turret could already rotate, that is, shooting took place in different directions (the tank could shoot left and right, and forward).

The first tanks of the First World War could not be absolutely technically perfect, because humanity always moves towards the ideal through mistakes and modifications.

Colonel V. Nesterkin

September 2016 marks 100 years since the start of the combat use of tanks. This happened during the First World War. Tanks took part in hostilities for the first time on the side of the British in the operation on the river. Somme on September 15, and then, almost six months later, in April 1917, the French used them in the battle of Craon. Germany initially underestimated the importance of tanks. Time was lost, and until the end of the war only about 100 armored tracked combat vehicles were produced there. Thus, the fighting on the river. The Somme became the starting point from which the appearance of a new type of weapon - tanks - began.

The combat effect of the British vehicles on the Somme was then assessed very vaguely, although it should be noted that the number of tanks that took part in the fighting was small - only 18 vehicles operated on a front 10 km wide. The British advanced 4-5 km, but the problem of the breakthrough could not be completely solved. Tactical success was not developed into operational success. Those tanks produced mainly a psychological effect. Contemporaries wrote that the Germans “felt completely defenseless in the face of these monsters, who climbed onto the parapet of the trenches, constantly pouring machine-gun fire on them. They were followed by small groups of infantry, throwing in the trenches hand grenades"But in general, the tanks successfully fulfilled the role of countering machine-gun fire (losses in manpower among the British in that offensive operation were almost 20 times smaller than in similar conditions earlier) and were a means of breaking through the defense, although they were not reliable from a technical point of view (of the 49 vehicles that the British prepared for the attack, only 32 moved to their original positions, 17 tanks left formation due to technical problems; of the 32 that launched the attack, five got stuck in the swamp and nine more failed due to technical reasons). Nevertheless, even the remaining 18 tanks were able to advance 5 km into the defense.

A serious prerequisite for the need for a new type of weapon was the situation at the fronts. In 1915, Germany concentrated its main efforts on the Eastern Front, planning to take Russia out of the war. But, having reflected the breakthrough German armies, Russian troops forced the enemy to switch to positional forms of fighting. On the Western Front, both sides also conducted a strategic defense. The fighting entered the stage of trench warfare. The opponents surrounded themselves with rows of barbed wire and equipped shelters for cannons and machine guns. Any attack cost large casualties, incommensurate with some of the results achieved. Trench warfare came to a standstill largely due to the advent of machine guns.

Many military experts believed that armored fighting vehicles would help solve this problem. In addition, numerous and varied armored vehicles were already operating on the fronts, the successful use of which confirmed their importance. However, they had a significant drawback: the maneuverability of heavy vehicles on the battlefield was low.

To cope with this difficult task, military engineers proposed installing a tracked chassis instead of a wheeled vehicle chassis on these combat vehicles. By that time, similar mechanisms were already actively produced in various countries(used on tracked tractors) and the technology for manufacturing tracks in general was developed. The British Defense Department began to receive designs for various tracked combat vehicles.

In the spring of 1915, a specialized Committee for land ships. The creation of this organization was supervised by the Navy aviation service, which had its own interest in armored fighting vehicles. They were needed to protect continental naval bases.

The final decision to build tanks was made in 1915, and the first prototype of the combat vehicle was ready in 1916. A tank, that is, a “tank” (from the English tank - tank, tank, tank), this means was called in order to misinform the enemy when transporting it by rail. After successful tests, the first order for 100 vehicles was issued and production began. It was a Mark-1 tank (sometimes called Mk.I) - rather imperfect, even for those times, fighting machine, produced in two modifications - a female tank ("woman", from the English female tank) with a combat weight of 27.43 tons and a "male" tank ("male", from the English male tank) weighing 28.45 tons. Subsequently For a long time the term male tank was used to mean “cannon tank”.

In profile, the Mk.1 had an unusual diamond shape. This was supposed to provide the greatest track length, which would allow it to overcome the wire fences and wide trenches (2.7-3.5 m) that prevailed on the battlefields of that period of the war. The armor of the combat vehicle protected from fire small arms and shell fragments, but could not withstand a direct hit from the shell itself.

The use of this hull shape made it impossible to place weapons in the towers (due to the overall height being too large). In this regard, the main weapons were placed in sponsons along the sides of the tank (sponson is a ship's term for the section of the upper deck that protrudes beyond the borg line). The layout of the machine did not imply a clear division into compartments. The engine and transmission, installed in length, occupied a significant part of the internal space. They were separated from the sides and sponsons with weapons by passages. At the front end of the hull there was a control compartment.

The tank's crew consisted of eight people. The tank commander (junior lieutenant - lieutenant) also served as a frontal machine gun shooter (sometimes an assistant driver) and was located, like the driver himself, in the control compartment on the left, the driver on the right. In each of the sponsons there were a gunner and a loader (on “males”) or two machine gunners (on “females”), and in the passages in the rear part of the hull there were two assistant drivers. In a number of cases, a ninth member was added to the crew, whose task was, being in the rear of the tank (at the radiator), to protect the rear sector of the tank from enemy infantry using personal weapons.

The main armament of the “male” tanks was two rifled 57-mm cannons with a barrel length of 40 klb. Each was a version of a rapid-firing naval gun modified in 1915 (put into service back in 1885). Both guns were mounted in sponsons on pedestal rotating mounts. Cylindrical armor shields were attached to the rotating part, covering the sponson embrasure. The gun was aimed using a shoulder rest, without any mechanisms. The gunner on each side was located to his left, and his position limited the horizontal guidance angles. The full ammunition load of the guns included 334 (in some samples 207) unitary rounds, which were stored in the lower part of the sponsons and on special racks. Maximum range The firing range of the guns was 6,860 m, and the effective range was about 1,800 m.

Behind the guns were installed two 7.7-mm Hotchkiss machine guns with an air-cooled barrel. In addition, on tanks of both variants such a machine gun was placed in its frontal part, and in some cases another one was installed at the stern. "Hotchkiss" was removable and fired through embrasures, which were covered the rest of the time with armored covers.

The tanks of the "female" variant were armed only with four 7.7-mm Vickers machine guns, which had water-cooled barrels. These weapons were mounted on pedestal mounts with rotating shields, similar to the protection of 57 mm guns. The pointing angles of the machine guns provided a generally significant field of fire, limited only by the far-out protruding tracks of the tank. The cartridges for them were stored in loaded belts of 320 pieces, while the full ammunition load was 5,760 pieces for a male tank and 30,080 for a female tank.

In addition, each crew member had a revolver, from which he could fire different parts The tank was equipped with ports (embrasures) that were closed with armored covers. Due to the low mobility of the combat vehicle and the presence of closed sectors of fire for the main weapons, the crew’s personal weapons were assigned important role as a means of defense in close combat.

The main means of observing the terrain for the crew were inspection hatches in various parts of the hull, which were closed with armored covers that made it possible to adjust the inspection slot within certain limits. In addition, the commander and driver had periscopic viewing devices in the roof of the cabin, but due to the difficulty of using them in combat conditions, they were soon abandoned. WITH inside the viewing slots were covered with protective glass, but the latter was easily broken during shelling, and tankers were often injured from their fragments or splashes of lead that fell through the open slots.

There were no means of internal or external communication in the tank. For external communication they tried to use various visual means - flags, lanterns, but in conditions of poor visibility on the battlefield and especially from inside other tanks, they turned out to be ineffective. Pigeon post was used on some tanks, but the birds did not tolerate the conditions inside the vehicle and died. Attempts were made to use telephone communication through a cable unwound from the tank, but its length turned out to be insufficient. The only reliable, but naturally dangerous, means was communication through foot messengers.

On the Mk.I, an in-line six-cylinder water-cooled gasoline engine with a displacement of 13 liters and a maximum power of 105 l/s was installed in the middle part of the hull, allowing it to move on the highway at speeds of up to 6.4 km/h. Two fuel tank with a capacity of 114 liters were placed on the sides at the very top of the tank, since gasoline was supplied to the engine by gravity. Gasoline refueling was enough for 38 km highway. If the tank was tilted too much while moving, the fuel supply could be interrupted, and then one of the crew members manually poured gasoline from the tank into the carburetor with a bottle. The radiator of the engine cooling system was located at the rear of the tank, and the exhaust pipes were led to the roof and did not have mufflers.

The tank was equipped with three gearboxes: the main two-stage mechanical one, with sliding gears, and two onboard (also two-stage) gearboxes, which were connected to each other by a differential. Three or four people simultaneously took part in controlling the transmission: the driver, who controlled the main clutch and gearbox, as well as coordinating the actions of the others; a tank commander who controlled the onboard brakes and one or both assistant drivers who were responsible for the onboard gearboxes.

The rear wheels served as a turning mechanism in the tank. In one of the battles, the wheels were hit by a shell, but the combat vehicle did not lose control. After this, rear wheels were not installed on tanks.

Mk.I tanks were produced in 1916-1917. A total of 75 units of each type were produced.

Main dimensions of the tank (in mm): length 8060 without rear wheels, 9910 with wheels, hull width 4,200 ("male") and 4,380 ("female"), height 2,450, ground clearance 420. Rolled steel armor was used as protection thickness (in mm): in the frontal part of the hull, side and stern - 10-11, roof and bottom - 5-6. The tank could overcome: a rise with a slope of 22°, a wall 1 m high, a ditch up to 3.5 m wide and a ford 0.45 m deep.

Although due to the small number of tanks (which were initially called “land ships”, since they tried to reproduce the main characteristics of naval warships on land) and their imperfections in 1916, the front could not be completely broken through, the new type of military equipment showed its capabilities, confirming that he has a great future.

By the end of the war, tanks began to be used on a much larger scale, but they still had a long way to go to fully realize their capabilities. High combat qualities and acceptable manufacturability in subsequent years were the basis for the tank becoming a mass-produced weapon.

Despite the fact that in those years Russia developed its own original designs for all-terrain combat vehicles (in 1916 by V.D. Mendeleev, in 1917 by S.P. Navrotsky) and built experimental models (in 1916 by N.A. Gulkevich, in 1917 N.N. Lebedenko), due to the shortsightedness of the tsarist government at that time the Russian army did not have its own tanks.

First British tank Mark I

By the end of 1916, artillery and machine guns dominated the battlefields. The artillery forced the opposing sides to dig in deeper, and machine-gun bursts began to mow down the enemy infantry that had risen to attack. The war turned into a positional war and trench lines stretched for many kilometers along the front. There seemed to be no way out of this situation, but on September 15, 1916, after six months of preparation, the Anglo-French army launched an offensive in northern France. This offensive went down in history as the “Battle of the Somme”. This battle is significant only because it was possible to push back the German troops several kilometers, but also because for the first time British tanks took part in the battle.

NThe Allied offensive on the Somme River began on September 15, 1916, after a massive and lengthy artillery preparation, as a result of which it was planned to destroy the German engineering defenses. British soldiers were even told that all they had to do was walk towards the German defenses and capture their positions. But despite this, the offensive stalled: the German positions were practically not damaged by artillery strikes, and their army in defense still remained combat-ready. The Entente army was bleeding, trying to break through the German positions, but all efforts were wasted completely in vain. Then the newly appointed British commander-in-chief, General Douglas Haig, decided to use new weapons - tanks, which had just been delivered to the front. The old military man had great doubts about the new product, but the situation at the front obliged himthrow your last trump cards into battle.

Haig was convinced that he had chosen the wrong time to attack. The autumn rains have soaked the ground quite a bit, and the tanks need solid ground. Finally, and this is the most important thing, there are still too few tanks, only a few dozen. But there was no other way out.

First British tank, who received his baptism of fire at the Battle of the Somme, was heavy tank Mark I, which had weapons: two rifled 57-mm guns of the Six Pounder, Single Tube model, two 7.7-mm Hotchkiss M1909 machine guns with an air-cooled barrel, located behind the guns in sponsons, as well as one such machine gun was located in frontal part of the tank and was serviced by the commander, and in some cases another machine gun was installed in the rear of the tank. The crew of this tank consisted of 8 people.

49 Mark I tanks were ordered to move to the forward positions. It was a dark night. The steel masses crawled like turtles in the direction where the flares were constantly lighting up in the sky. After 3 hours of march, only 32 vehicles arrived at the places indicated for concentration: 17 tanks got stuck on the road or stopped due to various problems.

Having turned off the engines, the tankers fiddled around with their steel horses. They poured oil into engines, water into radiators, checked brakes and weapons, and filled tanks with gasoline. An hour and a half before dawn, the crews started the engines again, and the vehicles crawled toward the enemy...

British tank Mark I after the Somme River offensive, 25 September 1916.

At dawn the German trenches appeared. The soldiers sitting in them were amazed at the sight of the strange machines. However, the vaunted German discipline prevailed, and they opened fire with rifles and machine guns. But the bullets did not cause any harm to the tanks, bouncing off the armored walls like peas. Coming closer, the tanks themselves opened fire from their cannons and machine guns. From a hail of shells and bullets fired from short range, the Germans felt hot. But they did not flinch, hoping that the clumsy vehicles would get stuck in the multi-row wire fence installed in front of the trenches. However, the wire did not pose any obstacle to the tanks. They easily crushed it with their steel caterpillars, like grass, or tore it like a cobweb. Here German soldiers real horror seized me. Many of them began to jump out of the trenches and rush to run. Others raised their hands in surrender. Following the tanks, hiding behind their armor, came the British infantry.

The Germans did not have tank-like vehicles, and that is why the effect of the first massive combat use of tanks exceeded all expectations.