The very first tanks. Technological breakthrough. The first combat use of tanks. Losses of tanks in the First World War.
: The history of the invention of the tank and the development of tank construction up to and including the outbreak of WWII (World War II) is interesting. The answer is extensive, but at least to illuminate the most relish.)))
Let's start from the very beginning.
When on November 20, 1917, 10 years ago, 350 tanks advanced through the morning darkness to fall on the sleeping Hindenburg positions, a new chapter was opened in history, which we are only now beginning to understand with all clarity. And although the Mark IV tank was new at the Battle of Cambrai, the principle embodied in it - the protection of motive and manpower leading an attack under cover - was fully realized 300 years ago.
The first thought about a tank, or rather a tank-like mechanism, arose in China. From the reports of Sunn-Tse we learn that in the 12th century BC a military cart called “Lu” was used. This cart had 4 wheels and could accommodate 12 people. The historian does not mention horses, and one must think that the cart was driven by people from the inside using special devices. It was protected by the skin and used during attack and defense.
"Tank" from the times of ancient Rome.
The idea of a tank was further developed in countries currently classified as the Middle East. Xenophon, describing the Battle of Timbra (554 BC), says with his characteristic fantasy that Cyrus placed behind the line of his positions a number of carts with towers erected on them, from which shooting was carried out.
In Europe, elephants, as a cavalry vanguard, ceased to be used after the conquest of Greece by the Romans. The chariot was held in the East and in some countries, such as in England. But the idea of the tank did not disappear and was revived again in the armored knights of the crusades. The armored knight on his feet was a “tank” in every way. His motive power, although limited, was completely protected, and he could develop his attack under cover.
At the Battle of Crecy, the British had only a small number of cannons at their disposal, but a hundred years later firearms came into general use, and a new military era began. The old one passed under the sign of steel, in the new one lead began to dominate. Did the bullet bury the idea of the tank? No, on the contrary, she breathed new life into it. The ancient Chinese "Lu" floated onto the scene again. In 1395, a man named Konrad Keyser invented a military cart that was propelled from the inside, and a little later a cart was built that could seat at least 100 people. It was, in all likelihood, a real moving fortress, extremely cumbersome. In Scotland, two Acts of Parliament were passed in 1456 and 1471 regarding the use of these mechanisms.
"Tank" of the seventeenth century.
But it was unthinkable to set such a machine in motion using the muscular power of people or animals, and therefore the inventive genius of the Renaissance took advantage of the mechanical force that existed at that time. In 1472 Valturio proposed wind wheels as a propulsion force, and later Simon Steven spoke of sails, or rather small armored sailing boats on wheels. The great Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most amazing dreamers in the history of mechanical inventions, built closed armored vehicles. This was in 1482, and a little more than 100 years later John Napier develops the same idea.
From then until Watt built the first steam engine. In 1769 the idea of a tank came up from time to time, but always in its early form of the Chinese "Lo". Simultaneously with Watt's invention, a steam locomotive appeared, which had a speed of 2.5 miles per hour. A year later, in 1770, the “shod wheel” was invented, a device that prevented the wheel from sinking into soft soil. In these last two inventions can be found the germs of two essential aspects of the future tank: internal motive power and the ability to drive over uneven terrain and trenches.
Armored cart.
The Crimean War, declared in 1845, was a war of muddy roads and ravines and therefore created a need for shod wheels, with which some of Bodley's road locomobiles were successfully supplied in the Balaklava region, located in marshy terrain. The difficulty of taking Russian trenches prompted James Cowan to propose to Lord Palmerston the use of armored road vehicles equipped with scythes.
The steam locomotive was the first to be used. First, to transport troops, and later, a cannon was installed on the railway platform, and armored shields were installed for protection. This is how the first armored train was created, which was used by the Americans in 1862 during the civil war in North America. The use of armored trains imposes its own limitations - railway tracks are needed. The military began to think about combining high firepower and mobility in a vehicle.
The next stage was the reservation of ordinary passenger cars with the installation of machine gun or light cannon weapons on them. They were supposed to be used for a breakthrough leading edge enemy defense and delivery of manpower.
The main problem in the history of the development of tank building before the First World War was the lack of motivation and lack of understanding of the possibilities of using armored vehicles. About the basics of using an armored cart back in the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci wrote: “We will build closed chariots that will penetrate enemy lines and cannot be destroyed by a crowd of armed men, and infantry can follow behind them without much risk or any baggage.” In practice, no one took seriously “expensive iron toys,” as the British Minister of War once called tank prototypes.
Tanks received real recognition during the First World War.
The First World War was a positional war, characterized by a multi-echelon continuous line of defense with machine guns and architectural structures. For the breakthrough, artillery barrage was used, but due to the short firing range, it could suppress, and then rather conditionally, only the firing points of the front line. When capturing the first line, the invaders inevitably encountered the next, to suppress which it was necessary to bring up artillery. While the attackers were engaged in artillery, the defending troops mobilized reserves and recaptured the occupied line and began to go on the attack themselves. Such fruitless movement could continue for quite a long time. For example. In February 1916, more than one thousand guns took part in the Battle of Verdun, for which the Germans had been preparing for almost two months. Over ten months of confrontation, more than 14 million shells were spent, and the death toll on both sides exceeded one million. With all this, the Germans advanced as much as 3 kilometers into the depths of the French defense.
The military clearly faced the question of the need for a vehicle that could break through enemy defense lines with complete suppression of firing points, or at least quickly deliver artillery to the next lines.
For obvious reasons, armored trains could not be used, and armored cars quickly showed their inadequacy - weak armor and ineffective weapons. Strengthening the armor and armament significantly increased the weight of the vehicle, which, along with wheel suspension and weak engines, reduced the cross-country ability of armored vehicles to zero. The use of a tracked loader (caterpillars) helped improve the situation somewhat. The track rollers evenly distributed the pressure on the soil, which significantly increased maneuverability on soft ground.
To increase firepower and maneuverability, military engineers began experimenting with the size and weight of the new combat vehicle. We tried combining tracks with wheels. There were also several rather controversial projects among them. For example. In Russia, designer Lebedenko, and independently of him in England, Major Hetherington, designed a tank on three huge wheels for greater maneuverability. The idea of both designers was to simply move a ditch with a combat vehicle, so Lebedenko proposed creating a tank with wheels with a diameter of 9 meters, and Hetherington, respectively, 12 meters.
The Tsar Tank was built in 1915. The design of the car was distinguished by great originality and ambition. According to the recollections of Lebedenko himself, the idea of this car was inspired by Central Asian carts, carts, which, thanks to the wheels large diameter, easily overcome potholes and ditches. Therefore, unlike “classic” tanks that use tracked propulsion, the Tsar Tank was a wheeled combat vehicle and in design resembled a greatly enlarged gun carriage. The two huge spoked front wheels had a diameter of approximately 9 m, while the rear roller was noticeably smaller, about 1.5 m. The upper fixed machine-gun house was raised above the ground by approximately 8 m. The T-shaped box-shaped body had a width of 12 m, on the protruding On the plane of the wheels and at the extreme points of the hull, sponsons with machine guns were designed, one on each side (it was also assumed that guns could be installed). It was planned to install an additional machine gun turret under the bottom. The design speed of the vehicle was 17 km/h.
Paradoxical as it may seem, but with all the unusualness, ambition, complexity and huge sizes machines, Lebedenko managed to “break through” his project. The car received approval from a number of authorities, but the matter was finally decided by an audience with Nicholas II, during which Lebedenko presented the emperor with a winding wooden model of his car with an engine based on a gramophone spring. According to the recollections of the courtiers, the emperor and the engineer crawled on the floor for half an hour, “like little children,” chasing the model around the room. The toy ran briskly across the carpet, easily overcoming stacks of two or three volumes of the Code of Laws Russian Empire" The audience ended with Nicholas II, impressed by the machine, ordering funding for the project.
Work under imperial patronage proceeded quickly - soon the unusual machine was manufactured in metal and, from the end of spring 1915, was secretly assembled in the forest near Dmitrov. On August 27, 1915, the first sea trials of the finished vehicle were carried out. The use of large wheels implied increased maneuverability of the entire device, which was confirmed in tests - the machine broke birch trees like matches. However, the rear steerable roller, due to its small size and incorrect weight distribution of the vehicle as a whole, got stuck in soft ground almost immediately after the start of testing. The large wheels turned out to be unable to pull it out, even despite the use of the most powerful propulsion system at that time, consisting of two captured Maybach engines of 250 hp each. With. each taken from a downed German airship.
The tests revealed what later seemed obvious significant vulnerability of the vehicle - mainly the wheels - during artillery fire, especially high explosive shells. All this led to the fact that already in August the project was curtailed as a result of the negative conclusion of the High Commission, but Stechkin and Zhukovsky still began developing new engines for the car. However, this attempt was not crowned with success, as were attempts to move the Tsar Tank from its place and pull it out of the testing area.
Until 1917, the tank was guarded at the test site, but then, due to the political upheavals that began, the vehicle was forgotten and never remembered again. Design work on it was no longer carried out, and the huge surreal design of the completed combat vehicle rusted in the forest for another seven years, at the testing site, until the tank was dismantled for scrap in 1923.
The only one positive effect This project can be considered the experience acquired by the then young Mikulin and Stechkin. When it became clear that the power of the device’s engines was clearly insufficient, they developed their own AMBS-1 engine (short for Alexander Mikulin and Boris Stechkin), which had very advanced characteristics and technical solutions for that time, such as direct fuel injection into the cylinders. This engine, however, only worked for a few minutes, after which its connecting rods bent due to high loads. However, both Stechkin and Mikulin, who, by the way, were nephews of the outstanding aviation theorist Nikolai Egorovich Zhukovsky, later became outstanding Soviet specialists in aircraft engines, academicians of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Despite the failure, Lebedenko’s idea was not flawed in principle. A few years later, engineer Pavesi built a series of high-wheeled military tractors for the Italian army. The inventor also created several models of wheeled tanks, but they were not adopted for service. The tank remained a purely tracked vehicle.
There is also a conspiracy theory regarding the fate of the Tsar Tank project. It suggests that the obviously failed machine project was intensively lobbied at the General Staff by high-ranking officials acting in the interests of Great Britain. This theory is very similar to the truth, since these same officials buried All-terrain vehicle Porokhovshchikova, the drawings of which were subsequently sold to the French and formed the basis of the French tank Renault-FT-17. Read more about this story.
Due to the imperfections of the armored vehicles presented, debates about the need for their development and reconciliation among the military continued until September 15, 1916. This day became a turning point in the history of tank building and warfare in general. During the Battle of the Somme, the British used their new tanks for the first time. Of the 42 two that were available, 32 took part in the battle. During the battle, 17 of them broke down for various reasons, but the remaining tanks were able to help the infantry advance 5 kilometers deep into the defense along the entire width of the offensive, with losses in manpower amounted to 20 times! less than calculated. For comparison, we can recall the battle of Verbena.
The idea of creating a combat tracked vehicle capable of moving over rough terrain through trenches, ditches and wire fences was first expressed in 1914 by the English Colonel Swinton. After discussion in various authorities, the War Ministry generally accepted his idea and formulated the basic requirements that the combat vehicle had to meet. It had to be small, have caterpillar tracks, bulletproof armor, overcome craters up to 4 m and wire fences, reach a speed of at least 4 km/h, have a cannon and two machine guns. The main purpose of the tank was to destroy barbed wire barriers and suppress enemy machine guns. Soon, Foster’s company, in forty days, created a combat vehicle based on the Holt tracked tractor, called “Little Willie.” Its chief designers were Engineer Tritton and Lieutenant Wilson.
"Little Willie" was tested in 1915 and showed good driving performance. In November, the Holt company began manufacturing a new machine. The designers were faced with the difficult problem of increasing its length by 1 m without making the tank heavier, so that it could overcome four-meter trenches. In the end, this was achieved due to the fact that the outline of the caterpillar was given the shape of a parallelogram. In addition, it turned out that the tank had difficulty taking vertical embankments and steep elevations. To increase the height of the toe, Wilson and Tritton came up with the idea of running a caterpillar on top of the body. This significantly increased the vehicle's cross-country ability, but at the same time gave rise to a number of other difficulties associated, in particular, with the placement of cannons and machine guns. The armament had to be distributed along the sides, and so that the machine guns could fire to the side and backward, they were installed in the side protrusions of the sponsons. In February 1916 new tank, named "Big Willie", successfully passed sea trials. He could overcome wide trenches, move across a plowed field, climb over walls and embankments up to 1.8 m high. Trenches up to 3.6 m did not pose a serious obstacle for him.
The tank's hull was a frame box made of corners to which armored plates were bolted. The chassis, which consisted of small unsprung road wheels (the shaking in the car was terrible), was also covered with armor. Inside, the “land cruiser” resembled the engine room of a small ship, which you could walk around without even bending down. There was a separate cabin in the front for the driver and commander. Most of the rest of the space was occupied by the engine
Daimler, gearbox and transmission. To start the engine, teams of 3-4 people had to rotate a huge starting handle until the engine started with a deafening roar. On the first brands of cars, there were also fuel tanks. There were narrow passages left on both sides of the engine. The ammunition was stored on shelves between the top of the engine and the roof. While driving, exhaust gases and gasoline vapors accumulated in the tank. Ventilation was not provided. Meanwhile, the heat from the running engine soon became unbearable; the temperature reached 50 degrees. In addition, with each cannon shot, the tank was filled with caustic powder gases. The crew could not stay in combat positions for a long time, they burned out and suffered from overheating. Even in battle, tankers sometimes jumped out to breathe fresh air, not paying attention to the whistling of bullets and shrapnel. A significant drawback of “Big Willie” was its narrow tracks, which bogged down in soft soil. At the same time, the heavy tank landed on the ground, stumps and stones. It was bad with observation and communication - the viewing slots in the sides did not provide inspection, but the spray from bullets that hit the armor near them hit the tankers in the face and eyes. There was no radio communication. Carrier pigeons were kept for long-distance communication, and special signal flags were used for short-range communication. There was no intercom either.
Controlling the tank required significant effort from the drivers and commander (the latter was responsible for the brakes on the right and left side tracks). The tank had three gearboxes - one main and one on each side (each of them controlled a special transmission). The turn was carried out either by braking one track, or by switching one of the onboard gearboxes to the neutral position, while on the other side they engaged first or second gear. With the track stopped, the tank turned around almost on the spot.
Tanks were first used in battle on September 15, 1916, near the village of Flers-Courses during the great Battle of the Somme. The British offensive, launched in July, produced insignificant results and very significant losses. It was then that the commander-in-chief, General Haig, decided to throw tanks into battle. There were 49 of them in total, but only 32 reached their original positions, the rest remained in the rear due to breakdowns. Only 18 took part in the attack, but in a few hours they advanced along with the infantry into the German positions 5 km on a front of the same width. Haig was pleased - in his opinion, it was the new weapon that reduced infantry losses by 20 times compared to the “norm”. He immediately sent a demand to London for 1000 combat vehicles at once.
In subsequent years, the British released several modifications of the Mk (this was the official name of “Big Willie”). Each subsequent model was more perfect than the previous one. For example, the first production tank Mk-1 weighed 28 tons, moved at a speed of 4.5 km/h, and was armed with two cannons and three machine guns. Its crew consisted of 8 people. The later MkA tank had a speed of 9.6 km/h, weight -18 tons, crew - 5 people, armament - 6 machine guns. The ISS, weighing 19.5 tons, had a speed of 13 km/h. This tank had a crew of four people and was armed with four machine guns. The last amphibious tank, Mkl, created already in 1918, had a rotating turret, a crew of four and an armament of three machine guns. Weighing 13.5 tons, it reached a speed of 43 km/h on land and 5 km/h on water. In total, the British produced 3,000 tanks of 13 different modifications during the war years.
Tank "Schneider" SA-1, 1916
Gradually, tanks were adopted by other warring armies. The first French tanks were developed and produced by Schneider in October 1916. Outwardly, they bore little resemblance to their English counterparts - the tracks did not cover the hull, but were located along its sides or under it. The chassis was sprung with special springs, which made the work of the crew easier. However, due to the fact that top part The tank hung heavily over the tracks, the Schneiders' cross-country ability was worse, and they could not overcome even minor vertical obstacles.
About a hundred of them came to Russia and they all served in the army of Denikin, a White Guard. After the Civil War, these tanks were installed in various cities as monuments. Today there are 5 of them left. Let's look at the Lugansk specimen from the inside with the help of a blogger dymov
Sandblasted tank on "slipways". Some of the hatches have been removed.
A drawing of a tank with numbered armor plates and a description of the problems for each of the damaged ones.
Also, on the table are pieces of armor and rivets (they checked the type of steel to select the optimal one for a possible future replacement).
Numbered armor plates on the tank itself.
As you can see, there are plenty of cracks and holes from rust.
The bottom was pretty rotten in some places. Standing in the open air, the tank collected water in any rainfall.
It's quite spacious inside (without the engine). It became clear how 7-8 crew members could fit there.
Stak engineering.Co
Wolverhampton
inscription on the gearbox.
The place of the only gunner in this crew. It must be said that in terms of the number of “shots” this tank can give odds to any modern one. More than 40 next to the gun and even more in the stern.
All levers and rods are in place.
Pedals too. I wonder what the letters B and C on them mean?
Convenient glove compartment. The officer could have put down binoculars and a Browning gun.
The “head” of the gearbox is larger.
7 machine guns per tank is very cool, in my opinion.
The ventilation duct (if that's what it is) is the most rusted of all.
The driver-mechanic has his own stash. And, by the way, the “steering wheel” is right-handed! In English…
….. automobile plant
major renovation
19…
As usual, time has erased all the most interesting information. 
Using this number, as it turned out, it was possible to restore both the data on the tank and its combat path.
For example, both Lugansk were recaptured by the Red Army from Wrangel in the battles for Crimea. Namely - on Perekop.
Items that have been in the tank for many years. The button is of greatest interest.
Once upon a time, these workshops produced other tracked shushiks for military needs - amphibious transport vehicles capable of transporting a truckload of soldiers on board across any river.
LOT recording a stand-up comedy in the bowels of a combat vehicle.
And now about the French
The best tank of the First World War was the Renault FT, produced by the Renault company and weighing only 6 tons, a crew of two, armament - a machine gun (cannon since 1917), a maximum speed of 9.6 km/h.
"Renault" FT - 17
Renault FT became the prototype of the tank of the future. On it, for the first time, the layout of the main components was resolved, which still remains classic: engine, transmission, drive wheel - at the rear, control compartment - in front, rotating turret - in the center. For the first time, on-board radio stations began to be installed on Renault tanks, which immediately increased the controllability of tank formations. A large diameter drive wheel helped to overcome vertical obstacles and get out of craters. The tank had good maneuverability and was easy to operate. For 15 years it served as a model for many designers. In France itself, Renault was in service until the end of the 30s, and it was produced under license in another 20 countries.
The Germans also tried to develop new weapons. Since 1917, the Bremerwagen company began production of the A7V tank, but the Germans were never able to organize their mass production. P1x tanks took part in some operations, but in quantities not exceeding several dozen vehicles.
On the contrary, the Entente countries (that is, England and France themselves) had about 7 thousand tanks by the end of the war. Here armored vehicles received recognition and firmly established themselves in the weapons system. Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister during the war, said: “The tank was an outstanding and stunning innovation in the field of mechanical aid to war. This final English response to German machine guns and trenches no doubt played a very important role in hastening the Allied victory." Tanks were widely used by the British in combat. In November 1917, a massive tank attack was carried out for the first time. 476 vehicles took part in it, supported by six infantry divisions. It was a huge success of a new type of weapon. Firing from cannons and machine guns, the tanks demolished the wire fences and overcame the first line of trenches on the move.
In just a few hours, the British advanced 9 km deep into the front, losing only 4 thousand people. (In the previous British offensive near Ypres, which lasted four months, the British lost 400 thousand people and managed to penetrate the German defense by only 6-10 km). The French also used tanks extensively several times. Thus, in July 1918, more than 500 French tanks took part in the battle near Soissons.
From the first Soviet tank “Freedom Fighter Comrade. Lenin", built by the workers of the Sormovsky plant in 1920, to a modern main tank with high firepower, protection from all weapons and high mobility - this is the long and glorious path of Soviet tank building.
In Tsarist Russia, the country where the world's first model of a tank was created (A. A. Porokhovshchikov's tank), there was no tank-building industry and no tanks were built. Only after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution did the young Red Army begin to be equipped with military equipment. Already in the spring of 1918, speaking at a meeting of military specialists, V.I. Lenin proposed a program technical equipment The Red Army, in which armored forces played a significant role.
August 31, 1920, the first Soviet tank, named “Freedom Fighter Comrade. Lenin,” came out of the gates of the Krasnoe Sormovo plant. The hands of skilled workers, with limited capabilities, produced 15 tanks of the same type. From this period the history of the development of tank building in the USSR begins.
The first Soviet tanks were not inferior in combat qualities to the best foreign models, and in some design features they were superior to them. These domestic vehicles and captured ones captured from the interventionists became the basis for the formation of tank detachments. The first such detachments, which included three tanks, appeared in 1920. They took part in battles on various fronts and were used to directly support the infantry, being in their battle formations. It should be noted that the main tanks of the Red Army during the civil war were captured.
In 1924, a technical bureau of the Main Directorate of Military Industry was created, headed by engineer S.P. Shchukalov. This became an important event in the history of Soviet tank building. If earlier the development of tank equipment was carried out by separate factories, which, naturally, did not contribute to the accumulation of the necessary experience, then after the creation of the bureau, all work is concentrated in a single center.
Three years later, in 1927, the first sample of a light tank designed by this bureau was tested. Based on the test results and by decision of the USSR Revolutionary Military Council dated July 6, 1927, the model was accepted into service with the Red Army. The modified version of the T-18 tank received the MS-1 brand, which meant “small escort, first sample.”
In the 1930s it began to develop rapidly soviet tank building. During this period, tanks were created design bureaus, which in short time developed a whole generation of tanks of all weight categories. An outstanding role in the creation of the first models of tanks of that period was played by N.V. Barykov, who in 1929 headed the special design and mechanical engineering department (OKMO).
sources
http://dymov.livejournal.com/73878.html
http://www.retrotank.ru/
http://www.iq-coaching.ru/
http://www.opoccuu.com/
The First World War differed from all previous wars in its abundance of innovations - military aircraft, submarine warfare, chemical weapons and, of course, tanks, which brought battles out of the stalemate of trench warfare.
UK tanks
The very first tank of the war was built on September 9, 1915 in Great Britain. At first it was called "Little Willie", but after it was finalized and put into production, it was given the name "". On September 15, 1915, tanks of this type were used in combat for the first time, in France, during the Battle of the Somme.
Mark I First combat use tanks showed that the design of the Mark I is imperfect. Tanks broke down, were easily penetrated, drove slowly - all these shortcomings led to huge losses. As a result, it was decided to significantly change the car. The tail was removed, the muffler was changed, the exhaust pipes were reconstructed, the thickness of the armor was increased - and as a result, the changes led to the appearance of first the Mark IV, and then the last British tank of the First World War.
Mark V In parallel with the Marks, in 1917 the British built the Whipett, or Mark A, high-speed tank - a fairly fast and reliable vehicle that showed itself well in combat. The Whipett was very different from other British tanks, but the main vehicles were still diamond-shaped - the British began producing tanks of a new format after the First World War.
Whippet Tanks of France
The first French tanks were the Schneider and Saint-Chamon, built in 1917. These machines had a number of disadvantages, but were quite effective at massive use. As a result, the tanks were converted into armored personnel carriers - their design turned out to be suitable for these purposes.
Saint-Chamond 
Schneider Played a much larger role in the development of world tank building french tank Renault FT-17 is the world's first mass-produced light tank, the first tank with a classic layout and the first tank with a rotating turret. The idea for its development came to Colonel Etienne in 1916, when he decided that the army really needed a type of tank to accompany infantry. As a result, it was decided to create a small, cheap machine, ideal for mass production. It was planned to produce 20-30 such vehicles per day, which would allow the French army to be fully equipped with tanks.
The development of the new car was undertaken by designer-manufacturer Louis Renault. As a result, the Renault FT-17 was born in 1917 - the result of much trial and error.
Renault FT-17 Immediately after entering the battlefield, the tanks received worldwide recognition. They were supplied to Russia (then to the USSR), Poland, USA, Japan, Italy, Romania, China and a number of other countries. car for a long time improved, and after the war it remained in service with many countries, and in France it was still the main tank. Some examples of the Renault FT-17 survived right up to the present day, and took part in hostilities at its initial stage.
In the end it was design features Renault FT-17 became the basis for further tank building.
Tanks of Russia
Even before the First World War, Russia had a tank project created by the son of D.I. Mendeleev, Vasily Dmitrievich Mendeleev. Unfortunately, the tank project was never implemented.
Mendeleev's armored vehicle Already in the First world war Nikolai Lebedenko developed the first Russian tank, the Tsar Tank. This huge vehicle, with a crew of 15 people and a hull length of 17.8 meters, was armed with powerful guns and was impressive in its size. A prototype was built, but during sea trials it almost immediately got stuck with a wheel in a small hole, and the engine power was not enough to pull the car out. After such a failure, work on this tank was completed.
Tsar Tank As a result, during the First World War, Russia did not produce its own tanks, but only actively used imported equipment.
Tank Germany
In Germany, the role of tanks in the war was understood too late. When the Germans realized the power of tanks, German industry had neither the materials nor the manpower to create combat vehicles.
However, in November 1916, engineer Vollmer was ordered to design and build the first German tank. The tank was presented in May 1917, but did not satisfy the command. An order was given to design a more powerful machine, but work on it was delayed. As a result, the first German A7V tank appeared only in 1918.
A7V The tank had one significant feature - protected tracks, which were so vulnerable on British and French vehicles. However, the car had poor cross-country ability and was generally not good enough. Almost immediately, the Germans created a new tank, the A7VU, more similar in shape to English tanks, and this vehicle was used more successfully, becoming the progenitor of future heavy tanks.
A7VU Massive, gray-smoky mirage -
Such is the mountain range in the blood of dawn.
The rocky slope is dangerously cut,
Where did the pencil go on the map?
Where is the tank behind the tank, noses into the ditch,
They hit with direct fire, creating a barrier.
Loaded with weapons of all stripes,
On the wire, into the roar of guns,
The infantry rushes forward. Reflected
There is only confusion on their faces. Run
To death, hasten to death, crawl to death...
The pulse rumbles, steel grinds, in the mud
Hope is drowning... God help me!
English poet Siegfried Sassoon, participant in the First World War
Tank as a solution to the problem of positional impasse
The offensive of the Anglo-French troops on the Somme River in Northern France was completely exhausted by the fall of 1916, reduced to a positional massacre. Attempts to break through German defensive positions, which consisted of numerous rows of trenches generously “seasoned” with barbed wire, each time turned out to be a failure. In the absence of noticeable results, the losses in the offensive were many times greater than the losses of the defending side - for example, on the first day of the offensive, the British lost about 20,000 people killed and 40,000 wounded, while the Germans lost only about 6,000 soldiers. The situation for the British seemed deadlocked.
General Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France in the First World War
But the English general Douglas Haig had another trump card hidden up his sleeve - a new secret weapon, which, for the purpose of secrecy, was called a tank. Having started production of tanks back in 1915, by the fall of 1916 the British were able to make about fifty armored diamond-shaped monsters. Mark I tracked vehicles were produced in two modifications - “females” with machine gun armament and “males” with mixed machine gun and artillery (two 57-mm guns and a machine gun).
Transported to the mainland, British tanks were secretly delivered to the front line. As a result of night marches along unexplored routes, only 32 out of 49 vehicles managed to reach the assembly points on the front line - some of the tanks got stuck in the mud, some were out of action due to breakdowns. The “lunar” landscape of the battlefield with numerous explosion craters and the thunder of artillery cannonade stunned personnel crews of combat vehicles - most of the tankers were at the front for the first time.
“Moonlight” landscape of the Somme battlefield, 1916.
The British planned to attack their 4th Army to occupy the villages of Guedcourt and Fleur, which were defended by the German 1st Army. This time the suicidal infantry attack was preceded by the debut of tanks, on which the British had high hopes.
The first tank battle in history
In the early morning of September 15, 1916, the devil himself appeared before the eyes of the entrenched German infantrymen. In the intervals of the barrage, prudently left by the British artillerymen, something hitherto unprecedented was moving towards the German positions.
The first to attack the Germans (the first tank attack in history!) at 5.15 in the morning was the “male” tank D1 of Captain Mortimer. Having destroyed a German machine gun nest in the defense center between Zhinshi and Delville Wood, this tank was disabled by a shell that hit the chassis. But the rest of the tanks were already entering the battle.
Presumably the D1 tank of Captain Mortimer, the first to enter battle on September 15, 1916.
Breaking the fence wire and tumbling over chains of trenches, the Mk.1s slowly but confidently crawled forward, simultaneously fitting themselves and their crews into world history. The crew members, by the way, had to work in conditions that were far from comfortable. The roar of guns and machine guns, the terrible smoke from gunpowder and exhaust gases were harmoniously complemented by the cramped conditions - inside each of the first tanks there was a miniature warehouse, which included tanks with motor oil, fuel, water, a two-day supply of food, spare barrels for machine guns, a spare machine gun, equipment , as well as means of communication in the form signal flag, signal lamps and cages with carrier pigeons.
The reaction of German soldiers to the attack by British tanks was panic. The usual military psychosis of the First World War from continuous artillery cannonades - shell-shock - no longer surprised anyone. But the shock of the German troops from the appearance of tanks was even stronger. The phrase “The Devil is coming!”, shouted by one of the German soldiers, spread through the trenches like wildfire. Through the viewing slits, the tankers watched with satisfaction the figures in gray Feldgrau uniforms running away from their positions. Added to the mystical fear was the completely rational horror that the infantry’s individual small arms were almost useless against the new steel monsters.
Tank Mk.1 at the Battle of the Somme, 1916
During the offensive, some of the less-than-perfect vehicles crashed into German shelters or became helplessly stuck in shell craters. The crews had to urgently leave the fighting compartment of the stuck vehicles and try to return them to service. During the attack, for various reasons, 10 tanks were disabled, and another 7 received minor damage. But those of the Mk.I that went further proved to be very successful.
The “male” tank D17 “Dinnaken” of Lieutenant Hastie was the first to enter the village of Fleur, slowly pursuing the Germans running away and hiding in the cellars. A British air reconnaissance aircraft flying over the battlefield reported, not without pleasure:
“The tank is moving along the main street of the village of Fleurs, and the British soldiers are following it in a good mood.”
By making passages in wire fences and crushing machine-gun nests, the tanks provided significant assistance to the British infantry. Stopping over a German trench, the Mk.1 cleared it with machine gun fire and then moved along the trench, capturing a total of 300 prisoners. Another tank opened the way for the infantry to the village of Guedecourt, after which, however, it was hit by an artillery shot. Only two crew members managed to escape from the car that was engulfed in fire.
results
The unconditional tactical success of the first use of tanks had a double meaning. On the one hand, five hours of battle with their participation allowed the British, with relatively small losses, to capture a section of the front up to 10 km long and advance several kilometers in depth. Positions were taken, attacks on which remained unsuccessful for a long time. Skeptical about the tanks' capabilities, General Douglas Haig immediately ordered the production of thousands more vehicles.
On the other hand, for the sake of a tactical offensive, the British sacrificed the effect of surprise. The impression of the first use of stunning combat vehicles simultaneously in many areas could have been much stronger. In reality, the news about their use instantly spread across the entire front, and then throughout the world. In almost every power that took part in the First World War, including on the enemy side, the work of military intelligence officers and engineers began to boil to create their own tanks and means of combating them.
Drawing of the German anti-tank grenade, obtained by Russian intelligence, 1917. The development of tanks and means of combating them has been in full swing since the autumn of 1916
Due to well-known revolutionary events, the Russian Empire never had time to create its own “land dreadnoughts,” although it carefully monitored their evolution. In the papers of the Main Directorate of the General Staff, preserved in the military archives, the following reports for December 1916 are found (the spelling of the original source has been preserved):
“In Germany, at the Krupp, Ehrhart and Hansa-Loyd factories in Bremen, up to 120 Tanks are being built, so far... of two types. It is assumed that the Germans will use them on all fronts where they will attack, but not for defense... In the best way actions against "Tanko" recognize the fire of trench 3.7 centimeter guns."
It was the events of September 15, 1916 that made the word “tank” international and gave it a new, military meaning. The curious endings at the end of the word in the report look funny and are explained by the novelty of this borrowing word in the Russian language at that time.
Simultaneously with the appearance of the new word “tank” in the military lexicon, the war took on a new look.
Sources:
- Mitchell F. Tanks at war. History of the development of tanks in the World War 1914–1918. M., 1935.
- Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA). F. 493. Op. 2. D. 6. Part 2. Summary of information received by the Main Directorate of the General Staff.
- RGVIA. F. 802. Op. 4. D. 1477. Materials on measures to combat tanks in the event of their use by foreign powers.
- Fedoseev S. L. Tanks of the First World War. M., 2012.
A tank is a tracked armored combat vehicle, usually with cannon armament as its main armament.
At the very beginning, when tank building first appeared and developed, tanks were produced exclusively with machine gun armament, and after the Second World War ended, experiments began to create tanks with missile weapons. There are even tanks with a flamethrower. Accurate definition there is no tank, since its idea was constantly changing and differed in different armies. Tanks from the First World War, when meeting them for the first time, you may not recognize them at first; it seems that these are not tanks at all (for example, Saint-Chamond), or, take, for example, the Swedish Strv-103 vehicle, which is not classified like a tank, but like a tank destroyer. Some vehicles (for example, Type 94), which are called “small tanks” in Russian literature, are called wedges in Western literature. Despite the fact that the heavy assault tank Tortoise (A39) is called a tank, it does not have a rotating turret, and therefore some experts classify it as a super-heavy self-propelled gun. Tanks differ from other tracked combat vehicles with cannon armament mainly in their ability to quickly transfer fire over a wide range elevation angles and horizontal angles. In most cases, they achieve this by installing a cannon in a turret rotating in a horizontal plane, although there are a few exceptions. For example, a self-propelled artillery unit, it is similar to a tank in its design, but is intended to solve completely different tasks: destroying enemy tanks from ambushes or fire support for troops from a closed firing position, so it has some differences, and this primarily concerns balance " firepower/security.” The composition of armored forces is specially divided into tanks and “specialized combat vehicles"with the aim of identifying "specialized combat vehicles" in special units in accordance with the applicable military doctrine. For example, during WWII, the American army used the doctrine of General McNair, which assigned the role of fighting enemy tanks to “tank destroyers” (M10 Wolverine, M18 Hellcat) - as combat vehicles were called, structurally similar to light or medium tanks with effective anti-tank weapons, while while the tanks themselves had a different task - to support the infantry in battle. In domestic literature, the same vehicles are called anti-tank self-propelled guns.
Where did the name itself come from?
The word "tank" comes from English word tank, and is translated as “tank” or “tank”. Its name comes from here: when the time came to send the first tanks to the front, British counterintelligence started a rumor that Russian government ordered a batch of fuel tanks from England. And the tanks were sent by rail under the guise of tanks (lucky that the gigantic size and shape of the first tanks were quite consistent with this version). They were even written in Russian, “Caution. Petrograd". That's how the name stuck with them. It is curious that in Russia the new combat vehicle was called “lokhan” from the very beginning (another translation of the word tank). 
History of the development of the design and combat use of tanks
The appearance of tanks
Tanks appeared during the First World War. After the immediate initial maneuvering stage of combat operations, balance was established on the fronts (the so-called “trench warfare”). It was almost impossible to break through the enemy's deeply layered defense lines. The only way, according to which it was possible to prepare an offensive and break into the enemy’s defenses, consisted in the powerful use of artillery in order to destroy defensive structures and destroy manpower, and then introduce one’s own troops into the breakthrough. But it turned out that it would not be possible to bring troops into the “clean” breakthrough area quickly enough due to the roads being plowed up and destroyed by explosions, and besides, the enemies along the existing railway and dirt roads in the depths of their defense managed to bring up reserves and block the breakthrough. Build tanks decided in 1915 almost simultaneously by Great Britain, France and Russia. The first English model of the tank was completely ready in 1916, and when the tank passed tests, production received the first order for 100 vehicles. It was a Mark I tank - a rather imperfect combat vehicle, which was produced in two modifications - “male” (with cannon armament in the side sponsons) and “female” (only with machine gun armament). It soon became known that the machine gun “females” had rather low efficiency. They could not fight enemy armored vehicles and had great difficulty destroying firing points. After that, they released a limited series of “females”, which still had a machine gun in the left sponson, and a cannon in the right. The soldiers immediately aptly called them “hermaphrodites.”
For the first time tanks (model Mk.1) were used by the British army against German army September 15, 1916 in France, on the Somme River. During this battle, it was determined that the design of the tank was not sufficiently developed - of the 49 tanks that the British prepared for the attack, only 32 moved to their original positions (and 17 tanks broke down), and of these thirty-two that launched the attack, 5 got stuck in the swamp and 9 failed due to technical reasons. However, even these remaining 18 tanks managed to advance 5 km deep into the defense, and the losses in this offensive operation were 20 times less than usual. 
Despite the fact that, due to the small number of tanks, it was not possible to completely break through the front, the new type of military equipment still showed its capabilities and it turned out that tanks had a great future. During the first time tanks appeared at the front German soldiers they were terribly afraid.
The main allies of the British on the Western Front, the French, developed and produced a very successful (so successful that it was still used at the beginning of World War II in the armies of Poland and France) light tank Renault FT-17. While this tank was being designed, many solutions were used for the first time, which later became classic. It had a rotating turret with a light cannon or machine gun installed in it (unlike the “sponsonal”, that is, in the protrusions on the sides of the hull, weapon arrangement in the Mk.1), low specific ground pressure (and, as a result, high maneuverability ), relatively high speed and good maneuverability. 
In Russia, one of the first to be created was the Porokhovshchikov tank (“Russian all-terrain vehicle”) and the Lebedenko wheeled tank, each of which was made in only one (experimental) copy. The designers explain this either by the impracticality of the design or by the “inertia of the tsarist government.” The Russian army in the First World War had neither domestic nor imported tanks. Already during the civil war White Army used the tanks that it received from the Entente countries in small quantities. One of the Renault FT-17 tanks captured by the Red Army in the spring of 1919 was sent to Moscow, where it was dismantled and examined. Thus, the problem of creating a domestic tank was solved by creating M-type tanks based on the design of the French Renault FT-17. The first of the M-type tanks was called “Freedom Fighter Comrade. Lenin." In the period from 1920-1921, 15 tanks were produced, but in the spring of 1921, due to the end of the civil war and intervention, the project was closed. These tanks did not participate in battles; they were used only in agricultural work (like tractors) and in military parades.
Tanks of the interwar period (1919-1938)
In the period between the world wars, other states, in addition to Great Britain, France and Germany, decided to develop tanks. At the same time, when the general staffs and governments of major world powers were discussing the results of the First World War, and understood the inevitability of the future, even more bloody war, they also developed global combat strategies. The General Staffs adopted a strategy that gave great importance tank troops and set corresponding tasks for weapons designers and factories producing tanks.
In the interwar period, tank builders and the military did not yet have a consensus on the optimal tactics for using tanks and their design. As a result, tanks of such designs were produced, which subsequently proved their unviability, due to their narrow specialization, and due to the fact that they were not always used for their intended purpose. Thus, light tanks were relatively lightly armored, although quite often high-speed (for example, the Soviet BT-7
).
Their armor served only as protection against small arms bullets and shell fragments, and at the same time it could easily be penetrated by anti-tank rifle bullets and anti-tank gun shells, starting with a caliber of 37 mm. The armament of these tanks of this period was also too weak (artillery calibers 25-37 mm), the number of its crew was insufficient (2-3 people), and the living conditions were at the limit of the physiological capabilities of tankers. At the same time, in the early 1930s, the talented American tank designer J. Christie created an original independent suspension scheme. At that time, designs for amphibious and even air transportable tanks were being quite actively developed.
The inactive multi-turret giants, which carried several different-caliber cannons and machine guns, such as the French
70 ton Char 2C
and Soviet 50-ton
This scheme also included a larger number of crew (up to 10-12 people), which led to the difficulty of centralized fire control in a combat situation and slightly complicated the design. Big sizes(especially the length and height) could expose him and, as a result, increased his vulnerability on the battlefield. The then adapted carburetor engines aviation type solved the low traction and dynamic qualities of such “supertanks”, especially when turning. During the interwar period, the first tanks with diesel engines were developed, for example, in Japan in 1932 (Mitsubishi diesel, 52 hp). In the USSR, already in the mid-1930s, they developed a program for the widespread dieselization of tanks of all classes, but only medium and heavy vehicles were actually equipped with such engines (V-2 diesel, 500 hp). In other countries, diesel engines were installed on tanks on a relatively limited basis until the 1950s.
Tanks of the war period (1939-1945)
The Second World War became an occasion to increase and improve the production of tanks. In just 6 years, tanks have made a huge leap forward than in the previous twenty. At this time, many tanks already had anti-ballistic armor, powerful long-barreled guns (caliber up to 152 mm), and at the end of the war they already had the first night (infrared) sights (although experiments on installing them on tanks were carried out in the USSR even before the war) , and the radioification of tanks began to be considered a necessary part of them. The tactics of using tanks have also improved significantly. Already in the first period of the war (1939-1941), German military leaders showed the whole world how the use of tank formations makes it possible to carry out operations for operational and strategic encirclement and quickly win the war (the so-called “blitzkrieg”). Nevertheless, other states (Great Britain, France, Poland, the USSR, etc.) created their own theories of tactics for using tanks, in many ways similar to the German one. During the Second World War, the German school improved by increasing the armor and length of guns, surveillance devices (including infrared night vision devices), habitability, and the Soviet school took advantage of manufacturability and mass production, making major changes to the design of basic types of tanks only when absolutely necessary.
T-34
HF
IP
The Soviet tank school also created quite successful models of other types. armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery installations and tank destroyers. The American school lagged behind in terms of layout and technology from the very beginning, but it still managed to catch up by the end of the war due to the deployment of mass production of a few selected models, good quality steel and gunpowder, as well as radio equipment (at least two radios per tank). The most successful German tanks become:
PzKpfw IV
"Tiger"
, with some reservations 
"Panther"
And "Royal tiger".
But the best Soviet tanks that took part in World War II were recognized as the T-34 medium tank (in different versions, including its late version T-34-85
with different modifications of 85 mm guns) and a heavy tank IS-2
.
And the best American tank was M4 Sherman
, which was widely supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease. 
Tanks of the post-war period
Tanks of the post-war period are divided into three generations.
The first generation of post-war tanks began to be created directly during the Second World War, although they did not take part in hostilities: these are Soviet medium T-44
T-54
and heavy tanks:
IS-3
IS-4
IS-7
T-10
American:
M26 Pershing
M46 "Patton"
M47
English A41 "Centurion"
and others. 
Light tanks are finally turning into specialized combat vehicles: amphibious (Soviet PT-76), reconnaissance (American M41 Walker Bulldog) and later air transportable (American M551 Sheridan). Since the mid-1950s. average and heavy types tanks are giving way to the so-called. "standard" or "main battle tank". The characteristic features of these tanks are enhanced shell-proof armor, large-caliber guns (minimum 90 mm), including smooth-bore guns suitable for launching rockets, powerful diesel engines, and later the first means of protecting the crew from weapons of mass destruction. This type of tank (but still first generation) includes the Soviet ones:
T-55
T-62
American M48
English Chieftain
French AMX-30
and others. 
The second generation of post-war tanks was created in the 1960-1970s. for actions in conditions of the enemy’s use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and taking into account the emergence of new powerful anti-tank weapons. These tanks receive improved armor, a full range of crew protection from weapons of mass destruction, are equipped with electronics (laser rangefinders, ballistic computers, etc.), and their firepower is increased through the use of guns larger caliber, high-power multi-fuel engines are beginning to be used. Soviet tanks of this period are equipped with an automatic loader. The second generation tanks include Soviet ones:
T-64
T-72
American M60
West German Leopard-1
During this time, a number of extensive programs were also undertaken to upgrade first-generation tanks to the level of second-generation tanks, such as the M48A5 (US Army) and M48A2G (Bundeswehr) upgrades to the M60 level.
By Tank performance characteristics of the first and second generations, the USSR was able to get ahead of its potential opponents, but the need to limit the mass and size of the main type of tank (due to the need to fit into the standard railway dimensions) and some lag in equipping with electronics led to the rapid obsolescence of Soviet tanks of the first and second post-war generations, which was confirmed in the wars of the 1960-1990s. in the Middle East.
Third generation tanks were created in the 1970s-1980s, and began to enter service with the troops in the 1980s. Tanks of this generation are characterized by the use of new, high-tech protective equipment ( active protection, dynamic protection), saturation with advanced electronics, heavy-duty and compact gas turbine engines are beginning to be installed on some tank models.
Tanks of this generation include Soviet and Russian:
T-72B
T-80
T-90
American M1A2 Abrams
West German "Leopard-2"
French "Leclerc"
and others.
Tank design
Layout
Currently, the vast majority of tanks are created according to the so-called classical layout scheme, the main features of which are the installation of the main armament (gun) in a 360° rotating turret and the rear location of the engine and transmission compartment. The exception here is the Swedish tank Strv-103
(crazy scheme) and Israeli tanks "Merkava"
models 1, 2, 3 and 4 with a front engine compartment.
Tank engine
In the early stages of tank building development, a gasoline carburetor engine of the automobile type, and later of an aviation type (including radial engines) was usually used. Immediately before the Second World War, as well as during it, diesel engines became widespread (mainly in the USSR and the USA), becoming the main type of tank engines throughout the world from the second half of the 1950s, later replaced by multi-fuel engines, and in the last two -three decades and gas turbine engines (GTE). First serial tank with a gas turbine engine as the main engine became Soviet T-80
In the 1930-1950s. There were disputes between supporters and opponents of the use of two types of internal combustion engines as the power plant of tanks - carburetor and diesel. This dispute ended in a final victory for the diesel engine supporters. Nowadays, the main debate is between supporters and opponents of the use of diesel engines and gas turbine engines in tanks. Both types of engines are different own advantages and shortcomings. During the First World War, a steam tank was built, and in the 1950s, a number of nuclear tank projects were developed in the United States, but all these types of power plants ultimately did not become widespread.
Advantages of gas turbine engines over diesel engines:
Less consumption of lubricating fluids.
Less preparation time for launch, especially in cold weather.
Exhaust gases from gas turbine engines are much less toxic and can be directly used to heat the tank, while tanks with diesel engines require a special heat exchanger.
More favorable for transport vehicle application of torque, adaptability factor is 2.6. This coefficient determines the reduction in the number of shifts when driving over rough terrain.
A simpler transmission system.
Better “non-stalling”, that is, the ability of the engine to continue working even if the tank hits an obstacle or gets stuck in deep mud.
The level of unmasking noise is 1.75-2 times lower.
The service life of gas turbine engines is 2-3 times higher than that of piston engines, due to the balance and minimization of rubbing surfaces in the engine.
Great compactness.
More power for the same size (weight)
Advantages of a diesel engine over a gas turbine engine:
Greater reliability in dusty conditions. Unlike aircraft turbines, a tank turbine operates close to the ground and per minute passes through several cubic meters of air, often containing large amounts of dust raised by the tank. Hence, the requirements for the incoming air purification system are much higher.
Slight power drop at high temperatures environment.
Fuel consumption is 1.8-2 times lower, that is, on the one hand, cheaper operation, on the other, a greater range with the same amount of transported fuel
The cost of a diesel engine is up to ten times less.
Better fire safety due to the use of low-flammability diesel fuel.
Possibility of repair in field conditions.
Another important advantage is the ability to start a tank’s diesel engine from a tug, i.e., “from a pusher”, so a tank with such an engine has a high probability of continuing its task with the help of another tank
Diesel engines heat up less and are therefore less noticeable to thermal imagers.
To overcome water obstacles along the bottom, a tank with a gas turbine engine requires an exhaust pipe - exhaust into the water is impossible for it. Comparative military tests tanks T-64A and T-72 with diesel engines 5TDF and V-46, respectively, and T-80 with a gas turbine engine GTD-1000T, carried out by a government commission, showed
T-80 tanks, whose rated specific power exceeded the T-64A and T-72 by 30 and 25%, respectively, have an advantage in tactical speeds in European conditions by only 9-10%, and in Central Asia - no more than 2% .
The hourly fuel consumption of gas turbine tanks was 65-68% higher than diesel tanks, the kilometer consumption was 40-50% higher, and the fuel range was 26-31% less; this led to the need, when organizing marches, to provide for the possibility of refueling T-80 tanks during daily marches.
At an altitude of 3 km above sea level, the power loss for the 5TDF engine reached 9%, for the V-46 - 5%, for the GTD-1000T - 15.5%.
Diesel tanks are currently in tank fleets in 111 countries, and gas turbine tanks in tank fleets in 9 countries. Developers, manufacturers and suppliers of gas turbine tanks are the USA and Russia ( Soviet Union). Diesel tanks form the basis of the tank fleets of the armies of all countries of the world, with the exception of the United States. Development of global tank construction and the tank market in 2003-2012. define 25 special programs, of which 23 relate to diesel tanks, only 2 to gas turbine tanks. In Germany, MTU Friedrichshafen is currently developing new high-tech fourth-generation 890 series diesel engines for future armored fighting vehicles. Many countries buying tanks prefer models with a diesel engine and even require the replacement of gas turbine engines with diesel engines as a condition for admission to the tender. So, in 2004, Australia chose the M1A2 Abrams tank as its future tank, but on the condition that the tank’s gas turbine engine would be replaced with a diesel engine. In the USA, a tank was even developed specifically for export purposes M1A2 Abrams
with a diesel engine. 
There are design solutions that can significantly improve the performance of diesel engines. In general, despite the statements of supporters of each type of engine, at present it is impossible to talk about the unconditional superiority of one of them.
Modern diesel engines, as a rule, are multi-fuel, can operate on the entire spectrum of fuels: gasoline of all types, including high-octane aviation gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel with any cetane number, but the nominal fuel for them in peacetime is aviation kerosene. The vast majority of diesel engines are equipped with a turbocharging system, and in recent years, with intercoolers (intercoolers).
Chassis
All tanks have a tracked propulsion system, the prototype of which was patented back in 1818 by the Frenchman Dubochet. This design of the chassis allows the tank to easily move in off-road conditions on various types of soil. The tracks of modern tanks are made of steel, with a metal or rubber-metal joint (RMH), along which the tank rides on road wheels (usually rubber-coated; in modern tanks their number is from five to seven). In some models, the upper part of the caterpillar, sagging, rests on the support rollers; in others, special support rollers of small diameter are used. As a rule, in the front part there are guide wheels, which, together with the tension mechanism, provide the required track tension. The tracks are set in motion by engaging their drive wheel, the torque to which is supplied from the engine through the transmission. By changing the rewinding speed of one or both tracks, the tank can turn, including turning on the spot.
An important parameter is the area of that part of the caterpillar that is in contact with the ground (the supporting surface of the caterpillar), more precisely, the ratio of the mass of the tank to this area - the specific pressure on the ground. The smaller it is, the softer the soil the tank can move on, i.e., the higher its cross-country ability.
Specific ground pressure of some modern tanks
All tanks have a suspension system - a set of parts, components and mechanisms connecting the vehicle body with the axes of the road wheels. The suspension system is designed to transfer the weight of the tank through the road wheels and caterpillar track to the ground, to soften shocks and impacts acting on the tank hull, and to quickly dampen hull vibrations. The quality of the suspension system largely determines the average speed of tanks moving across the terrain, the accuracy of fire on the move, the performance of the crew, and the reliability and durability of the tank's equipment.
Lecture No. 1
The history of the creation of the first tanks and their use in the First World War (1914-18). Subsequent development of tank building and production of tanks by European countries and the USA.
The initial years of the second decade of the last century were characterized by an increasing aggravation of economic contradictions between groups of European countries. Economically strengthening Germany persistently made its way into the leadership of the capitalist system. A military conflict was brewing inevitably. The reason for it was the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. This is how the First World War began. The number of countries involved in this war increased, which led to the emergence or organization of opposing coalitions. These are the countries of the German-Austrian bloc, and, on the other hand, the countries of the Entente. Tsarist Russia was also on the side of the Entente.
The ruling leaders and military personnel of each of the coalition countries believed that the war would be lightning fast, and everyone counted on victory, not thinking of being drawn into protracted hostilities. In total, 38 states were involved in the war. The number of active armies exceeded 29 million people. But, already in the first year of the war, the advancing nature of the warring armies led to the fact that ground troops warring coalitions died in mass graves and filled the hospitals. The mobilized manpower reserves were exhausted; there was not enough strength for the offensive. A military crisis arose, the war began to be protracted, burying itself in trenches, hiding behind barriers and barbed wire. To achieve success in offensive operations, the Entente countries now still needed to break into the enemy’s defenses, overcoming barriers.
One of the first to whom the thought and idea of creating a vehicle with high permeability through trenches with wire fences belonged was a military engineer, lieutenant colonel at the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Army, Ernest Swinton. Already in October 1914, he turned to the Imperial Defense Committee with a proposal to use the Holt tractor chassis in combat operations. However, at that time, the British Minister of War, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, left his letter with this proposal unanswered. In November 1914, Captain Tulloch, manager of the Chilworth Shipping Company, approached the same Committee with a proposal for the creation of a “land cruiser”. There were other projects.
In 1915, some converted tractors were already demonstrated and trial tests were carried out. However, members of the British War Office considered these projects unpromising. But unexpectedly, these projects and proposals interested the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. And the persistent opinion of many front-line military men forced us to address issues of creating combat vehicles to overcome obstacles on the battlefield. The already well-known military engineer Swinton was appointed Secretary of the Imperial Defense Committee, who began coordinating work on the creation of tracked combat vehicles. On June 15, 1915, the Joint Committee of the Army and Navy was formed, which issued an order to the Engineering Firm in Lincoln to develop an all-terrain vehicle using the power unit of the Foster-Daimler heavy tractor and the chassis of the American Bullock tractor. The work was led by the company's manager, engineer William Tritton. Lieutenant Gordon Wilson was sent from the active reserve of the British Navy to help him. All work was carried out in complete and thorough secrecy. The first vehicle was called “No. 1 Lincoln” and was a box-shaped armored body with a rough mock-up of a turret mounted on a Bullock tractor chassis.
On September 10, 1915, the first tests took place. Tests showed insufficient reliability of the chassis under loads. Using various design options for the propulsion unit, Tritton and Wilson chose the best option - a link track with a rigid suspension. By the end of November 1915 they had produced new car, calling her “Little Willie” (the firm’s workers saw similarities with Wilson in this version).
Performance characteristics of the car:
Weight – 18.3 tons
Dimensions – length 5.45 m (without tail support), width 2.8 m, height 2.41 m
Case wall thickness – 6 mm
The power plant is a six-cylinder Daimler gasoline engine with a power of 105 hp. at 100 rpm. number of shaft
Armament: 7.7 mm Winkers machine gun. There were hatches on the sides of the hull for firing personal weapons.
Crew – 4-6 people.
The car overcame obstacles:
Ditch 1.52 m wide
Wall 0.6 m high
Raise up to 20 degrees
Travel speed – 3.2 km/h.
The first combat applications of these vehicles showed insufficient technical characteristics, and the company continued work to improve them. Therefore, according to other sources, the characteristics are shown to be somewhat different. And yet, the appearance of tanks on the battlefield turned out to be unexpected and effective.
Where did the name "tank" come from? The cars were transported in secrecy, covered, closed under mock-ups of tanks, containers, in English it is pronounced “tank”, hence the final name.
The use of these vehicles on the battlefields of the First World War in 1916 gave lightning impetus to developed European countries and the United States to create their own domestic all-terrain combat vehicles. The most interesting and successful tank of that period can be called the French Renault FT-17. Entered into service in the summer of 1918. It can be called the first tank of a classical design - with a turret armed with cannons and full 360-degree all-round fire.
It was no coincidence that we focused on this car in more detail, because... it was precisely this that in the 20-30s of the last century that appeared as a variant of the basic machine for the design and creation of the first Soviet domestic tanks.
Performance characteristics of the Renault FT-17 tank:
Weight – 6600 kg
Dimensions: length with support “tail” 5.0 m, width 1.71 m, height 2.133 m
The power plant is one 4-cylinder Renault gasoline engine with a power of 35 hp.
Maximum speed when driving on the road - 7.7 km/h
Cruising range – 35.4 km
Armament – 1 37 mm cannon or 1 machine gun
Crew – 2 people.
During the remaining period of the First World War, 3,000 Renault tanks were produced. Radio transmitters were already installed on some cars back then.
For the purpose of military-tactical knowledge about the combat use of tanks, it is necessary to note their first use by the unified command on a massive scale. Thus, 480 tanks took part in one of the counterattacks in the Soissons area. How successful this tank turned out to be can be judged by the fact that they were used in service in the armies of some states until 1939.
Tank "Whippet" Mk A. Manufacturer - Great Britain. Mass production started at the end of 1917.
Performance characteristics of the Whippet Mk A tank:
Weight – 14300 kg
Length 6.1 m, width 2.62 m, height 2.74 m
The power plant is two 4-cylinder Taylor gasoline engines, each producing 45 hp.
Maximum road speed – 13.4 km/h
Cruising range 257 km
Armor thickness 5-14 mm
Armament - 2 Hotchkiss machine guns
Crew – 4-5 people.
The first battle took place in March 1918. A few minutes before the battle, seven British tanks were unexpectedly attacked by German A7V tanks. One of the attacked tanks was destroyed immediately, the second was damaged. The remaining five tanks attacked German positions. Up to 400 soldiers were destroyed, the remaining - up to 2 battalions - fled. Possessing a good power reserve, these tanks penetrated deeply into enemy defenses, causing panic in the rear of the German troops.
German heavy tank A7V. This tank was hastily developed by German engineers in 1917 in response to the appearance of the first British tanks. The Germans also took the Holt tractor suspension as the basis for the chassis. Already in December, the German command ordered 100 A7V tanks for production. However, German industry by this time was already working intermittently. Only 20 tanks were produced. These tanks went down in history as the first to participate in a tank battle (i.e. tanks against tanks).
Performance characteristics of the A7V tank:
Weight – 33500 kg
Length 8.0 m, width 3.06 m, height 3.3 m
Power plant - two Daimler gasoline engines with a power of 100 hp.
Maximum speed when driving on the road – 12.9 km/h
Cruising range – 40 km
Armor thickness – 10-30 mm
Armament – 57 mm cannon, six machine guns
Crew – 18 people.
Somewhat later, the Christie tank was developed and released in the USA, which for us went down in history as the basic version of the creation of domestic BT tanks in the late 20s - early 30s.
In the last war, Germany was defeated. Justifying the reasons for their defeat, some German generals considered the use of a new type of weapon by the Entente forces, namely tanks. Thus, in the words of General von Zwehl: “It was not the genius of Foch * who defeated us, but General Tank.” And although this is a cover for the reason for the defeat, there is some truth in it.
The first tanks did not yet have sufficiently effective tactical and technical characteristics, but they showed that the future belongs to them and the enormous opportunities for their improvement are real and necessary.
* Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929), Marshal of France. During the First World War he commanded an army, an army group, in 1917-18. - Chief of the General Staff, from April 1918 - Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces. (Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary. Page 1422. Second edition, Moscow, 1983).