Panzermann Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 The British Army conducted the first armoured attack in history during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzermann Posted September 15, 2016 Author Share Posted September 15, 2016 Early in the morning Captain Howard "Morti" Mortimore commanded the crew of his Mark I rhomboid tank D1 "Daredevil" registration male 765 to advance. Issuing the first command in combat by a tank commander. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzermann Posted September 15, 2016 Author Share Posted September 15, 2016 Bovington museum opens Tank100 on September 17th. 100 years after the first tank battle in history, at the Battle of Flers, the Tank 100 event will be commemorating the centenary of the tank, the sacrifice of Britain's tank soldiers and Bovington's role in armoured warfare.AJAX, the latest armoured fighting vehicle, will be making its first ever public appearance at Tank 100. Find out more below.http://www.tankmuseum.org/whats-on/events/bovevt53512 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Galbraith Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 Not blowing ones trumpet or anything but... http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?s=f8d7a78fb9d540ce5c57f1a9692ec91b&showtopic=42005 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzermann Posted September 15, 2016 Author Share Posted September 15, 2016 This is the proper great war forum. And ahead. Hours ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corinthian Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 How many decades has it been since they first said that tanks were obsolete because of <insert reasons>? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urbanoid Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 Check for how many decades the tanks are in use and it will also be the answer to your question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Galbraith Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 This is the proper great war forum. And ahead. Hours ahead. Dont tell me, you were operating on Prussian summertime? How many decades has it been since they first said that tanks were obsolete because of <insert reasons>?Wasnt even a decade. The War Office wanted to discontinue building tanks in 1917 because they didnt want too many machines of an obsolete nature on their hands when the war was over. Nope, Im not joking. Well worth reading this thought provoking book. Its not the worlds easier read, but well work sticking with it.https://archive.org/details/tankslogbookapi00stergoog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markus Becker Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 (edited) The British Army conducted the first armoured attack in history during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916.And the first successful one was when? Edited September 16, 2016 by Markus Becker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzermann Posted September 16, 2016 Author Share Posted September 16, 2016 The British Army conducted the first armoured attack in history during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916.And the first successful one was when? sshhh! not so loud. It was enough to send the Oberste Heeresleitung into hectic activity to devise counters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Galbraith Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 The British Army conducted the first armoured attack in history during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916.And the first successful one was when? We did that one too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Lindquist Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 This is the proper great war forum. And ahead. Hours ahead. Dont tell me, you were operating on Prussian summertime? How many decades has it been since they first said that tanks were obsolete because of <insert reasons>?Wasnt even a decade. The War Office wanted to discontinue building tanks in 1917 because they didnt want too many machines of an obsolete nature on their hands when the war was over. Nope, Im not joking. Well worth reading this thought provoking book. Its not the worlds easier read, but well work sticking with it.https://archive.org/details/tankslogbookapi00stergoog Well, the French kept producing and still had too many FT-17 on the roster when the balloon went up in 1939-1940. Fortunately for the Brits, the WWI tanks wore completely out and disappeared from the inventory very quickly after "the war to end all wars". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bojan Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Well, the French kept producing and still had too many FT-17 on the roster when the balloon went up in 1939-1940. Well, truth be told, used for training, by Gendarme and colonials. Only desperation after Sedan made them use it vs Germans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Galbraith Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 This is the proper great war forum. And ahead. Hours ahead. Dont tell me, you were operating on Prussian summertime? How many decades has it been since they first said that tanks were obsolete because of <insert reasons>?Wasnt even a decade. The War Office wanted to discontinue building tanks in 1917 because they didnt want too many machines of an obsolete nature on their hands when the war was over. Nope, Im not joking. Well worth reading this thought provoking book. Its not the worlds easier read, but well work sticking with it.https://archive.org/details/tankslogbookapi00stergoog Well, the French kept producing and still had too many FT-17 on the roster when the balloon went up in 1939-1940. Fortunately for the Brits, the WWI tanks wore completely out and disappeared from the inventory very quickly after "the war to end all wars". Well there was a number (it may even have been a couple of hundred I cant recall) of MKV's on the production line when the war started, and there was funds allocated to finish them. So it was not so much all the WW1 tanks were worn out, they were, but clearly non fielded builds of them were available (I presume the hermaphrodites sent to Russia were among this batch) Basically, for one, we got very fortunate, because the War Department got their finger out and actually bought a new tank. It certainly was not due to their own efforts. Every tank they came up with to replace the WW1 tanks was either poorly designed, took difficult to assemble, or too expensive. It was a very fortunate thing that an artillery tractor called dragon had already been designed, and Vickers saw the utility of building a tank on it, hence creating the Vickers Medium. It was, and people ridicule it now because it remained in service too long, the most advanced tank in Europe, or ineed anywhere at the time. The armour was not good, but it had a good dual purpose gun for the day, and was well armed in machine guns and was mechanically reliable. So rather than the WW1 generation of tanks (which for the most part seem to have been disposed for scrap or war memorials in the 1920s) we had a number of these available in a number of roles in WW1. Ive got a feeling there was at least one unit equipped with them in North Africa when the war started. Obsolete by then, but probably not too shabby compared to the the Italians were fielding. Not sure if it saw combat as anything other than a bunker though. Basically, we got lucky. Which considering the shambles British tank design got into interwar is perhaps more fortune than we deserved. There is a good account of it all in Fletchers 'The Great Tank Scandal' IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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