![]() This soon developed into “Big Willie”, which became the inspiration for the first Mark 1 tank. Lieutenant W Wilson and William Tritton were the first to develop a ‘tank’ vehicle with caterpillar tracks, and it was named “Little Willie”. The capability to hold ten men, two machine guns and one light artillery gunĪs the war continued and the trench stalemate persisted, the drive to find a new weapon with greater mobility became even more intense.The ability to turn sharply at top speed.With very little support for his plans, Swinton decided to built an example gun that would fulfil the following criteria: While many already existed, they were simply not designed to cope with trenches and were often used as gun tractors. One such commander was Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Swinton, who had proposed the development of a new type of fighting vehicle in 1914. In spite of this, hostility towards the use of armoured vehicles continued, with only a few military commanders considering them the answer to the British Army’s problems. However, as trench warfare took hold, cavalry effectively became useless resulting in thousands of casualties with little positive impact. ![]() Many senior military commanders were initially against pursuing this new form of warfare, preferring to rely on tried and tested cavalry. The initial idea for the tank came from the development of farming vehicles, which could easily cross difficult land thanks to the use of caterpillar tracks. However, it also had a huge impact on mobility across the Western Front, which ultimately ended the horrors of trench warfare. As an unreliable new machine, there were many points during the war where it failed to live up to expectations. Tanks had a varied role in World War One, with varied levels of success.
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