French Tanks of World War I Free

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Zaloga. Tony Bryan Illustrator. This title examines the emergence of the first modern tank, the Renault FT. It is a little known fact that France fielded more tanks in World War I than any other army. However, France's early tanks suffered from poor mobility and armor compared to their contemporaries. Indeed, their initial use on the Chemin des Dames in was a bloody fiasco. In spite of initial set-b This title examines the emergence of the first modern tank, the Renault FT. In spite of initial set-backs, the French army redeemed its reputation with the Renault FT. The Renault FT pioneered the modern tank design, with armament in a revolutionary central turret and the engine in the rear. More importantly, the Renault was designed to be cheap and easy to manufacture. Discover the history of the early French armor developments and their triumphant new design, the Renault FT, that helped to turn the tide of war in the favor of the Allies. Get A Copy. Paperback48 pages. More Details Osprey New Vanguard Other Editions 6. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends French Tanks of World War I of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Sep 24, James Crabtree rated it it was amazing. A great look at the French Army's attempt to break the stalemate in the trenches, not by building "land battleships" as the British did but by creating much smaller tanks in larger numbers. The technology and resources of France argued for this method, especially after the French tried out a few of the armored behemoths and found them wanting. Of course, this is a slim volume but it provides an excellent account of the development and use of the early tanks. A must-read for WWI fans! Jun French Tanks of World War I, Jur rated French Tanks of World War I really liked it Shelves: wwiown. When we think of WWI we sometimes forget that the French were bearing the brunt of the German onslaught and later of the battles to kick them out again. However, despite a slightly later start the French came up with their own tank designs, which were first deployed in April ie 7 months after the Brits. It was a delirious failure, but the French learned and went back to the drawing table. They then put out thousands of When we think of WWI we sometimes forget that the French were bearing the brunt of the German onslaught and later of the battles to kick them out again. They then put out thousands of smaller tanks by defining the future of tank design. Zaloga's booklet is a fine introduction to development of tanks in France during WWI. The book takes a chronological approach, covering the saga from angles of technology, available resources, tactical considerations and political opposition. From a tactical viewpoint the French first got of the wrong start, building the heavy Schneider and St Chamond tanks, that were too slow, vulnerable and unable to lead the infantry through enemy trenches. Their deployment in the spring offensive was a disaster. The Renault FT was a much more promising approach, gaining speed and mass. However, competition for scarce strategic resources meant that until the fiasco of the Chemin de Dames the development of the FT was held back. Even then political opposition delayed the programm so that only by spring did the tank become available in serious numbers. French Tanks of World War I German spring offensives then disturbed the training of tank crews and subsequently forced their premature deployment in localised counterattacks, rather than the big breakthrough that the French tank theorist Estienne had envisaged. Nevertheless, on a few occassions in July and September the French were able to deploy close to tanks in one attack. This was not only a triumph of industrial production, but also of battlefield logistics. However, Zaloga claims the prime determinant of tank success seems to have been training French Tanks of World War I tank-infantry co-operation. Well French Tanks of World War I infantry could achieve excellent results with the Schneider and St Chamond at Malmaison, while infantry needed experience with the Renault to really explore its potential. On the other hand the ample supply of tanks was of great psychological benefit to the troops. The French high command was very conscious of this after the mutinies and tried to ensure that as many attacks went in with tank support. Mechanically, many technical imperfections remained even in the later models so that the operational armoured breakthrough never became a realistic goal. Breakdown rates still ensured half of the forces involved would be hors de combat at the end of the first day and no infrastructure was available to sustain attacks over French Tanks of World War I distances. All in all a very readable book with ample illustrations. Zaloga obviously knows his tank stuff. Personal peeve is that most images of the Renault FT are of the American French Tanks of World War I Force, which probably does no harm to the tank types used, but feels a bit strange as the vast majority of tanks was used by the French. One question that also goes unanswered is how the tank development affected French operational theory. From Verdun on the idea was that artillery conquered terrain and the infantry occupied. Tank tactics must have had an effect on this. Jan 21, Steven French Tanks of World War I rated it really liked it. A very nice addition to the New Vanguard series. The tank was an innovation during this bloody conflict. French tanks began with a design that simply did not work. This book focuses on the transformation from ungainly to Page 4 "a 'bee swarm' of French Tanks of World War I, inexpensive tanks that could overwhelm the Germans with mobility and mass. The tank itself was developed to alter the bat A very nice addition to the New Vanguard series. The tank itself was developed to alter the battlefield stalemate ensuing from trench warfare. The tank would, it was hoped, overcome the barriers of German defenses--trenches, barbed wire, and defensive firepower. One fine feature French Tanks of World War I this volume: depictions of the various tanks e. There are abundant numbers of photographs throughout, and this adds to an understanding of the different French Tanks of World War I. The book nicely describes the original large tanks and the logic of moving toward smaller, lighter, more mobile vehicles. The volume also discusses the pushback against development of the Renault FT. A good example of bureaucratic politics in the military realm. Then, we move to the tank in combat, how it was used, and the organization of tank units. Page 39 provides a statistical summary of the different types of French tanks as they were involved in combat. In sum, a nice addition to this Osprey series. And a very well done examination of French tanks in World War I. Boris rated it really liked it Jan 22, William Paley rated it it was ok May 25, Steven G. Lipke rated it it was ok Nov 02, James Dalziel rated it liked it Mar 24, James Dalziel rated it really liked it Mar 21, Terry rated it really liked it Dec 29, Jonathan rated it it was amazing Dec 23, Stockfish rated it it was amazing Mar 17, Mark A Simmons rated it liked it May 04, Maggie Bryngelson rated it liked it Feb 12, Gregg Metternich rated it liked it Nov 02, Tanks in World War I - Wikipedia

The development of tanks in World War I was a response to the stalemate that developed on the Western Front. Although vehicles that incorporated the basic principles of the tank armour, firepower, and all-terrain mobility had been projected in the decade or so before the War, it was the alarmingly heavy casualties of the start of its trench warfare that stimulated development. Although initially termed "Landships" by the Landship Committeeproduction vehicles were named "tanks", to preserve secrecy. The term was chosen when it became known that the factory workers at William Foster referred to the first prototype as "the tank" because of its resemblance to a steel water tank. The French fielded their first tanks in April and ultimately produced far more tanks than all other countries, French Tanks of World War I. The Germanson the other hand, began development only in response to the appearance of Allied tanks on the battlefield. Whilst the Allies manufactured several thousand tanks during the war, Germany deployed only 20 of its own. The first tanks were mechanically unreliable. There were problems that caused considerable attrition rates during combat deployment and transit. The heavily shelled terrain was impassable to conventional vehicles, and only highly mobile tanks such as the Mark IV and FTs performed reasonably well. The conceptual roots of the tank go back to ancient times, with siege engines that were able to provide protection for troops moving up against stone walls or other fortifications. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the demonstrable power of steamJames Cowan presented a proposal for a Steam Powered Land Ram intowards the end of the Crimean War. Looking like a helmet on 'footed' Boydell wheels, early forerunners French Tanks of World War I the Pedrail wheelFrench Tanks of World War I was essentially an French Tanks of World War I steam tractor equipped with cannon and rotating scythes sprouting from the sides. Lord Palmerston is said to have dismissed it as 'barbaric'. At one point inMajor William E. Donohue of the Mechanical Transport Committee remarked to Roberts that he should design a new machine with armour that could French Tanks of World War I its own gun. However, disheartened by years of ultimately-fruitless tinkering for the Army, Roberts did not take up the idea. In later years, he expressed regret at not having pursued it. An engineer in the Austro-Hungarian ArmyLieutenant Gunther Burstyninspired by Holt tractors, designed a tracked armoured vehicle in carrying a light gun in a rotating turret; equipped also with hinged 'arms', two in front and two at the rear, carrying wheels on the ends to assist with obstacles and trenches, it was a very forward-looking design, if rather small. The Austro-Hungarian government said that it would be interested in evaluating it if Burstyn could secure commercial backing to produce a prototype. Lacking the requisite contacts, he let it drop. An approach to the German government was similarly fruitless. InLancelot De Moleof South Australiasubmitted a proposal to the British War Office for a "chain-rail vehicle which could be easily steered and carry heavy loads over rough ground and trenches". De Mole made more proposals to the War Office in andwith a culminating proposal in lateaccompanied by a huge one-eighth scale model, bur all fell on substantially- deaf ears. De Mole's proposal already had the climbing face, which was so typical of the later World War I British tanks, but it French Tanks of World War I unknown whether there was some connection. Inquiries to the government of Australia after the war yielded polite responses that Mr. De Mole's ideas had French Tanks of World War I been too advanced for the time to be properly recognised at their just value. He noted in that he was urged by friends before the war to approach the Germans with his design but declined to do so for patriotic reasons. Before World War Imotorised vehicles were still relatively uncommon, and their use on the battlefield was initially limited, especially of heavier vehicles. Armoured cars soon became more common with most belligerents, especially in more-open terrain. Armored French Tanks of World War I indeed proved useful in French Tanks of World War I land, such as in deserts, but were not very good at crossing obstacles, such as trenches and barriers, or in more-challenging terrain. The other issue was that it was very hard to add much protection or armament. The main limitation was the wheels, which gave a high ground pressure for the vehicle's weight. That could be solved by adding more wheels, but unless they also were driven, the effect was to reduce traction on the powered wheels. Driving extra wheels meant more drive train weight, which required a larger and heavier engine to maintain performance. Even worse, none of the extra weight was put into an improvement of armour or armament carried, and the vehicles could still not cross very rough terrain. The adoption of caterpillar tracks offered a new solution to the problem. The tracks spread the weight of the vehicles over a much greater area, all of which was for traction to move the vehicle. The limitation on armour and firepower was no longer the ground pressure but the power and weight of the power-plant. The remaining issue was how to use and configure a vehicle. Major Ernest Dunlop Swinton of the Royal Engineers was the official British war correspondent serving in France in and recounted in his book Eyewitness how the idea of using caterpillar tracks to drive an armoured fighting vehicle came to him on October 19, while he was driving through northern France. In Julyhe had received a letter from a friend, Hugh Marriott, a mining engineer, who drew his attention to a Holt caterpillar tractor that Marriott had seen in Belgium. Marriott thought that it might be useful for transport over difficult ground, and Swinton had passed the information on to the appropriate departments. Swinton then suggested the idea of an armoured tracked vehicle to the military authorities by sending a proposal to Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Hankey French Tanks of World War I, who tried to interest Lord Kitchener in the idea. When that failed, he sent a memorandum in December to the Committee of Imperial Defenceof which he was himself the secretary. Winston Churchill the First Lord of the Admiralty was one of the members of the committee. Hankey proposed to build a gigantic steel roller pushed by tracked tractors to shield the advancing infantry. Churchill, in turn, wrote a note on January 5 to Prime Minister H. Asquith and warned that the Germans might any moment introduce a comparable system. A worried Asquith now ordered Kitchener to form a committee, headed by General Scott-Moncrieffto study the feasibility of Swinton's idea; however, after trials with a Holt 75 horsepower machine, the committee concluded in February that the idea was impractical. Churchill, however, decided that unless the Army took up the idea, the Navy should proceed independently, even if it exceeded the limits of his authority. He created the Landship Committee in Februaryinitially to investigate designs for a massive troop transporter. As a truer picture of front-line conditions was developed the aims of the investigation changed. Surprisingly, until the end of the war, most experimentation on heavy land vehicles was conducted by the Royal Naval Air Service Squadron At first, protecting heavy gun tractors with armour appeared the most promising line of development. Alternative early 'big wheel' designs on the lines of the Russian tsar tank of were soon understood to be impractical. However, adapting the existing Holt Company caterpillar designs, the only robust tracked tractors French Tanks of World War I in into a fighting machine, which France and Germany did, was decided against. Although armour and weapon systems were easy to acquire, other existing caterpillar and suspension units were too weak, existing engines were underpowered for the vehicles that the designers had in mind and the ability to cross trenches was poor because of the shortness of the wheelbase. The Killen-Strait tractor with three tracks was used for the first experiments in June but was much too small to be developed further. The large Pedrail monotrack vehicle was proposed in a number of different configurations, but non were adopted. Trials to couple two American Bullock tractors failed. There also were considerable differences of opinion between the several committee members. Col French Tanks of World War I. CromptonFrench Tanks of World War I veteran military engineer and electrical pioneer, drafted numerous designs with Lucien Legros for armoured troop carrying vehicles and gun-armed vehicles, to have used either Bullock tracks or variants of the Pedrail. At the same time, Lt Robert Macfie, of the RNAS, French Tanks of World War I Albert Nesfield, an Ealing -based engineer, devised a number of armoured tracked vehicles, French Tanks of World War I incorporated an angled front 'climbing face' to the tracks. The two men fell out bitterly as their plans came to nought; Macfie in particular pursued a vendetta against the other members of the Landships Committee after the war. Ltda company having done some prewar design work on heavy tractors and known to Churchill from an earlier experiment with a trench-crossing supply vehicle, to produce a proof-of-concept vehicle with two tracks, based on a lengthened Bullock tractor chassis. Construction work began three weeks later. Fosters of Lincoln built the 14 ton " Little Willie ", which first ran on 8 September. Difficulties with the commercial tracks supplied led to Tritton designing a completely new track system different from, and vastly more robust than, any other system then in use. In order to achieve the demanded gap clearance a rhomboidal shape was chosen—stretching the form to improve the track footprint and climbing capacity. A final specification was agreed on in late September for trials in earlyand the resulting 30 ton "Big Willie" later called "Mother" together with "Little Willie" underwent trials at Hatfield Park on 29 January and 2 February. On 12 February an initial order for "Mother" type vehicles was made, later expanded to Crews never called tanks "Willies"; at French Tanks of World War I they referred to them as "landships", and later informally "buses". The committee, therefore, looked for an appropriate code term for the vehicles. Factory workers assembling the vehicles had been told they were producing "mobile water tanks" for desert warfare in Mesopotamia. Water Container was therefore considered but rejected because the committee would inevitably be known as the WC Committee WC meaning water closet was a common British term for a toilet. The term tankas in water tank, was in December finally accepted as its official designation. From then on, the term "tank" was established among British and also German soldiers. While in German Tank specifically refers to the French Tanks of World War I War I type as opposed to modern Panzerin English, Russian and other languages the name even for contemporary armored vehicles is still based on the word tank. It is sometimes mistakenly stated that, after completion, the tanks were shipped to France in large wooden crates. French Tanks of World War I secrecy and in order to not arouse any curiosity, the crates and the tanks themselves were then each labeled with a destination in Russian, "With Care to Petrograd ". In fact, the tanks were never shipped in crates: the inscription in Russian was applied on the hull for their transport from the factory to the first training centre at Thetford. The first fifty had been delivered to France on 30 August. They were 'male' or 'female', depending upon whether their armament comprised two 6- pounder cannons and three Hotchkiss machine guns or four Vickers machine guns and one Hotchkiss. It had a crew of eight, four French Tanks of World War I whom were needed to handle the steering and drive gears. Fosters returned to manufacturing Traction engines and steam lorries, but incorporated a small trademark outline image of a tank on the front smokebox door of their postwar road locomotives. However Lincoln City erected a full-size outline Mk 1 as a memorial to the invention of the tank inand placed it on the Tritton Road French Tanks of World War I. The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of British Mark I tanks at the Battle of Flers- Courcelette part of the Battle of the Somme on 15 Septemberwith mixed results. Many broke down, but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. Of the forty-nine tanks shipped to the Somme, only thirty-two were able to begin the first attack in which they were used, and only nine made it across "no man's land" to the German lines. The tanks had been rushed into combat before the design was mature enough against the wishes of Churchill and Ernest Swinton [7] and the French Tanks of World War I was small but their use gave important feedback on how to design newer tanks, the soundness of the concept and their potential to affect the course of the war. On the other hand, the French Army was critical of the British employment of small numbers of tanks at the battle. It felt the British had sacrificed the secrecy of the weapon but used it in numbers too small to be decisive. Since the British attack was part of an Anglo-French offensive, and the Russians were attacking at the same time, Haig felt justified in making a maximum effort, regardless of French Tanks of World War I limitations of the tank force. The Mark Is were capable of French Tanks of World War I on the real battlefield of World War I, one of the most difficult battlefield terrains in history. Despite their reliability problems, when they worked, they could cross trenches or craters of 9 feet 2. It was still common for them to get stuck, especially in larger bomb craters, but overall, the rhomboid shape allowed for extreme terrain mobility. Tank crews who had read press reports depicting the new weapon driving through buildings and trees, and crossing wide rivers, were disappointed. French tanks of the First world war

The Tiltrotor Bell V Valor. Favorite programs FVL. The prototype V long enough passes flight tes That is capable French Tanks of World War I the Baltic fleet in French Tanks of World War I event of a massive attack. The development of WSS Japan. The fifth generation fighter. The air defense forces VSS of Japan have a fairly good condition and is able to solve tasks. However, in the medium term the Park fighter aircraft will require substantial updating. Tokyo plans to upgrade this part of the aircra French tanks of the First world war. Date: Views: In the previous article was reviewed by the German tanks of the First world war. The Evolution and prospects of tanks contributed to the creation of tanks in France. Comments 0 This article has no comment, be the first! Related News. That is capable of the Baltic fleet in the event of a massive attack the Theory of defense of the shores of the basis can not beIn discussionmany opponents spoke in this manner: a large ocean-going fleet capable of destroying merchant shipping of the enemy, Russia can not afford, and did not nee The fifth generation fighter The air defense forces VSS of Japan have a fairly good condition and is able to solve tasks.