Just Finished Reading: Band of Brigands – The First Men in Tanks by Christy Campbell (FP: 2007)

Considering both how important and iconic the tank has become in the 20th and 21st centuries it can come as quite a surprise at just how difficult the birth was. Conceived through the necessity of finding some way – indeed any way – through the impasse on the Western Front dominated by trenches, barbed wire and the ubiquitous machine guns it was only after many months of often personal effort and backroom dealing that a recognisable vehicle finally emerged in 1915. Evolving from ideas of mobile infantry shields, through bizarre plans for giant wheeled armoured behemoths and even stranger vehicles with multiple elephant feet it was eventually decided that caterpillar tracks – known from American Holt tractors – could, with suitable modification, provide the traction required. With a final design agreed – the well-known lozenge shape with protruding side guns – early models quickly rolled off the production lines with no clear idea of exactly how to use them or who exactly would man them. If this wasn’t difficult enough the weapon was itself Top Secret so any training, such as it was, had to take place away from any possible prying eyes and often without telling the tank crew exactly what would be expected of them. What was agreed between the first tank commanders was that the vehicle must be used in mass against enemy trenches and must be used with the element of total surprise. Once the initial shock was over, it was believed, the main power of the tank would be lost and the enemy would be expected quickly to develop suitable counter weapons that would neutralise its effectiveness.

So, in 1916, as the Battle of the Somme rumbled on to its bloody conclusion the first handful of tanks were thrown into the meat grinder with no preparation, over muddy ground pockmarked with craters and without adequate infantry support – who quickly stayed away from their plodding companions as they very quickly gaining the well-deserved reputation of being bullet magnets. Not surprisingly the first use of the new war winning super weapon was not an unqualified success. Many of the underpowered and still experimental vehicles failed to make it across no-man’s land because of mechanical failure. Many of the rest either got stuck in the mud or fell into shell holes never to get back out again. However, the few that made it to the German trenches lived up to expectations and caused considerable panic.

But the secret was out of the bag. Generally the German troops who say the slow moving – averaging 2-3mph – vehicles did not cut and run but fired everything they had at them from rifle and machine guns to mortars, hand grenades and any available artillery. Most of it had no apparent effect but the Mk I tanks where only just bullet proof and rounds striking the outside often caused flakes of interior armour to bounce around the inside of the vehicle at dangerous velocity. Some rounds were rather more deadly. German infantry had already been issued small amounts of armour piercing rounds to use against sniper bunkers. These rounds easily penetrated the first tanks armour causing a great deal of consternation and not a few casualties. Only when the first of the MK IV tanks arrived for the Battle of Cambrai (when tanks where finally used in large numbers) did these bullets become useless to the enemy. Unfortunately to the tank crews advancing across a flat featureless no-man’s land they had much more to worry about. German tacticians had not been slow in developing very effective tank killing weapons and techniques which resulted in many tanks being killed long before they entered effective range.

I think that was the most unexpected revelation from this marvellously detailed book – just how vulnerable the early tanks where to enemy fire. Casualties, even well-co-ordinated ones, often reached 50% machines destroyed along with many of their crews. I had no idea that being in a tank back then was just so dangerous. Oh, it was safer that being an unprotected infantryman but only just! What didn’t surprise me overly much (having read about it before) was the level of opposition to the vehicles very existence. Although not so overwhelming to kill the invention t birth (obviously) it did come bloody close at times. I can understand the desire to put a potential war winner in the front line as soon as possible but the tanks first use was just incredibly stupid and it wasn’t the last time that top commanders used the weapon badly whilst ignoring the people who developed and used it on a daily basis. It never did become the war winner that everyone had hoped it would be but it did show the way ahead to those with eyes to see it (that would be Germany of course!) and those who had the imagination to see the tank as more than an armoured horse or as an adjunct to the infantry. Recommended for anyone interested in the genesis of this most iconic weapon.