Landships and Tanks

Landships and Tanks
KS
3/4
Between 1914 and 1918, Great Britain and her allies fought one of the most bloody wars ever
known. For four years, men from many different nations found themselves locked in a new type of
warfare called ‘trench warfare’, where armies dug deep trenches and even underground ‘dugouts’ in
a series of parallel lines, to defend themselves from the enemy’s fierce bombing and shelling.
Within months, the British Army and her allies found themselves unable to break out from a
trench system over 200 miles long, stretching from the North Sea to Switzerland. This became
known as the Western Front Facing them in a series of trenches that were stronger and more
permanent, were the German Army.
All the armies involved in the fighting on the Western Front used the same tactics: before
launching an attack, each side would bomb and shell the enemy’s trenches. Then, soldiers from
the attacking side who had survived the bombardment , would climb out of the sha ttered trenches
and dugouts and would advance towards the enemy’s trenches, whilst being fired at by very
effective machine gunners and slowed in their progress by barbed wire and other obstacles.
Because the German Army were fighting elsewhere on the Eastern Front, trench warfare
on the Western Front suited them because it was defensive. They put almost all their
energies into creating excellent fortifications. They did this by:
- building stronger, deeper and wider trenches
- building really deep underground dugouts
- laying booby traps
- laying miles of barbed wire entanglements
Lincoln
- building concrete ‘mini forts’ with guns called ‘pillboxes’
Bovington
Science Technology Engineering Maths
1
With a friend,talk about the effect that these German Army ‘fortifications’ would
have had on the British Army?
KS
3/4
What would you have said to the British Government’s War Office and senior
Army Officers?
Young Winston Churchill Says...
We simply can’t go on like this. Thousands upon
thousands of British soldiers are losing their
lives. We need to be able to get up out of
those trenches and win this war quickly.
We must have a new secret weapon.
Amazingly finding a practical solution to the problems of trench warfare was a job given to the
Navy. In 1915, Winston Churchill’s team came up with the idea of ‘Landships’ We know them
better as ‘Tanks’
The development of the Tanks was top secret in fact, even after Tanks had been used in battle,
the Press were prevented from describing them in newspapers in case they might reveal anything
that would be useful to the enemy. Look at the photographs below of the ‘Number One Lincoln’
(left) and the later ‘Lincoln Machine’ (right)
Working with a group of friends,write down 5 names that you might call these
early types of tanks. You can’t use the word TANK !
1.
2.
3.
4
5.
2
KS
When designing anything it’s important to be clear in your mind what you want it to be able to
do. If you had been helping William Tritton and Colonel Ernest Swinton in designing the first
British Tank in 1914, which of the following would have been most important to you. Put these
ideas into rank order, with number 1 as the most important and number 10 as the least important.
reliability
1.
high speed travel
2.
able to cross rough ground
3.
large guns
4.
protection for the men inside
5.
easy to steer
6.
track width
7.
able to cross trenches or ditches
8.
easy access and exit points
9.
fuel (petrol) economy
10.
room and comfort inside
11.
camouflage
12.
weight
13.
track quality
14.
clear sightlines
15.
machine guns
16.
3/4
Here are some comments about tanks that are taken from soldiers who fought in the First World
War. Read them and then write down
- What you think were the good things about the tanks
- What things might need improving upon in later designs
“It was a complete and utter surprise to the Germans that we had ever devised such a thing as a
tank. They were so shattered when they first appeared on the Somme that all resistance in the
German section where they were used collapsed.” Lieutenant M Cleeve
“Inside it got hotter and hotter,as the only ventilation was for the engine and not the crew.”
Captain EW Stoneham
“Everyone thought that it was a terrific thing until the first battle and then we rather lost faith because it
broke down before we reached the German front line.During the exercises it had been on decent ground
and why it broke down I don’t know.I think perhaps the track was worn out by then.”Captain P Neame
“The wire at Cambrai was about four foot high and fifteen yards wide,but the tanks that had
gone in front of us had ploughed through it like a ship in the sea.” Captain D Wimberley
“We had to close down because we were within comfortable machine-gun range,and once we’d
shut down we were completely isolated from the world,we had no means of communication at
all….And the noise was such that you couldn’t hear anything else at all,so people made
gestures at you – rude or otherwise- and that was your sole means of communicating!”
Captain H Birks
3
You can see that the shape of this Tank,
known as the C15 is quite different to
the earlier models.
KS
3/4
Wilson and Tritton called this a ‘fish belly’
shape. There were vital and very good
reasons for this new shape which were all
connected with the efficiency of the track.
Here are some of those reasons. Working with
a friend, try to fill in the missing words from the
list, which will explain to you how the track worked.
rigid
steering sag away
wheels
16 ton
snowboard
‘Fish Belly’
Wilson and Tritton
obstacle weight
the tracks
contact
tracks
slightly curved
ninety difficult
surface thrown off
toes
eight
weren’t supported longer
Tracks are made up of a number of (1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pieces of metal that are linked
to each other. The tracks help the vehicle to distribute its weight more evenly over a larger surface
area than (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .can. This keeps it from sinking, in areas where wheeled
vehicles of the same (3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .would sink.
The very first ‘Number One Lincoln’ machine was based on ideas for a farming tractor. It was quite
small and so the tracks did not present a problem when
(4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . However,
when the vehicle size and weight increased, this meant that the size of the (5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . had to increase as well; a larger (6) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . of track was in
contact with the ground for a (7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. period of time, making steering very,
very (8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Try to think about a comparison between track size and ski sizes
and shapes! Downhill skis are shorter than cross-country skis, and so they are easier to make turns
in. Easier still for turning is a (9) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But a (10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vehicle needed tracks long enough and strong enough to carry its weight. A further complication
was that the weight of the tracks themselves would (11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . from the track
rollers whenever the tracks (12) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .along
. . . the whole length, like when the tank was
crossing a ditch or trench. If (13) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sagged away from the
body of the tank in these situations, they often didn’t reset themselves properly on the other side of
the (14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and then the tank was useless.
Almost all these problems were solved by changing the basic shape of the vehicle.
Because of the new (16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . shape the tracks contacted the
ground in a ( 17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
way. Think about walking and keeping the
sole of your foot in contact with the ground, from your heel first, through to your
(18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . last!
In this piece of engineering brilliance (19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
were able to guarantee that
no more than (20) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
tracks out of the total of (21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
that made up a complete loop on each side of the tank, were in
(22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
with firm ground at any one time. Imagine how much easier that was to steer! Look at the picture below.
4