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80-677: The M10 Booker is an armored infantry support vehicle produced by General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) for the United States Army , developed from the GDLS Griffin II armored fighting vehicle as the winner of its Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) program in June 2022. The initial contract is for 96 low rate initial production (LRIP) vehicles, the first of which were delivered in February 2024. The vehicle has been called

160-494: A light tank by some military officers and defense media due to its design and appearance, although Army officials related to the MPF program consider this incorrect. The vehicle weighs about 42 tons, which is equivalent to various medium and main battle tanks operated by other nations. By design, it is not a tank by modern standards, and will, according to description, essentially serve the role of an assault gun . The M10 Booker

240-429: A tank . In the 15th century, a Hussite called Jan Žižka won several battles using armoured wagons containing cannons that could be fired through holes in their sides, but his invention was not used after his lifetime until the 20th century. In the 17th century, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz devised his "fire cart", which incorporated the gunpowder engine for propulsion, anticipating the 20th-century incorporation of

320-511: A " Thunder Run " in the 2003 invasion of Iraq , and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross . The U.S. Army took delivery of the first production vehicle in February 2024. In May 2024, the U.S. Army issued a solicitation for full-rate production. The Army is set to procure up to 504 M10s, all of which will be allotted to light divisions in the active duty and National Guard. The 82nd Airborne Division will become

400-535: A British agricultural machinery firm, Foster and Sons , whose managing director and designer was Sir William Tritton . After all these projects failed by June 1915, ideas of grandiose landships were abandoned, and a decision was taken to make an attempt with US Bullock Creeping Grip caterpillar tracks, by connecting two of them together to obtain an articulated chassis deemed necessary for manoeuvring. Experiments failed in tests made in July 1915. Another experiment

480-732: A US patent for a workable crawler type tractor in 1907. The centre of such innovation was in England, and in 1903 he travelled to England to learn more about ongoing development, though all those he saw failed their field tests. Holt paid Alvin Orlando Lombard US$ 60,000 (equivalent to $ 2,034,667 in 2023) for the right to produce vehicles under Lombard's patent for the Lombard Steam Log Hauler . Holt returned to Stockton and, utilizing his knowledge and his company's metallurgical capabilities, he became

560-781: A cross-country ability", but the viability of the project was disputed by the Artillery Technical Committee, until it was formally abandoned in 1908 when it was known that a caterpillar tractor had been developed, the Hornsby of engineer David Roberts . H. G. Wells , in his short story The Land Ironclads , published in The Strand Magazine in December 1903, had described the use of large, armed, armoured cross-country vehicles equipped with pedrail wheels (an invention which he acknowledged as

640-532: A direct fire role, none were developed with this specifically in mind, reminiscent of the use of tank destroyers by the US military in the assault gun role during World War II. History of the tank The history of the tank includes all vehicles intended to advance under enemy fire while remaining protected. The principle of armored warfare can be compared with attempts to protect soldiers from enemy projectiles that existed since ancient times. The development of

720-557: A letter dated 31 January 1916 Commander-in-chief Joffre ordered the production of 400 tanks of the type designed by Brillié and Estienne, although the actual production order of 400 Schneider CA1 was made a bit later on 25 February 1916. Soon after, on 8 April 1916, another order for 400 Saint-Chamond tanks was also placed. Schneider had trouble with meeting production schedules, and the tank deliveries were spread over several months from 8 September 1916. The Saint-Chamond tank would start being delivered from 27 April 1917. In 1914,

800-725: A light reconnaissance vehicle. Currently, there appears to be a move toward wheeled vehicles fitting a "tank destroyer" or "assault gun" role, such as the M1128 mobile gun system of the United States Army , the B1 Centauro wheeled tank destroyer of the Italian and Spanish Armies , the Chinese anti-tank gun PTL-02 and ZBL08 assault gun , and the French AMX-10 RC heavy armoured car. While these vehicles might be useful in

880-477: A long 75 mm gun. Both types saw action on numerous occasions but suffered consistently high losses. In 1918, the Renault FT light tank was the first tank in history with a "modern" configuration: a revolving turret on top and an engine compartment at the rear; it would be the most numerous tank of the war. A last development was the superheavy Char 2C , the largest tank ever to see service, some years after

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960-665: A proposal for a fighting vehicle that had a gun in a rotating turret, known as the Motorgeschütz . In 1912, the Australian civil engineer Lancelot de Mole 's proposal included a scale model of a functional fully tracked vehicle. Both of these were rejected by their respective governmental administrations. Benjamin Holt of the Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton, California was the first to file

1040-491: A shipyard, worked privately on the design of the super-heavy Mendeleev tank from 1911 to 1915. It was a heavily armoured 170 ton tracked vehicle armed with one 120 mm naval gun. The design envisioned many innovations that became standard features of a modern battle tank—protection of the vehicle was well-thought out, the gun included automatic loading mechanism, pneumatic suspension allowed adjusting of clearance, some critical systems were duplicated, transportation by railroad

1120-729: A tactical overmatch to the adversary that can be tailored to a specific battlefield scenario. [REDACTED] Media related to M10 Booker at Wikimedia Commons Background: History of the tank , Tank classification Assault gun Historically, the concept of assault guns was very similar to that of the infantry tank , as both were combat vehicles intended to accompany infantry formations into battle, but where assault gun designs often skipped tank features and design elements deemed unnecessary for reasons of cost and doctrine . However, during World War II assault guns were more mobile than tanks and could be utilized as both direct and indirect fire artillery. Although they could approximate

1200-528: A tractor base, codenamed "Tracteur Estienne". In 1915, attempts were also made to develop vehicles with powerful armour and armament, mounted on the cross-country chassis of agricultural tractors, with large wheels having coarse treads, such as the Aubriot-Gabet "Fortress" ( Fortin Aubriot-Gabet ). The vehicle was powered by electricity (complete with a supply cable), and armed with a Navy cannon of 37mm, but it too proved impractical. In January 1915,

1280-468: A trench so that the back wheels could roll over it. The machine would then drag the girder behind until on flat terrain, so that it could reverse over them and set them back in place in front of the vehicle. The machine proved much too cumbersome and was abandoned. When Winston Churchill , First Lord of the Admiralty, learned of the armoured tractor idea, he reignited investigation of the idea of using

1360-657: A variant of the KV-1 heavy tank with a short-barreled 152 mm howitzer mounted in an oversized turret. This was not a success in battle, and was replaced with a very successful series of turretless assault guns: the SU-76 , SU-122 , and the heavy SU-152 , which were followed by the ISU-122 and ISU-152 on the new IS heavy tank chassis . The primary German assault gun was the Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III). At about

1440-482: Is an armored vehicle that is intended to support our Infantry Brigade Combat Teams by suppressing and destroying fortifications, gun systems and trench routes, and then secondarily providing protection against enemy armored vehicles. According to Lt. Col. Pete George, product manager for the M10 Booker Combat Vehicle, the vehicle is defined as an armored infantry support vehicle . Derived from

1520-538: The ASU-85 , which served through the 1980s, while their SU-100 remained in service with Communist countries, including Vietnam and Cuba, years after World War II. The US M56 and another armoured vehicle, the M50 Ontos , were to be the last of the more traditional assault guns in US service. Improvised arrangements such as M113 personnel carriers with recoilless rifles were quickly replaced by missile carrier vehicles in

1600-669: The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), requested in September 1917 that 600 heavy and 1,200 light tanks be produced in the United States. When Pershing assumed command of the AEF and went to France, he took Lt. Col. George Patton , who became interested in tanks. They were then unwieldy, unreliable, and unproven instruments of warfare, and there was much doubt whether they had any function and value at all on

1680-567: The Battle of Amiens . General Erich Ludendorff referred to that date as the "Black Day" of the German Army. Parallel to the British development, France designed its own tanks. The first two, the medium Schneider CA and heavy Saint-Chamond , were not well-conceived, though produced in large numbers and showing technical innovations, the latter using an electro-mechanical transmission and

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1760-656: The Battle of the Somme . Forty-nine of the Mark I type were committed, of which thirty-two were mechanically fit to take part in the advance and achieved some small, local successes. In July 1917, 216 British tanks were employed in the Third Battle of Ypres but found it almost impossible to operate in the muddy conditions and achieved little. Not until 20 November 1917, at Cambrai , did the British Tank Corps get

1840-534: The Compagnie Nationale du Nord , proposed to the French Ministry a design for a "landship" with armour and armament based on the motorisation of a compactor with heavy wheels or rollers. The Frot-Laffly was tested on 18 March 1915, and effectively destroyed barbed wire lines, but was deemed lacking in mobility. The project was abandoned in favour of General Estienne 's development using

1920-622: The Crusader cruiser tank and the Matilda II Infantry tank were produced in versions armed with the 3-inch howitzer ; the first versions of the Churchill tank also had this gun in a hull mounting. American tank destroyer units were often used in the assault gun role for infantry support. The AVRE version of the Churchill tank was armed with a spigot mortar that fired a 40 lb (18 kg) HE -filled projectile (nicknamed

2000-495: The Flying Dustbin ) 150 yards (140 m). Its task was to attack fortified positions such as bunkers at close range (see Hobart's Funnies ). In the post-World War II era, most vehicles fitting into an "assault gun" category were developed as a light-weight, air-deployable, direct fire combat vehicles for use with airborne troops. Those weapons were either based on light utility vehicles or small tracked vehicles and

2080-632: The French Army soon after the start of World War I to pull heavy artillery pieces in difficult terrain, but the French did not purchase Holts in large numbers. It was the sight of them in use by the British that later inspired Estienne to have plans drawn up for an armoured body on caterpillar tracks. In the meantime, several attempts were made to design vehicles that could overcome the German barbed wire and trenches. From 1914 to 1915, an early experiment

2160-480: The Infanterikanonvagn 72 , all the way into the 1960s before settling on a turreted design in 1968, becoming the Infanterikanonvagn 91 . The Soviet Union continued funding development of new assault guns as late as 1967, although few of its postwar designs were adopted in large numbers. In Soviet and Eastern European armies, the traditional assault gun was primarily superseded by tank destroyers, such as

2240-722: The President of the Republic , and on 10 September, by Commander Ferrus. The first complete chassis with armour was demonstrated at Souain on 9 December 1915, to the French Army, with the participation of Colonel Estienne. On 12 December, unaware of the Schneider experiments, Estienne presented to the High Command a plan to form an armoured force, equipped with tracked vehicles. He was put in touch with Schneider, and in

2320-721: The SU-100 , which is capable of supporting either infantry or armor. Since the 1980s, the multi-purpose assault gun concept has seen a resurgence, mainly in the form of turreted wheeled designs, such as the South African Rooikat and Italian B1 Centauro . Today, modern assault guns include the Japanese Type 16 maneuver combat vehicle and the American M1128 Stryker and M10 Booker . Assault guns were primarily developed during World War II by

2400-547: The StuG IV , StuIG 33B , Brummbär and Sturmtiger . This last one was a very heavy vehicle, and was built only in small quantities. Battalions of assault guns, usually StuG IIIs, commonly replaced the intended panzer battalion in the German panzergrenadier divisions due to the chronic shortage of tanks, and were sometimes used as makeshifts even in the panzer divisions . Independent battalions were also deployed as "stiffeners" for infantry divisions, and

2480-673: The War Office —which was lukewarm to the idea—to make a trial on 17 February 1915 with a Holt tractor, but the caterpillar bogged down in the mud, the project was abandoned, and the War Office gave up investigations. In May 1915, the War Office made new tests on a trench-crossing machine: the Tritton Trench-Crosser . The machine was equipped with large tractor wheels, 8 ft (2.4 m) in diameter, and carried girders on an endless chain which were lowered above

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2560-498: The armoured car , was that it required smooth terrain to move upon, and new developments were needed for cross-country capability. The tank was originally designed as a special weapon to solve an unusual tactical situation: the stalemate of the trenches on the Western Front . "It was a weapon designed for one simple task: crossing the killing zone between trench lines and breaking into enemy [defences]." The armoured tank

2640-463: The explosion engine makes it possible to transport an armored vehicle more easily than with horses. One of the first traces of the use of an armored motor vehicle occurred during the Crimean War . World War I generated new demands for armoured self-propelled weapons which could navigate any kind of terrain, and this led to the development of the tank. The great weakness of the tank predecessor,

2720-520: The internal combustion engine for the same purpose. In 1903, a French artillery captain named Léon Levavasseur proposed the Levavasseur project , a canon autopropulseur ("self-propelled cannon"), moved by a caterpillar system and fully armoured for protection. Powered by an 80 hp petrol engine, "the Levavasseur machine would have had a crew of three, storage for ammunition, and

2800-606: The Austrian-Spanish ASCOD 2 infantry fighting vehicle -platform, the GDLS Griffin II was offered under Army's MPF program. In accordance with the program's caliber requirements, it incorporated a 105 mm M35 tank gun and a redesigned chassis. The M35 was originally designed and developed by Benét Laboratories , Watervliet Arsenal , in 1983 for the Marine Corps' Mobile Protected Gun Program. It

2880-585: The British War Office ordered a Holt tractor and put it through trials at Aldershot . Although it was not as powerful as the 105 horsepower (78 kW) Foster-Daimler tractor, the 75 horsepower (56 kW) Holt was better suited to haul heavy loads over uneven ground. Without a load, the Holt tractor managed a walking pace of 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). Towing a load, it could manage 2 miles per hour (3.2 km/h). Most importantly, Holt tractors were readily available in quantity. The War Office

2960-631: The Committee decided to build a smaller experimental landship, equivalent to one half the articulated version, and using lengthened US-made Bullock Creeping Grip caterpillar tracks. This new experimental machine was called the No1 Lincoln Machine : construction started on 11 August 1915, with the first trials starting on 10 September 1915. These trials failed however because of unsatisfactory tracks. Development continued with new, re-engineered tracks designed by William Tritton , and

3040-584: The French arms manufacturer Schneider & Co. sent out its chief designer, Eugène Brillié , to investigate tracked tractors from the American Holt Manufacturing Company , at that time participating in a test programme in England , for a project of mechanical wire-cutting machines. On his return Brillié, who had earlier been involved in designing armoured cars for Spain , convinced the company management to initiate studies on

3120-523: The Holt tractor. The Royal Navy and the Landship Committee (established on 20 February 1915), at last agreed to sponsor experiments and tests of armoured tractors as a type of "land ship". In March, Churchill ordered the building of 18 experimental landships: 12 using Diplock pedrails (an idea promoted by Murray Sueter ), and six using large wheels (the idea of Thomas Gerard Hetherington ). Construction however failed to move forward, as

3200-739: The M4A3(105); these were designated assault guns in US usage of the term. The M8 Scott , based on the chassis of the M5 Stuart light tank, was also an assault cannon and carried a 75 mm short howitzer . The Churchill , Centaur and Cromwell tanks were all produced in versions armed with 95 mm howitzers : the Churchill Mark V and Mark VIII, the Centaur Mark IV and the Cromwell Mark VI. Earlier British tanks, such as

3280-527: The MPF program competition and was awarded a contract worth up to $ 1.14 billion. The MPF was officially designated "M10 Booker" in June 2023, named for American soldiers Private Robert D. Booker and Staff Sergeant Stevon Booker. Robert Booker was killed on 9 April 1943 during the Tunisian campaign of World War II, and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor . Stevon Booker was killed on 5 April 2003 during

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3360-687: The StuG III's anti-tank capabilities bolstered dwindling tank numbers on the Eastern and Western fronts. US and UK forces also deployed vehicles designed for a close support role, but these were conventional tanks whose only significant modification was the replacement of the main gun with a howitzer. Two versions of the American Sherman tank were armed with the M4 105 mm howitzer , the M4(105) and

3440-706: The advantage of a reduced silhouette and simplified the manufacturing process. The United States never developed a purpose-built assault gun during the war, although it did modify preexisting armored fighting vehicles for that role, including the M4 Sherman (as the M4(105)), the M5 Stuart (as the M8 Scott ), and the M3 half-track (as the T19 Howitzer Motor Carriage ). The classic assault gun concept

3520-674: The airborne troops thus always fought at a distinct disadvantage in terms of heavy weapons. The Soviet Union and the United States were the most attracted to the idea of providing this capability to traditionally light airborne forces. Their answers to the problem were similar, with the United States developing the M56 Scorpion and the Soviet Union developing the ASU-57 , both essentially airdroppable light anti-tank guns. The Soviets went on to develop an improved airdroppable assault gun,

3600-422: The anti-tank role. The only vehicle with the qualities of an assault gun to be fielded after the removal of the M50 and M56 from service within the US military was the M551 Sheridan . The Sheridan's gun was a low-velocity weapon suitable in the assault role, but with the addition of the Shillelagh missile could double in the anti-tank role as well. The Sheridan, however, was not developed as an assault gun but as

3680-402: The armistice. The German response to the Cambrai assault was to develop its own armoured program. Soon the massive A7V appeared, weighing 30 tons and with a crew of eighteen. By the end of the war, only twenty had been built. Although other tanks were on the drawing board, material shortages limited the German tank corps to these A7Vs and about 36 captured Mark IVs. The A7V would be involved in

3760-417: The conditions it needed for success. Over 400 tanks penetrated almost 6 miles on a 7-mile wide front. However, success was not complete because the infantry failed to exploit and secure the tanks' gains, and almost all the territory gained was recaptured by the Germans. The Australian, Canadian, and British forces then scored a far more significant victory the following year, on 8 August 1918, with 600 tanks in

3840-411: The development of a Tracteur blindé et armé (armoured and armed tractor), based on the Baby Holt chassis, two of which were ordered. Experiments on the Holt caterpillar tracks started in May 1915 at the Schneider plant with a 75-hp wheel-directed model and the 45-hp integral caterpillar Baby Holt , showing the superiority of the latter. On 16 June, new experiments followed, which were witnessed by

3920-509: The development of the tank and eventually would lead to the mechanised forces that were to assume the old roles of horse cavalry and to loosen the grip of the machine-gun on the battlefield. With increased firepower and protection, these mechanised forces would, only some 20 years later, become the armour of World War II. When self-propelled artillery , the armoured personnel carrier , the wheeled cargo vehicle, and supporting aviation —all with adequate communications—were combined to constitute

4000-400: The division's IBCTs, or two companies might be assigned to a single IBCT with another company held in reserve, or some other combination. As of 2023, the Army is in the midst of transition from brigades to divisions as the tactical unit of action. It will be the division commander who will have the flexibility to configure the force to take advantage of all the division’s capabilities—retaining

4080-405: The end of the war, 10,000 Holt vehicles had been used in the Allied war effort. The French colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne articulated the vision of a cross-country armoured vehicle on 24 August 1914: "Victory in this war will belong to the belligerent who is the first to put a cannon on a vehicle capable of moving on all kinds of terrain" Some privately owned Holt tractors were used by

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4160-464: The firepower of a tank, assault guns mostly fired high explosive shells at relatively low velocities, which were well suited for their role of knocking out hard points such as fortified positions and buildings. They were not intended to be deployed as tank substitutes or dedicated tank destroyers . Nevertheless, as the conflict progressed, the increasing proliferation of tanks on the battlefield forced many assault gun units to engage armor in defense of

4240-536: The first tank vs . tank battle of the war on April 24, 1918, at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux —a battle in which there was no clear winner. Numerous mechanical failures and the inability of the British and French to mount any sustained drives in the early tank actions cast doubt on their usefulness—and by 1918, tanks were extremely vulnerable unless accompanied by infantry and ground-attack aircraft, both of which worked to locate and suppress anti-tank defences . General John J. Pershing , commander-in-chief of

4320-416: The first to design and manufacture practical continuous tracks for use in tractors . In England, David Roberts of Hornsby & Sons, Grantham , obtained a patent for a design in July 1904. In the United States, Holt replaced the wheels on a 40 horsepower (30 kW) Holt steamer, No. 77, with a set of wooden tracks bolted to chains. On November 24, 1904, he successfully tested the updated machine ploughing

4400-426: The first unit equipped when 33 M10s enter Fort Liberty motor pools in late FY2025. The 82nd will initially field a battalion of M10s, divided into three companies . The M10s will be controlled as a divisional asset. Commanders will determine, based on mission objectives, which infantry brigade combat teams (IBCTs) will be supported by the M10-equipped battalion. The armored vehicles might be spread out evenly among

4480-407: The forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union . Early in the war, the Germans began to create makeshift assault guns by mounting their infantry support weapons on the bed of a truck or on obsolete tanks with the turret removed. Later in the war, both the Germans and the Soviets introduced fully armoured purpose-built assault guns into their arsenals. Early on, the Soviets built the KV-2 ,

4560-412: The infantry, and led to armies becoming more dependent on multipurpose designs which combined the traditionally separate roles of an assault gun and a tank destroyer. German and Soviet assault guns introduced during World War II usually carried their main armament in a fully enclosed casemate rather than a gun turret . Although this limited the field of fire and traverse of the armament, it also had

4640-440: The machine, now renamed Little Willie , was completed in December 1915 and tested on 3 December 1915. Trench-crossing ability was deemed insufficient however, and Walter Gordon Wilson developed a rhomboidal design, which became known as "His Majesty's Landship Centipede " and later " Mother ", the first of the "Big Willie" types of true tanks. After completion on 29 January 1916 very successful trials were made, and an order

4720-421: The maximum of adaptability to the contours of the ground. They crawled level along the ground with one foot high upon a hillock and another deep in a depression, and they could hold themselves erect and steady sideways upon even a steep hillside. In the years before the Great War, two practical tank-like designs were proposed but not developed. In 1911, the Austrian engineering officer Günther Burstyn submitted

4800-418: The modern armoured division, commanders regained the capability of manoeuvre. Numerous concepts of armoured all-terrain vehicles had been imagined for a long time. With the advent of trench warfare in World War I , the Allied French and British developments of the tank were largely parallel and coincided in time. Leonardo da Vinci is often credited with the invention of a war machine that resembled

4880-427: The need for what he described as a "machine-gun destroyer"—a cross-country, armed vehicle. He remembered the Holt tractor, and decided that it could be the basis for an armoured vehicle. Swinton proposed in a letter to Sir Maurice Hankey , Secretary of the British Committee of Imperial Defence , that the Committee build a power-driven, bullet-proof, tracked vehicle that could destroy enemy guns. Hankey persuaded

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4960-464: The same month Little Willie was completed. Ultimately however, the British were the first to put tanks on the battlefield, at the Battle of the Somme in September 1916. The name "tank" was introduced in December, 1915 as a security measure and has been adopted in many languages. William Tritton, stated that when the prototypes were under construction from August, 1915 they were deliberately falsely described in order to conceal their true purpose. In

5040-423: The same time (March 1942) as the howitzer-like KwK 37 gun was dropped from the Panzer IV's use, its Sturmkanone equivalent in the StuG III up to that time, was likewise replaced with a longer-barreled, high-velocity dual-purpose 75 mm gun that had also been derived from the successful PaK 40 anti-tank towed artillery piece. The Germans also built a number of other fully armoured turretless assault guns, including

5120-423: The soggy delta land of Roberts Island . When World War I broke out, with the problem of trench warfare and the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front, the pulling power of crawling-type tractors drew the attention of the military. Holt tractors were used to replace horses to haul artillery and other supplies. The Royal Army Service Corps also used them to haul long trains of freight wagons over

5200-434: The source for his inspiration), to break through a system of fortified trenches, disrupting the defence and clearing the way for an infantry advance: They were essentially long, narrow and very strong steel frameworks carrying the engines, and borne upon eight pairs of big pedrail wheels, each about ten feet in diameter, each a driving wheel and set upon long axles free to swivel round a common axis. This arrangement gave them

5280-477: The unimproved dirt tracks behind the front. Holt tractors were, ultimately, the inspiration for the development of the British and French tanks. By 1916, about 1,000 of Holt's Caterpillar tractors were used by the British in World War I . Speaking to the press, in claiming the British tanks in use in 1916 were Holt-built, Holt vice president Murray M. Baker said that these tractors weighed about 18,000 pounds (8,200 kg) and had 120 horsepower (89 kW). By

5360-407: The vehicles could cross ground well its steering was ineffectual. In post-revolution Russia, the Vezdekhod was portrayed in propaganda as the first tank. The Tsar Tank , also known as the Lebedenko tank after its designer, was a tricycle design vehicle on 9 m high front wheels. It was expected that such large wheels would be able to cross any obstacle but because of a flawed design most of the weight

5440-402: The wheels seemed impractical after a wooden mock-up was realized: the wheels were initially planned to be 40-feet in diameter, but turned out to be still too big and too fragile at 15-feet. The pedrails also met with industrial problems, and the system was deemed too large, too complicated and under-powered. Instead of choosing to use the Holt tractor, the British government chose to involve

5520-413: The workshop the paperwork described them as "water carriers," supposedly for use on the Mesopotamian Front. In conversation the workers referred to them as "water tanks" or, simply, "tanks." In October the Landships Committee decided, for security purposes, to change its own name to something less descriptive. One of the members, Ernest Swinton suggested "tank," and the committee agreed. The name "tank"

5600-466: Was conducted with an American Killen-Strait tracked tractor. A wire-cutting mechanism was successfully fitted, but the trench-crossing capability of the vehicle proved insufficient. A Delaunay-Belleville armoured car body was fitted, making the Killen-Strait Armoured Tractor the first armoured tracked vehicle, but the project was abandoned as it turned out to be a blind alley, unable to fulfil all-terrain warfare requirements. After these experiments,

5680-629: Was forced through the smaller rear wheel, which became stuck when tested in 1915. The designers were prepared to fit larger engines but the project—and the vehicle—was abandoned. The A7V was the only German tank of World War I that saw actual combat. A prototype was built in early 1917 for trials, with production of the vehicles beginning in October of the same year. They were used on about six occasions from March 1918. Only twenty were produced. Germany also had several other projects on paper as well as other prototype tanks in development. The first offensive using tanks took place on 15 September 1916, during

5760-451: Was intended to be able to protect against bullets and shell splinters, and pass through barbed wire in a way infantry units could not hope to, thus allowing the stalemate to be broken. Few recognised during World War I that the means for returning mobility and shock action to combat was already present in a device destined to revolutionise warfare on the ground and in the air. This was the internal combustion engine , which had made possible

5840-522: Was introduced from May 15, 1916. The committee was happy to perpetuate this misconception since it might also mislead the Germans. The naval background of the tank's development also explains such nautical tank terms as hatch, hull, bow, and ports. The great secrecy surrounding tank development, coupled with the scepticism of infantry commanders, often meant that infantry at first had little training to cooperate with tanks. Vasily Mendeleev, an engineer in

5920-490: Was largely abandoned during the postwar era in favor of tanks or multipurpose tank destroyers attached to infantry formations, which were also capable of providing direct fire support as needed. In the United States and most Western countries, the assault gun ceased to be recognized as a unique niche, with individual examples being classified either as a self-propelled howitzer or a tank, one exception being Sweden , which continued to develop casemate assault guns post-war, such as

6000-671: Was later incorporated in the Army's M8 Armored Gun System light tank, which was canceled in 1996. The M35 is about 1,800 lb (816 kg) lighter than the M68 tank gun used on the M60 tank . In December 2018, GDLS was downselected, along with BAE Systems , to develop prototypes. GDLS presented its first prototype in April 2020. BAE's M8 AGS proposal was disqualified in March 2022. In June 2022, GDLS won

6080-511: Was made with the Boirault machine , with the objective of flattening barbed wire defences and riding over gaps in a battlefield. The machine was made of huge parallel tracks , formed by 4×3 metre metallic frames, rotating around a triangular motorized centre. This device proved too fragile and slow, as well as incapable of changing direction easily, and was abandoned. In France, on 1 December 1914, Paul Frot, an engineer constructing canals for

6160-701: Was placed by the War Office for 100 units to be used on the Western front in France, on 12 February 1916, and a second order for 50 additional units was placed in April 1916. France started studying caterpillar continuous tracks from January 1915, and actual tests started in May 1915, two months earlier than the Little Willie experiments. At the Souain experiment , France tested an armoured tracked tank prototype,

6240-399: Was possible by a locomotive or with adapter wheels. However, the cost would have been almost as much as that of a submarine, and it was never built. The Vezdekhod was a small cross-country vehicle designed by aero-engineer Aleksandr Porokhovschikov that ran on a single wide rubber track propelled by a 10 hp engine. Two small wheels on either side were provided for steering but while

6320-627: Was suitably impressed and chose it as a gun-tractor. In July 1914, Lt. Col. Ernest Swinton , a British Royal Engineer officer, learned about Holt tractors and their transportation capabilities in rough terrain from a friend who had seen one in Antwerp , but passed the information on to the transport department. When the First World War broke out, Swinton was sent to France as the Army's war correspondent and in October 1914 identified

6400-632: Was used in official documents and common parlance from then on, and the Landships Committee was renamed the Tank Supply Committee. This is sometimes confused with the labelling of the first production tanks (ordered in February, 1916) with a caption in Russian. It translated as "With Care to Petrograd," probably again inspired by the workers at Foster's, some of whom believed the machines to be snowploughs meant for Russia, and

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