THE First World War was one of the most impactful events in the history of mankind, both because of its high death toll and others factors such as the great mobilization of civil society around it and the intense use of industrial activity in the production of weapons. With regard to this last aspect, the use of science and technology was decisive. You carsincombatarmored, which would also be known as “tanksinwar”, were one of the main technoscientific inventions of the First World War. Next, we will see how the first of them, the British, was “born” MarkI.
Armored tanks
As we said above, industrial activity and technoscientific advances were aligned during the war that started in 1914. The historian Max Hastings, in his work Disaster – 1914: Europe goes to war, gives us the example that, at that time, “Germany's industrial capacity made it possible to build a hundred thousand aircraft, each of which could carry infantry soldiers to England at night in no more than half hour". However, this was not restricted to Germany, as other nations, such as England, also invested heavily in the military industry, one of the sectors being the armored combat vehicles.
The first models of this type of car were adaptations of the first common cars manufactured at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century. The British started by coating models of RollsRoyce with 4 mm armor, in addition to equipping them with machine guns and small caliber cannons. In 1904, the Germans even conceived the model Austro-Daimler Panzerwagen, considered the most sophisticated armored combat vehicle prototype so far. However, this type of car had the inconvenience of not being able to pierce the typical roadblocks of the World War I battlefields such as barbed wire fences, uneven terrain, trenches etc. A more effective model was needed.
From "Little Willie" to "Mark I"
The British took a step forward in designing this more effective model. starting from Rolls Royce armored from Royal Naval Air Service, which came to light in 1914, the British army started the project LandshipsCommittee, authorized by the then Lord of the Admiralty, WinstonChurchill – who would later become prime minister of England. The new model had a completely planned structure and was no longer the adaptation of an ordinary car to a combat vehicle. It was a prototype without wheels, that is, it moved on two pairs of armored metal tracks, which were capable of overcoming obstacles and traveling over rough fields. This model was named “littleWillie”, whose first test was made on September 6, 1915.
However, the “little willie” did not yet have full combat capability. Another model was created and improved from it: the “bigWillie”, or “MarkI”. This, in turn, was fully equipped for the bloodiest battles of World War I, especially that of Somme (in France), where it was operated for the first time in 1916. The “Mark I” weighed 28 tons and had the following measurements: about 9 meters long, 4 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. It also had the capacity to house eight men, who were responsible for the use of two cannons on the right side and four machine guns on the left side, as well as for the direction of the vehicle. The armor of the "Mark I" ranged from 6 to 12 millimeters of solid metal.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
