How a great British invention - the tank, a metal monster which terrified the Germans - not only helped the British win WWI but how it was designed, in little over two months, by two men working in a small hotel room in Lincoln, Lincolnshire:
"The panic started, everyone from 1st and 3rd Companies jumped out of the trench and ran the fastest race of his life, pursued by the merciless tank machine-gun fire which cut down many men as if it were a rabbit-shoot."
So remembered German soldier Wilhelm Speck, of the 84th Reserve Regiment.
Some ran. Some stood and fought. But no-one forgot their first meeting with a tank. A weapon without precedent, which went on to dominate the battlefields of the 20th Century.
And it was designed by two men, in little more than two months, working out of a small hotel room in Lincoln.
"By 1915, the British army knew it had an immense problem," said David Willey, curator at the Bovington Tank Museum.
"Instead of a war of movement, the battlefield had become one of defensive trenches protected by thickets of barbed wire and machine guns.
"So how to get through that? How do you break in to the German trenches?"
Read the rest of the BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25109879
Where the tank was born: Tritton, Wilson and draughtsman William Rigby would burn failed sketches on the fire of the room at the White Hart Hotel in Lincoln
The first design - christened Little Willie - failed to cope with test trenches but a new concept was waiting
The idea of tanks electrified a British public concerned the war had become a hopeless stalemate and that Germany had a lead in technical innovation
Before the tank the British Army was already equipped with giant artillery-towing tractors in the early days of the war. The example of the tank gives the lie to the left-wing/Blackadder school of thought that British World War One generals were backward and dullards."Here they looked for a new weapon, approved its use, then trained up the men to use it, all within a year", said David Willey
"The panic started, everyone from 1st and 3rd Companies jumped out of the trench and ran the fastest race of his life, pursued by the merciless tank machine-gun fire which cut down many men as if it were a rabbit-shoot."
So remembered German soldier Wilhelm Speck, of the 84th Reserve Regiment.
Some ran. Some stood and fought. But no-one forgot their first meeting with a tank. A weapon without precedent, which went on to dominate the battlefields of the 20th Century.
And it was designed by two men, in little more than two months, working out of a small hotel room in Lincoln.
"By 1915, the British army knew it had an immense problem," said David Willey, curator at the Bovington Tank Museum.
"Instead of a war of movement, the battlefield had become one of defensive trenches protected by thickets of barbed wire and machine guns.
"So how to get through that? How do you break in to the German trenches?"
Read the rest of the BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25109879
Where the tank was born: Tritton, Wilson and draughtsman William Rigby would burn failed sketches on the fire of the room at the White Hart Hotel in Lincoln
The first design - christened Little Willie - failed to cope with test trenches but a new concept was waiting
The idea of tanks electrified a British public concerned the war had become a hopeless stalemate and that Germany had a lead in technical innovation
Before the tank the British Army was already equipped with giant artillery-towing tractors in the early days of the war. The example of the tank gives the lie to the left-wing/Blackadder school of thought that British World War One generals were backward and dullards."Here they looked for a new weapon, approved its use, then trained up the men to use it, all within a year", said David Willey
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