page_title: Tanks in the British Army
section_title: British development
hierarchical_section_title: Tanks in the British Army / Background / British development
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Tankschlacht bei Cambrai ADN-ZB-Archiv I. Weltkrieg 1914 - 1918; Westfront: Die Tankschlacht der Engländer bei Cambrai vom 20. bis 29. November 1917. U.B.z.: ein englischer Tank bricht auf dem Vormarsch einen Straßenbaum um. 115-18 [Scherl Bilderdienst]
context_section_description: The Landships Committee commissioned Lieutenant Walter Gordon Wilson of the Royal Naval Air Service and William Tritton of William Foster & Co. of Lincoln, to produce a small landship. Constructed in great secrecy, the machine was given the code-name tank by Swinton.
  Nicknamed Little Willie, this prototype tank weighed 14 tons and could carry a crew of three, at speeds of less than 2 mph over rough ground. Trench-crossing ability was deemed insufficient however, leading to the development of a rhomboidal design, which became known as HMLS Centipede and later Mother, the first of the British heavy tanks. After completion on 29 January 1916 very successful trials were made, and an order 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.
  The great secrecy surrounding tank development, coupled with the skepticism of infantry commanders, often meant that infantry at first had little training to cooperate with tanks.
  The first use of the British tanks on the battlefield was the use of 49 Mark I tanks during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916, with mixed, but still impressive results. Many broke down but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. Finally, in a preview of later developments, the British developed the lighter Whippet. This tank was specifically designed to exploit breaches in the enemy front. The Whippet was faster than most other tanks, although it carried only machinegun armament. Postwar tank designs would reflect this trend towards greater tactical mobility.
  While the British took the lead in tank development, the French were not far behind and fielded their first tanks in 1917. The Germans, on the other hand, were slower to develop tanks, concentrating on anti-tank weapons.
  Following the Great War, many experiments involving armoured vehicles were conducted in the United Kingdom. Particularly many advances were made in the areas of suspensions, tracks, communications, and the organization of these vehicles on the battlefield. Britain continued its technical dominance of tank design from 1915 through to at least the early 1930s. British designs, particularly those from Vickers-Armstrong, formed the basis for many of the most common tanks of the 1930s and early WWII. The six-tonner, which was arguably the most influential design of the late 1920s, was not adopted by the British Army.
  The Carden Loyd tankettes (two-man vehicles with machine guns) influenced the tankette concept through export and similar designs such as the Soviet T-27, Italian CV-33, German Panzer I and other copies. Another notable design was the Vickers Medium Mk II, a pivotal design which combined some of the best traits of WWI tanks into a much faster tank. Eventually, by the 1930s, British experiments and policy and their strategic situation led to a tank development programme with three main types of tank: light, cruiser, and infantry. The Infantry tanks were intended to support dismounted infantry. The maximum speed requirement matched the walking pace of a rifleman, and the armour on these tanks was expected to be heavy enough to provide immunity to towed anti-tank guns. Armament had to be sufficient to suppress or destroy enemy machine gun positions and bunkers as well as enemy tanks. Cruiser tanks were to carry out the traditional cavalry roles of pursuit and exploitation, working relatively independently of the infantry. This led to cruiser tank designs requiring greater speed. To achieve this they were lightly armoured, and tended to carry anti-tank armament. In practice both cruiser and infantry tanks entered the Second World War with the same gun. The light tanks were tasked with reconnaissance and constabulary-type colonial roles, with cost the major design factor.
  An outstanding achievement of the British Army had been the creation of the Experimental Mechanised Force in the late 1920s. This was a small Brigade-sized unit developed to field-test the use of tanks and other vehicles. The unit p
caption: A German propaganda photograph showing a British tank destroying a tree
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