Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-08-12
Lund ButtIeships

One of the outstanding surprises
of the first World War were the
strange armored land battleships"
which the British introduced against
the amazed Germany Army in
dawn attack along the Somme on
September IS, 1916. The British had
built number of these heavy, cater
pillar-tread vehicles with great
secrecy. TO divert suspicion as to
their prospective use, they had told
factory workers and others that the
machines were "tanks" for carrying
water to the troops. The tanks"
had been the pet project of Major
General Sir E. D. SWinton, who was
seeking some means of graduating
the machine-gun nests with which
the German positions were infested.
His inspiration came when he saw
caterpillar tractor of American make
ride over obstacles that would have
stopped any other type of wheeled
vehicle. The first tanks were about
thirty-four feet long and twelve feet
high and weighed about thirty-five
tons. A gasoline motor propelled
them at eight miles an hour. Their
debut on the Somme was complete
success and soon quantities of them
were being built by the French and
later by the Germans. Size was
sacrificed to speed in many of the
later models, among which was the
so-called whippet tank, capable of
darting around at the then high
speed of ten to fifteen miles an hour.
Despite the successes achieved by
tanks during the first World War.
military experts were far from unan-
imous in their estimates of the prac-
tical value Of the mobile forts"
after that conflict had ended. Most
armies continued to experiment
with them, however. Greatest at
tention was paid to them in Nazi
Germany, where new types, heavily
armored and equipped with three
inch cannon and machine guns, were
turned out in large numbers. France,
relying on her Maginot Line, was not
greatly concerned over the German
tank program, but some of her wiser
leaders did succeed in having the
French Army provided with a num-
Der of seventy-ton tanks, matching
in size those of the Germans. The
French preparations were too late
and their mechanical forces too
weak, however, to stem the mighty
onslaught of the German Panzer
divisions when they finally began to
move in full force. Hitler'S methods
of mechanical warfare caused mill
tary authorities in every part of the
world to revise their estimates of
tank effectiveness.
In line with the new thinking in
our own military circles, the War
Department has launched an eX-
tensive tank construction program,
calling not only for fast, hard-hitting
combat cars" capable of speeds in
excess of forty and fifty miles an
hour, but for huge armored vehicles
patterned after the seventy and
eighty ton tanks used in the present
European war One of the first
contracts for the heavy tanks will
60 to the Baldwin Locomotive Works.
The big machines will be as long as
trolley car and will carry crew
about dozen strong. Each will be
armed with a seventy five millimeter
cannon and latest type automatic
guns 1t is reported that more than
400 of these mechanical monsters
will be built. Meanwhile, hundreds
of light and medium tanks are being
built or are on order under the
emergency defense program. These
machines of war will supply the bulk
of the striking power of new mech
anized divisions in Americas rapidly
expanding Army. They furnish ad-
ditional evidence of the fact that
America is determined to keep
abreast of the latest developments
in military science.