page_title: British heavy tanks of World War I
section_title: Mark IX
hierarchical_section_title: British heavy tanks of World War I / Variants / Mark IX
caption_attribution_description: English: British Mark IX Armoured Personnel Carrier of 1918.
context_page_description: British heavy tanks were a series of related armoured fighting vehicles developed by the UK during the First World War.
  The Mark I was the world's first tank, a tracked, armed, and armoured vehicle, to enter combat. The name "tank" was initially a code name to maintain secrecy and disguise its true purpose by making it appear to be a water transport vehicle for bringing water to the troops at the front line. The type was developed in 1915 to break the stalemate of trench warfare. It could survive the machine gun and small-arms fire in "No Man's Land", travel over difficult terrain, crush barbed wire, and cross trenches to assault fortified enemy positions with powerful armament. Tanks also carried supplies and troops.
  British heavy tanks are distinguished by an unusual rhomboidal shape with a high climbing face of the track, designed to cross the wide and deep trenches prevalent on the battlefields of the Western Front. Due to the height necessary for this shape, an armed turret would have made the vehicle too tall and unstable. Instead, the main armament was arranged in sponsons at the side of the vehicle.
context_section_description: The Mark IX was a troop carrier or infantry supply vehicle – among the first tracked armoured personnel carriers not counting experiments with the lengthened Mk Vs. Thirty-four were built out of an order for 200.
caption: Mark IX tank
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