Frot - Laffly landship The Frot - Laffly landship , also Frot - Turmel - Laffly landship ( French : " Char Frot - Turmel - Laffly " , also " Rouleau cuirassé Paul Frot " ) , was an early French experimental tank ( but without tracks ) , or landship , designed and built from December 1914 to March 1915 , preceding the design and development of the English Little Willie tank by about nine months . Background . The immobility of the trench warfare characterizing the First World War led to a need for a powerful armed military engine that would be protected from enemy fire at the same time , and could move on the extremely irregular terrain of battlefields . As early as 24 August 1914 , the French colonel Jean Baptiste Estienne articulated the vision of a cross - country armoured vehicle : Development . One of the first attempts was made in France on 1 December 1914 , when Paul Frot , an engineer in canal construction at the " Compagnie Nationale du Nord " , proposed to the French War Ministry a design for a landship with armour and armament based on the motorization of a Laffly compactor with heavy fluted wheels , that had been developed from 1912 and had been used to compact canals : The tank used 7 mm armour and was motorized with a 20 hp gasoline internal combustion engine engine , and was able to move both forward and backward , with two driver positions , one at the front and the other at the back . It was to be equipped with machine guns on raised platforms attached to the compactor chassis , at least one in front and three in the back , of which two had to project from the sides for 360 degrees coverage . This armament was never actually fitted : the barbette s and row of gun ports visible in the pictures are the result of retouching . The retouched photographs seem to indicate two cannon and six machine guns . Total length was 7 meters , width 2 meters , height 2 . 3 meters . It weighed a bit less than 10 tons . It could have been manned by a crew of nine : one commander , two mechanics and six gunners . Speed varied between 3 and 5 km / h . The compactor base was built by the Laffly Company , at Boulogne sur Seine using a modified Laffly Type LT , and the armour was made by Corpet Company , at La Courneuve . The tank was tested on 28 March 1915 on the grounds of the " Corpet & Louvet " factory , and effectively destroyed barbed wire lines and climbed a 25 % slope , but was deemed lacking mobility : Aftermath . < br > The project was actually abandoned in favour of General Estienne ' s concurrent project of a tank using a tractor base , codenamed " Tracteur Estienne " , which was being developed at that time . A few months before , in January 1915 , the French arms manufacturer Schneider & Co . had already sent out its chief designer , Eugène Brillié , to investigate tracked tractors from the American Holt Company , at that time participating in a test programme in England . This Schneider program was met with approbation of the French War Ministry , was merged with the Estienne plan , and a production order of 400 Schneider CA1 , the first French tank to see the battlefield , was made on 25 February 1916 . The prototype of the Frot - Laffly was sold to the United Kingdom , Paul Frot claiming in a letter dated 8 January 1918 that it had influenced British tank design .