A7V heavy tank The A7V was a tank introduced by Germany in 1918 , near the end of World War I . One hundred vehicles were ordered in early 1918 , but only 20 were delivered . They were used in action from March to October of that year , and were the only tanks produced by Germany in World War I to be used in operations . History . Following the appearance of the first British tanks on the Western Front , the " Allgemeines Kriegsdepartement , 7 . Abteilung , Verkehrswesen " ( " General War Department , 7th Branch , Transportation " ) , was formed in September 1916 . The project to design and build the first German tank was placed under the direction of Joseph Vollmer , a reserve captain and engineer . It was to have a mass of around 30 tons , be capable of crossing ditches up to 1 . 5 metres wide , have armament including cannon at front and rear as well as several machine - guns , and reach a top speed of at least 12 km / h . The running gear was based on the Holt tractor , copied from examples loaned by the Austrian Army . After initial plans were shared with the Army in December 1917 the design was extended to be a universal chassis which could be used as a base for both a tank and unarmoured " Überlandwagen " ( " over - land vehicle " ) cargo carriers . The first prototype was completed by Daimler - Motoren - Gesellschaft at Berlin - Marienfelde and tested on 30 April 1917 . A wooden mockup of a final version was completed in May 1917 and demonstrated in Mainz with 10 tons of ballast to simulate armour . During final design the rear - facing cannon was removed and the number of machine - guns was increased to six . The first pre - production A7V was produced in September 1917 , followed by the first production model in October 1917 . The tanks were given to Assault Tank Units 1 and 2 , founded on 20 September 1917 , each with five officers and 109 NCOs and soldiers . Naming . The tank ' s name was derived from that of its parent organization , " Allgemeines Kriegsdepartement , 7 . Abteilung , Verkehrswesen " . In German the tank was called " Sturmpanzerwagen " , ( roughly " assault armoured vehicle " ) . Design . The A7V was long , wide , and the maximum height was . The tank had 20 mm of steel plate at the sides , 30 mm at the front and 10 mm for the roof ; however the steel was not hardened armour plate , which reduced its effectiveness . It was thick enough to stop machine - gun and rifle fire , but not larger calibres . This offered protection comparable to the thinner armour of other tanks of the period , which used hardened steel . The crew normally consisted of up to seventeen soldiers and one officer : commander ( officer , typically a lieutenant ) , driver , mechanic , mechanic / signaller , twelve infantrymen ( six machine gunners , six loaders ) , and two artillerymen ( main gunner and loader ) . Armament . The A7V was armed with six 7 . 92 mm MG08 machine guns and a 5 . 7 cm Maxim - Nordenfelt cannon mounted at the front . Some of these cannons were of British manufacture and had been captured in Belgium early in the war ; others were captured in Russia in 1918 and appear to have included some Russian - made copies . Ammunition . Between forty and sixty cartridge belts , each of 250 rounds , were carried as well as 180 shells for the main gun , split 90 : 54 : 36 between canister , antitank , and explosive . These were the official figures — up to 300 rounds for the main gun were stowed for combat . The " female " variant had two more machine guns in place of the main gun . It is believed that only chassis number 501 saw combat as a female before being converted to accommodate the 5 . 7 cm gun . Propulsion . Power came from two centrally mounted Daimler 4 - cylinder petrol engines delivering each ; the A7V carried of fuel . The top speed was about on roads and across country . The 24 wheel suspension was individually sprung — an advantage over the unsprung British tanks . Compared to other World War I tanks the road speed was quite high , but the tank had very poor off - road capability and was prone to getting stuck . The large overhang at the front and the low ground clearance meant trenches or very muddy areas were impassable . This was worsened by the fact that the driver could not see the terrain directly in front of the tank , due to a blind spot of about 10 metres . However , on open terrain it could be used to some success and offered more firepower than the armoured cars that were available . Power - to - weight ratio was 6 . 8 hp / ton ( 5 . 1 kW / ton ) , trench crossing : , ground clearance : . Combat history . St . Quentin Canal . The A7V was first used in combat on 21 March 1918 . Five tanks of " Abteilung I " under the command of " Hauptmann " Greiff were deployed north of the St . Quentin Canal . Three of the A7Vs suffered mechanical failures before they entered combat , but the remaining pair helped stop a minor British breakthrough in the area , but otherwise saw little combat that day . Villers - Bretonneux . The first tank against tank combat in history took place on 24 April 1918 when three A7Vs ( including chassis number 561 , known as " Nixe " ) taking part in an attack with infantry incidentally met three Mark IV s ( two female machine gun - armed tanks and one male with two 6 - pounder gun s ) near Villers - Bretonneux . During the battle tanks on both sides were damaged . According to the lead tank commander , Second Lieutenant Frank Mitchell , the female Mk IVs fell back after being damaged by armour - piercing bullets . They were unable to damage the A7Vs with their own machine guns . Mitchell then attacked the lead German tank , commanded by Second Lieutenant Wilhelm Biltz , with the 6 - pounders of his own tank and knocked it out . He hit it three times , and killed five of the crew when they bailed out . He then went on to rout some infantry with case shot . The two remaining A7Vs in turn withdrew . As Mitchell ' s tank withdrew from action , seven Whippet tanks also engaged the infantry . Four of these were knocked out in the battle , and it is unclear if any of them engaged the retreating German tanks . Mitchell ' s tank lost a track towards the end of the battle from a mortar shell and was abandoned . The damaged A7V was later recovered by German forces . Three detachments ( " Abteilungen " ) of five tanks each were at Villers - Bretonneux at the head of the four German divisions committed over a 4 mile front . One tank refused to start , but the fourteen that saw action achieved some success , and the British recorded that their lines were broken by the tanks . Two A7Vs toppled over into holes , and some encountered engine or armament troubles . After a counterattack , three fell into Allied hands . One was unusable and scrapped , one was used later for shell testing by the French , and the third was eventually recovered by Australian troops . Other actions . In May , A7Vs used in an attack on the French near Soissons , during the Third Battle of the Aisne were unable to cross a wide trench known as the " Dardanelles " . On 15 July , at Rheims ( during the Second Battle of the Marne ) , the Germans put eight A7Vs and twenty captured Mk IVs against the French lines . Although 10 of the Mk IVs were lost in this action , no A7Vs were lost . The final use in World War I of A7Vs was in a small but successful action on 11 October 1918 , near Iwuy . The A7V was not considered a success , and other designs were planned by Germany . However the end of the war meant none of the other tanks in development , or planned ones , would be finished ( such as the " Oberschlesien " , the 120 - ton K - Wagen , and the light LK I or LK II ) . The extremely limited production of twenty made a very minor contribution , and most of the tanks ( about 50 in total ) that were fielded in action by Germany in World War I were captured British Mark IV tanks ( " Beutepanzer " ) . In contrast , the French had produced over 3 , 600 of their light Renault FT , the most numerous tank of World War I , and the British over 2 , 500 of their heavy Mark I to V * tanks . After the war . Two lightly armoured vehicles broadly resembling the A7V , one of which was named " Hedi " , were used by a " Freikorps " tank unit to quell civil unrest in Berlin in 1919 , and were constructed after the war , using the chassis from " Überlandwagen " s and armed with four MG08 / 15 machine guns . Some sources say that several A7Vs were handed over by France to Polish forces and used during the Russo - Polish war of 1920 . However , the fate of each A7V that saw service in WWI is known , and there is no known official record or photographic evidence of A7Vs in Polish service . The design of the A7V featured on the tank badge of 1921 , awarded to commemorate service in the German Panzer forces of 1918 . Variant . A7V - U : ( " umlaufende Ketten " = " tracks running all the way round " ) . An attempt to reproduce the all - terrain capability of the British tanks , the A7V - U was still based on the Holt chassis but had a rhomboidal hull and all - round tracks . The cab was similar to , but bigger than , that on the A7V and was mounted on top of the forward part of the hull . Two 57mm guns were carried in sponsons similar to the British type . The prototype was built in June 1918 , and trials showed that it was nose - heavy and had a high centre of gravity , and the 40 - ton weight caused manoeuvrability problems . On the assumption that the problems could be rectified , twenty were ordered in September 1918 , the same month work on the design was halted . Drawings for two improved designs were prepared , but the war ended before any were produced . Thirty chassis were assigned for completion as " Überlandwagen " supply carriers , but not all were completed before the end of the war . Survivors and replicas . The only surviving A7V is " Mephisto " , currently in the Workshops Rail Museum , North Ipswich , Queensland , Australia . One cannon from an A7V ( possibly 504 " Schnuck " ) is at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester . Two full - size replicas have been constructed . One , " Wotan " , is in the Deutsches Panzermuseum in Munster . The second is a running replica built in 2009 by Bob Grundy of British Military Vehicles , Wigan , U . K . , a company that specialises in the restoration of old military vehicles . The replica is constructed of plywood and angle iron , using the engine , transmission , and tracks from two Fordson County Crawlers - tracked agricultural vehicles - and is painted to represent A7V number 504 , " Schnuck " . The replica was purchased by the Bovington Tank Museum in November 2012 .