Expensive Toys

The idea of a military tracked vehicles capable of moving over rough terrain, through the trenches, ditches and barbed wire, first suggested in October 1914 Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence of Great Britain, Colonel E. Swinton.

He appealed to the Minister of War, Lord Kitchener GG, but he left his proposal without an answer, as well as a similar statement of Admiral R. Bacon. Then for the case come from the sailors, they supported the First Lord of the Admiralty (Morokov Minister) Winston Churchill, who had heard about the projects Swinton, Bacon and a similar work of a rank of Captain M. Suetera.

Churchill was a man of action and had 20 February 1915 formed under the auspices of the Navy Department an unusual ground ship Committee, headed by renowned naval architect Yu d’Enkur Tennyson, who started from the fact that rejected the idea of Major Hetherington – a huge machine on three wheels with a diameter of 12 m (where there Lebedenko!). Along with Churchill, he approved the draft Swinton, who, without waiting for a response from Kitchener, in June 1915 sent a letter to the commander of British forces in France, General John tunic.

Anyone under the impression of huge losses the British, briskly, and his staff formulated the basic requirements for “land cruiser”: it should be relatively small tracked vehicle with anti-armor, capable of overcoming the crater with a diameter of 4 m and the wire, reaching a speed of at least 4 km / h, have a crew of up to 6 people, a cannon and two machine guns. Claims were sent to the Ministry of War that finally worked well, and Swinton with d’Enkurom to establishing a military machine. The sailors appealed for help to engineering firm W. Foster in Leeds, under the guidance of engineers W. Tritton (managing company), Major W. Wilson and G. Ricardo 40 days is based on the tractor “Holt” fighting machine. Seeing in it a resemblance to Wilson, she was nicknamed “Little Willy”.

Trial runs were successful, however, Swinton said that the battle for “Willy” is not good and it is too early to think about overcoming the 4-meter crater – the length of the bearing surface of its track to be one meter longer double the width of the trench, another car had tumbled over him. That’s when the engineers got the idea to give contours of the caterpillars form a parallelogram, and to increase the height of hooks and, consequently, of crossing vertical obstacles upper branch to put on top of the shell. In November 1915 the company began to manufacture a new car and 30 January 1916 submitted for testing, as d’Enkur advised Kitchener.

February 2 show watched her minister of armaments D. Lloyd George, who soon became the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Kitchener, however, remained obstinate in his opinion: “It’s expensive toy.”

What was being tested before the high commission, proposed to name “Big Willie” – and this has become history. Others call her “stonozhkoy,” Well, because it was the first sample, so to speak, the father of the tank, then follow him at first firmly established the nickname “Mother” (born “mother”), and adopted it took an official designation Mk I.

Then where did the term “tank”, which translated from the English word “tank” or “back”? The fact that the British built them in compliance with the strictest secrecy, knowing that only the sudden appearance of them on the battlefield guarantee success. When transporting by rail closed tarpaulin machine from afar resembled large metal tank, and then spread the rumor that the tanks are built by the order of the Russian government. They are written in Russian “Caution. Petrograd. After that, the term “tank” root in English and Russian, the German army as it was fixed for another name – “pantserkampfvagen (armored combat hackers) or simply the” Panzer “in the acronym – Pz Kpfw or Pz. The French – “Ball de Comba (Combat Vehicle), in the jargon of military simply” ball “. The Italians used the term “curry d’armato” (armed with a cart), Sweden – stridsvagn (Combat Vehicle), Poles – cholg “(caterpillar).