Product Description

In 1915 a machine christened Little Willie changed the way that wars were fought. Little Willie was a fully tracked armoured vehicle that could break a trench system. Its development was completed in December 1915, but by then it had already been superseded by an improved design, Mother. This was the first rhomboid tank, and the prototype for the Mark 1 which would influence a whole generation of tank building. This book details the development of the Mark I, and its surprise arrival in France in the middle of 1916 during the closing weeks of the battles of the Somme.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #408370 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-24
• Released on: 2004-06-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

Review
"In typical fashion, the author's text is extremely lively and informative... The photographic content of the book... is very comprehensive... [This book is] reliable, ready and inexpensive... Highly recommended." -Frank DeSisto, missing-lynx.com

"A thoroughly useful new book on a largely-neglected subject. Good photographic coverage and excellent colour plates...An excellent contribution to the study of WW1 tanks, highly recommended." -David Maynard, Armorama (August 2007)


"In line with other Osprey titles, the superb choice of period photographs and the excellent illustrations of Tony Bryan make this a must have for any armor or WWI enthusiast." -Scott Van Aken, modelingmadness.com (May 2007)

From the Publisher
The unrivalled illustrated reference on fighting vehicles, transport and artillery through the ages. Each volume is illustrated throughout, making these books uniquely accessible to history enthusiasts of all ages.

About the Author
David Fletcher was born in 1942. He has written a number of books and articles on military subjects and is currently the historian at the Tank Museum, Bovington, UK. He has spent over 40 years studying the development of British armoured vehicles during the two World Wars.

Customer Reviews

In the Hands of a Expert
In Osprey New Vanguard #100 David Fletcher, a historian at the Tank Museum in Bovington (UK), provides an excellent summary of the development and introduction of the first British tanks in the First World War. Fletcher succeeds in assembling a lot of disparate information into a tight package, that outlines the development, training and entry into combat of the British tank force. This Osprey summary is an excellent starting point for academics or professional military readers who wish to study the introduction of a radical new weapon system. Overall, in terms of narrative, freshness of information, and graphic appeal, this volume is excellent.

Fletcher begins the volume with background information on how Winston Churchill's idea for "landships" was translated by two engineering geniuses into the prototype "Lincoln Machine" and "Little Willie." Most readers will be surprised to learn that the original track set was built in Chicago (which doesn't cast the concept of American "neutrality" in a particularly sincere light), although this track was deemed unsuitable for the later prototypes. Fletcher details how the initial requirement for tanks in February 1915, after passing through the "Little Willie" design, resulted in the first tests of the Mark I tank or "Mother" in January 1916; less than a year from concept to working prototype! Considering that aircraft and submarines both existed prior to the First World War and their wartime developments were evolutionary in nature, the development of the British Mark I tank may be one of the most rapid weapons breakthroughs in military history. Fletcher also notes that it was the development of a functional track design that "was the single most important factor in the evolution of the British tank" - not the engine, transmission, armor or weapons.

Fletcher also spends several pages discussing how the Mark I tanks were built - a subject that is rarely discussed in other sources. By the summer of 1916, Fletcher notes that British industry was capable of building about 25 tanks per week, but many were siphoned off for training duties, so few were available for the battles of 1916-1917. One item that Fletcher does not cover is the issue of how much the first tanks cost; again, from the point of view of R&D and weapon development, it would be interesting to see how much the British investment in tanks cost (versus say, development in new heavy artillery or aircraft). Fletcher's section on crew duties is also very interesting, and as a former tanker myself, it is hard not to sympathize with the early tankers who had to operate inside a vehicle filled with "gushing clouds of carbon monoxide" and with temperatures rising to 120º F. Fletcher also includes brief sections on training for war and the initial introduction into combat. Although recently there has been a school of revisionist historians who have challenged the value of the early tanks, Fletcher notes that despite heavy losses and awkward moments the British Mark I tanks did prove their worth. In one engagement, a single British Mark I commanded by a 2LT Storey single-handedly captured a formidable German position and 300 prisoners. Fletcher also discusses the eight Mark I tanks used at Gaza in Palestine in 1917. The final sections cover several variants of the Mark I, included the similar Mark II and Mark III. The photographs and illustrations in the volume are excellent. The color plates include: the Lincoln Machine; Little Willie; Mother; camouflage schemes on Mark Is in 1916; a cutaway of a Mark I Male; a Mark I in Palestine; the Mark II and III variants; and the supply tank and wireless radio tank variants. Unfortunately, the author does not provide a bibliography or notes on sources of photographs.

All told, the British built 150 Mark I tanks, plus 50 each of the Mark II and Mark III variants. Virtually all of these tanks were non-operational by 1918, but these 250 early tanks paved the way for their sturdier successors. While some modern critics have attempted to characterize the early British tanks as too few in number and mechanically unreliable to matter, they tend to ignore the value of these first steps in creating a viable tank corps. Like many early-model weapons, the British Mark I was not itself destined to conquer on the battlefield, but it laid the seeds for its successors to reap at Cambrai in 1917 and Amiens in 1918.