Churchill's Iniatives (WWI); Long patrol p3/4 - Tanks

Churchill receives particular credit for championing the tank, while Admiralty specialists, Major Stern and Colonel Swinton contributed to its development.

Combining heavy cavalry's mobility with artillery firepower and naval armour offers one way to understand the tank's place in warfare.

Army officers seeking armoured vehicles in late 1914 used their naval contacts to reach Churchill after the War Office rejected their proposals.

The tank had many technical contributors, while Churchill supplied unusually senior political support.

Limited familiarity with motor cars and doubts about their reliability help explain scepticism about a mobile armoured gun platform.

Wilson's gearbox and tracks, Tritton's agricultural machinery firm and a four-foot trench-crossing requirement gave the tank a practical design.

Little Willie follows the work on transmission and tracks as the first vehicle in the account that can reasonably be called a tank.

Mother appeared in 1916 after Churchill left the Admiralty, continuing a project he had helped establish during 1915.

A counterfactual asks whether earlier development could have put Mark I tanks into the Gallipoli campaign.

The Mark I male's first combat at Flers-Courcelette introduces a vehicle with an eight-man crew, thin armour and naval six-pounders.

The Royal Navy supplied quick-firing six-pounders when Army assistance fell short, giving early tanks a direct connection to naval ordnance.

The first order allocated 37 tanks to Foster's agricultural works and 113 to Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon in Birmingham.