Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/October 2016/Op-ed


 * By TomStar81

Friday, September 15, 1916. In the early morning relevant military calls arouse battle weary soldiers manning the trench lines at Courcelette and Flers, Somme, ahead of the Battle of Flers–Courcelette. After breakfast and a review of the orders of the day, the men in the trenches report to their relevant duty stations, collecting weapons and ammunition, and prepare to defend the trenches from Allied forces (in this case, largely composed of personnel from the various elements of the British Empire). But on this day, as optical lenses scan the battlefields and the men listen and wait for the inevitable sounds of an enemy attack, something unexpected occurs: German eyes spot several parallelograms slowly heading towards them in the distance. Gunfire from rifles and machine guns proves ineffective at stopping these bizarre parallelograms, and worse still these strange parallelograms appear unfazed by the presence of barbed wire, brush, trees, and other obstacles on the battlefield. Shocked at the presence of this mysterious machine, word spreads quickly that the British have come up with new weapon capable of shrugging off bullets and terrain obstacles.

For all the surprise and unexpectedness that accompanies such discoveries as those made that distant September day, it remains a basic fact of military history that the introduction of new weaponry on a battlefield or in a conflict or war is not now, nor has it ever been, a new concept. Most nations have a healthy R&D base for their militaries and that base works very quickly and very creatively to solve sudden, unexpected, unforeseen, or unanticipated issues on the battlefield. It is in the spirit of this mindset that countries have developed rockets, jet engines, bunker buster bombs, missiles, stealth aircraft, and far more nefarious weapons such as nuclear and thermonuclear ordinance that when employed leave no doubt as to who will take a battlefield if powers should come to blows. In the modern day, such inventions include the advent of UCAV drones which have been employed to great effect in the ongoing Global War on Terror and cyber warfare capability, which has been alleged to have affected nations such as the United States, China, North Korea, and Iran. As we adjust to these new weapons and theaters of war in our day so too did our armies and citizens adjust to the weapons debuted in their day. Initially, these weapons included sky based machines such as the zeppelin and the biplane, and later expanded to include the machine gun, railroad artillery, and motorized vehicles. Now, as the stalemate on the western front drags into another month with no apparent end in sight, a new weapon - a "parallelogram" - aims to tip the balance of power decisively for the Allies.

This "parallelogram" observed on the battlefield that fateful day was new and up to that point in time untested weapon, an armored vehicle outfitted with guns and tracks capable of attacking enemy forces while remaining mobile while also protecting its crew from an enemy's assault. Designs for such a weapon had gone back centuries, and had been conceived of by parties across country borders, demonstrating that great minds really do think alike. In difference to its top secret nature, this particular incarnation of the armored attack vehicle had been disguised as "water tanks" during the shipping phase. For reasons no one can ever fully explain, but as is so often the case in history, the name sticks, and the strange new parallelograms are thereafter referred to as "tanks".

History recalls the first tanks to have been deployed in a combat role to be the Mark I tank. While they were effective in a limited role, their combat debut was marred by several factors, including but not limited to the under-powered engines, slow speeds, and due to the fact that the this type of vehicle had never been used before anywhere in the world in a combat role commanders were uncertain as to how to best utilize this new weapon. For the reasons, the combat debut of the tank was somewhat marred by ineffective use and the loss of some of the vehicles to engineering fatalities (such as missing treads). In addition, the design of the vehicle was in and of itself experimental; since the finer details were still being worked out, the machine had a tendency to heat up the interior to the point that the lives of the crew were threatened by dehydration and heat exhaustion. Moreover, the primitive design was like all things a reflection on what was thought to work best at the time. Rather like the early battleships, these tanks could be seen as "pre-dreadnoughts" - a mix of several different guns that were placed on a moving vehicle in the belief that this would be the most effective way to engage enemy targets.

For all the hiccups and the ineffective uses in this first instance of armored warfare, the realization of the world's first fully combat capable armored land attack vehicle permanently alters the concept ground war for all time. In the coming months, as other nations engaged in World War I developed and deployed their own tank variants for use on the western front, the tank would see design changes that reflected the new nature of the vehicle. Arguably, the most influential design to come out of the period of the new tank era was the design of French back Renault FT, which would become the prototype for the basic layout of the tank for generations to come. The concept of an armored, tracked vehicle with a rotating turret would prove every bit as influential to the tank design as the Mark I was to the birth of armored warfare.

While tanks in general were plagued by maintenance, design, teething, and doctrine issues for the last 24 months of World War I nations would have the opportunity to refine their tanks and tank doctrine following the war. This would prove to be the most decisive factor in the development of the tank, as the time between World War I and World War II allowed nations, armies, and other parties to work on where the tank fit in with the rest of military. By the 1930s, armed with the knowledge needed to effectively integrate tank with the rest of the armed forces, military veterans from World War I would tap into the full potential of this new weapon to devastating effect across the African and European theatres of World War II. These battles permanently cemented the tank's necessity in the modern military, leading to the doctrine of armored warfare which would be refined and expanded upon throughout the Cold War and into the 21st century, and would result in a standard design for such vehicles across the majority of the world's armed nations. Additionally, the introduction of the tank would result in dedicated battalions, regiments, and divisions devoted to ensuring that such vehicles have the requisite support required to operate on the battlefield, which includes (but is by no means limited to) ammunition for the primary and secondary guns, fuel, lubricants, anti-freeze and other needed fluids for the engine and gun, replacement optical and computer systems, maintenance personnel and the spare parts they need to keep tanks operational, and radios to help coordinate the movement of these massive vehicles. While the number of units dedicated to armored warfare has gone down since the end of the Cold War both tanks and armored warfare remain cornerstones of the 21st century battlefield.