Marneman 
Group: Members
Posts: 166
Joined: Apr. 2012
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Posted on: Feb. 02 2015,2:38 am |
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1915: the beginning of the second year of the great war in Europe. Both side were trying to come up with ideas to break the deadlock of trench warfare. The Germans would eventually field poison gas and flame throwers with limited success. In England a couple of men put forth the idea of taking a tracked agriculteral tractor, adding armor plate and machine guns and employing them against the Germans. The British Army rejected this "hair brained" idea! Fortuantly the then First Sea Lord Winston Churchill thought the idea had merit and had the Royal Navy set up the Land Ship Committee to evaluate and build such a vehicle. By the way that's the reason parts of the tank have nautical names like hull, deck, turret, bow, and sponson. As the Land Ship Committee progressed into testing designs and building the first prototype called "Little Willie", the British Army finally came on board with the project. After test with the prototype the Committe decided on a design and contracts were made to produce the first MK I Landships. There were two variant of the MK I, the first armed with 2 cannons and 2 machine guns were designated "Males". And a second variant armed with 4 machine guns were designated "Females". When enough Landship were built so they could be tried on the battle feild the Army was concerned about the security of their new "secret" weapon so before they were shipped to France a cover story that these large metal boxes were semi-portable water containers or "Tanks".
And as Paul Harvey would say "That's the rest of the story"
Happy Birthday "Little Wille"
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Rock of the Marne
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