What is the name of the tank based on?
during the first world war, in order to break through the defensive positions composed of trenches, barbed wire and machine gun shelters and break the deadlock in positional warfare, the warring sides urgently needed to develop a new weapon that organically combined firepower, mobility and protection. An Englishman, E.D. Swinton (also translated as Tritton), discovered in an accident that a tractor would be invincible if it was equipped with artillery or machine guns.
in October, 1914, the European battlefield in the first world war was deadlocked. Lieutenant Colonel swinton, who is serving in the British Expeditionary Force, proposed that it is necessary to build an armored vehicle that can open roads, cross trenches and destroy and suppress enemy machine gun fire on the battlefield covered with barbed wire to break the dull deadlock in the western front. At that time, the British army was not interested in this, but Churchill, then the secretary of the navy, was so blessed that he ordered the formation of the "Land Warship Committee" and personally led the development of the "Land Warship". In February 1915, the British government adopted E.D. Swinton's suggestion, and made a prototype in September 1915 by using automobile, tractor, gun manufacturing and metallurgical technology, and the first test was successful. The prototype was called "Little Wanderer", with a total weight of 18.289 tons, a thickness of 6 mm, a 7.7 mm Ma Keqin machine gun and several 7.7 mm ".
In p>1916, Mark I tank was produced, with a rhombic outline and rigid suspension. There were protruding gun seats on the track frames on both sides of the car body, and two tracks bypassed the car body from the top, with a pair of steering wheels protruding from the back of the car. The tank has 8 crew members, including "male" and "female". The "male" is equipped with two 57mm guns and four machine guns, while the "female" is only equipped with five machine guns. On September 15th, 1916, 48 Mark I tanks first entered the Battle of the Somme, but only 18 tanks entered the battle for various reasons. Churchill also named this new weapon after the naval term "tank" in order not to let the Germans notice this new weapon. (There are many opinions about the origin of the name "tank". One said that after the invention of the tank, a person laughed at the tank as a big tank, and whoever thought of this name spread it; There is also a saying that it is for the sake of confidentiality. In short, there are many versions of the name "Tank". As a result, this name has been used to this day, and "Tank" is the transliteration of this word. In 1918, France also developed the Renault FT-17 tank, which also made great achievements in World War I..
This kind of tank, called "Mark" I, walks on the track. It can gallop across the battlefield, cross obstacles and trenches, is not afraid of bullets and has no obstacles, and soon breaks through the German defense line, thus opening up a new era of army mechanization. Since then, hundreds of thousands of tanks have been built in the world, which have become the main combat weapons of the army, marine corps and airborne troops in various countries. Tanks are the main assault weapons and the basic equipment of armored forces in ground operations. They are mainly used to fight enemy tanks and other armored vehicles, and can also suppress and destroy anti-tank weapons, destroy field fortifications and annihilate effective forces.