“I am not in a position to give any information, but it is at least possible that in a few years’ time the most heavily armoured car or tank will be as vulnerable to the fire of the future as an old wooden caravan would be to the firing of to-day.”īut then, on September 1, 1939, German forces poured over the border into Poland with more than 2,500 tanks of varying sorts. In 1934, Britain’s Financial Secretary to the War Office, Duff Cooper, succinctly explained why tanks were already on the verge of total obsolesce. “The circumstances which called it into existence were exceptional and not likely to recur.” “The tank proper was a freak,” one British commander wrote after World War I. These armored vehicles entered the conflict too late to play a pivotal role in its outcome, and many believed the entire concept of “tanks” would end right alongside the fighting. The first time these British tanks found a fight, only 25 of the 49 of them actually moved when ordered to commence the attack. Of course… all new technology comes with problems, and those early tanks proved to be finicky beasts. Thanks to the increased availability of things like the internal combustion engine and armor plating, tanks (which derived their name from the cover story for the factories building them under the guise of water-holding “tanks”) seemed perfectly suited for withstanding heavy enemy gunfire coming from their trenches. The first tanks used in combat were British, fielded during World War I in an attempt to foil the long and bloody stalemate that dominated the European continent.
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