Men against tanks

Tanks were a new feature of fighting in the First World War, first deployed by Britain at the Somme in 1916. German commanders were initially sceptical of the armoured vehicles’ potential. Tank building was not prioritised by the Germans, with only a small number of the monstrous A7V tanks being fielded by them. While terrifying in appearance, the A7V had the fundamental problem of not being very good at crossing terrain that had been ploughed up by artillery, which greatly limited its effectiveness on Western Front battlefields.

As the war went on the Allies began to use tanks more and more in their offensives, with Cambrai first showing how effective tanks could be when combined with infantry and well targeted artillery. Tanks played an important part in the Allied counter-offensives at the Marne and Amiens.

The increasing use by the Allies of tanks forced the Germans to develop tactics…