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Tanks became more effective as the lesson of the early tanks was absorbed. The British produced the Mark IV in 1917. Similar to the early Marks in appearance, its construction was considered to produce a more reliable machine; the long-barrelled naval guns were shortened, (the barrels of the earlier, longer guns were prone to digging in the mud ...
They were developed to break through barbed wire and destroy enemy machine gun posts. The British and the French were the major users of tanks during the war; tanks were a lower priority for Germany as it assumed a defensive strategy. The few tanks that Germany built were outnumbered by the number of French and British tanks captured and reused.
When first deployed, British tanks were painted with a four-colour camouflage scheme devised by the artist Solomon Joseph Solomon. It was found that they quickly got covered with mud, rendering elaborate camouflage paint schemes superfluous. In late 1916, the Solomon scheme was abandoned and tanks were painted with a single shade of dark brown ...
Nearly 460 Mark IV tanks were used during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, showing that a large concentration of tanks could quickly overcome even the most sophisticated trench systems. In the aftermath of the German spring offensive on the Western Front, the first tank-to-tank battle was between Mk IV tanks and German A7Vs in the Second ...
Also, both Britain and France found new tactics and training were required to make effective use of their tanks, such as larger coordinated formations of tanks and close support with infantry. Once tanks could be organized in the hundreds, as in the opening assault of the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, they began to have notable impact.
Prototype-World War I Tanks that entered service after, but as designed in World War I Name Country Year Planned prod./actual total Crew Armament [ammo (rds.)] Armour thickness (front/side/top) Weight Engine Speed Range FCM Char 2C: France 1918 300+/10 12 Canon de 75 modèle 1897, 4× 7.92 mm MG 45/22/10 mm 70 t Petrol 2×200/250 hp
Tanks were primarily used on the Western Front. The first offensive of the war in which tanks were used en masse was the battle of Cambrai in 1917; 476 tanks started the attack, and the German front collapsed. At midday the British had advanced five miles behind the German line.
Conventional artillery shells were very effective against the tank's thinner top armor if fired in appropriate density while the tanks were concentrated, enabling direct hits by a sufficiently powerful shell. Even a non-penetrating shell could still disable a tank through dynamic shock, internal armor shattering or simply overturning the tank.