During a large-scale offensive operation by the Anglo-French forces against German formations on the French front of World War I, in the battle near the village of Flers (Fr. Flers) close to the Somme River (Fr. Somme) on September 15, 1916, the world’s first tank attack was carried out, involving 49 Mk.1 combat vehicles.
However, due to the low technical reliability of these tanks, only 18 vehicles took part in the attack; the rest broke down because of malfunctions or got stuck in the marsh. Nevertheless, the tanks that participated in the battle managed to advance 5 km into the defenses in 5 hours. Moreover, British losses in this offensive operation turned out to be 20 times lower than usual. The first experimental tank prototype had been built in Britain a year earlier (in 1915) and was called “Little Willie.” And the first combat model of the tank was finally ready in 1916, when it passed trials, and the British Army’s first order for 100 vehicles went into production.
This was the Mk.1 tank, produced in two variants—“Female” (armed only with machine guns) and “Male” (with machine guns and two 57-mm guns). The tank moved at a speed of 6 km/h and could cross barbed-wire obstacles and trenches. Armor 6–10 mm thick stopped bullets and fragments, but could not withstand a direct shell hit. The nearly 30-ton, about 10-meter-long tank had no engine compartment. The eight-man crew and the engine were located in the same hull, where the temperature rose to 50°C. People lost consciousness from exhaust gases and cordite smoke. A gas mask, or respirator, was part of the crew’s standard equipment. And although in the battle on the Somme River, due to the small number of tanks, the front could not be decisively broken through, the combat vehicle demonstrated its capabilities, and the psychological impact on German infantry was enormous. It also became clear that tanks, as a type of military technology, had a great future.