Designed to break the stalemate of trench warfare, tanks made their first faltering appearance at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, 15 September 1916.
How did the guns operate? How was the fuel stored? What were conditions like inside? Find out with this animated version of a Mark 1 Tank.
View a non-Flash version.
The British Mark I Tank 1916 by David Fletcher and Tony Bryan (Osprey Publishing, 2004), British Tanks 1915-1919 by David Fletcher, (Crowood Press, 2001), Tanks and Trenches by David Fletcher (Alan Sutton, 1994), The Devil's Chariots by John Glanfield, (Sutton Publishing, 2001), A Peripheral Weapon by David Childs, (Greenwood Press, 1999)
Text by: David Fletcher
Tank illustration by: Tony Bryan (interior reproduced with kind permission by Osprey Publishing)
Crew illustration by: Peter Dennis
Based on an original idea by the bbc.co.uk/history team
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