The first completed tank prototype Little Willie rolled out of production on this day. Weighing only 16.5 tonnes and measuring 26 feet and six inches, it was different from the tanks we see today. However it paved way for the making of other tanks that have put an end to trench warfare and revolutionised war like never before.
During World War I, the British were in need of an armoured vehicle that could protect them from machine guns on the battleground. Colonel Ernest Swinton and Colonel Maurice Hankey were the officers who first proposed a vehicle with wheels that had conveyor-belt-like tracks to traverse difficult terrain and that could break through enemy lines. When they put forth their view, the British navy minister Winston Churchill immediately accepted the idea and organised a Landships Committee to begin work on the model.
It is interesting to note how this war vehicle came to be called a tank. In order to guard the secret from the enemies, production workers were told that they were making vehicles to carry water on the battlefield. Either because of this or due to the fact that the vehicle closely resembled a water tank, the label on the crates that carried the newly-produced vehicles during shipment bore the name ‘tank’.
The first model produced was named Little Willie after a phrase commonly used at that time by the British press to mock the German Crown Prince Wilhelm. Little Willie weighed only 16 tonnes approximately, got stuck in trenches and crawled over rough terrain at a pace of two miles per hour. The model grossly underperformed and was far from being a success. But improvements were made to this model and a second prototype named Big Willie was produced.
The first batch of these vehicles known as Mark I was ready for battle by 1916. These vehicles were noisy, hot and had several mechanical malfunctions on the battlefield. However people realised the potential of the tanks and further improvements were made.
In 1917, 400 tanks belonging to Mark IV helped capture 8,000 enemy troops and 100 guns in the Battle of Cambrai.
Little Willie was never scrapped and is the oldest surviving tank preserved in the British Bovington Tank Museum. Though it never saw combat, Little Willie has the distinction of being the first prototype to be finished that laid a major milestone in the history of military technology. Tanks have since transformed battlefields around the world and have redefined war.