The first official photograph ever of a tank in action is at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on September 15, 1916. A Mark I tank with a steering tail at the rear of the vehicle. These were lumbering machines and only 25 of the 49 tanks moved forward to attack the Germans. Tanks treads have come a long way since, taking a detour through Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, where the Cavalry Tank Museum stands amidst green manicured lawns. Established by the Armoured Corps Centre and School, Ahmednagar, it turned 30 this year and is the only one of its kind in Asia.
The museum tells battle stories that begin a century ago: the Battle of Cambrai, the Somme, and Flanders. The First World War Battle of Cambrai in 1917 on French soil where the British mounted its offensive against the Germans, it exposed the defects in the 28 tonne Mark IV tank. In a way, Cambrai was a turning point in tank warfare when the British realised that armoured warfare needed to be upgraded to become redoubtable fighting machines in later wars.
The Mark IV was a disaster at the Somme where 2,06,000 British soldiers died; in Flanders the weight and size of the tanks caused them to ditch in the mud. Both Somme and Flanders were turning points in the history of the British Empire: the “flower of England’s youth” perished there, betrayed by the tanks the Army had such faith in. Ironically these defeats led to the development of bigger and better tanks—such as the two Churchill Mk VIIs which were used to devastating effect against the Nazis. These are on show here, as is the Nazi German Schwerer Panzerspähwagen light-armoured car, which was no match for a Churchill or Matilda aka Infantry Mark II which are exhibited at the Cavalry Museum.
The museum is never short of visitors. A retired Army officer stands admiring a Vijayanta tank, the first indigenously produced tank in the Indian Army. Fondly called the first among equals, Vijayanta means ‘victorious’. For decades, the trustworthy tank guarded India’s frontiers and showed its victorious muscle in the 1971 war against Pakistan. Today, it occupies pride of place among the 50 exhibits in the Cavalry Tank Museum.
Not far from it stands a vehicle painted olive green and flying the Union Jack. The fully armoured car has a turret. It is a Rolls Royce T-43, a silver Ghost Rolls-Royce Armoured Car (Indian Pattern), the most effective armoured car of its day with a top speed of 45 kmph. This British product was developed in 1914 and saw action in many wars: the First World War, Irish Civil War, Transjordan, Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Second World War in the Middle East and North Africa.
While the Rolls Royce invariable catches your eye, it is hard not to notice a tank with thick chains in front: the famous Sherman Flail. The heavy chains end in small red-coloured bob weights that fall on the ground. These weights were used to pulverise the ground to detonate mines or remove them by force. The large-sized Sherman Flails were used to clear the path for infantry through minefields in Europe during the Second World War.
You may find visitors gazing intently at a pile of iron balls neatly stacked up as a pyramid. Take a closer look and you realise that they are cannonballs, each weighing more than five kilograms.
One of the most interestingly named exhibits is the Donald Duck, or the Sherman Duplex Drive. Before you start thinking Disney, look twice. This is a 35-tonne amphibious tank hence the duck analogy.
The Museum is not just a history of tanks, but war told through armour. Also on display is a British Archer tank destroyer whose design in based on the Valentine tank: the romantic name could be because its blueprint was first shown to the British War Office on 14 February 1940, or because Valentine is the middle name of tank designer Sir John Carden. The US M3 Stuart on show is another formidable fighting machine produced by the Americans for use in WW II, and were the first to have American crews in tank combat in the Philippines in December 1941 against the Japanese. They were so smooth to operate that the British tank men called them ‘honeys’.
Old tanks may retire, but they never fade away.