WW1 starts with Tanks

[Nell_Lucifer]

If the proposed idea for British is based on the Simm's Motor War Car then hopefully some one sits on the idea until it goes away.

I was thinking more that the whole thing is butterflied away, from my understanding Simms teamed up with a fraud to create the whole thing, so, I was thinking that he teams up with David Roberts and combine their ideas into a tank or so.

 

[raharris1973]

Maybe there would be pre-war development of armored cars and armored vehicles, several with caterpillar tracks instead of wheels and rubber tires for off-roading.

And these could be designed for more speed and maneuver around potential entrenchments to try to secure and sustain victories in the mobile phase, so their designs might be faster and lighter and less plodding than those developed and deployed in WWI. They end up a bit underprepared for and underprotected from the volume of dense artillery fire, entrenchments, barbed wire, so revisions to design need to add more armor, heavier weaponry, more weight, trench and obstacle crushing ability, which slows down their speeds as exploitation vehicles.

 

[DougM]

Your best bet is to get a few minor wars or other military engagements where an Armored car is useful. Say GB. In Africa, the US in Mexico or along the boarder or what have you.
And as experience with armored cars builds up they evolve into a tank.
But WW1 was really to soon after the invention of the car/truck to have time to evolve from an armored car into a tracked tank.

You simply don’t have the time for that
The “first auutomoble “ was built in 1886.
The Ford Model T often considered the first practical car In that the cost/numbers made, dependability and everything else combined to make it work well and be built in large numbers and at a reasonable cost was only built in 1908. That is 6 years before WW1.
That is 22 years between invention and a trully practical and avoidable and easy to build car,
Assuming that a dependable car could be was possible in half that then we are looking at 1897 or so which seams wildly optimistic.
And considering we need off road and heavy duty enough to hold troops or weapons and reasonable range it is doubtful you can get it any sooner then we did which was 1899. And that was hardly dependable.

So you are going to have to start a steady improvement with armored cars in about 1900. Giving you less then 14 years to get the mechical systems worked out hopefully faster then in the real time line. And to use it enough to decide it needs armor and tracks,
And frankly I just don’t think that is enough time.
Look at how other technologies took time? Steam engine powered ships.armored ships, submarines and torpedoes etc.
And the Navies had a amount of money and people.

No I think the technology was just not ready and that added to no reason to build a tank means… no tank.

This is a bit of the old saying. You can’t railroad until it is time to railroad.

 

[RandomChance]

Although there are numerous technical challenges (as discussed previously), I’d imagine a bigger question would be the mindset of the different leadership and willingness to adopt this new, largely untested technology and learn ways to use it. For example, in OTL, there were demarcation issues between artillery and cavalry in the British Army right up to and into the early Second World War. This is even earlier, with a much more entrenched, traditionalist mindset with some still holding the brave cavalry charge and Napoleonic “forming square” in their hearts.