British accept De Mole's tank proposal in 1912

[acgoldis]

Here's an interesting tidbit on a Wiki page about World War I tanks.

In 1912, A South Australian, Lancelot De Mole, submitted a proposal to the British War Office for a "chain-rail vehicle which could be easily steered and carry heavy loads over rough ground and trenches". De Mole made several more proposals to the War Office after 1912, in 1914 and 1916, with a culminating proposal in late 1917, accompanied by a huge one-eighth scale model, yet all fell on substantially deaf ears. De Mole's proposal already had the climbing face, so typical of the later World War I British tanks, but it is unknown whether there was some connection. Inquiries from the government of Australia, after the war, yielded polite responses that Mr. De Mole's ideas had unfortunately been too advanced for the time to be properly recognised at their just value. The Commission on Awards to Inventors in 1919, which adjudicated all the competing claims to the development of the tank, recognised the brilliance of De Mole's design, even considering that it was superior to the machines actually developed, but due to its narrow remit, could only make a payment of £987 to De Mole to cover his expenses. As an aside, De Mole noted in 1919 that he was urged by friends before the war to approach the Germans with his design, but declined to do so for patriotic reasons.
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Suppose the British, realizing that war was probably going to be inevitable at some point, accepts De Mole's tank proposal in 1912. Once the proposal is developed, give 2-3 years for the first vehicles to make it to the front. That would put late-WWI tanks on the battlefield as early as the end of 1914...and for only one side.

Could this end the war early (perhaps by Christmas) and prevent the stalemate? What would the ramifications be...and what would the ramifications have been had De Mole heeded his friend advice and sold the plans to the Germans?

 

[Ironstark]

This is a really interesting POD and I expect it could probably turn the war in the favour of the British very quickly. I guess it depends on how many are built and how effective they are in battle I have a feeling the British empire could last a lot longer with a POD like this

 

[acgoldis]

If there was a war to begin with, at least at that point. Would the Germans really want to escalate things if the British have a weapon they can't counter easily? Would they be willing to renege on some of their alliances to save their own skins?

Either the war doesn't start in 1914 (we'll assume the Germans have maybe 3-5 years to try to make antitank weapons or their own tanks, at which point fun things like planes start showing up, which means it gets postponed until the end of the decade) or it starts in 1914 and Britain wins quickly.

 

[Shaby]

I don't think two years are enough (without the pressure of war) to develop effective vehicles and doctrine for their employment.

 

[acgoldis]

I don't think two years are enough (without the pressure of war) to develop effective vehicles and doctrine for their employment.

Quite possibly. However, everyone was expecting war at a moment's notice, and even if it did take more than two years they'd have come into play much earlier than IOTL. For all we know, the war ends in 1915 or 1916 -- provided that it starts in 1914 at all. Many fewer people are killed, not as many demographic changes due to gender imbalances or bankrupted states, quite possibly no Russian Revolution.

 

[ivanotter]

Interesting thought.

Insofar as very few things are really "secrets" for long, especially when it comes to full production, Germany would of course know about it within a year or two.

Either they will try to catch up or focus on anti-tank weapons, which actually were rather simple: A good field gun or a couple of grenades down the hatch.

Now, it could be even more fun if de Mole sells the design to Germany and the German attack starts with 200-300 tanks rolling on. Marne anyone?

I liek the idea of delaying WWI and then see the air force coming into play.

Ivan

 

[acgoldis]

Incidentally, the Central Powers were also offered plans for a tank which they disregarded. From the same article on de Mole:

An Engineer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, Lieutenant Gunther Burstyn, inspired by Holt tractors, designed a tracked armoured vehicle in 1911 carrying a light gun in a rotating turret; equipped also with hinged 'arms', two in front and two at the rear, carrying wheels on the ends to assist with obstacles and trenches, it was a very forward-looking design, if rather small. The Austrian government said it would be interested in evaluating it if Burstyn could secure commercial backing to produce a prototype. Lacking the requisite contacts, he let it drop. An approach to the German government was similarly fruitless.

 

[Sior]

Incidentally, the Central Powers were also offered plans for a tank which they disregarded. From the same article on de Mole:

An Engineer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, Lieutenant Gunther Burstyn, inspired by Holt tractors, designed a tracked armoured vehicle in 1911 carrying a light gun in a rotating turret; equipped also with hinged 'arms', two in front and two at the rear, carrying wheels on the ends to assist with obstacles and trenches, it was a very forward-looking design, if rather small. The Austrian government said it would be interested in evaluating it if Burstyn could secure commercial backing to produce a prototype. Lacking the requisite contacts, he let it drop. An approach to the German government was similarly fruitless.

As the man said!
http://www.landships.freeservers.com/burstyn_tank.htm

 

[Caspian]

This is a really interesting POD and I expect it could probably turn the war in the favour of the British very quickly. I guess it depends on how many are built and how effective they are in battle I have a feeling the British empire could last a lot longer with a POD like this

I don't think tanks would really change the battlefield that much if introduced a couple of years earlier. The tank, on its own, did not break the stalemate of the trenches - improvements in the use of artillery (improved shells in quantity, flash spotting and sound ranging for accurate counter-battery fire, creeping barrages to protect the infantry, and recognition of the value of surprise bombardments rather than saturation bombardments), mobile wireless communication (for use on aircraft, allowing real-time artillery spotting and accurate reporting of success/failure of advances to allow better allocation of reserves), infantry weapons (machine guns, grenades, trench mortars), and air-ground cooperation (reconnaissance, artillery spotting, aerial bombardment and strafing, aerial resupply) were equally or more important than the tank.

The early tanks are still going to be very vulnerable to breakdowns and enemy artillery fire. A third of the tanks will probably break down before they reach the front line, and another third will break down or be destroyed during the advance. The tanks would be extremely slow - if present during the Battles of the Frontiers, many would probably be abandoned during the retreat, and I doubt they'd have been particularly helpful at the Marne or during the Race to the Sea. In 1915, tanks would have been helpful, but they wouldn't have been gamechangers any more than gas was at Ypres - their unreliability and the relative immaturity of artillery, supply, and communications (compared to the defensive firepower of artillery, machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches) will still prove decisive.

 

[BlondieBC]

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Suppose the British, realizing that war was probably going to be inevitable at some point, accepts De Mole's tank proposal in 1912. Once the proposal is developed, give 2-3 years for the first vehicles to make it to the front. That would put late-WWI tanks on the battlefield as early as the end of 1914...and for only one side.

Could this end the war early (perhaps by Christmas) and prevent the stalemate? What would the ramifications be...and what would the ramifications have been had De Mole heeded his friend advice and sold the plans to the Germans?

First, if the UK really accepts a land war is inevitable, they do a whole lot of things of which this would be a minor, trivial part. They might well double of triple the size of the army, put in conscription, adopt French/German style reserve system, worked out some of the ammo issues, practice amphibious assaults, etc. Basically, OTL is butterflied away, likely taking away WW1.

Now as to the second idea the UK pursues tanks earlier. By 1912, the UK was working on torpedo planes. If the war had lasted until 1919, you might see an effective torpedo raid, so it takes 2 years peace and 5 years war to get you an effective weapon. You seem to be greatly overestimating the effect of this change. Yes, the war might be over by Christmas, 1917.

I looked through the German army bills playing with ideas for a TL. The Germans are adding trucking companies about this time, and got limited funding I played with the idea of a TL where the Germans had an armored corp starting in WW1 with a POD like yours but earlier. I came to the conclusion that a division would be pushing it, and a regiment is a more likely size. With your POD, you are at best giving the UK something like the German U-boat. A well designed weapon that can have huge impacts, once it is produced in numbers and the doctrine is worked out. In many ways,neither U-boats or tanks really saw good doctrine by the end of the war.

So what do you get if you take the POD. Well first, if writing a TL, put it under the RN marines. You get more innovative thinkers and bigger budgets. A 1000 pounds maybe a huge amount for the army, but would have been a trivial expenditure for the navy. And the RNAS had armored car units in WW1. So lets take what happens in a basic sample TL.

April 1912 - After a meeting with Churchill, the project is funded with strong support from the First Lord. If you have someone lesser approve, it will go even slower.

Summer 1912, four models are rushed to completion and tested. The have many issues but show promise. At the end, they are made to work ok and do a nice demo to some important people. A company worth are order for 1913 and a battalion by 1914. This is really pushing how fast things are order, but we got powerful backers. There are a lot of modifications asked for, some wise, some not.

Spring/Summer 1913 - First models begin to arrive. Many teething problems, but we have 13 tanks by year end. Each is almost custom built. More changes order.

Spring/Summer 1914. With the teething problems, the battalion by 1914 has been pushed back. We get the second company of tanks, all the same this time. Fewer but still teething issues. We have the third company of tanks that should arrive in November, so we can say we have a battalion, but we only have 2.5 companies worth. The 1913 tanks are seen as deeply flawed.

August 1914: War starts. Production will rush, so we will get our full battalion built by year end. We then have to decide what happens. We probably don't have a full doctrine. We have a vague mission. The best plan will be to rapidly build up the forces and use in late 1915. This is also the least likely. There is a good chance they are sent to Flanders where they are just overwhelmed by German numbers and largely lost. The Germans also start working on countermeasure sooner if the tanks were effective. Or the RN might send somewhere odd. They could easily end up in Basra, East Africa or the like.

1915: If the right lessons are learned (iffy) and the tanks still have stronger backers, we might have a noticeable size force attack in 1915. Off chance they are decisive. More likely we see battalion and maybe regimental size units squandered as lesson are learned on both sides.

1916: We can probably have bigger attacks like the 1917 from OTL. I think you have speed up the process one year.

1917: Maybe you can have a big breakthrough, some real gains by UK.

While not perfect, I generally use the rule of thumb that 2-3 years of peacetime funding = 1 one of crash wartime funding when moving technologies around. Not perfect, but gives the right feel for stories. For my TL, i used 8 or so extra prewar years of U-boat training and production to move many items up by no more than 2 years in time. If I was doing the German/UK/A-H tank stories, I probably would do about the same. From a story telling perspective, the extra Battalion of tanks has no real impact on the war for the first two years unless they have some fortune and luck.

 

[PMN1]

As the man said!
http://www.landships.freeservers.com/burstyn_tank.htm

Interestingly the Burstyn tank had its gun on top of the hull, though not in a revolving turret.

 

[MattII]

The problem with any tank in WW1 is still going to be engine power, OTL it wasn't until 1917 that good enough engines were available to allow the tank to move at much above a walking pace. Also, introducing the tank early will just give the game away earlier as well, so expect more field guns and gun howitzers.

 

[Caspian]

The problem with any tank in WW1 is still going to be engine power, OTL it wasn't until 1917 that good enough engines were available to allow the tank to move at much above a walking pace. Also, introducing the tank early will just give the game away earlier as well, so expect more field guns and gun howitzers.

That slow tank speed, combined with a lack of effective counter-battery fire, might actually see the tank's development pushed back, with the perception that tanks are "slow-moving targets" and little more arising from seeing tanks break down or knocked out by enemy artillery. Eventually, someone will realize what's really going on (the supremacy of artillery and the necessity of knocking out enemy artillery), but this might take some time, similar to how the belief in massive preparatory bombardments arose before being destroyed at Cambrai.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

What wwi tanks are really good at is crossing broken ground, possibly trenches. Wwi tanks were slow and unreliable. Since no one one either side envisioned such a war, why would the spend buckets of money developing a weapon that would be of very little use in the war they thought they were going to fight.

 

[BlondieBC]

What wwi tanks are really good at is crossing broken ground, possibly trenches. Wwi tanks were slow and unreliable. Since no one one either side envisioned such a war, why would the spend buckets of money developing a weapon that would be of very little use in the war they thought they were going to fight.

That is easy. Replacement/faster Cavalry would be the concept. And to be honest, trucks made more military sense prewar than adding glorified armored cars. Truck regiments to help move divisions forward faster was considered by at least the Germans. The reason for adoption would vary by country.

1) UK - almost certainly RN which like to experiment but then poorly fund new toys. It is likely seen as a vehicle to be used in colonial wars to go where armor trains could not. There is a lot of desert in the British Empire and open plains, so they could go where horse had trouble. The UK lost 360K horse in the Boer war to disease, so having these new cavalry units would be ideal to send into disease ridden areas where horse just die. If there were a full regiment of tanks prewar, you likely see them spread around the empire in various colonial posts. British East Africa always had revolts, and would be the type of location you could see a company or battalion of tanks deployed. The doctrine will be wrong for trench warfare, and these early tanks likely don't work crossing trenches.

2) Germany would was so driven by the war plan, they are likely only adopted prewar if needed in a specific role. It would probably have to be some part of the attack on France that needed to be done faster. Small units designed to rush ahead to capture key bridges or the like. I don't think this is the mostly likely outcome, since more trucking battalion were considered and they also provide a faster way to move troops forward. I can see some armored cars/tanks as escorts for these type of movements. And if someone else has them, Germany may have a few to experiment.

3) A-H looked at tanks/armored cars to be used in Galicia. Not sure on the intended role, but I suspect it is a cavalry type role. Again like the UK, poorly suited for Trench warfare.

4) Italy/France/USA - I don't see role or funding.

5) Russia - With a nation with submarines that crawled on bottom on sea and round warships, the might adopt tanks. They could end up with very odd designs.

Now I don't think it would be "buckets of money" required to get a battalion or two operational. Early on, there would be little benefits to these type of units unless used by a extremely talented and innovated commander. In retrospect, it is easy to see how they could be used, but there are just so many doctrinal and technical innovations to go from glorified armored cars to a panzer corp with CAS and combined arms doctrine. Now what the change does for whatever power who has the armored battalions is begin the process of working through the mistakes by both the commanders and designers. So instead of having some random commander given tanks in 1916 and told to figure out how to use them, you have a small cadre of commanders who have spent 5 or more years working on the problems. IMO, this will have a large, but hard to quantify impact on speeding up the effective use of tanks.

I played around with the concept for a TL because there are just so many places in WW1 where either a quick 60 mile dash would have a huge impact or the ability to break trench lines, but the equipment was not ready. In each location where I looked at using tanks in 1914 or 1915, you could do the job better with horse cavalry or infantry assisted by trucks. One example was trying to rush ahead and capture key transportation links before they could be damaged in Belgium. It works better to use cavalry to try to capture the bridge and then bring up infantry units in trucks to hold. Trucks back then could make 60 miles on roads, so could cavalry units. Tanks would just break down. I looked at cutting he railroads into Galicia and/or Poland and then pulling back. Again, Cavalry did it better even if I give the Germans the 1916 UK/French tank models in 1914 and assume that no one takes any steps to counter.

 

[Cook]

The problem I think with obtaining financing of tank development prior to the war is the expectation of what type of war it would be. The belief was that it would be fast moving and decisive. When the expectation is that cavalry would play a key role in a war of manouvre, what is the role for a slow moving armoured vehicle?

 

[Dan]

I think had De Mole's design been accepted, it's more likely to have been used as part of an armoured land train for places with wide open space and no real need to hurry. It might have been considered as a gun tractor or maybe even a self propelled gun, but unlikely until trench warfare took hold and the prior doctrine of manouver with Cavalry had been abandoned.


Unfortunately I'm now stuck with a thought of a giant steam powered armoured land train, half train, half battleship in my head.

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

Interestingly the Burstyn tank had its gun on top of the hull, though not in a revolving turret.

IIRC the Turret was moveable...

 

[BlondieBC]

The problem I think with obtaining financing of tank development prior to the war is the expectation of what type of war it would be. The belief was that it would be fast moving and decisive. When the expectation is that cavalry would play a key role in a war of manouvre, what is the role for a slow moving armoured vehicle?

Places that horse do poorly, which is tropical colonies. It is a colonial weapon. Something to add a little more firepower to your colonial wars that moves faster than an infantry man. So think of the vehicle you call up when the Zulus have gotten their hands on a few machine guns and have setup a machine gun nests. Or think in terms of a desert area with some roads. You are being attacked by cavalry coming out of the mountains, so you send out a platoon of these vehicle to race up to some mountain pass to cut off retreat. Basically, something you use in NW India border regions to try to intimidate the locals.

I don't think before WW1 you can really get a "tank", it will be more of armored car units that have greater speed and reliability. Now whichever nation goes with the armored cars or very light tank designs will have started up the learning curve, and it will help out.

 

[Dan]

Places that horse do poorly, which is tropical colonies. It is a colonial weapon. Something to add a little more firepower to your colonial wars that moves faster than an infantry man.

Therein lies the problem, the early tanks are not faster than an infantryman. A lorry with an armoured cab and rear body mounting a machinegun, like you say, an early armoured car would be the logical first step. If you could have those in any number before say 1910 then that could have been interesting.