WI: Tanks are invented before World War I

The advent of the tank late in World War I proved to be the decisive factor which broke the stalemate, which had begun in 1914, that had led to the existence of trench warfare. The war would once again be of motion and not of slow and static attrition.

So, what if tanks were invented before World War I? Would the stalemate even happen and trench warfare even exist in this timeline?
 
I feel tanks were a response to a set of circumstances that no-one really predicted until the war started to play out. I could be wrong though. The only way maybe is if some other smaller nation/nations gets locked in a trench warfare situation necessitating the development of tanks?
 

SsgtC

Banned
It wasn't just the invention of the tank. It was the development of tactics to go with it. Without the proper tactics, the tanks that were sent to the front were sent piecemeal and duly destroyed. It wasn't till armor doctrine was developed and the realization that tanks could take the place of cavalry that they became effective.

So with an earlier introduction, we're likely to see the development of armor doctrine earlier. While I don't think it will out and out prevent trench warfare (too many generals were stuck in a Civil War mindset with massed ranks of men firing across an open field), it will significantly lessen the extent that we see it
 
In the years before World War I, all sorts of people were improvising armored cars by adding armor and weapons (whether machine guns or light naval canon) to pre-existing trucks and touring cars. Thus, the easiest way to make tanks widely available at the start of the War of 1914 is to populate Europe with lots of tracked vehicles, so many, in fact, that the military folks (and armaments makers) who are making armored cars cannot escape the idea of making "armored tractors."

In our time line, the small number of tracked vehicles in existence were used either for particularly demanding construction work or the working of particularly hard soils for agricultural purposes. Thus, we need such things as increased agricultural exploitation of places like Tunisia and the Central Valley of California, high-value engineering work in places where labor is expensive, or an increase in demand for wood products that led to increased timber cutting in remote areas of the world.

Another possibility is the making of tanks by adding armor to "big wheel" tractors. These were less specialized than tracked vehicles and thus potentially more useful for a variety of agricultural and engineering purposes. One can imagine that demand for these would increase if there was an epidemic that greatly reduced the supply of horses around the world or an epidemic of a disease to which larger horses were particularly prone.

Round Wheel Tractors.jpeg
 
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trajen777

Banned
Actually ah had pretty good concept in 1911.. They passed as did germany ..http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/austria-hungary/Austro-Hungarian_armour.php

Burstyn-Tank.png



An engineer born in Austro-Hungary, Günther Burstyn, designed a very strange machine in 1911. It was tailored to cross trenches of all sizes. This was the Burstyn Motorgeschütz. It was relatively small, with a fully revolving turret armed with a light 47 mm (1.85 in) Skoda gun, and a crew of two. The great advantage of this design was the tracked chassis and articulated arms linked to the rear and front axles. These arms were raised when crossing bad terrain to avoid being stuck in obstacles, and lowered on the ground to allow trench crossing. The choice of this kind of solution offered the possibility to use a smaller vehicle, giving a greater power-to-weight ratio, which was vital for mobility in general.
 

trurle

Banned
The all components of tanks (tracks, breech-loaded cannons, revolving turrets, electric motors and batteries) were available by 1865. The largest problem was the unreliable internal combustion engines. Electric-engined tanks would not be suitable as cavalry replacement due poor range, but still can find the applications as "breakthrough tanks", acting more like ancient war elephants rather than cavalry.
 

Driftless

Donor
Get Adolphe Kegresse to put a bug in the Tsar's ear about using an uparmored half-track for military purposes. Kegresse built half-track limosines for the Tsar as early as 1905. Use his arrival as a POD for heavier and more capable full-tracked vehicles. There was some developmental history for tracked vehicles in Russia in the 1890's. The Russian inventor Fyodor Blinov created a prototype of a steam-powered full tracked vehicle in the late 1800's, but couldn't develop a market for them.
 
Another possibility is the making of tanks by adding armor to "big wheel" tractors. These were less specialized than tracked vehicles and thus potentially more useful for a variety of agricultural and engineering purposes
Fowler-B.5.jpg

Boer War, armored Fowler traction engine for moving troops around, to avoid snipers

Have more countries follow that lead
 
The Americans IIRC designed a steam powered tank in 1917/18 as suitable powerful IC engines with Torque were in short supply. Have an engineers have a 'Jules Verne' moment in the Early 1900's and you might have had "land-ships" in 1914!
 

Perkeo

Banned
If one side has actually useable tanks at the beginning of WWI and the other doesn't, it's gonna be a short war: Give them half a year to figure out how to use them properly and another half year to shoot the enemy to pieces.
If both sides have them, something like the Schlieffen plan might work, and either war the western front looks a lot different. In the short term, the CPs have an advantage, since their strategy relied on mobile warfare, but in the long term lack of ressources will favor the Entente.
 

trajen777

Banned
If one side has actually useable tanks at the beginning of WWI and the other doesn't, it's gonna be a short war: Give them half a year to figure out how to use them properly and another half year to shoot the enemy to pieces.
If both sides have them, something like the Schlieffen plan might work, and either war the western front looks a lot different. In the short term, the CPs have an advantage, since their strategy relied on mobile warfare, but in the long term lack of ressources will favor the Entente.


It depends on the tanks -- the Brit tanks were more like battleships -- and were slow and under powered, their impact on the war was way overstated. Now if you have the AH tank in 1914 (invented in 1911) and used as a Cav type of tank (not underpowered) then you would have a better ability to keep the mobility of the attack going. Of if it had moved toward the German 1918 tank again you would have a war changing situation. It would have been greater impact for the German offensive vs the Allies to end the war.

The French Whippet would also have had good impact for the French (but im not sure any French work pre WW1 was done on tanks)

sturmpanzerwagen-oberschlesien-assault-tank.jpg
 

NoMommsen

Donor
To sum up, what's been said so far :
the "tank" - though not called that - was already invented before 1914. ... just not "used" and its possibilities and chances not seen by the leading militaries and other decision-makers ... or just not believed in and therefore ignored ("cavalry was good enough for our fathers, so what do we need something new ?").

Its "impact" on a still possible war :
depends VERY much in what manner the concept is used. As independant "tank" as we know it (the "Burstyn Motorcanon") ? ... or as supportive movers for men and artillery, as "tractors" only ? As simple "infantry-support" or as independant, mobile units for a mobile warfare ?
also even more important : who actually uses the concept and uses it first with what "tactical doctrine" ?
The germans ? ... with their emphasis on mobility and "Auftragstaktik" ?
The French ? with their more infantry supportive mind (see use of artillery), binding such mobile units to the marching infantry ?

However, IMHO the "trench warfare" stalemate as we know it would have definitly not happened. Even a tractor still drives faster than you can dig a necessarily deeper trench system.
 

Deleted member 94680

The longer the *tank exists before *WWI, the longer nations have to invent, develop and perfect anti-*tank weapons and defences.

Tanks had the impact they did (militarily and psychologically) because they were "new". Move their invention back a few years and they become just another weapon of war and are treated as such. Fresh "war conscripts" will be shaken and to a degree terrified, but regular troops of the major nations will know what to do and how to react.
 
Actually ah had pretty good concept in 1911.. They passed as did germany ..http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/austria-hungary/Austro-Hungarian_armour.php

Burstyn-Tank.png



An engineer born in Austro-Hungary, Günther Burstyn, designed a very strange machine in 1911. It was tailored to cross trenches of all sizes. This was the Burstyn Motorgeschütz. It was relatively small, with a fully revolving turret armed with a light 47 mm (1.85 in) Skoda gun, and a crew of two. The great advantage of this design was the tracked chassis and articulated arms linked to the rear and front axles. These arms were raised when crossing bad terrain to avoid being stuck in obstacles, and lowered on the ground to allow trench crossing. The choice of this kind of solution offered the possibility to use a smaller vehicle, giving a greater power-to-weight ratio, which was vital for mobility in general.
There was a design by an Australian Lancelot De Mole, that was interestingly enough also designed in 1911 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_de_Mole
A TL where both tanks are put into production by the Allies and the Central powers could be interesting.

A model of De Mole's design.

Lancelot_Eldin_De_Mole_model_tank_AWM_photo_J00300.jpg
 
The DeMole design looks good but a turning circle of one Chain = 66feet. A tank that can be defeated by a bend in the road isn't very impressive even the British Rhomboids could do better.
 
The DeMole design looks good but a turning circle of one Chain = 66feet. A tank that can be defeated by a bend in the road isn't very impressive even the British Rhomboids could do better.

That is almsot certainly a function of it's length. At 37 feet it is longer than a tiger II including the gun. Given this was apprently designed prior to WWI im not sure why it is so long if not to cross very wide trenches.
 
The DeMole design looks good but a turning circle of one Chain = 66feet. A tank that can be defeated by a bend in the road isn't very impressive even the British Rhomboids could do better.
That is almsot certainly a function of it's length. At 37 feet it is longer than a tiger II including the gun. Given this was apprently designed prior to WWI im not sure why it is so long if not to cross very wide trenches.
Being a pre-war design and an untried type of new weapon, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been that good of a design, De Mole didn't include any type of weaponry in his design because he felt he didn't know enough about weaponry to do a good job, so he left it to the experts to figure out. So the man knew his limitations and it was a "first" and needed to have the bugs worked.

Had the design been accepted in 1911 and further developed, I think it could've led to a Rhomboid type design. How quickly and how early the British could've developed and improved the De Mole tank and put it into production is I think an interesting question and I wonder how much the
Burstyn Motorgeschütz could have been further developed in the same time frame.
 
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