Anti-tank wire

“ No sooner had he discovered how effective was his “K” bullet against the Mark I. Tank, than we confronted him with the Mark IV., against which it was powerless.
The Germans always had rather hazy ideas as to the capabilities and habits of our current Tank. They had had ample opportunity of examining two Tanks which lay derelict in their lines on the Somme, yet until the Battle of Arras they believed that Tanks were largely dependent on the use of roads, and that therefore pits and other obstacles in roads must form a useful anti-Tank defence. ”

“ Half the casualties we suffer in heavy fighting after the157 initial attack come from the carrying parties winding slowly in and out through barrage fire, bringing up ammunition to the infantry, the Lewis and Vickers guns—all this could be done much more rapidly, surely, with a minimum of loss, by tanks—for the future the tank should relieve the artillery of all responsibility as regards wire-cutting. ”

“ As they moved a thousand concealed guns hailed down their fire upon the German line. Even through the din of the barrage and the clamour of their own engines the Tank crews could hear, as they advanced, the tearing and snapping of the German wire as they trampled it under them. The bewildered enemy was overwhelmed. He had only one last hope. Perhaps the wide trenches themselves would hold back this inexorable company!
But when each of the second line of Tanks stopped, ducked its head, laid its “stepping stone” in the trench and crawled easily over it, the enemy completely lost his balance. ”

“ It was obviously too conspicuous and too slow a weapon to be really effective against Tanks, though the steel core could penetrate the armour of British Tanks at several hundred yards range.
“The chief disadvantage of the anti-Tank rifle, however, was that the German soldier would not use it.331 He was untrained in its use, afraid of its kick, and still more afraid of the Tanks themselves. It is doubtful if one per cent. ”

“ The answer is that the Tank of to-day may be subject to casualties, but all the skill and resources of the German nation have failed to produce an effective answer to Tanks, that river after river has been crossed, that line after line of ‘impregnable’ defences have fallen, that deeply écheloned artillery particularly arranged to fight Tanks has failed before Tank and aeroplane attack. We come to a war of sea, air, and land fleets acting in co-operation. Anti-Tank artillery is vulnerable to armoured planes. ”

“ Other little white sparks turned about. Every white spark upon the maneuver-board suddenly took to itself a new direction.
"Disconnect cables," said the general, crisply. "We move with our tanks, in the lead!"
The monotonous humming of the electric generator was drowned out in a thunderous uproar that was muffled as an air-tight door was shut abruptly. Fifteen seconds later there was a violent lurch, and the colossal tank was on the move in the midst of a crawling, thundering horde of metal monsters whose lumbering progress shook the earth. ”

“ When all is ready the man at the switchboard manipulates a switch, and the current passes to the detonator and forces its way through the resistance of the thin connecting wire. This wire becomes sufficiently hot to ignite the gun-cotton, and so explode the fulminate of mercury. The explosion is so violent that the dynamite charge is detonated, and the required blasting carried out. Gunpowder and similar explosives do not need to be detonated, and so a simple fuse is used. ”

“ No invader can possibly reach the enemy's trench to contest it with him until these impedimenta are removed. Thousands of short-cut plans and inventions have been offered for cleaning away the barbed wire before an attack, but not one has succeeded because it requires that whoever is to carry out the suggestion or remove the obstruction, must be submitted to murderous grilling machine-gun and rifle fire. Shrapnel shells with their sprays of bullets bursting at a height of a foot above ground remain the approved method of cutting barbed wire. ”

“ One method of protecting these tanks is to erect around them, at a distance of some ten feet, wooden supports, on which are placed upright metallic conductors which overlook the tank, and are connected with each other near their tops by stout iron wires, thus forming a network of conductor which is supposed to intercept any discharge of electricity from a tempest-cloud, and prevent it from reaching the oil tank. ”

“ The use made by the Germans of machine-guns and wire entanglements—a combination which has such power to check the advance of infantry—has in reply brought about the evolution of the ‘caterpillar bullet-proof climbing motor, or tank,’ a machine designed for the express purpose of assisting attacking infantry by crossing the defences, breaking through the obstacles, and of disposing of the machine-guns. ”

“ It was remarked that the same gang of workmen were in the tank as at the time of the first fault. Mr. Canning sent for the men, and showing them the cable pierced through with the wire, asked them how it occurred. Every man replied that it must have been done by design, even though they accused themselves, as this implied that there was a traitor among them. It seemed hard to believe that any one could be guilty of such devilish malignity. Yet such a thing had been done before in a cable laid in the North Sea, where the insulation was destroyed by a nail driven into it. ”

“ The roar on a war-ship in battle is like that on a mountain-top encased in a violent thunder-storm. Then, too, ammunition is too costly and too limited nowadays to be wasted by experiments in finding the range of the enemy, and in taking chances on hitting him. One shot from one of these guns of modern times may win the battle by piercing the vitals of the enemy's ship, and not even the smallest chance must be taken to miss that target. It is for that reason that the wonderful aid of electricity has been called into use on war-ships in many devices. ”

“ It has been found that even if a shell burst while inside one of these guns no harm is done to the men in the turret where it stands, a thing which cannot be said for guns composed entirely of tubes, so that the merit rests with the wire. A third advantage is that the wire can be wound on to the tube beneath it at precisely that tension which is calculated to give the best result, whereas in shrinking one tube on to another this cannot always be attained. ”

“ But there was one form of weapon which was, we felt sure, bound to be evolved by the Germans. It was one which we were not at all anxious to encounter. We imagined a weapon which should practically be the machine-gun version of the anti-Tank rifle; that is to say, a weapon which could pour out a stream of high-velocity, large-calibre bullets at the rate of two hundred a minute. Actually it was almost precisely such332 an engine that the Germans had got in their “Tuf” machine-gun, of which an interesting account is given in Weekly Tank Notes. ”

“ An effective method was that of placing trip wires near the ground, and then a little beyond them bayonets with the sharp points uppermost, or pointed sticks, so that when the man tripped over the wire he would fall and impale himself on the spikes. Sometimes bombs were attached to the wires in places where it was thought likely that the enemy would attempt to cut them or come through them. ”

“ The principle that a body of troops even when surrounded must defend their ground, unless otherwise ordered, to the last man and the last cartridge, seems to have fallen into oblivion ... a large proportion of our ranks320 fight unskilfully against Tanks. A Tank is an easy prey for artillery of all calibres....”
An account follows of measures for the proper disposition of artillery against Tanks, and the rest of the Order is occupied with directions to the infantry concerning the question at what range the anti-Tank rifle and gun are most effective. ”

“ The successes which the Allies have gained since the First Battle of Cambrai do not rest on any superior strategy on the part of Foch or on superiority in numbers, although the latter has undoubtedly contributed to it. The real reason has been the massed use of Tanks. Whereas the artillery can only cut wire and blot out trenches with an enormous expenditure of ammunition, the Tank takes all these obstacles with the greatest of ease, and will make broad paths in which the advancing infantry can follow. ”

“ It was said that during the early attacks in August, one whole line of infantry which was rushing to the assault had fallen dead side by side, and that no wounds had been found on them. At last it was discovered the Russian chief electrician had ordered a “live” wire to be placed among the ordinary wire entanglements, furnished with a current strong enough to kill anyone who touched it.
Of course, it was liable to be destroyed by shell or cannon fire, but in many cases it proved fatal, and always made the attackers nervous. ”

“ In a wire-wound gun an inner tube of steel is thoroughly wrapped by successive layers of ribbon wire, each layer being wound with wire at a different tension. This type of gun is preferred by foreign manufacturers, but within the United States the built-up system is in higher favor and is almost exclusively employed. The makers of the wire-wound cannon claim for it a positive soundness of material impossible to secure in a built-up gun, and that it has greater firmness of material and superior tangential strength. ”

“ The first tests were carried out in February 1915,35 when Captain Tulloch’s adaptation of the Holt Tractor was given a trial. It did not prove a complete failure, and much was learned from the experiment. For example, the machine was unexpectedly effective in rolling in the wire which it had been originally intended that its automatic “lobster-claw” wire-cutters should alone deal with. ”

“ They are the most dangerous foe to hostile machine-guns. They can approach machine-gun nests and destroy them at close range. The great danger of the Tank is obvious when one considers that the defence of the front battle zone chiefly relies on the defensive value of the machine-guns, and that the armour of the Tank renders it invulnerable to rifle fire, and that only seldom and in exceptional cases is machine-gun fire effective. The infantry is therefore opposed to an enemy to whom it can do little or no harm. ”

“ More than once in the course of the chequered career of the Tanks it was this consideration which saved the Corps from extinction.
But it is not, of course, enough that the Tank offers protection to those who fight in it. A trench or a hole in the ground will do the same. But the Tank is essentially a mobile weapon of offence. It is the weapon for the nation which does not fight willingly, but when it fights, fights to win, and to win quickly with as little bloodshed as possible. ”

“ It must be understood, however, that although the testing of the cable went on continuously during the whole voyage, the sending of messages was not frequent, as that interfered with the general work. Accordingly, communication with the shore was limited to a daily statement from the ship of her position at noon, and to the acknowledgment of the same by the electrician at Bombay.
One of the greatest dangers in paying-out consists in changing from tank to tank when one is emptied, and a full one has to be commenced. This was always an occasion of great interest and anxiety. ”

“ McKnutt and James, with that instinctive sense of direction which comes to men who control these machines, felt that they were hovering on the edge of the German trench. Then a sudden flash from the explosion of a huge shell lit up the ground around them, and they saw four or five gray-clad figures, about ten yards away, standing on the parapet hysterically hurling bombs at the machine. They might as well have been throwing pebbles. Scornfully the tank slid over into the wide trench and landed with a crash in the bottom. ”

“ In the Canadian sector, the armoured cars were working in close conjunction with Tank Corps aeroplanes. At one moment a number of cars were going along a road, when four machines were hit by shells from hidden batteries. Their accompanying aeroplanes, however, immediately attacked the German guns so vigorously that the crews of the disabled cars, though completely surrounded by the enemy, were able to escape capture. ”

“ He requires to post a signalman and linesman at frequent intervals, called Relay Stations, in order to preserve communication, as the wire is being continually broken by hostile gun-fire. Progress, in a case like this, is necessarily slow, and he has to pick his way among the shell-holes, seeking as much protection, for the line, as circumstances will permit. The signallers follow in his footsteps, staggering along under the weight of a large reel of wire. ”

“ Put a coin beneath a bulb in a public building during the daytime, so that fuses will blow out when lights are turned on at night. The fuses themselves may be rendered ineffective by putting a coin behind them or loading them with heavy wire. Then a short-circuit may either start a fire, damage transformers, or blow out a central fuse which will interrupt distribution of electricity to a large area. ”