1918 The Schneider Assault Tank

April 1918. Les Annales de la Guerre. The first French tank - the Schneider CA1. To the modern eye, the tank is hardly recognizable as such. It has no turret, and its not very prominent main armament, a fortification petard mortar, the 75 mm Blockhaus Schneider, was placed in a sponson in the right front corner. Two 8 mm Hotchkiss machine guns, projecting from the flanks in ballmounts, complement the small gun. Another awkward feature is the overhang of the frontal part of the chassis which had been designed to crush down barbed wire. However this feature caused the tank to ditch itself readily. The fighting compartment is extremely cramped: the crew of six was mostly flat on their bellies in a 90 cm space between the roof and the 60 hp (45 kW) engine. Luckily, top speed was only 8 km/h. All this was protected by 11 mm steel plate, later improved by a spaced armour of 5.5 mm, raising the weight to 13.5 tons. Their first use was during the ill-fated Nivelle Offensive and was a complete disaster as many of the roughly 130 tanks were cut to pieces by German artillery. Twenty units with Schneider tanks were formed, named Artillerie Spéciale 1-20, under the overall command of the now brigadier Estienne. In 1918 these "old" tanks were gradually phased out in favour of the new Renault FT-17, but production only ended in August 1918, when exactly 400 had been built including the prototype. At least one Schneider was delivered to Italy, which after testing abandoned the plan to build 1500 of them.

Incidental music added: Henry Mancini - Baby Elephant Walk

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Char
• d'Assault
• Schneider
• CA1
• CA
• French
• Tank
• Western
• Front
• France
• 1918
• World
• War
• Armour

[Oberst1488]

what is that music?

[skoblinI]

Baby Elephant Walk by Henry Mancini

[bugna1968]

the song is good, where is the band, in the tank?....bellissimo

[supersoviet8055]

STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!



[killallianceftw]

I find the world of tanks ad fitting lmao

[HengistR]

This Tank was designed in 1916 and made its debut on the battlefield in April 1917. It wasn't nicknamed "the elephant with gazelle feet" - that was the slightly later Saint-Chamond. Kagetora2010 is almost correct. The spall was a hazard to crew, but it was the puncturing of the fuel tanks by enemy fire that caused the Schneider to brew up so frequently. The fuel tanks were moved to the rear on later versions.

[MrTonymontanaxxx]

this tank was the 2nd worst of french tanks the first is the char d assuault st.chamond these things are crap.

[druisten3]

@skoblinI yes it's a baby elephannt who wak



[ilgvars2]

nice now thats a pretty shit.

[Fridomfry]

Thanks, that's right. Interesting to see how people and organizations errer and tried different contrivances, before hitting on the efficient compromise here, the Renault FT-17. This holds true for all technologies (see the genesis of modern computers, for instance).

[Kagetora2010]

@Fridomfry You're mistaken here; the Char d'Assault CA1 Schneider was dubbed the "mobile crematorium" due to its fuel tanks being vulnerable to rupturing from the effects of spall knocked loose inside the open fighting compartment, spraying the exposed (and hot!) engine and crew with gasoline (instant tank brew-up). The tank you refer to is the larger Char d'Assault St. Chamond, which had a severe hull overhang front and rear and a weak petro-electric power train.

[Fridomfry]

More a rolling pillbox than a tank. The French nicknamed it "the elephant with gazelle feet", and definitely preferred the renault FT-17.