The Western Front: Tanks!

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

15.23)

Advantages

Tanks were bullet proof and could withstand even enemy machine gun fire!
It could easily get past barbed wire, dead bodies and other obstacles to get to the enemy!
It was well equipped with many heavy weapons, as any weight gun could be carried on it.
It could also help to transport troops to the enemy unharmed.
It could even just provide shelter for allied troops, as bullets would have to get through the tanks first… and they couldn’t!
At first, it even just made the enemy run away from fright having never seen tanks before! This meaning that they were at the tanks mercy… But they got no mercy from the machine guns on the tanks.
If they, for some reason, could not shoot the enemy, they could just run the m over instead, as the Germans were not ready for tanks and had NO defence that could withstand them.
The tanks were also the perfect weapons all put into one mobile vehicle! Machine guns: being the BIGGEST infantry killer, mowing any foes nearby to the ground, and shells which could blow up bunkers, trenches, and a large group of infantry! And both put into one armoured vehicle, so it would be many times easier to transport these weapons!
Seeing as the tanks didn’t have wheels, they had caterpillar tracks meaning they could easily go through trenches over bunkers and anything else, just charging through any defence, like a knife going into warm butter!
The enemy, at least at first, had hardly any way to stop the tanks, except for shells. And so ALL enemy infantry were like babies to the tanks. They also left a clean path for the infantry to follow!!
In fact, and here are some facts, in ONE day, the 400 tanks managed to yield 10,000 prisoners, 200 guns and travel 7 ½ miles into enemy territory without being stopped!!!!!
And lastly, tanks were finally the super weapons that stopped the war in August of 1918!!! Forcing the Germans to look to the Armistice!

Disadvantages

Tanks could also be a veritable hell! According to tank driver Arthur Jenkin.
The machine guns caused metal splinters to prick the gunner’s faces!
And the noise of the engines with the intense heat, the exhaust petrol, the fumes and the nauseous vapour from the guns made an inferno that no outside spectator would have thought possible to exist within those steel plates.
You could also, hardly see anything outside of the tank as well, and it being as tight and suffocating as a submarine!
Also, anytime of problem could easily cause certain ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Disadvantages

Tanks could also be a veritable hell! According to tank driver Arthur Jenkin.
The machine guns caused metal splinters to prick the gunner’s faces!
And the noise of the engines with the intense heat, the exhaust petrol, the fumes and the nauseous vapour from the guns made an inferno that no outside spectator would have thought possible to exist within those steel plates.
You could also, hardly see anything outside of the tank as well, and it being as tight and suffocating as a submarine!
Also, anytime of problem could easily cause certain death, some examples are; If the tank caught fire, of petrol leaked, or fumes started to come into the tank, then first of all, the people inside would probably not be able to get out. And if they somehow managed to, then they would be at the mercy of the enemy! Or if the tracks stopped or it broke, then they would also be at the mercy of enemy!

15.24)

Tanks changed modern warfare completely! It was the first big super weapon that could be used in mass. Large group of tanks could completely annihilate hundreds and thousands of enemy troops with complete ease. And at first took the Germans completely by surprise. Also the enemy was completely unready for something like this, and only until later had anything that could properly stand up to the mighty tanks! As long as nothing went wrong inside the actual tanks, they could easily wipe out any infantry, and any bases, bunkers etc easily! Machine gun fire which for 3 years had been the biggest killer of infantry killing thousands per day, were completely useless against these armoured vehicles. So the tanks could just clear the way for the infantry to come and ‘mop up’! Finally, the end of the war came when in one day; an attack that started at 4.20am luckily was a complete surprise thanks to heavy mist. And also there was not the usual fire of shells before the attack as usual, taking the Germans by complete surprise. These four mile an hour vehicles managed to travel 7 ½ miles into enemy territory destroying EVERYTHING in their paths. In the end they captured 10,000 prisoners, 200 guns and killed many more soldiers from the enemy side. And they kept on going the full 7 ½ miles until the Germans finally sought the Armistice and thus they ended the war. But although Britain won the war in one sense, there was no winner. Millions of people dead… and what was gained? Nothing! Ok, so the enemies were stopped, but the cost of it… That was too high a price to pay for it… Too much…

Abbas Lightwalla