Germany, the USSR, the UK and US poured much effort into gliders which could carry troops and cargo into battle. Military use was a major reason for glider development in the first half of the 20th Century.
The tiny tank that helped change warfare.This was technically feasible but had one major flaw – there would have to be enough flat land nearby for such a large aircraft to land.Īnother idea was more outlandish – why land the plane when the tank could land itself? Enter the 'glider tank'.
One concept was to sling small tankettes – a lightly armoured tank armed with machine guns – under the wings of a large bomber aircraft, which would land, unload the tanks and fly off again. Delivering small tanks via large bomber aircraft seemed to be the best way, and cautious experiments took place, notably in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. In the 1930s, several armies began to think of how troops isolated by the course of battle or dropped by parachute far beyond enemy lines could get armoured support quickly. Military planners had to grapple with the idea of armoured advances that would cover tens of miles in a single day – a feat almost unthinkable a few decades before. Another more modern weapon – aircraft – broadened the scope even further. It was the advent of the first armoured tanks in 1917 which broke the deadlock – the tanks were able to drive through barbed wire and were largely impervious to machine gun fire.Īrmy tactics pivoted to a new form of warfare that mimicked the cavalry campaigns of old – huge battles undertaken at speed across vast swathes of land. Barbed wire, artillery and machine guns made frontal advances hugely costly. The Western Front had quickly devolved into static lines of trenches, with thousands of men dying in attacks that might only lead to the gain of a few hundred yards of territory. The rapid evolution of armoured warfare in the years after World War One changed the way wars would be fought.
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