Welcome to the beginning of my forum series The Evolution of The Tank! Each forum will be split into 5 categories (besides this one considering there were no concrete designs of a tank in these times):propulsion, hull, turret, firepower, and armor. Don’t forget that this is my interpretation of it and I may get some things incorrect. Let’s begin.

Origins
The very basic idea of a tank is an armored vehicle that can break through enemy lines as well as deal significant damage to them. It also had to be all terrain and well armored. What can be considered the first “tank” was a design made by Leonardo Da Vinci in the late 1400s.

Concept of Leonardo’s Fighting Vehicle

It was an ovular saucer shaped vehicle covered in a thick layer of wood. This wood would protect it from arrows/guns and small cannon fire. It would be powered either by horses or people in a sort of wheel crank. It has ports all around it either for small cannons or guns. This vehicle was never made but set the basics for what a tank is.

Ironclads of land
Many centuries later on the eve of WWI, the creation of the car and continuous tracks allowed for advancements in military technology as they armored the new cars and continuous track tractors.

Simms Motor War Car, 1899

The first armored car that was built was the Simms Motor War Car, which was just a Daimler chassis covered in a bathtub like metal shield with 2 maxim guns. It was like a modernized version of Da Vinci’s design. With the advancement of cars at the start of the 20th century, armored cars followed suit. Instead of armor around a chassis, they armored the body of the car and some started to add machine gun turrets for full coverage.

Rolls-Royce Armored Car, 1914

Introduction of the tank
Armored car designs began to see standardization and mass production right before the start of the Great War, but tanks also entered the prototype era at this time. The first of these tank designs was the Motorgeschutz, created in 1911, had trench arms that would drop or push it over trenches or cliffs. It also featured a turret with the proposed cannon being around 3.7cm. Although it never reached anything near completion, there are several modern mock ups made that now exist in museums. The Motorgeschutz was later followed by the de mole tank and then the first official produced tank, little willie.

Motorgeschutz, 1911

The Motorgeschutz featured a boxy hull with a circular turret and open vision ports. It would’ve ran on very narrow and short caterpillar tracks. As stated before, it also featured adjustable roller arms to get it over steep slopes and trenches.

De Mole Tank, 1912

The De Mole tank was made by Lancelot De Mole in 1912. It’s very reminiscent of the later Mk.1 tank, which also had the idea of trench crossing in mid. It doesn’t appear to have any prototypes and only existed in scaled down mock ups to impress the British people and officials. It doesn’t feature a turret and there are no clear gun placements on the tank.

Little Willie, 1915

The Little Willie can be considered the first production tank. It was made in 1915 by William Tritton and Water Wilson, who were funded a lot of money from the British government to produce such a tank. Little Willie is a small box shaped tank that appears to have a machine gun port at the front and 2 more on the sides near the front. It also has short tracks that aren’t very fit to cross trenches, but are the base of later British WWI designs.

Conclusion
Congratulations, you made it through this rushed forum! In this part we just touched the very beginning of tank history. In the next part we will dive into the produced and combat proven tanks. If I made any grammatical or historical errors please tag me and tell me them, so they can be fixed! Again, this is all from my head with a tiny bit of research, so some things may be wrong. All pictures sourced from google.