At the same time, 7 Whippets broke through the barbed wire and suppressed the German soldiers with machinegun fire. Mitchell's tank supported his infantry with cannon fire. The wounded A7V managed to retreat two kilometers in reverse, after which the engine stalled.
The Germans lose three crewmen and suffered damage of the oil system. This allowed him to aim and hit the German tank three times. The German tank retreated, firing on the move at the British tank, with no results.įrank Mitchell ordered the tank to stop. Mitchell's tank was firing from its right sponson, but could not dial in and hit for some time. One of the tanks was hit, but could still move. When the MkIVs were turning around to retreat, the Germans spotted them. At the same time, Lieutenant Mitchell ordered to fire on the enemy.
At about 9 am, the observer returned, reporting that he discovered a German tank.īrown left his tank and ran towards the "females" to warn them of the danger (their machineguns could not harm the German tank, but the German tank's gun could knock them out). Since the vision of these new tanks was poor, they had a forward observer. British tanks moved out to the forest clearing in order to attack the infantry. Brown did not know that the Germans had tanks. In the early morning of April 24th, Captain Brown returned from a reconnaissance mission and reported that he discovered moving German infantry. The Germans were advancing towards Amiens. The A7V was armed with a 57 mm gun in the front, and 6 Maxim machineguns around the perimeter. These tanks weighed 30 tons, and had decent armour for the time, but were clumsy and could not boast good off-road performance. Three German A7V tanks opposed the British. 7 medium Whippet tanks also too part in the battle, faster than the MkIVs, but with significantly poorer armour and armament. The tank itself was commanded by Lieutenant Frank Mitchell. The unit was commanded by Captain David Brown, who was in the "male" tank.
The British side was armed with a unit of three MkIV tanks, two "females" with machinegun armament and one "male" with two short barreled 6-pounder guns in its sponsons. On April 24th, 1918, the first tank battle in history happened near a small city called Villers-Bretonneux in the north of France.
0 kommentar(er)
