Did allied tanks create more of a psychological impact than physical destruction on the Germans during WW 1?

Answer 1

WW1 tanks created BOTH psychological impact AND physical destruction. But, because early tanks were so often used (or “misused”) ... in either inadequate numbers ... or on unsuitable terrain ... or without proper coordination by their accompanying infantry ... the most common impact was psychological rather than physical.

This judgment tends to bear out Napoleon’s famous maxim that, in war “the moral is to the physical as three to one”.

I think that wrf3k hits the right note by quoting that passage from “All Quiet on the Western Front.” But that was a novel. The actual recorded comments of German soldiers may be even more telling.

On the Somme, 17th October 1916, the 104th German Regiment launched a counter-attack near the Butte de Warlencourt. Their action seemed to be going well until a British tank appeared. After the action, one of the German officers wrote: -
“All of a sudden a gigantic iron ‘dragon’ came rattling and wheezing forward ... crossing the shell-holes and all the uneven ground with ease. Whenever it detected a German position, it would proceed to spray it with bullets and small-caliber shells. Even the bravest among us were stricken with horror. We were literally paralyzed. Machine gun and rifle fire were useless, and grenades just bounced off. The tank drove along the whole length of 9th Company’s sector and virtually wiped it out.” (Source: “Das Kgl. Sächs. 5. Inf.-Regiment ‘Kronprinz’ Nr 104” by Ludwig Wolff).

That was typical of German reactions to their early encounters with tanks. Of course, the Germans soon found that tanks were vulnerable to aimed fire from artillery. And they could not fail to note how prone tanks were to mechanical failure: if tanks became separated from British infantry, and then broke down, they were doomed. But it took some time before German infantry realized that their apparently ineffective rifle and MG fire could cause metal splashes in the interior of the tanks, wounding the crews.

What most struck German infantrymen about the tanks was that they were yet another symptom of the Allies’ growing material superiority. In 1914 the German army had entered the war with generally far better and more plentiful equipment than the Allies. By late 1916, that material advantage was being inexorably reversed – and observation of that trend was blunting the morale of German soldiers.

But it would be wrong to claim that tanks were purely a psychological weapon. In a number of ways, when properly deployed, with infantry well-trained to work with them, even the primitive tanks of WW1 could be a great asset in an attack.

• Tanks were able to do something which no other weapon could: completely trash and remove (by dragging it aside) the barbed wire entanglements that otherwise prevented attacking infantry from reaching German trenches.

• Once at the German trench line, tanks could straddle it, using machine guns to keep defenders pinned down, helpless, until the attacking infantry caught up to bomb (grenade) them into surrender.

• Concrete “pillbox” machine gun positions were another feature of German defenses that usually blocked the advance of infantry when attacking alone. But when infantry had tanks in support, the tanks could suppress the fire of pillbox defenders, allowing infantry to move in close enough to bomb the fortification.

• When tanks broke completely through German defensive lines (as they frequently did), if boldly used they could seriously disrupt German rear area organizations, such as headquarters units and artillery emplacements.

• But the low speed (about 7km per hour) and poor mechanical reliability of tanks meant that they could not be relied on for the traditional “exploitation” role that cavalry had performed prior to WW1. They remained, essentially, an infantry-support weapon.

Answer 2

When tanks were first constructed, the engineers who designed them were well aware of their limitations and advised in the strongest terms that they should be deployed en-masse as a shock weapon. Of course, neither French or Haig paid any attention.

Tanks were incredibly effective in small scale deployment, but it gave the Germans time to adapt and so their greatest advantage - shock - was lost. The design of tanks was improved continually through the war, but they were never put to proper use. French and Haig were too fond of marching troops through minefields and razorwire under the cover of broad daylight into the waiting German machine guns to concern themselves with trivialities like modern technology.

Answer 3

Yes. Eric Maria Remarque puts it best: "We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the enemy infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they are annihiliation, the roll without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smoke-belching armour clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and the wounded-- we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against their colossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand grenades matches."

Answer 4

Germany was the only country to feel the attack of the armoured bohemoths. They did not forget that feeling as they developed tanks for the next war.

Answer 5

but of course ! there was no crystallised strategy at that time, and efficiency was low due to their primitive technology. artillery was the most destructive, while the trenches was the countermeasure, for both sides.