Much has been said about the German "Wunderwaffen" or "wonder weapons" of WW2 such as the V2 rockets which were revolutionary in their design and would change military warfare for forever, but did little to effectively impact the outcome of the conflict of their time.
I think the same can be said about the tanks during WW1, no? The tanks were revolutionary in their idea and design and would change warfare for forever, but during WW1 they were too slow, unreliable and weak to be effective weapons of war. The Central Powers never fielded any meaningful amount of tanks and they did just fine both on the defensive and the offensive. They also were able to disable massive amounts of tanks just fine using improvised anti-tank systems such as the K-bullet or Tank Gewehr 1918 or just plain old artillery.
The Allies/Entente used tanks en Masse for the first time during the battle of the Somme 1916, yet the frontline barely moved. Meanwhile the Germans were able to almost push to Paris in 1918 using innovative Sturmtruppen tactics, not tanks. The Allied breakthrough during the autumn of 1918 can mostly be attributed to simply a general collapse of the German military, the worsening situation at the homefront and just a general adaptation of the same lessons the Germans had already learned, not the tanks.
Still, I see many official history books and such still push this narrative of the tank finally winning the war in 1918 (among other factors of course, but they do still prominently feature this factor). Assuming my assumptions about the ineffectiveness of the tank during WW1 are true, could it be then that there is generally a lot less critical examination going on in regards to challenging established WW1 narratives, as is commonly going on with established WW2 narratives and myths? Is WW1 a bit forgotten in this context?
Whether it's used by MC nation or by antagonists.
Much has been said about the German "Wunderwaffen" or "wonder weapons" of WW2 such as the V2 rockets which were revolutionary in their design and would change military warfare for forever, but did little to effectively impact the outcome of the conflict of their time.
I think the same can be said about the tanks during WW1, no? The tanks were revolutionary in their idea and design and would change warfare for forever, but during WW1 they were too slow, unreliable and weak to be effective weapons of war. The Central Powers never fielded any meaningful amount of tanks and they did just fine both on the defensive and the offensive. They also were able to disable massive amounts of tanks just fine using improvised anti-tank systems such as the K-bullet or Tank Gewehr 1918 or just plain old artillery.
The Allies/Entente used tanks en Masse for the first time during the battle of the Somme 1916, yet the frontline barely moved. Meanwhile the Germans were able to almost push to Paris in 1918 using innovative Sturmtruppen tactics, not tanks. The Allied breakthrough during the autumn of 1918 can mostly be attributed to simply a general collapse of the German military, the worsening situation at the homefront and just a general adaptation of the same lessons the Germans had already learned, not the tanks.
Still, I see many official history books and such still push this narrative of the tank finally winning the war in 1918 (among other factors of course, but they do still prominently feature this factor). Assuming my assumptions about the ineffectiveness of the tank during WW1 are true, could it be then that there is generally a lot less critical examination going on in regards to challenging established WW1 narratives, as is commonly going on with established WW2 narratives and myths? Is WW1 a bit forgotten in this context?
