WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.740 So welcome to today's Deep Dive. Our mission 00:00:02.740 --> 00:00:04.919 today takes us straight into a pretty massive 00:00:04.919 --> 00:00:07.580 stack of historical notes and some Wikipedia 00:00:07.580 --> 00:00:11.439 data to uncover the story of a true mechanical 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:13.839 behemoth. Oh, absolutely. It's a heavy one. Yeah, 00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:16.739 literally. We are looking at the German Empire's 00:00:16.739 --> 00:00:20.679 very first operational tank and incredibly the 00:00:20.679 --> 00:00:23.719 absolute only one they've produced and actually 00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:26.160 utilized in combat during the entirety of World 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:29.000 War I. So we're diving into the history, the 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:32.020 engineering, and just the sheer chaos of the 00:00:32.020 --> 00:00:34.179 A7V. It really is a remarkable piece of history. 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:36.679 I mean, it perfectly illustrates how industrial 00:00:36.679 --> 00:00:39.039 warfare completely transformed in just, you know, 00:00:39.179 --> 00:00:41.859 a few short years. Right. Because, as you probably 00:00:41.859 --> 00:00:43.899 already know, the grim reality of the Western 00:00:43.899 --> 00:00:46.759 Front's tactical deadlock by 1916 was just, it 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:49.740 was bleak. The static muddy trenches had essentially 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:52.359 frozen the conflict in place. Just miles of mud 00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:55.539 and barbed wire. Exactly. But the moment those 00:00:55.539 --> 00:00:57.840 British Mark series tanks rolled across the mud 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:00.579 in September of that year, literally ignoring 00:01:00.579 --> 00:01:02.619 the barbed wire and machine gun fire that had 00:01:02.619 --> 00:01:05.400 kept infantry pinned down for months, that static 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:07.739 warfare just shattered. I mean, the psychological 00:01:07.739 --> 00:01:10.599 shock of seeing these armored fortresses crawling 00:01:10.599 --> 00:01:13.040 toward your trenches, shrugging off rifle fire. 00:01:13.060 --> 00:01:16.280 It completely changed the calculus of the battlefield. 00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:18.420 Yeah, the panic on the front lines traveled up 00:01:18.420 --> 00:01:20.019 the chain of command almost instantly, which 00:01:20.019 --> 00:01:22.299 is wild because up until that point, the German 00:01:22.299 --> 00:01:25.579 high command had shown very little enthusiasm 00:01:25.579 --> 00:01:27.680 for armored vehicles. They had seen some early 00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:30.140 proposals but offered almost no funding. Right. 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:32.859 They basically ignored it. Yeah. But the appearance 00:01:32.859 --> 00:01:36.000 of the British tanks force an immediate and desperate 00:01:36.010 --> 00:01:39.450 Okay, let's unpack this because the German War 00:01:39.450 --> 00:01:42.390 Ministry suddenly realizes they're incredibly 00:01:42.390 --> 00:01:45.709 far behind in an entirely new category of warfare. 00:01:46.430 --> 00:01:49.829 How does a massive military bureaucracy attempt 00:01:49.829 --> 00:01:53.439 to close that gap overnight? Well, they default 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:55.680 to what large binocracies do best, right? They 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.299 form a committee. Classic. Yeah. And specifically, 00:01:58.379 --> 00:02:00.140 they handed the problem to a department whose 00:02:00.140 --> 00:02:03.719 name sounds entirely unrelated to cutting -edge 00:02:03.719 --> 00:02:07.260 weaponry. In German, it was the Algeminus Kriegsdepartement, 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.199 up tiling seven for Kerstweisen. Which translates 00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:13.280 to the General War Department, Section 7, Transportation. 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:15.400 And for anyone listening who's wondering where 00:02:15.400 --> 00:02:17.960 this legendary tank gets its snappy acronym, 00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:20.919 that unwieldy bureaucratic title is the source, 00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:24.699 Abteilung 7 Verkehrswesen simply becomes the 00:02:24.699 --> 00:02:28.020 A7V. I mean, they essentially named their terrifying 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:30.740 new weapon of war after a transportation subcommittee. 00:02:31.159 --> 00:02:33.520 It's a rather mundane origin for such an imposing 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:36.300 machine, isn't it? But this committee had a remarkably 00:02:36.300 --> 00:02:40.379 urgent job. By December of 1916, they finalized 00:02:40.379 --> 00:02:42.879 their requirements and handed them over to Joseph 00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:45.360 Ulmer, who was one of Germany's foremost automobile 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:47.719 designers. Right. And the blueprint they gave 00:02:47.719 --> 00:02:50.199 him was essentially a wish list for military 00:02:50.199 --> 00:02:52.659 dominance, drafted by men who had never built 00:02:52.659 --> 00:02:55.120 a tank. What did they want it to do? Well, they 00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:57.740 demanded a 30 -ton vehicle. It needed to be capable 00:02:57.740 --> 00:02:59.740 of crossing ditches up to one and a half meters 00:02:59.740 --> 00:03:02.360 wide. It had to hit a top speed of at least 12 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.500 kilometers per hour and a Initially, they wanted 00:03:05.500 --> 00:03:07.800 it heavily armed with cannons facing both the 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:09.960 front and the rear, supplemented by multiple 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:12.360 machine guns. So they're handing an automobile 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:14.979 designer a blank sheet of paper and asking for 00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:18.979 a 30 ton land ship on a tight deadline. I mean, 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:21.199 that meant Volmer had to cut some serious corners, 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:23.520 right? Oh, absolutely. Like for the chassis, 00:03:23.699 --> 00:03:26.719 the running gear and tracks of the tank. He didn't 00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:30.080 invent an entirely new system. He looked at what 00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:32.900 already existed and heavily borrowed from the 00:03:32.900 --> 00:03:35.580 design of the American Holt tractor. Yeah, that's 00:03:35.580 --> 00:03:38.000 a crucial detail. I read that the engineering 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:40.599 team actually sourced examples of these Holt 00:03:40.599 --> 00:03:42.659 tractors from the Austro -Hungarian Army just 00:03:42.659 --> 00:03:44.900 to reverse engineer the tracks and suspension 00:03:44.900 --> 00:03:47.199 systems so they could handle the immense weight 00:03:47.199 --> 00:03:49.919 they were planning. What's fascinating here is 00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:52.180 how the German command originally envisioned 00:03:52.180 --> 00:03:55.110 this entire production run. When Vollmer was 00:03:55.110 --> 00:03:57.729 working on the blueprints, the overarching design 00:03:57.729 --> 00:04:00.330 philosophy was to create a universal chassis. 00:04:00.449 --> 00:04:02.990 Like a modular system. Yes. The military wasn't 00:04:02.990 --> 00:04:04.830 just building a tank. They were attempting to 00:04:04.830 --> 00:04:07.729 build a modular base platform. So out of the 00:04:07.729 --> 00:04:10.370 initial order of 100 chassis, the high command 00:04:10.370 --> 00:04:12.430 eventually decided that only 20 were going to 00:04:12.430 --> 00:04:14.710 be finished as the heavily armored fighting vehicles 00:04:14.710 --> 00:04:17.360 we know today. Wait, so if they ordered a hundred 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:21.000 of these massive chassis, why did only 20 actually 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:23.240 make it onto the battlefield as armored tanks? 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:26.600 Was that like a production failure or a specific 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.120 strategic choice by the War Ministry? It was 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:31.500 absolutely a strategic choice. It was driven 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:33.699 by the desperate logistical realities of the 00:04:33.699 --> 00:04:37.319 German war effort. The remaining 80 chassis were 00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:40.279 purposefully designed to be unarmored cargo carriers. 00:04:40.279 --> 00:04:43.379 Oh, OK. They designated them as Uberland Wagon, 00:04:43.579 --> 00:04:46.660 which translates to vehicles. The German Army 00:04:46.660 --> 00:04:49.160 needed heavy supply carriers capable of navigating 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:51.740 ruined terrain just as desperately as they needed 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:55.319 frontline weapons. So the armored A7V tank we 00:04:55.319 --> 00:04:57.899 are examining today was actually the minority 00:04:57.899 --> 00:05:00.000 variant of his own production run. That's wild. 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:02.420 The military prioritized logistics over armored 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:04.879 assault. Exactly. Well, that focus on logistics 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:06.720 makes sense given the strain on their supply 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:08.660 lines. But let's look closely at those 20 chassis 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:10.620 that did get the armored treatment, because the 00:05:10.620 --> 00:05:13.180 physical presence of this machine is staggering. 00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:17.180 To give you a sense of scale, the A7V was 7 .34 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:19.879 meters long. That's over 24 feet. It's massive. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:23.459 Yeah, it was over three meters wide and 3 .3 00:05:23.459 --> 00:05:26.759 meters high. If you stood next to it. The roof 00:05:26.759 --> 00:05:29.220 would tower over a single story house. It was 00:05:29.220 --> 00:05:33.040 a massive moving steel box. And the armor plating 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:35.199 wasn't uniform, right? They slapped up to 30 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:37.639 millimeters of hardened steel on the front. Right, 00:05:37.660 --> 00:05:39.980 which was thick enough to easily shrug off standard 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:42.879 infantry fire and even some light artillery shrapnel. 00:05:43.500 --> 00:05:45.839 Though the roof was much more vulnerable at only 00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:48.319 10 millimeters thick to save weight. But the 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:50.620 exterior dimensions were just... I mean, the 00:05:50.620 --> 00:05:53.199 internal layout is what makes the A7V truly unique. 00:05:53.740 --> 00:05:56.120 And honestly, from a human perspective, incredibly 00:05:56.120 --> 00:05:59.620 grueling. The crew requirements were just unprecedented. 00:06:00.139 --> 00:06:03.079 Officially, the A7V required a minimum of 18 00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:05.879 men to operate a single vehicle. 18 men in that 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:08.560 box. Cramming 18 men into that space is less 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:11.399 like a traditional tank crew and more like trying 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:13.660 to operate a small naval vessel inside a sealed 00:06:13.660 --> 00:06:16.600 iron boiler. How do you even divide the labor 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:18.639 among that many people inside a single vehicle? 00:06:18.839 --> 00:06:21.560 Well, the division of labor was strictly defined, 00:06:21.939 --> 00:06:24.779 even if the physical space wasn't. You had an 00:06:24.779 --> 00:06:27.060 officer commanding the vehicle, typically a lieutenant. 00:06:27.500 --> 00:06:29.660 You had a driver responsible for navigating the 00:06:29.660 --> 00:06:32.420 massive chassis. You needed two mechanics actively 00:06:32.420 --> 00:06:35.139 monitoring the engines, one of whom doubled as 00:06:35.139 --> 00:06:38.139 a signaller. OK, so that's five. Right. And to 00:06:38.139 --> 00:06:40.300 operate the main cannon at the front, you had 00:06:40.300 --> 00:06:43.870 two artillerymen, a gunner and a loader. And 00:06:43.870 --> 00:06:46.769 finally, 12 infantrymen were packed inside to 00:06:46.769 --> 00:06:49.209 operate the secondary weapons, acting as six 00:06:49.209 --> 00:06:51.850 machine gunners and six loaders. Just shoulder 00:06:51.850 --> 00:06:54.350 to shoulder in there. Exactly. And that was just 00:06:54.350 --> 00:06:57.629 the official manifest. During actual combat operations, 00:06:57.889 --> 00:07:00.709 crews were known to bring extra men along, sometimes 00:07:00.709 --> 00:07:03.269 cramming up to 25 individuals inside the hull. 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:06.779 Imagine 25 men sitting inside a steel box that 00:07:06.779 --> 00:07:09.740 has virtually no ventilation, positioned directly 00:07:09.740 --> 00:07:12.879 above two massive gasoline engines. I mean, the 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:15.220 heat radiating off the engine block, the fumes 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:17.240 from the exhaust, and the cordite from the fired 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:20.300 weapons, the deafening mechanical roar, the sensory 00:07:20.300 --> 00:07:22.180 overload must have been paralyzing. It would 00:07:22.180 --> 00:07:24.290 have been an absolute nightmare. Communicating 00:07:24.290 --> 00:07:26.629 orders over that noise would have required shouting 00:07:26.629 --> 00:07:29.629 at the top of their lungs or just relying entirely 00:07:29.629 --> 00:07:32.529 on physical taps and hand signals. And they weren't 00:07:32.529 --> 00:07:35.529 just passengers, they were managing an overwhelming 00:07:35.529 --> 00:07:39.180 amount of firepower. Here's where it gets really 00:07:39.180 --> 00:07:41.319 interesting. Let's look at the actual armament. 00:07:41.379 --> 00:07:43.279 They were deploying from this iron box No, the 00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:46.120 secondary firepower alone was devastating the 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:49.800 sides and rear of the a7b bristled with six seven 00:07:49.800 --> 00:07:52.560 point nine two millimeter mg -808 machine guns 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:55.759 the infantrymen manning these stations had to 00:07:55.759 --> 00:07:58.500 manage a staggering amount of ammunition the 00:07:58.500 --> 00:08:01.300 tank carried between 40 and 60 cartridge belts 00:08:01.300 --> 00:08:04.740 of 250 rounds each Wow, we are talking about 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:07.670 up to 15 ,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition 00:08:07.670 --> 00:08:10.750 packed into an already overcrowded, highly combustible 00:08:10.750 --> 00:08:12.870 space. And then there is the primary weapon. 00:08:13.050 --> 00:08:14.670 Mounted right at the front of the tank was a 00:08:14.670 --> 00:08:18.209 5 .7 centimeter Maxim Nordenfelt cannon. Officially, 00:08:18.250 --> 00:08:20.430 the crew was supposed to carry roughly 180 shells 00:08:20.430 --> 00:08:23.589 for this main gun, a mix of canister, armor piercing, 00:08:23.829 --> 00:08:25.589 and high explosive rounds. Which is a lot of 00:08:25.589 --> 00:08:27.910 heavy ordnance. Yeah, but just like the crew 00:08:27.910 --> 00:08:30.430 capacity, the official limits were often ignored. 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:34.059 Crews regularly stashed up to 300 heavy artillery 00:08:34.059 --> 00:08:36.679 rounds inside the cabin before rumbling toward 00:08:36.679 --> 00:08:39.299 the front lines. But the origin of these main 00:08:39.299 --> 00:08:41.740 cannons highlights a massive vulnerability in 00:08:41.740 --> 00:08:43.580 the German production pipeline, doesn't it? It 00:08:43.580 --> 00:08:46.799 really does. It reveals the intense strain on 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:49.779 German manufacturing at the time. The grand irony 00:08:49.779 --> 00:08:53.139 of the A7V is that its primary offensive weapon 00:08:53.139 --> 00:08:57.019 wasn't even German. Right. Many of those 57 millimeter 00:08:57.019 --> 00:09:00.419 front cannons were captured enemy guns. The German 00:09:00.419 --> 00:09:02.779 Army utilized British cannons they had seized 00:09:02.779 --> 00:09:04.720 in Belgium during the opening months of the war. 00:09:05.299 --> 00:09:07.620 Later on, they integrated Russian -made copies 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:09.320 of those same guns that were captured on the 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:11.590 Eastern Front. So you essentially have the German 00:09:11.590 --> 00:09:14.110 Empire's flagship armored vehicle rolling into 00:09:14.110 --> 00:09:16.529 battle, relying on captured British and Russian 00:09:16.529 --> 00:09:19.870 weaponry to punch through enemy lines. Yes. The 00:09:19.870 --> 00:09:22.830 supply chain was so fragmented that some A7Vs, 00:09:23.049 --> 00:09:25.929 like chassis number 504 named Gretchen, were 00:09:25.929 --> 00:09:27.730 initially built with just two forward -facing 00:09:27.730 --> 00:09:30.350 machine guns and had to be awkwardly retrofitted 00:09:30.350 --> 00:09:33.230 later to carry the 57 -millimeter cannon. I imagine 00:09:33.230 --> 00:09:35.730 that fragmented production inevitably bled into 00:09:35.730 --> 00:09:38.970 the engineering quality too. For all its heavy 00:09:38.970 --> 00:09:42.789 armor and immense firepower, the A7V carried 00:09:42.789 --> 00:09:46.210 some fatal design flaws that made it incredibly 00:09:46.210 --> 00:09:48.649 dangerous for its own crew to operate. It did. 00:09:49.129 --> 00:09:50.950 The propulsion system was really the heart of 00:09:50.950 --> 00:09:53.970 the problem. The tank was powered by two centrally 00:09:53.970 --> 00:09:56.509 mounted Daimler Mercedes four -cylinder petrol 00:09:56.509 --> 00:09:59.549 engines, each outputting about 101 horsepower. 00:09:59.750 --> 00:10:02.539 Okay. On a paved road, these engines could push 00:10:02.539 --> 00:10:05.919 the 30 -ton vehicle to about 15 kilometers per 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:08.720 hour. That was surprisingly fast compared to 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:11.139 the heavy allied tanks of the same period. It 00:10:11.139 --> 00:10:13.899 also featured an individually sprung 24 -wheel 00:10:13.899 --> 00:10:16.500 suspension system, which theoretically provided 00:10:16.500 --> 00:10:19.039 a smoother ride than the unsprung rigid trikes 00:10:19.039 --> 00:10:21.340 of the British designs. Theoretically. Right, 00:10:21.399 --> 00:10:23.639 theoretically. Because those advantages completely 00:10:23.639 --> 00:10:26.100 evaporated the moment the A7V left solid ground. 00:10:26.340 --> 00:10:28.879 And a World War I battlefield in 1918 is the 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:30.539 furthest thing from solid ground. I mean, the 00:10:30.539 --> 00:10:33.019 terrain is a pulverized moonscape of mud and 00:10:33.019 --> 00:10:35.559 craters. How did that suspension and propulsion 00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:37.899 system actually handle the realities of the Western 00:10:37.899 --> 00:10:41.860 Front? Very poorly. The A7V had an extremely 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:44.980 high center of gravity, a massive armored overhang 00:10:44.980 --> 00:10:47.879 at the front, and incredibly low ground clearance. 00:10:48.860 --> 00:10:51.039 This combination made the vehicle highly prone 00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:53.639 to overturning on steep slopes or crater edges. 00:10:53.779 --> 00:10:56.480 Just tipping right over. Yeah. Deep trenches 00:10:56.480 --> 00:10:59.080 or heavily churned muddy fields were practically 00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:01.419 impassable. The cank would simply bottom out 00:11:01.419 --> 00:11:04.129 and get stuck. Furthermore, the architectural 00:11:04.129 --> 00:11:06.169 design of the hull placed the driver high up 00:11:06.169 --> 00:11:08.830 and relatively far back from the nose. This created 00:11:08.830 --> 00:11:11.789 a massive blind spot. How big of a blind spot? 00:11:11.889 --> 00:11:13.909 The driver could not see the terrain for a full 00:11:13.909 --> 00:11:16.950 10 meters, roughly 33 feet directly in front 00:11:16.950 --> 00:11:19.149 of the vehicle. When you realize the driver had 00:11:19.149 --> 00:11:22.269 a 33 -foot blind spot, it completely changes 00:11:22.269 --> 00:11:25.370 how you view their combat operations. The commander 00:11:25.370 --> 00:11:28.049 is trying to spot targets and navigate a chaotic 00:11:28.049 --> 00:11:30.919 battlefield. desperately signaling a driver who 00:11:30.919 --> 00:11:33.620 is effectively steering a 30 ton box of explosives 00:11:33.620 --> 00:11:36.320 blind into heavily cratered terrain. It's an 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:39.200 absolute recipe for disaster. Which becomes painfully 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:41.779 clear during their combat debut on March 21st, 00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:45.159 1918 near the St. Quentin Canal. The German High 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:47.360 Command finally unleashes their secret weapon 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:50.179 and the results are, well, incredibly underwhelming. 00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:52.320 Underwhelming is putting it mildly. The debut 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:54.899 highlighted every mechanical failure we just 00:11:54.899 --> 00:11:57.919 discussed. Five tanks from detachment are ordered 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:00.559 into action. Before they could even engage the 00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:02.759 enemy, three of those five vehicles suffered 00:12:02.759 --> 00:12:05.139 catastrophic mechanical failures and broke down. 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:08.620 Wow. Three out of five. Yes. The remaining two 00:12:08.620 --> 00:12:11.440 did manage to lumber forward and help stall a 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:14.120 minor British breakthrough, but their tactical 00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:17.860 impact was negligible. It was a deeply anti -climactic 00:12:17.860 --> 00:12:20.620 start that proved just how unreliable the platform 00:12:20.620 --> 00:12:23.179 was under combat stress. But the narrative shifts 00:12:23.179 --> 00:12:26.039 dramatically just a month later, right? On April 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:28.820 24, 1918, during the Second Battle of Villers 00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:31.879 -Bertineau, the A7V secures its place in military 00:12:31.879 --> 00:12:34.279 history. This engagement marks the very first 00:12:34.279 --> 00:12:37.299 tank -on -tank battle ever recorded. It does. 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:40.220 The tactical situation at Willers -Brittano was 00:12:40.220 --> 00:12:43.159 ambitious. The German command assigned three 00:12:43.159 --> 00:12:46.080 detachments of A7Vs to spearhead an infantry 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:49.259 assault across a four -mile front. Unsurprisingly, 00:12:49.740 --> 00:12:51.860 reliability issues struck again, and two tanks 00:12:51.860 --> 00:12:53.759 broke down before reaching the assembly area. 00:12:53.779 --> 00:12:57.440 Typical. But, 13 A7Vs successfully made it into 00:12:57.440 --> 00:13:00.419 action. As the assault progressed, three of these 00:13:00.419 --> 00:13:04.080 German tanks, including chassis number 561, commanded 00:13:04.080 --> 00:13:06.539 by Second Lieutenant Wilhelm Biltz and named 00:13:06.539 --> 00:13:09.240 Nix by its crew, were advancing through the fog 00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:12.480 and smoke when they unexpectedly converged on 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:14.940 a position held by three British Mark IV tanks. 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:17.200 It's just a profound moment in the evolution 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:19.779 of warfare. For the very first time, an armored 00:13:19.779 --> 00:13:22.320 force pushes through the fog of war and realizes 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:24.639 they aren't facing soft infantry targets but 00:13:24.639 --> 00:13:26.899 an opposing armored force staring right back 00:13:26.899 --> 00:13:29.019 at them. The psychological shift for the crews 00:13:29.019 --> 00:13:31.600 inside must have been jarring. The historical 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:34.139 records give us a remarkable blow -by -blow account 00:13:34.139 --> 00:13:36.480 of the tactical choices made in those crucial 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:39.259 minutes. The British formation consisted of two 00:13:39.259 --> 00:13:41.679 female tanks and one male tank. We should clarify 00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:43.960 that. Right. In the nomenclature of the time, 00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:46.720 Female tanks were armed exclusively with heavy 00:13:46.720 --> 00:13:49.659 machine guns intended for anti -infantry roles. 00:13:50.220 --> 00:13:52.200 The male tank, commanded by Second Lieutenant 00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:54.879 Frank Mitchell, carried two heavy six -pounder 00:13:54.879 --> 00:13:57.340 cannons in its side sponsors. Those female British 00:13:57.340 --> 00:13:59.340 tanks quickly found out that their machine guns 00:13:59.340 --> 00:14:01.820 were entirely ineffective against the 30 -millimeter 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:05.500 frontal armor of the A7Bs. Even worse, the armor 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:08.379 -piercing rounds fired by the German MG 08s were 00:14:08.379 --> 00:14:10.460 successfully penetrating the thinner hulls of 00:14:10.460 --> 00:14:12.480 the British Mark IVs. Yeah, it was a bad matchup 00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:15.299 for them. Taking heavy internal damage, the two 00:14:15.299 --> 00:14:17.740 female British tanks were forced into a rapid 00:14:17.740 --> 00:14:20.580 retreat, leaving Lieutenant Mitchell's lone male 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:23.940 tank to face three advancing A7Bs. The tactical 00:14:23.940 --> 00:14:26.500 disadvantage was severe. But Mitchell held his 00:14:26.500 --> 00:14:29.019 ground. Recognizing that machine guns were useless, 00:14:29.500 --> 00:14:31.840 he focused his six -pounder cannons on the lead 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:34.720 German tank, the Nix. And this is where the A7V's 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:37.980 flaws really hurt it. Exactly. The maneuverability 00:14:37.980 --> 00:14:40.120 crisis we discussed earlier played a massive 00:14:40.120 --> 00:14:43.559 role here. Biltz, commanding the Nix, struggled 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:45.940 to position his heavily restricted top -heavy 00:14:45.940 --> 00:14:49.059 tank to return effective fire. Mitchell managed 00:14:49.059 --> 00:14:51.600 to score three direct devastating hits on the 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:54.379 Knicks. Ouch. The kinetic impact and internal 00:14:54.379 --> 00:14:56.500 damage from those six -pounder shells disabled 00:14:56.500 --> 00:14:59.080 the German vehicle. The crew was forced to execute 00:14:59.080 --> 00:15:01.179 an emergency evacuation from the crippled tank 00:15:01.179 --> 00:15:03.919 under heavy fire, and tragically five of Bilz's 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:05.879 men were killed as they bailed out into the mud. 00:15:06.940 --> 00:15:08.679 Seeing the Knicks knocked out so decisively, 00:15:08.899 --> 00:15:11.860 the remaining two A7Vs opted to withdraw rather 00:15:11.860 --> 00:15:14.620 than risk the same fate. Mitchell then pivoted 00:15:14.620 --> 00:15:17.340 his focus to the advancing German infantry. switching 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:20.139 his cannons to fire case shot. We should briefly 00:15:20.139 --> 00:15:21.919 explain case shot for anyone unfamiliar with 00:15:21.919 --> 00:15:23.860 the term. Yeah, Mitchell essentially swapped 00:15:23.860 --> 00:15:26.379 out his solid armor piercing shells for rounds 00:15:26.379 --> 00:15:29.240 filled with hundreds of metal balls. When fired, 00:15:29.580 --> 00:15:32.000 the cannon acts like a giant shotgun, spraying 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:34.759 shrapnel across a wide area, devastating against 00:15:34.759 --> 00:15:37.340 exposed troops. Exactly the right tactic for 00:15:37.340 --> 00:15:40.320 the situation. Mitchell routed the infantry advance 00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:43.519 before his own tank sustained track damage from 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:46.320 an exploding mortar shell, forcing him to abandon 00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:49.340 the vehicle. That single engagement proves that 00:15:49.340 --> 00:15:51.879 armor could defeat armor, but the skirmishes 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:55.000 didn't end there. Later that afternoon, another 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:57.759 A7V engaged a completely different class of British 00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:01.200 armor. a group of Whippet tanks. These were much 00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:03.740 lighter, faster medium tanks designed to exploit 00:16:03.740 --> 00:16:07.480 breakthroughs. The heavier A7V managed to successfully 00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:09.879 target and destroy one of the Whippets before 00:16:09.879 --> 00:16:12.559 the British retreated. As for the disabled tanks 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:14.820 scattered across the battlefield, the Nix was 00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:17.080 eventually coaxed back into motion by its surviving 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:19.620 crew, but it broke down completely before reaching 00:16:19.620 --> 00:16:22.669 German lines. So they couldn't save it? No. To 00:16:22.669 --> 00:16:24.809 prevent the Allies from capturing their technology, 00:16:25.269 --> 00:16:28.029 a German demolition squad rigged the Knicks with 00:16:28.029 --> 00:16:30.809 explosive charges during the night and completely 00:16:30.809 --> 00:16:34.169 destroyed it. Another A7V engaged in the battle 00:16:34.169 --> 00:16:37.409 named Elfriede suffered the exact fate the engineers 00:16:37.409 --> 00:16:40.350 feared. Its high center of gravity caused it 00:16:40.350 --> 00:16:42.590 to flip completely upside down into a crater. 00:16:43.110 --> 00:16:45.250 It was abandoned in no man's land and carefully 00:16:45.250 --> 00:16:47.129 recovered by French troops three weeks later 00:16:47.129 --> 00:16:49.490 for study. Which brings us back to the broader 00:16:49.490 --> 00:16:52.049 strategic view. So what does this all mean? We 00:16:52.049 --> 00:16:55.149 have this massive, terrifying machine that required 00:16:55.149 --> 00:16:58.269 immense resources and a 25 -man crew successfully 00:16:58.269 --> 00:17:00.370 fighting the first armor engagements in history. 00:17:01.009 --> 00:17:03.370 How do we assess its ultimate impact on the outcome 00:17:03.370 --> 00:17:05.410 of the war? If we connect this to the bigger 00:17:05.410 --> 00:17:08.549 picture, the A7V was fundamentally a failure 00:17:08.549 --> 00:17:11.589 of scale. The German Empire poured vast resources 00:17:11.589 --> 00:17:14.269 into designing this vehicle, yet they only ever 00:17:14.269 --> 00:17:17.480 produced 20 operational tanks. Just 20. Yeah, 00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:20.180 fielding 20 tanks across the entirety of the 00:17:20.180 --> 00:17:22.920 Western Front is a statistical rounding error. 00:17:23.400 --> 00:17:25.619 It made practically no strategic difference to 00:17:25.619 --> 00:17:28.619 the wider war effort. The German High Command 00:17:28.619 --> 00:17:31.640 ultimately sidelined the armored program because 00:17:31.640 --> 00:17:33.920 their industrial capacity was already stretched 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:36.160 to the breaking point, prioritizing U -boats 00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:38.700 and aircraft. They simply couldn't manufacture 00:17:38.700 --> 00:17:41.599 the raw materials or spare the specialized labor 00:17:41.599 --> 00:17:44.700 required to refine and mass produce a flawed 00:17:44.700 --> 00:17:47.670 tank design. The production numbers really highlight 00:17:47.670 --> 00:17:50.730 a staggering industrial disparity. While Germany 00:17:50.730 --> 00:17:53.910 struggled to field 20 A7s, the French industry 00:17:53.910 --> 00:17:56.890 successfully manufactured over 3 ,600 of their 00:17:56.890 --> 00:18:00.529 light, highly effective Renault FT tanks. Incredible 00:18:00.529 --> 00:18:02.990 numbers. And the British built thousands of their 00:18:02.990 --> 00:18:05.990 heavy Mark series tanks. Facing those numbers, 00:18:06.309 --> 00:18:08.450 how did the German infantry cope with the armored 00:18:08.450 --> 00:18:11.190 imbalance? Well, they adapted by utilizing their 00:18:11.190 --> 00:18:14.119 enemy's success. The ultimate irony of the German 00:18:14.119 --> 00:18:16.859 armored effort in World War I is that they fielded 00:18:16.859 --> 00:18:18.980 significantly more enemy tanks than they do their 00:18:18.980 --> 00:18:22.640 own. Yes, the German Army actively captured roughly 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:25.359 50 British Mark IVs that had broken down or been 00:18:25.359 --> 00:18:27.299 abandoned. They towed them back to their own 00:18:27.299 --> 00:18:30.019 workshops, repaired them, painted massive iron 00:18:30.019 --> 00:18:31.940 crosses on the sides to prevent friendly fire, 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:35.079 and re -designated them as Bute Panzer or captured 00:18:35.079 --> 00:18:38.640 tanks. The German military relied far more heavily 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:40.779 on salvaged British engineering than they ever 00:18:40.779 --> 00:18:44.190 did on the A7V. That reliance on captured technology 00:18:44.190 --> 00:18:47.910 speaks volumes about the A7V's legacy. But what 00:18:47.910 --> 00:18:50.369 happened to these massive machines once the armistice 00:18:50.369 --> 00:18:52.390 was signed? Did the surviving chassis just get 00:18:52.390 --> 00:18:54.529 sent straight to the scrap yard? Most of them 00:18:54.529 --> 00:18:56.470 were indeed scrapped by the victorious Allies 00:18:56.470 --> 00:18:59.250 in 1919 to comply with disarmament treaties. 00:18:59.730 --> 00:19:01.549 But their story didn't end immediately with the 00:19:01.549 --> 00:19:03.589 armistice. During the severe civil unrest in 00:19:03.589 --> 00:19:06.650 Berlin in 1919, a right -wing paramilitary Fright 00:19:06.650 --> 00:19:08.950 Corps unit known as CoCAMF desperately needed 00:19:08.950 --> 00:19:10.910 armored support. They actually located some of 00:19:10.910 --> 00:19:13.769 those unarmored Uberlin wagon cargo chassis we 00:19:13.769 --> 00:19:16.470 discussed earlier. The unit bolted heavy steel 00:19:16.470 --> 00:19:18.880 plates machine guns onto the cargo frames to 00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:22.000 create improvised A7V -style vehicles, naming 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.400 one of them Heady, and used them to quell the 00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:26.319 uprisings in the streets of the capital. I've 00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:28.420 also seen claims floating around historical forums 00:19:28.420 --> 00:19:30.500 that the French government shipped a surplus 00:19:30.500 --> 00:19:34.000 of captured A7Vs over to Poland to fight in the 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:37.480 Polish -Soviet War in the 1920s. Is there any 00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:41.299 truth to those rumors? None whatsoever. It is 00:19:41.299 --> 00:19:43.839 a persistent myth, but modern historians have 00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:46.059 thoroughly debunked it. The archival records 00:19:46.059 --> 00:19:49.940 are incredibly precise. Every single A7V chassis 00:19:49.940 --> 00:19:52.000 produced during the war is fully accounted for 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:54.299 in the documentation. Not a single vehicle was 00:19:54.299 --> 00:19:55.980 transferred to Poland. That's pretty definitive. 00:19:56.240 --> 00:19:57.779 Yeah. The accountability of those records also 00:19:57.779 --> 00:20:00.720 leads us to the final fate of the very last A7V 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:02.960 on Earth. Out of the original 20, there is only 00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:05.420 one lone survivor left intact today. Chassis 00:20:05.420 --> 00:20:08.420 number 506. The crew had painted a grinning red 00:20:08.420 --> 00:20:11.750 devil on its armor and named it Mephisto. How 00:20:11.750 --> 00:20:14.490 did this specific tank manage to avoid the scrap 00:20:14.490 --> 00:20:17.950 heaps of 1919? Mephisto survived through a combination 00:20:17.950 --> 00:20:21.109 of bad terrain and geographical isolation. During 00:20:21.109 --> 00:20:23.410 the massive armor clash at Villers Predon New, 00:20:23.809 --> 00:20:26.470 Mephisto became hopelessly bogged down in a deep 00:20:26.470 --> 00:20:28.970 crater. The crew was forced to abandon it in 00:20:28.970 --> 00:20:30.869 the middle of no man's land. Just left it there. 00:20:31.049 --> 00:20:33.450 Yeah, because the area remained hotly contested. 00:20:33.609 --> 00:20:36.190 It sat there rusting in the mud for almost three 00:20:36.190 --> 00:20:40.059 months. Finally, in July of 1918, Australian 00:20:40.059 --> 00:20:43.559 and British troops secured the sector. Recognizing 00:20:43.559 --> 00:20:46.099 the intelligence value of an intact German tank, 00:20:46.460 --> 00:20:49.099 they attached steel cables to Mephisto and used 00:20:49.099 --> 00:20:51.700 two British tanks to physically drag the 30 -ton 00:20:51.700 --> 00:20:54.019 behemoth out of the crater and behind Allied 00:20:54.019 --> 00:20:56.019 lines. That must have been quite the operation. 00:20:56.240 --> 00:20:57.900 It was. It was eventually shipped to London and 00:20:57.900 --> 00:20:59.720 from there it was transported all the way to 00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:01.700 Brisbane, Australia to serve as a war trophy. 00:21:02.059 --> 00:21:05.140 And it remains there to this day. Mephisto is 00:21:05.140 --> 00:21:07.819 carefully preserved and sitting on display at 00:21:07.819 --> 00:21:10.720 the Queensland Museum in Australia. If you aren't 00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:12.839 able to travel to Brisbane, you can find a few 00:21:12.839 --> 00:21:15.819 high -quality replicas in Europe. The Tank Museum 00:21:15.819 --> 00:21:19.059 at Bovington in the UK houses a fantastic running 00:21:19.059 --> 00:21:21.779 replica called Schnuck, cleverly built using 00:21:21.779 --> 00:21:24.599 plywood and angle iron mounted over modern tractor 00:21:24.599 --> 00:21:27.220 engines. That's a great piece. It is. Meanwhile, 00:21:27.460 --> 00:21:29.859 the German Tank Museum in Munster displays a 00:21:29.859 --> 00:21:33.210 highly accurate static replica named Wotan. But 00:21:33.210 --> 00:21:35.829 Mephisto is the only authentic battle -scarred 00:21:35.829 --> 00:21:38.890 original left in existence. It serves as a tangible 00:21:38.890 --> 00:21:41.589 artifact of a deeply chaotic moment in military 00:21:41.589 --> 00:21:43.710 engineering. When you examine the massive steel 00:21:43.710 --> 00:21:45.829 plates of Mephisto, you are looking at the sheer 00:21:45.829 --> 00:21:48.029 desperation of an empire trying to innovate its 00:21:48.029 --> 00:21:50.980 way out of a losing war. It truly is a remarkable 00:21:50.980 --> 00:21:53.400 journey from the immediate panic of the German 00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:56.819 War Ministry rushing to form Section 7 to Joseph 00:21:56.819 --> 00:21:59.779 Vollmer attempting to build a 30 ton weapon on 00:21:59.779 --> 00:22:02.339 top of a tractor suspension to the terrifying 00:22:02.339 --> 00:22:05.279 reality of 25 men trapped inside a deafening 00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:08.279 iron box fighting the first armor on armor engagement 00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:12.359 in human history. The A7V represents a monumental 00:22:12.359 --> 00:22:15.339 leap in military technology pushed to its absolute 00:22:15.339 --> 00:22:17.779 breaking point. This raises an important question 00:22:17.779 --> 00:22:19.660 regarding the trajectory of that technology. 00:22:20.519 --> 00:22:22.759 Our source material details a few unfulfilled 00:22:22.759 --> 00:22:25.259 variants of the A7V that were actively in development 00:22:25.259 --> 00:22:27.660 when the war ended. The most prominent was the 00:22:27.660 --> 00:22:31.319 A7VU. The U stood for Unlafenda Ketan, which 00:22:31.319 --> 00:22:33.339 translates to tracks running all the way around. 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:35.839 So the engineers finally recognized that the 00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:38.000 British wraparound track design was superior 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:40.880 for crossing the massive trench networks. Precisely. 00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:43.880 They drafted a prototype with a rhomboidal hull 00:22:43.880 --> 00:22:46.440 mimicking the British Mark series, featuring 00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:48.460 wraparound tracks to solve the ground clearance 00:22:48.460 --> 00:22:51.259 issue. They also moved the heavy cannons away 00:22:51.259 --> 00:22:53.380 from the front, planning to mount them inside 00:22:53.380 --> 00:22:56.180 sponsons, which are essentially armored platforms 00:22:56.180 --> 00:22:58.240 protruding from the sides of the hull to improve 00:22:58.240 --> 00:23:00.799 the center of gravity. Makes sense. But the prototype 00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:04.079 they built in June 1918 was incredibly nose -heavy, 00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:06.660 weighed an astonishing 40 tons, and suffered 00:23:06.660 --> 00:23:09.019 from terrible maneuverability. They initially 00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:11.559 ordered 20 of them, but halted the project just 00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:14.579 months before the armistice. There was also conceptual 00:23:14.579 --> 00:23:18.400 work on a variant known as the A -7V Flakpanzer. 00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:21.240 This was an experimental anti -aircraft platform 00:23:21.240 --> 00:23:23.160 where engineers planned to reposition the engines 00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:26.799 and mount heavy, captured Russian 76mm fuel guns 00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:29.140 directly onto the chassis. The visual of a 40 00:23:29.140 --> 00:23:32.819 ton heavily armed rhomboid A7VU crashing through 00:23:32.819 --> 00:23:35.680 the trenches is a fascinating scenario to picture. 00:23:36.119 --> 00:23:38.740 It is a stark reminder of just how rapidly the 00:23:38.740 --> 00:23:41.079 core concepts of armored warfare were evolving, 00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:43.819 even as the German Empire's industrial capacity 00:23:43.819 --> 00:23:46.200 was collapsing around them. We'll leave you to 00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:48.400 ponder how the integration of wraparound tracks 00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:51.220 or mounted 76 millimeter field guns might have 00:23:51.220 --> 00:23:53.460 radically shifted the armored doctrines of the 00:23:53.460 --> 00:23:56.240 1920s and 30s had those engineers been given 00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:59.000 the time to refine their designs. Thank you for 00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:00.859 joining us on this deep dive into the origins 00:24:00.859 --> 00:24:03.400 of German armor. Keep questioning the established 00:24:03.400 --> 00:24:05.359 narratives, keep exploring the hidden mechanics 00:24:05.359 --> 00:24:07.240 of the past, and we will catch you on the next 00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:07.740 deep dive.