(I hate to admit it, but I have had very little luck in finding a positive quote about the French army. And I don't really want to make one up again.)
Nationality: French
Year of Production: 1916-1918
Number built: 400
Weight: 12.3 or 13.6 tons
Length: 6.32 metres
Width: 2.05 metres
Height: 2.30 metres
Crew: 6 or 7
Engine: 1x Schneider 4-cylinder engine, developing 55-70 hp, for a speed of 8 kph
Armament: 1x 75mm howitzer, 2x 8mm machine guns (1x 15mm machine gun as well?)
Background: World War One. A time where the defender had many new weapons, like machine guns, poison shells, and deep trenches, not to forget the barbed wire and land mines. And conventional weapons that the attackers would normally use, like aircraft, and tanks, were still either in basic stages of being used, or not actually been invented yet.
The attackers would be ripped apart by shells or machine guns, or to be trapped on the barbed wire, and left to suffer. Obviously, this had to stop. Progress had to be made before the civilian populace back home grew tired and started to demand an end. The solution was a weapon that could crush the wire, that could shrug off bullets of rifles, and rip back with it's own weapons, and cross trenches, as the infantry follow behind.
This new weapon was the tank, but, back then, tanks were weird, unwieldy beasts designed only to protect the infantry from being blown up, and to get the war moving again.
As such, in 1915, the company of Schneider and Co, in France, set out to fulfil the wishes of the French government, to build “heavy artillery tractors”, of which I'll probably touch more on later. As such, their chief designer was sent to England, to check on what an American company called Holt was showing over there, and on his return, convinced his superiors to work on an armed and armoured tractor.
Some of the experiments were shown in front of the French president, Raymond Poincare, who ordered 10 more vehicles for further testing, of which shortly after was combined with a government program for a armoured wire cutter, the Breton-Pretot machine, for further experiments, including one at Souain.
As a result of the prototype tank going over the trenches of the former battlefield, the production order for 400 CA1s were authorised in February 1916.
Why should I be afraid of it? And what was it for?
(As above, no quotes, sorry. I'll try to find some, but if you have any suggestions, please let me know. No jokes about the quality of the French army, either.)
This... weird... thing... had a 75mm petard mortar, which is a pretty decent sized weapon for blowing up anything it wants to. It crashed through wire with the overhang part of the chassis, unless the tank got stuck.
The crew had the dubious pleasure of lying on their bellies in a space between the roof and the engine, and more then likely in the dark as well. The armour was poor, and often lead to the two fuel tanks, situated high up on the tank, to be punctured, and the crew would get a petrol shower, which would be kinda bad if someone lit a match, or if the tank was in a battle, and it was cramped and... but I digress.
It was first used on at Berry-au-Bac, where the 120-130 tanks stormed out, engines screaming at the top speed of 8 kph, under cover of daylight.
In sight of German artillery.
81 tanks were crippled, with 56 of them being destroyed beyond repair. As the modifications rolled out, to damn near everything with the tank, armour, fuel tanks, doors, guns, probably the little dangling pine tree air freshener as well.
Most of the remaining tanks were converted to unarmed supply tanks, which would still have sucked for the crew, driving at a top speed of 8 kph, hauling things around.
To rub salt into the wound, the Italian army tested the CA1, with plans to build 1500 of them, but Italia didn't really leap at the opportunity.
Six tanks were sold to Spain, of which after fighting in Morocco, the surviving four were used in the Spanish Civil War fighting on the side of the Republicans.
The CA1 was a good try by the French, given that this was a brand new weapon of war, but the few minor (alright, major) defects, and I didn't even mention the limited range of fire it had, by either the machine guns or the mortar, and it has the honour of being the world's oldest tank that is still in running condition, at the Musee des Blindes in Saumur.
The running tank is a modified one, with the repositioned petrol tanks, if you are ever interested in looking it up.
I daresay I'll be told off for not including the accented characters for the various French names as well.
Sources used:
Walkaround and photographs of the Schneider CA1 by Eric Gallaud
Wikipedia : Schneider CA1
Tanks.net : Schneider CA1 Heavy Tank
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