1. hand grenades
   trench warfare
2. nuclear weapons

In World War I, both sides were equipped with high-tech weapons but burdened by old-school tactics. The result? Men hunkered in trenches trying to stay alive. Tanks were mean to break the stalemate.

1. incredibly high
   very low
2. same as any other war

Machine guns and artillery harvested men like crops in the beginning of the war. Generals desperately needed innovative technologies to protect their troops, and newfangled tanks seemed like a good start.

1. air force
   cavalry
2. infantry

Before WWI, horse-mounted cavalrymen were a force to be reckoned with. But the trenches and machine guns of the Great War made these units nearly obsolete. Armed men suddenly had very little mobility, and they needed more protection.

1. Germany
   Britain
2. United States

Britain and France were the first to really explore the tank concept. Once German officials understood that there would be tanks on the battlefield, they realized they needed armored vehicles, too.

1. landships
   rolling thunder
2. foxholes on wheels

When the Allies began developing tanks, they called their machines landships. The term "tank" took over, though, in part because the vehicles looked a little like water tanks on wheels.

1. They performed flawlessly.
   They were extremely unreliable.
2. Most of them caught fire and killed their own crews.

The first tanks were very, very unreliable. They were as likely to break down as they were to actually make it into action.

1. True
2. False

It’s true, both sides did have armored vehicles, but they were meant for fairly level ground. In the muck and devastation of no man’s land, these vehicles got stuck or were simply incapable of traversing the terrain.

1. Australia
   Iran
2. Britain

Swinton was a British army officer renowned for his practical battlefield tactics. He’s also the one responsible for brainstorming some innovations that made tanks workable.

1. insulated walls
   armored wheels
2. tracks

Wheels got stuck or were destroyed on the front. But a tracked vehicle, surmised Swinton, would better withstand the rigors of battle and also make tanks much more capable on rugged or muddy surfaces.

1. Little Willie
   Big Boss Hogg
2. Big Hammer

Built by William Foster & Co., the first tank with caterpillar track was called "Little Wille." It was merely a test vehicle, but it was an important sign of things to come.

1. 1914
   1916
2. 1921

In 1914 and 1915, commanders realized that their old strategies weren’t going to work. By 1916, the first tanks finally hit the battlefield, immediately terrifying the men tasked with destroying them.

1. the tracks
   the engines
2. the guns

Engineers struggled to make the tracks work properly on the heavy armored vehicles. Sometimes, the tracks would simply fall off as the tank moved forward. But engineers quickly improved on their early designs.

1. 4 miles
   400 feet
2. 40 miles

The first tanks were achingly slow, barely hitting a walking pace. They topped out at around 4 MPH.

1. France
   Spain
2. India

The French went all-in on the tank concept, understanding that these vehicles were a key to winning the war. By the time the last bullets were fired, the French had built more tanks than all other countries in the war combined.

1. 0
   9
2. all 32

Of the 32 tanks that the British threw at the Germans, nine made it to German lines. It was a small breakthrough, but it was progress.

1. Clarence III
   Little Willie
2. Mark I

The Mark I tank was the first British tank to see real action. It was a 28-ton monster armed with two six-pound guns and three machine guns.

1. The Mark I easily drove through barbed wire.
   Barbed wire totally wrecked the tanks.
2. No one lived to say for sure.

Barbed wire was a nightmare for infantry but no problem at all for the Mark I, which simply drove through the nasty tangle of metal. Germans who witnessed the spectacle knew they needed a solution to the Mark I, and fast.

1. 10 hp
   100 hp
2. 2,000 hp

By today’s standards, the first tanks had weenie little engines — 100 hp was normal during the war. It’s no wonder these machines could only hit walking speed.

1. True
2. False

The Mark I could indeed roll over 9-foot trenches. At last, the Allies had machines that could bypass the deep ditches that criss-crossed thousands of miles of the front.

1. Knickers II
   Schneider CA
2. Pepe Le Boom

The first French tank was the Schneider CA. It had no turret and was essentially an armored box on tank tracks.

1. overhanging nose
   zero ventilation
2. gun pointed the wrong way

The Schneider CA had a prominent overhanging nose, a feature that was meant to smash barbed wire. Instead, the nose constantly hung up on battlefield obstructions and trenches, meaning that crews had to abandon the vehicles.

1. They were cannon fodder.
   They attacked infantry.
2. They were distractions.

Male tanks had large guns, the females did not. Instead, the female tanks had more machine guns and were meant to devastate infantry.

1. 20
   2,000
2. 20,000

Germany was very late to the tank party. By the time the war, ended, the Germans had only sent about 20 tanks into battle, a fact that clearly didn’t help their war fates.

1. It always caught fire.
   It had very short range.
2. it had no guns.

The A7V was a huge, heavy German tank. Its heft was a drawback, as the tank only had a range of about 15 miles.

1. about 90
   about 120
2. about 480

At the Battle of Cambrai, 480 Mark IV tanks swarmed the battlefield. But by the second day, only half of those tanks were still in action.

1. at the front
   in the rear
2. in the turret

Let this be a lesson to all future tank engineers — don’t put the fuel tanks at the front of the vehicle, where they become a ripe target for enemy bullets. It’s no wonder the Schneider had a less-than-stellar battle record.

1. 0
   5
2. 12

No tanks of American design made it to the war. American tank crews learned to use British and French tanks instead.

1. They used captured Allied tanks.
   They put steel plates on passenger cars.
2. They simply avoided fighting at all costs.

German troops knew they needed more armor in their ranks. So they made concentrated efforts to capture Allied tanks, which they then learned to use for their own purposes.

1. True
2. False

Tanks were definitely an advantage for the Allies during the war. But tanks alone didn’t turn the tide of the fighting. Allied cooperation and German attrition played bigger roles.

1. Germany surrendered.
   The first tank-on-tank battle happened.
2. The first nuclear-powered tank debuted.

In April 1918, at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, British and German units clashed in the first tank-on-tank battle in history. In a ferocious fight, the Germans were forced to pull back.