(iii) That the heavy tank is an assault weapon. Its role is in trench warfare. Once open warfare is entered on infantry must protect tanks from artillery fire.
(iv) That the endurance in action of heavy tanks may, at present, be put down as being three days, after which they require overhaul.
(v) That the supply tank is too slow and heavy; a light machine such as a cross-country tractor should replace it.
(vi) That at present wireless and aeroplane communications cannot be relied upon; the safest means of communication and the simplest is by galloper.
(vii) That the attachment of tanks to cavalry is not a success; for, in this battle, each of these arms in many ways impeded rather than helped the other. During the approach marches the Whippets frequently were reported to have been unable to keep up with the rapid movement of the cavalry; during actual fighting the reverse took place. By noon on August 8, great confusion was developing behind the enemy’s lines, by this time the Whippets should have been operating five to ten miles in advance of the infantry, accentuating this demoralisation. As it was, being tied down to support the cavalry, they were a long way behind the infantry advance, the reason being that as cavalry cannot make themselves invisible on the battlefield by throwing themselves flat on the ground as infantry can, they had to retire either to a flank or to the rear to avoid being exterminated by machine-gun fire. Close co-operation between cavalry and tanks being, therefore, practically impossible, both suffered by attempting to accomplish it.
The outstanding lesson of the battle of Amiens as far as tanks are concerned is that neither the Mark V nor the Whippet machine has sufficient speed for open warfare. Had we possessed a machine which could have moved at an average rate of ten miles an hour, which had a radius of action of 100 or more miles, in this battle we should have not only occupied the bridges across the Somme between Peronne and Ham by noon on August 8, but, by wheeling south-east towards Noyon, we should have cut off the entire German forces south of the Amiens—Roye—Noyon road and inflicted such a blow that in all probability the war would have ended before the month was out. Both from the positive and negative standpoint, this battle may be summed up as “a triumph of machine-power over man-power,” or, if preferred, “of petrol over muscle.”
CHAPTER XXX
THE FIGHT OF A WHIPPET TANK
In this history space has forbidden any extensive reference to individual tank actions, though when all is said and done it was on these actions that not only was the efficiency of the Tank Corps founded but victory itself.