Tanks (WW 1): books - history, types and construction

Rise of the Tank - Armoured Vehicles and Their Use in the First World War

Tells the story of the Tank's development and use during the Great War. Using the resources of the Imperial War Museum, The National Archives and the Tank Museum, this book has lots of information available on the development and use of the early tanks as well as personal reminiscences of those who fought in them.
Highly illustrated with many never before seen photographs and previously unpublished first hand accounts. A must for all First World War and Tank enthusiasts.

Panzerkampfwagen - Technik, Tanks und Taktik im Ersten Weltkrieg

Tank Battles of World War I

Failure to exploit the potential of an original idea is a recurring phenomenon in our national history. Few failures, however, can have been so costly in human life as that of our military commanders early in 1916 to appreciate that the tank was a war winning weapon. The slaughter of the Somme, Passchendaele and Ypres salient had to be endured before accepted 'conventional' methods were abandoned and the tank given a chance.

Bryan Cooper describes the early tank actions in vivid detail, with many eye-witness accounts. He tells of the courage and endurance of the crews not just in battle but in the appalling conditions in which they had to drive and fight their primitive vehicles.
Scalded, scorched and poisoned with exhaust fumes, constantly threatened with being burned to death, these crews eventually laid the foundation for the Allied Victory in World War I. The book is well illustrated with many original photographs which give the present day reader a glimpse of the infancy of a dominant weapon of modern war.

Armoured Warfare in the First World War - Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives

A hundred years ago, on 15 September 1916, on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme, the tank made its debut on the battlefield. The first tanks were crude, unreliable, vulnerable weapons, but they changed the character of land warfare forever, and Anthony Tucker-Jones's photographic history of these pioneering armoured vehicles is the ideal introduction to them.

In a selection of over 150 archive photographs he offers a fascinating insight into the difficult early days of this innovative new weapon, describing its technical history and its performance in combat.
While the Battle of Cambrai in 1917 is often held up as the first large-scale tank battle, tanks had already served at Flers-Courcelette on the Somme, during the Nivelle offensive and the battles of Messines and Passchendaele.

His book shows that the development of the tank was fraught with technical obstacles and battlefield setbacks. It was invented by the British to help break the deadlock of trench warfare, and the French and Americans soon followed their example.
The initial designs were continuously refined during two years of intense warfare. Finding the right balance between power and weight, getting the armament right, and working out the best tactics for tanks on the battlefield was a tricky, often deadly business.