ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

U.S. History 1877-Present 9.7: The Technology of War–Tanks 14 Views


Share It!


Description:

Opposing governments race to build bigger and better weapons until one side finally creates a giant indestructible war machine capable of causing mass death and steamrolling over enemy lines... Sound like a sci-fi movie? Nope. It's just real life.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Thank you We sneak during world war two Technology became

00:06

so important that it's impossible Teo skip over It is

00:10

a topic It basically shoved politics and culture off the

00:13

stage grabbed the mic and stole the show Yet basically

00:16

the kanye of world war two let's start with machine

00:20

guns Well the first legitimate ones were actually used in

00:23

world war ll they fired much faster and more smoothly

00:26

than the gatling guns of the civil war And they

00:29

change the way battles were fought Machine guns allowed a

00:33

very small number of soldiers to decimate oncoming troops Soldiers

00:37

didn't really have to paint All they had to do

00:38

was point fire until only ran out of bullets and

00:41

then reload Kind of seems like cheating doesn't it Except

00:44

instead of getting some extra cash in the sims this

00:47

cheat just ended with extra death But machine guns were

00:50

a major reason that world war devolved into horrible slow

00:54

stalemates with opposing troops crouched down in trenches Neither side

00:58

could force past the other So they were stuck in

01:01

the mud Literally They were stuck in the mud All

01:04

right Well by world war two machine guns had gotten

01:07

lighter and smaller until a single soldier could carry the

01:10

gun on a small tripod Well german engineers took it

01:12

to a new level in nineteen forty two when they

01:14

created the mg forty two It was a slim little

01:18

machine gun that shot bullets twice a ce fast as

01:20

any previous gun at about twelve hundred rounds a minute

01:24

we don't even all superman could endure that machine guns

01:28

were and are one of the most terrible threats to

01:30

troops on the ground And guess what Mr gatling himself

01:34

created this gun with the hope that his invention would

01:36

be so powerful it would discourage all future wars Now

01:41

for the record that idea never ever pans out So

01:44

anyone developing a freeze ray for the good of mankind

01:48

stop doing that Of course you know by now that

01:52

any new weapon is going to provoke a new defense

01:54

Well in case you've ever wondered it's no fun getting

01:57

shot by a machine gun about so researchers and military

02:00

scientists tried to imagine some kind of vehicle that was

02:03

in vulnerable to bullets and could just roll over trenches

02:06

like they were potholes and thus the world's first can't

02:09

rolled into battle people just about lost it tanks act

02:13

as a psychological weapon because seeing a giant impenetrable war

02:17

machine running towards you you know i'll probably not the

02:19

most calming experience in the world That doesn't mean of

02:22

course they were moving particularly quickly The first tanks produced

02:25

in britain in nineteen seventeen clocked in at a whopping

02:28

four miles an hour but wherever they went and whenever

02:32

they got there they were pretty scary Plus they have

02:34

a range of twenty two miles when firing So even

02:37

knowing one was in the area was enough to make

02:39

knees wobble Now if the upside of tanks was that

02:42

they were impenetrable the downside of tanks for the people

02:45

manning them from the inside was that well they were

02:48

impenetrable The thick metal walls trapped exhaust in gas and

02:52

meant that they couldn't see out making them vulnerable to

02:55

intense nausea and quasi sea sickness Is the tank rumbled

02:59

around Plus the tank wasn't so great it blocking small

03:02

bullets at least not entirely and the soldiers inside them

03:06

often got sprayed with razor sharp shrapnel Last but not

03:09

least nobody really knew how to incorporate tanks into military

03:13

Strategy so first they were beyond useless Soon however people

03:17

realize that tanks were at their best and most invulnerable

03:20

when they moved in a fleet as a giant wall

03:23

of combines defense and offense and that's just what britain

03:27

did They use them to slam through the germans trench

03:29

defense system Even though they got off to a rough

03:32

start tanks got about one hundred percent bigger and better

03:35

By world war two They had turrets for guns thicker

03:39

armor better maneuverability and radios that allowed them to react

03:43

quickly to changing battlefronts On each side of the war

03:46

Was producing tanks by the thousands per month by the

03:49

end only effectively ended the prevalence of trench warfare which 00:03:53.19 --> [endTime] is good But they started the prevalence of warfare

Up Next

Why Does the Constitution Still Work for Us?
5721 Views

Ever heard of a "living document"? They eat and breathe just like the rest of us! They even walk around on their own two legs. Okay, fine—maybe t...

Related Videos

The Puritans and the Division of Church and State
1280 Views

If the Puritans had gotten their way, religion would play a much larger role in lawmaking these days. Want to know more? Watch the video for all th...

Shays' Rebellion
6352 Views

What happened between the creation of the Articles of Confederation and the ratification of the current U.S. Constitution? This video analyzes the...

There's More Than One Way to Crack a Modernist Egg
539 Views

The Modernists thought the world had a lot of problems, and they were intent on fixing them—or at least talking about fixing them. Unfortunately,...

Federalism
2532 Views

This video explains Federalism and the quest for a fair balance between state and national power. It covers the progression and compromises of Fede...