Why Tanks have Bulkheads

Near the beginning of World War I, the British Army did not initially want to create armored vehicles. In spite of this, the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill wanted to experiment with the concept of a “landship” that would move across land in the same way a ship moved in the ocean. Churchill decided to create the Landship Committee chair by the Director of Naval Construction at the Admiralty in 1915. This was composed primary of naval officers and engineers. After trials with various tracked vehicles, eventually two prototypes vehicles were produced, the Little Willie and Big Willie. Big Willie was successful, and it was also known as “Mother” and “HMLS [His Majesty’s Land Ship] Centipede“. Soon, the Landship operations were taken over by the Army. In December, 1915, the word “tank” was adopted as a codename for the vehicles in development, and the Landship Committee became known officially as the Tank Supply Committee.

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