Overcoming the Battlefield Stalemate: The Introduction of Armored Fighting Vehicles and Tactics in the British Army During the First World War

The introduction of armored mechanized fighting vehicles by the British Army in 1916 signaled a transition in land warfare tactics. Prior to the employment of armored infantry support vehicles during Battle of the Somme in late summer 1916, a soldiers ability to maneuver on the World War I battlefield was limited by a number of factors. These included the trafficability of terrain, the extent of camouflage and protective cover, the distance between starting point and objective, the complexity of obstacles, and the severity of enemy opposition. By the end of 1914 any possibility of large-scale maneuver had succumbed to the battlefield stalemate, the maneuver deadlock resulting from the effective use of the Vickers-Maxim machine gun, the creative emplacement of barbed-wiretrench obstacles, and the increasingly accurate employment of high explosive artillery fire.