In early 1917, when German engineers sketched out the Sturmpanzerwagen A7V, they settled on a hulking vehicle 7.34 m long, 3 m wide and standing 3.3 m tall, its slab-sided hull clad in hardened steel plates—15 mm on the sides, 30 mm at the front and 10 mm above—enough to shrug off most rifle fire and shrapnel.By the time the first A7Vs rolled off the line, each carried a crew officially numbered at seventeen—an officer commanding, a driver, two mechanics (one doubling as signaller), two artillerymen and a dozen infantrymen divided between gunners and loaders—though in action they often squeezed aboard as many as twenty-five men, trading comfort for firepower.Up front sat a 57 mm Maxim-Nordenfelt cannon, salvaged from captured Russian and British stocks, flanked by six 7.92 mm MG 08 machine guns; early prototypes even tried twin forward-firing rifles in place of the main gun before standardizing on the 57 mm. To sustain its barrage, an A7V carried forty to sixty 250-round belts—totaling up to 15 000 rounds for the MG 08s—and around 180 rounds for the cannon (split between canister, armour-piercing and high-explosive), though crews often stowed up to 300 shells when they expected heavy fighting.These specifications made the A7V a formidable presence on the Western Front in 1918—its thick armour shrugging off small arms, its mixed armament offering both direct-fire punch and suppressive fire—yet its cramped interior, mechanical fragility and lumbering weight limited its effectiveness, leaving the A7V as a poignant first step in Germany’s armoured arms race rather than a war-winning weapon.

Shop

A7V Wotan