Major General Cooper of the British Royal Armoured Corps sits in the driver's compartment of an M1 Abrams main battle tank during his visit to the US Army Armor Center

Tanks in mass culture. Tanks were first developed separately and simultaneously by Great Britain and France as a means to break the deadlock of trench warfare on the Western Front. Their first use in combat was by the British Army in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The name "tank" was adopted by the British during the early stages of their development, as a security measure to conceal their purpose.