A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities. Firepower is normally provided by a large-calibre main gun in a rotating turret and secondary machine guns, while heavy armour and all-terrain mobility provide protection for the tank and its crew, allowing it to perform all primary tasks of the armoured troops on the battlefield.[1]
Tanks were first introduced by the British and also used by the French during World War I as a means to break the deadlock of trench warfare. They were first deployed at the Battle of Somme in limited numbers. During construction, to conceal their true identity as weapons, they were designated as water carriers for the Mesopotamian campaign and referred to as "tanks" (as in "water tank").
Interwar developments in both design and tactics evolved during World War II, producing important concepts of armoured warfare which persist to this day and were prominently displayed during World War II. The Soviet Union introduced the T-34, one of the best tanks in service throughout the war and one of the forerunners to the main battle tank. Germany introduced blitzkrieg, a strategy which makes use of massed concentrations of tanks supported by artillery and air power to break through the enemy front to surround enemy forces and accomplish objectives.
Today, tanks seldom operate alone, as they are organized into armoured units which involve the support of infantry, who may accompany the tanks in armoured personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles. They are also usually accompanied by reconnaissance or ground-attack aircraft.
Due to its formidable capabilities and versatility the battle tank is generally considered a key component of modern armies.[2] However, the prevalence of unconventional and asymmetric warfare have put into question the utility of the armoured force.[3] Ongoing research and development attempts to equip the tank to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Tanks were first introduced by the British and also used by the French during World War I as a means to break the deadlock of trench warfare. They were first deployed at the Battle of Somme in limited numbers. During construction, to conceal their true identity as weapons, they were designated as water carriers for the Mesopotamian campaign and referred to as "tanks" (as in "water tank").
Interwar developments in both design and tactics evolved during World War II, producing important concepts of armoured warfare which persist to this day and were prominently displayed during World War II. The Soviet Union introduced the T-34, one of the best tanks in service throughout the war and one of the forerunners to the main battle tank. Germany introduced blitzkrieg, a strategy which makes use of massed concentrations of tanks supported by artillery and air power to break through the enemy front to surround enemy forces and accomplish objectives.
Today, tanks seldom operate alone, as they are organized into armoured units which involve the support of infantry, who may accompany the tanks in armoured personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles. They are also usually accompanied by reconnaissance or ground-attack aircraft.
Due to its formidable capabilities and versatility the battle tank is generally considered a key component of modern armies.[2] However, the prevalence of unconventional and asymmetric warfare have put into question the utility of the armoured force.[3] Ongoing research and development attempts to equip the tank to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
History:
Apart from Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of a round, tank-like armoured wagon, the first description of a tank-like vehicle and its usefulness in trench warfare is found in an H.G. Wells short story, "The Land Ironclads", in the Strand Magazine, December 1903. The concept of the tank is implicit, however, in two letters published in 1833 in The London United Service Magazine. In the first (January 1833) “A Constant Reader” wrote from Bombay to propose the creation of “Steam Chariots of War”: “The great forte of steam is its passiveness. Secure the boiler and the machinery from the stroke of a cannon-ball, and you might drive a steam-chariot triumphantly through a regiment. Imagine three or four of these machines driven at a galloping speed through a square of infantry; the director might be seated in perfect safety in the rear of the engine, and a body of cavalry, about fifty yards in rear, would enter the furrows ploughed by these formidable chariots, and give the coup-de-grace to the unfortunate infantry. The chariots might be armed with scythes, both in front and flank; and, if the first shock were avoided by the men opening their ranks, they might easily be made sufficiently manageable to wheel round and return on any part of the square which stood firm” (118). In the second letter (May 1833), a correspondent identified only as “C.” discussed the “Application of Steam to Engines of War,” advocating the construction of “Chariots of Iron”—“locomotive engines” covered in “proof iron plate” and capable of running “upon ordinary roads”—for use in battle (118).
Joseph Hawker is attributed as being the father of the modern tank when in 1872, Hawker took out a patent for: 'propelling a road locomotive employing endless flat linked pitch or other chains passing round the rims of the main moving wheels.' The details of his patent reveal clearly the influence his idea had on the whole concept of crawler tractors and tanks employing drive and clutch steering.[4] In 1903, the Levavasseur project describes a caterpillar-based armoured vehicle, and some eight years later, in 1911, two practical tank designs were developed independently by Austrian engineering officer Günther Burstyn and Australian civil engineer Lancelot de Mole, but all were rejected by governmental administrations.
Burstyn designed his tank with a sprung suspension and armed with a single gun located in a revolving turret—a design quite similar to modern tanks—but he was unable to design a track that could carry the weight of the vehicle and propel it at reasonable speed. He submitted his idea of a "land torpedo boat" to the Military Technical Committee in Vienna but the idea was rejected as lacking sufficient merit; he did, however manage to patent his invention (Zl. 252 815 DRP).[5][6]
Around the same time, de Mole designed "a tracked armoured vehicle" and sent his sketches to the British War Office. His idea was rejected, but after the Great War the Royal Commission awarded de Mole £965 for expenses, and in 1920 he was appointed C.B.E.[6][7]
British World War I Mark V tank
Landship development, originally conducted by the Royal Navy under the auspices of the Landships Committee, was sponsored by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, and proceeded through a number of prototypes, importantly among them the Little Willie, designed by William Ashbee Tritton and Walter Gordon Wilson, as the first-ever completed tracked tank prototype vehicle, culminating in the Mark I tank prototype, named Mother.[8]
The descriptor "tank" is reputed to have evolved from the construction of the early batches by North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow. The order was coded as "special tanks", and ironically much of the work was undertaken in the NBLC Tank shops and the name stuck.[9]
The first tank to engage in battle was designated D1, a British Mark I, during the Battle of Flers-Courcellette on 15 September 1916.[10]
In contrast to World War II, Germany fielded very few tanks during World War I, with only 15 of the A7V type being produced in Germany during the war.[11] The first tank versus tank action took place on 24 April 1918 at Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs met three German A7Vs. Though both sides revealed serious flaws, the British prevailed.[12]
The French pioneered the use of a full 360º rotation turret in a tank for the first time in 1917, with the creation and deployment of the Renault FT-17 light tank, with the turret containing the tank's main armament.
Mechanical problems, poor mobility and piecemeal tactical deployment limited the military significance of the tank in World War I, and the tank did not fulfil its promise of rendering trench warfare obsolete. Nonetheless, it was clear to military thinkers on both sides that tanks would play a significant role in future conflicts.
Joseph Hawker is attributed as being the father of the modern tank when in 1872, Hawker took out a patent for: 'propelling a road locomotive employing endless flat linked pitch or other chains passing round the rims of the main moving wheels.' The details of his patent reveal clearly the influence his idea had on the whole concept of crawler tractors and tanks employing drive and clutch steering.[4] In 1903, the Levavasseur project describes a caterpillar-based armoured vehicle, and some eight years later, in 1911, two practical tank designs were developed independently by Austrian engineering officer Günther Burstyn and Australian civil engineer Lancelot de Mole, but all were rejected by governmental administrations.
Burstyn designed his tank with a sprung suspension and armed with a single gun located in a revolving turret—a design quite similar to modern tanks—but he was unable to design a track that could carry the weight of the vehicle and propel it at reasonable speed. He submitted his idea of a "land torpedo boat" to the Military Technical Committee in Vienna but the idea was rejected as lacking sufficient merit; he did, however manage to patent his invention (Zl. 252 815 DRP).[5][6]
Around the same time, de Mole designed "a tracked armoured vehicle" and sent his sketches to the British War Office. His idea was rejected, but after the Great War the Royal Commission awarded de Mole £965 for expenses, and in 1920 he was appointed C.B.E.[6][7]
British World War I Mark V tank
Landship development, originally conducted by the Royal Navy under the auspices of the Landships Committee, was sponsored by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, and proceeded through a number of prototypes, importantly among them the Little Willie, designed by William Ashbee Tritton and Walter Gordon Wilson, as the first-ever completed tracked tank prototype vehicle, culminating in the Mark I tank prototype, named Mother.[8]
The descriptor "tank" is reputed to have evolved from the construction of the early batches by North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow. The order was coded as "special tanks", and ironically much of the work was undertaken in the NBLC Tank shops and the name stuck.[9]
The first tank to engage in battle was designated D1, a British Mark I, during the Battle of Flers-Courcellette on 15 September 1916.[10]
In contrast to World War II, Germany fielded very few tanks during World War I, with only 15 of the A7V type being produced in Germany during the war.[11] The first tank versus tank action took place on 24 April 1918 at Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs met three German A7Vs. Though both sides revealed serious flaws, the British prevailed.[12]
The French pioneered the use of a full 360º rotation turret in a tank for the first time in 1917, with the creation and deployment of the Renault FT-17 light tank, with the turret containing the tank's main armament.
Mechanical problems, poor mobility and piecemeal tactical deployment limited the military significance of the tank in World War I, and the tank did not fulfil its promise of rendering trench warfare obsolete. Nonetheless, it was clear to military thinkers on both sides that tanks would play a significant role in future conflicts.
interwar years:
In the interwar period tanks underwent further mechanical development. In terms of tactics, J.F.C. Fuller's doctrine of spearhead attacks with massed tank formations was the basis for work by Heinz Guderian in Germany, Percy Hobart in Britain, Adna R. Chaffee, Jr., in the U.S., Charles de Gaulle in France, and Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the USSR. All came to similar conclusions, but in the Second World War only Germany would initially put the theory into practice on a large scale, and it was their superior tactics and French blunders, not superior weapons, that made blitzkrieg so successful in May 1940.[13] For information regarding tank development in this period, see tank development between the wars.
Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union all experimented heavily with tank warfare during their clandestine and “volunteer” involvement in the Spanish Civil War, which saw some of the earliest examples of successful mechanised combined arms—such as when Republican troops, equipped with Soviet-supplied medium tanks and supported by aircraft, eventually routed Italian troops fighting for the Nationalists in the seven-day Battle of Guadalajara in 1937.[14]
Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union all experimented heavily with tank warfare during their clandestine and “volunteer” involvement in the Spanish Civil War, which saw some of the earliest examples of successful mechanised combined arms—such as when Republican troops, equipped with Soviet-supplied medium tanks and supported by aircraft, eventually routed Italian troops fighting for the Nationalists in the seven-day Battle of Guadalajara in 1937.[14]
Nice tank
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