Tank

Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; their main armament is often mounted within a turret.

These features enable the tank to perform in a variety of intense combat situations, simultaneously both offensively (with direct fire from their powerful main gun) and defensively (as fire support and defilade for friendly troops due to the near invulnerability to common infantry small arms and good resistance against heavier weapons, although anti-tank weapons used in 2022, some of them man-portable, have demonstrated the ability to destroy older generations of tanks with single shots[1]),[disputed – discuss] all while maintaining the mobility needed to exploit changing tactical situations.

In July 1918, Popular Science Monthly reported: Because a fellow of the Royal Historical Society* has unintentionally misled the British public as to the origin of the famous "tanks", Sir William Tritton, who designed and built them, has published the real story of their name ...

D'Eyncourt's account differs from Swinton's and Tritton's: ... when the future arrangements were under discussion for transporting the first landships to France a question arose as to how, from a security point of view, the consignment should be labelled.

Tanks in World War I were developed separately and simultaneously by Great Britain and France as a means to break the deadlock of trench warfare on the Western Front.

During the 119 BC Battle of Mobei of the Han–Xiongnu War, the Han general Wei Qing led his army through a fatiguing expeditionary march across the Gobi desert only to find Yizhixie chanyu's main force waiting to encircle them on the other side.

The continuous "caterpillar track" arose from attempts to improve the mobility of wheeled vehicles by spreading their weight, reducing ground pressure, and increasing their traction.

[26] In the same year an Australian civil engineer named Lancelot de Mole submitted a basic design for a tracked, armoured vehicle to the British War Office.

[citation needed] The direct military impact of the tank can be debated but its effect on the Germans was immense, it caused bewilderment, terror and concern in equal measure.

As the result of an approach by Royal Naval Air Service officers who had been operating armoured cars on the Western Front, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, formed the Landship Committee, on 20 February 1915.

Major Stern, (formerly an officer in the Royal Naval Air Service) a business man at the Ministry of Munitions had charge of the work of getting them built, and he did the task very well.

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 US, Charles de Gaulle in France, and Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the USSR.

During the Invasion of Poland, tanks performed in a more traditional role in close cooperation with infantry units, but in the Battle of France deep independent armoured penetrations were executed by the Germans, a technique later called blitzkrieg.

The North African Campaign also provided an important battleground for tanks, as the flat, desolate terrain with relatively few obstacles or urban environments was ideal for conducting mobile armoured warfare.

[51] A lack of preparations for the Axis surprise attack, mechanical problems, poor training of the crews and incompetent leadership caused the Soviet machines to be surrounded and destroyed in large numbers.

Much like the Soviets, when entering World War II six months later (December 1941), the United States' mass production capacity enabled it to rapidly construct thousands of relatively cheap M4 Sherman medium tanks.

Tank design during the Cold War built on this foundation and included improvements to fire control, gyroscopic gun stabilization, communications (primarily radio) and crew comfort and saw the introduction of laser rangefinders and infrared night vision equipment.

The gunner would track the movement of the tracer round in flight, and upon impact with a hard surface, it would give off a flash and a puff of smoke, after which the main gun was immediately fired.

Usually, tanks carry smaller caliber armament for short-range defense where fire from the main weapon would be ineffective or wasteful, for example when engaging infantry, light vehicles or close air support aircraft.

[77] As well, even tanks with advanced armour plating can have their tracks or gear cogs damaged by RPGs, which may render them immobile or hinder their mobility.

Prior to development of infrared technology, tanks were often given a coating of camouflage paint that, depending on environmental region or season, would allow it to blend in with the rest of its environment.

Working against efforts to avoid detection is the fact that a tank is a large metallic object with a distinctive, angular silhouette that emits copious heat and engine noise.

A breakthrough in this area was achieved during World War II when improved suspension systems were developed that allowed better cross-country performance and limited firing on the move.

Tank crews usually strongly dislike deep fording, but it adds considerable scope for surprise and tactical flexibility in water-crossing operations by opening new and unexpected avenues of attack.

Well-designed crew stations, giving proper consideration to comfort and ergonomics, are important to the combat-effectiveness of a tank, as they limit fatigue and speed up individual actions.

Few tank designs have survived their entire service lives without some upgrading or modernization, particularly during wartime, including some that have changed almost beyond recognition, such as the latest Israeli Magach versions.

In the case of the Abrams MBT which has good firepower, speed and armour, these advantages are counterbalanced by its engine's notably high fuel consumption, which ultimately reduces its range, and in a larger sense its mobility.

Some tank designs that were fielded in significant numbers, such as Tiger I and M60A2 proved to be too complex or expensive to manufacture, and made unsustainable demands on the logistics services support of the armed forces.

However, a number of novel designs appeared, with mixed success, including the firepower of the Soviet IT-1 and T-64, and the crew protection of the Israeli Merkava and Swedish S-tank, while for decades the US's M551 remained the only light tank deployable by parachute.

This allowed them to respond to developing threats and opportunities during battles, giving the Germans a notable tactical advantage early in the war; even where Allied tanks initially had better firepower and armour, they generally lacked individual radios.