A tank is a tracked and armoured combat vehicle (armoured fighting vehicle), designed primarily to destroy enemy ground forces by direct fire. A modern main battle tank (MBT), designed predominantly for combat, is the most powerful direct-fire land-based weapon. It is distinguished from other armoured fighting vehicles primarily by its heavy armour and armament. It can cross rough terrain and move relatively quickly in short bursts, but is power-, maintenance-, and ammunition-hungry and is not designed for sustained operations.
Tanks were first used in World War I. The name "tank" first arose in British factories making the casings of the first battle tanks: the workmen were given the impression they were constructing tracked water containers for the British army in Mesopotamia. Tanks have subsequently undergone many generations of design evolution and are now a fairly mature technology, but significant improvements continue to be made in tank subsystems. There is an ongoing arms race between tank armour and anti-tank munitions.
Tank history
There are a number of different accounts of the development of the first tanks. According to one popular story, Winston Churchill was a keen advocate of the idea of an armoured vehicle to defeat enemy trenches during World War I and as First Lord of the Admiralty he created a Landship Committee to develop the concept.
Whatever the degree of Churchill's involvement, the first prototype tank was tested for the British Army for the first time on September 6, 1915. Although termed "landships" by The Admiralty, to preserve secrecy the initial vehicles were referred to as "water-carriers" which was then shortened to "tanks"
The word "tank" was then used to give the workers the impression they were constructing tracked water containers for the British army in Mesopotamia. It was made the official name on December 24, 1915. Legend has it that after completion the tanks were shipped to France in large wooden crates. For secrecy and not to arouse any curiosity the crates and the tanks themselves were then each labeled with a destination in Russian for Petrograd. In fact the tanks were never shipped in crates: the inscription in Russian was applied on the hull for their transport from the factory to the first training centre at Thetford. Tanks were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916. The first successful use of massed tanks in combat occurred at the Battle of Cambrai on November 20, 1917.
Although the tank would eventually make the trench warfare of World War I obsolete, they were not a decisive factor in that war. Initial results with tanks were poor, with the tanks proving to be unreliable, underpowered, underarmoured, and incapable of navigating battlefield terrain. Nevertheless, the concept was seen to be sound, and allied (including French) tank designs improved during the war. Later tanks were more reliable, had more powerful engines, were capable of withstanding German armour-piercing bullets, and due to a rhomboid shape could navigate large obstacles. Germany also built a few tanks, but did not pursue the concept very far.
Between the two world wars, with the tank concept now established, several nations designed and built tanks. Many sizes of tank were considered, and a lot of development effort went into light tanks that would be useful primarily against infantry. However, with tank-versus-tank engagements now being a major consideration, it became clear that future tanks would need to be heavily armoured and carry large guns. Tank shape, previously guided purely by considerations of obstacle clearance, now became a trade-off, with a low profile desirable for stealth and stability.
Turrets, which had always been considered but were not previously a universal feature on tanks, were recognised as the way forward. It was appreciated that if the tank's gun was to be used to engage armoured targets then it needed to be as large and powerful as possible, making having one large gun with an all-round field of fire vital. Experiments with multiple-turreted vehicles (e.g. the Russian T-35) were quickly abandoned and the last tank design without a single turreted main gun was the American M3 Lee of early- and mid- World War II.
This German photograph from World War I shows a captured British tank. The foremost part of the tracks are high off the ground in order to climb obstacles. The main guns are side-mounted because the tall body and weight considerations make a turret impractical.World War II saw the greatest rate of advances in tank design. Germany initially fielded lightly armoured and lightly armed tanks, such as the Panzer I which was originally intended for training use only. These fast-moving tanks and other armoured vehicles were a critical element of the German Blitzkrieg. Experimentation with tank sizes reached its logical conclusion during the war, with the rather impractical German 188-tonne Maus, of which only two were ever built and never saw combat, and the 1000-tonne Ratte, of which none were ever completed.
It was during this war that tanks were first equipped with radios, vastly improving their command and control. Tanks were also adapted to a wide range of military jobs, including mine clearance and engineering tasks. Some of these tank variants live on as other classes of armoured fighting vehicle, no longer called "tanks". All major combatant powers also developed tank destroyers and assault guns - motorized and usually armoured vehicles carrying tank guns but without turrets.
The role of tanks has evolved into a specific niche indicated by the modern term "main battle tank", and wide variations in size are no longer seen. Since World War II, tank design has gone through a series of refinements, rather than any radical changes. Guns have become larger, and targeting has improved to the point where a modern tank essentially never misses. Armour has evolved from steel plate into composite armour, with refinements such as reactive armour, as anti-tank weaponry has evolved. Crew comfort is improved, and the use of video cameras has diminished the need for viewing ports through the armour.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Tank"