Tank: Unveiling Armored Warfare Strategies in Modern Combat

By Fouad Sabry

What is Tank

A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. 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. They are a mainstay of modern 20th and 21st century ground forces and a key part of combined arms combat.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Tank

Chapter 2: Armour

Chapter 3: Armoured fighting vehicle

Chapter 4: Tank destroyer

Chapter 5: Infantry fighting vehicle

Chapter 6: Self-propelled artillery

Chapter 7: History of the tank

Chapter 8: Cruiser tank

Chapter 9: Heavy tank

Chapter 10: Tank classification

(II) Answering the public top questions about tank.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Tank.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Tank

Tanks are armored combat vehicles designed to be the principal offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are characterized by a balance of tremendous firepower, robust armour, and good combat mobility supplied by tracks and a powerful engine; their primary armament is typically housed in a turret. They are the backbone of modern 20th- and 21st-century ground forces and a crucial component of combined-arms warfare.

Modern tanks are adaptable mobile land weapons systems whose primary armament consists of a large-caliber tank gun housed in a rotating gun turret, complemented by machine guns or other ranged weaponry such as anti-tank guided missiles or rocket launchers. They are equipped with substantial vehicle armor that protects the crew, ammunition storage, fuel tank, and propulsion systems. The use of tracks as opposed to wheels improves operational mobility, allowing the tank to traverse rough terrain and adverse circumstances such as mud and ice/snow more effectively than wheeled vehicles, and thus be positioned in favourable areas on the battlefield with greater flexibility. These characteristics allow the tank to perform well in a wide variety of intense combat situations, both offensively (with direct fire from their powerful main gun) and defensively (as fire support and defilade for friendly troops due to their near invulnerability to common infantry small arms and good resistance against heavier weapons, although anti-tank weapons used in 2022, some of which are man-portable, have demonstrated the ability to destroy older generations of tanks). The birth of a new era of combat resulted from the total integration of tanks into modern military formations. armored combat.

Prior to the introduction of the main battle tank, tanks were normally categorized by weight class (light, medium, heavy, or superheavy tanks) or by doctrine (breakthrough-, cavalry-, infantry-, cruiser-, or reconnaissance tanks). Some are larger, well armored, and equipped with large guns, and others are smaller, poorly armored, and armed with a smaller caliber and lighter cannon. In addition to assaulting enemy targets, these agile, fast-moving tanks are also capable of reconnaissance. The smaller, faster tank would not ordinarily engage a larger, heavily-armored tank in combat, except in the case of a surprise flanking maneuver.

To conceal their true origins, the term tank was initially assigned to British landships in 1915, prior to their entry into service.

On 24 December 1915, representatives of the Director of Naval Construction's Committee, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Munitions, and the War Office met as part of the Inter-Departmental Conference. The goal of the meeting was to discuss the development of ideas for Caterpillar Machine Gun Destroyers or Land Cruisers. In his book, Albert Gerald Stern (Secretary of the Landship Committee and later Chief of the Mechanical Warfare Supply Department) recounts that at the conference in question, a decision was made to construct a new type of aircraft:

Mr. (Thomas J.) Macnamara, Member of Parliament and Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, then proposed changing the name of the Landship Committee in the sake of secrecy. Mr. d'Eyncourt concurred that secrecy should be maintained at all costs and advocated referring to the vessel as a Water Carrier. Committees and departments are always referred to by their initials in government offices. As Secretary, I found the proposed title to be completely inappropriate. We modified Water Carrier to Tank in our search for a synonym and formed the Tank Supply or T.S. Committee. Thus, these weapons were known as tanks.

He mistakenly added, and all nations have now accepted the moniker. In January 1916, Swinton's Notes on the Employment of Tanks, in which he uses the term throughout, was published.

Popular Science Monthly reported in July 1918:

Sir William Tritton, who developed and built the famed tanks, has released the true origin of their name since a fellow of the Royal Historical Society accidentally misled the British public about the origin of the term. Little Willie was referred to as the Instructional Demonstration Unit because it was manifestly inadvisable to announce his purpose to the world. No one knew that Little Willie's hull was supposed to be installed on a truck when it was designated as a water carrier for Mesopotamia in shop orders. Obviously, the water carrier became known as a tank. Such the name was adopted by the shop's managers and foremen, and it is now a part of the military lexicon and will likely remain so for all time.

D'Eyncourt's account is distinct from those of Swinton and Tritton:

When the future arrangements for transferring the first landships to France were being discussed, the subject of how to mark the shipment from a security standpoint arose. To justify their size, we dubbed them Russian water carriers, with the intention that they be interpreted as a novel technique of transporting water to front soldiers in the fighting zones. Lt.-Col. Swinton... voiced a funny protest to this, stating that the War Office commentators would likely abbreviate the description to 'W.C.'s for Russia' and that we could avoid this by simply labeling the shipments 'Tanks'. Thus, they became tanks and have stayed tanks."

This seems to be a flawed remembrance. In August 1916, when the first two tanks were delivered to France, the name tank had already been in use for eight months, according to the author. The tanks were labeled With Care to Petrograd, but the assumption that they were snowplows was fostered.

Macmillan claims that the term tank was related with the work performed by North British Locomotive Company Ltd, as a subcontractor to Fosters Ltd, to construct and develop self-propelled armoured battle vehicles using caterpillar tracks. He argues that the majority of the work was conducted in the NBL Tank Shop, using the codename Special Tanks to maintain confidentiality.

The term tank is used in every English-speaking country, yet, other nations have other nomenclature.

In France, The second nation to employ tanks in combat, Initially, the term tank or tanque was adopted, however, then, largely at Colonel J.B.E's demand.

Estienne, Rejected in favor of char d'assaut or just char (vehicle).

Throughout World War I, Typically, German sources referred to British tanks as Tanks Later, Tanks became known as Panzer (lit. panzer).

armour), The abbreviated form of the term Panzerkampfwagen., literal armored combat vehicle.

In the Arab region, tanks are called Dabbāba (after a type of siege engine).

In Italian, A tank is a carro armato (lit. armed horse).

armed vehicle, without mentioning its armor.

Norway employs the phrase stridsvogn, while Sweden uses stridsvagn (lit.

combat wagon, also applicable to chariots, Denmark employs kampvogn (lit.

fight wagon).

Finland employs the pansarivaunu (armoured wagon), Despite the fact that tankki is sometimes used colloquially.

The Polish name czołg, derived from verb czołgać się (to crawl), is used, illustrating the manner in which a machine moves and its speed.

The tank's Hungarian name is harckocsi (combat wagon), but tank is also typical.

In Japanese, the term sensha (戦車, lit.

war vehicle) is derived from Chinese, and this term is likewise borrowed into Korean as jeoncha (전차/戰車); more recent Chinese literature uses the English-derived 坦克 tǎnkè (tank) as opposed to 戰車 zhànchē (battle vehicle) used in earlier days.

Due to technological advancements such as the internal combustion engine, which enabled the rapid mobility of heavy armoured vehicles, the modern tank is the product of a century of progress from the first rudimentary armoured vehicles. As a result of these developments, tank capabilities have undergone dramatic changes since their inception. Great Britain and France independently and concurrently developed tanks to break the stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front during World War I. The first British prototype, nicknamed Little Willie, was created at William Foster & Co. in Lincoln, England in 1915. Major Walter Gordon Wilson, who designed the gearbox and hull, and William Tritton of William Foster & Co., who designed the track plates, played key roles in its development. During the early phases of tank development, the British used the moniker tank as a security measure to conceal their intended use (see etymology). While the British and French produced thousands of tanks during World War I, Germany was sceptical of the tank's viability and lacked the necessary resources to produce twenty.

World War II tanks were considerably larger and more powerful than those of the interwar era. The Soviet Union launched the first major tank/air offensive at Khalkhin Gol (Nomonhan) in August 1939, and afterwards created the T-34, one of the forerunners of the main battle tank. Less than two weeks later, Germany launched its large-scale armoured campaigns, which would become known as blitzkrieg (lightning war) – massed concentrations of tanks, motorized and mechanized infantry, artillery, and air power intended to break through the enemy front and collapse enemy resistance.

During the second half of World War II, the widespread adoption of high-explosive anti-tank warheads led to the development of lightweight infantry-carried anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerfaust, which could destroy certain types of tanks. During the Cold War, tanks were constructed with these weapons in mind, resulting in vastly enhanced armour types, especially composite armour, in the 1960s. The improved engines, transmissions, and suspensions of this era allowed tanks to rise in size. Aspects of gun technology also evolved dramatically, including shell design and aiming innovations.

During the Cold War, the concept of the main battle tank emerged and became an integral part of modern forces.

The tank is the realization of an ancient concept: that of giving mobility protection and firepower to troops. The internal combustion engine, armor plate, and continuous track were significant advances that led to the development of the modern tank.

According to numerous reports, Leonardo da Vinci and H.

G.

Wells anticipated or invented the tank.

Leonardo's late-15th-century depictions of what some call a tank depict a man-powered vehicle, Wheeled vehicle armed with cannons on all sides.

However, the human crew would be unable to propel it over longer distances, Animal use was problematic in such a tight setting.

The fifteenth century, Jan Žižka built armoured wagons containing cannons and used them effectively in several battles.

Attempts to improve the mobility of wheeled vehicles by dispersing their weight gave rise to the continuous caterpillar track., lowering soil pressure, as well as enhancing their grip.

Experiments date back to the seventeenth century, By the end of the nineteenth century, they existed in various identifiable and functional forms in a number of nations.

Numerous sources assert that Richard Lovell Edgeworth invented the caterpillar track. It is true that he patented a machine that would carry and lay down its own road in 1770, but Edgeworth chose these particular wording. In his autobiography, he describes a horse-drawn wooden carriage with eight retractable legs that could climb over tall walls. There is no resemblance between the description and a caterpillar trail. Midway through the 19th century, armoured railways and other armoured steam and gasoline-powered vehicles were proposed.

The machines depicted in the 1903 short novel by H. G. Wells Land Ironclads are a step closer in that they are armored, have an internal power source, and can cross trenches. Austria created the first armoured automobile in 1904. However, they were all limited to rails or navigable terrain. It was the invention of a practical caterpillar track that made autonomous, all-terrain mobility possible.

Robert Falcon Scott, an Antarctic explorer, argued in a 1908 note that man-hauling to the South Pole was unfeasible and that motor traction was required. All of these ideas were rejected and forgotten by 1914, but it was accepted after the war that de Mole's design was at least on par with the first British tanks. Various individuals continued to consider the military implications of tracked vehicles, but by the onset of World War I, no one in a position of authority in any army appears to have given tanks considerable thought.

The tank's immediate military significance is debatable, but its effect on the Germans was significant; it produced equal parts confusion, fear, and concern. It was also a tremendous morale booster at home. After fighting the Zeppelins, Britain now possessed a miraculous weapon. Tanks were taken on tours and handled almost as if they were celebrities.

— David Willey, curator at The Tank Museum, Bovington.

Beginning in late 1914, a few of middle-ranking British Army officers attempted to convince the War Office and the Government to consider the development of armoured vehicles. Among their recommendations was the use of caterpillar tractors; however, despite the Army's extensive usage of such vehicles for carrying heavy artillery, it was not convinced that they could be converted into armored vehicles. As a result, early tank development in the United Kingdom was conducted by the Royal Navy.

Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, established the Landship Committee on 20 February 1915 in response to an approach by Royal Naval Air Service personnel who had been operating armoured cars on the Western Front. When the news of the first use of tanks became public, Prime Minister David Lloyd George remarked on the matter, Mr. Winston Churchill deserves the greatest amount of credit. Long