History of the tank
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This article is about the history of the tank.
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[edit] The prehistory of the tank
The problem of advancing to attack while under fire is as old as warfare itself. The idea of using some kind of moving construction for protection seems to be almost as old. The Greeks built huge siege towers called Helepolises. The Assyrians had movable barriers for archers. The Ancient Chinese had Dongwu Che for protecting warriors on the battlefield. The Roman Empire had shielded towers on wheels armed with catapults. The Poles and Czechs had wheeled metal-plated war-wagons in the Middle Ages. Leonardo da Vinci designed a man-powered fighting vehicle with wheels.
Most of these older ideas focused on sieges, where the more common tactics of manoeuvre and formation had less impact. Many advances in technology of the Industrial Revolution threatened to turn all warfare into a giant siege; this was the stalemate of trench warfare.
Armoured trains could carry a lot of weight but only go where tracks took them. Tracks were also relatively easy to destroy. Aircraft could easily penetrate and attack ground-based defensive lines, but could not actually take or defend ground by themselves. Armoured cars, first built by the British, did prove useful in warfare but were not very good at crossing challenging terrain such as trenches or gullies. The primary limitation was the poor ratio between the area of ground contact by the wheels and the vehicle's weight.
The British solved the problem by putting together a host of technologies to create a new class of weapon. It combined caterpillar tracks (already in use for their gun tractors) arranged with a climbing face, weapons mounted in turrets, and all-around bullet-proof armour. They named this tracked, armoured, and armed vehicle the tank.
H. G. Wells, in his short story "The Land Ironclads", published in The Strand Magazine in December 1903, had described the use of large, armored cross-country vehicles, armed with cannon and machine guns, to break through a system of fortified trenches, disrupting the defense and clearing the way for an infantry advance.
[edit] World War I: dawn of the tank
Although Austro-Hungarian engineer Gunther Burstyn submitted a design for a tracked armored combat vehicle in 1911 to the Austro-Hungarian and German governments, it was the British who deployed the first operational tanks.
The tank was developed from the American Holt farm tractor by the British in World War I as a solution to the stalemate trench warfare had brought to the western front. The first prototype of the Mark I tank, Little Willie, was tested for the British Army on September 6, 1915. They were initially termed "land ships" by The Admiralty, but to preserve secrecy the initial vehicles were referred to as "Water-carriers". The workers of William Foster & Co. Ltd in Lincoln were given the impression that they were building "Water-carriers for Mesopotamia"; hence the name Tank.
While the British took the lead in tank development, the French were not far behind and fielded their first tanks, the Schneider CA and St Chamond, in 1917. The Germans on the other hand were slower with tank development, concentrating on anti-tank weapons rather than tanks.
Initial results with tanks were mixed, with problems in reliability causing considerable attrition rates when getting the tanks into combat and on the move. The heavily shelled terrain was hard going, and only very mobile tanks such as the Mark I and FT-17 performed reasonably. The Mark I's rhomboid shape meant it could navigate larger obstacles, especially long trenches, better than many modern armoured fighting vehicles.
The tank would eventually make the trench warfare of World War I obsolete, and the thousands of tanks fielded by French and British forces made a significant contribution to the war in the summer of 1918.
Along with the tank, the first self-propelled gun, the first armoured personnel carrier, and the first fully-tracked armoured personnel carrier were also used in WWI (the Mark V tank was built with space inside for a small squad of infantry.)
For the characteristics of tanks used in World War I see Comparison of World War I tanks.
[edit] Between the wars
Between the two world wars, with the tank concept now established, several nations designed and built tanks. After World War I, Britain and France had emerged as the intellectual leaders in tank design, with other countries generally following and adopting their designs. This early lead would be gradually lost during the course of the 1920s and 1930s to Germany and Russia.
The final tank designs of 1918 showed a number of trends. The British produced the Mark VIII with the Americans. The pinnacle of the rhomboid design, the 34 ft long, 37 ton machine was powered by a 300 hp (224 kW) V-12 engine and capable of 7 mph (11 km/h) cross-country. It was clear from the designs of other nations that the rhomboidal shape was not going to dominate future development: tanks with lower track profiles, more compact hulls and turrets were produced by the Italians, French and Germans.
Worldwide, many sizes of tank were considered, and a lot of development effort went into light tanks that would be useful primarily against infantry or for colonial police-type work. The worldwide economic difficulties of the 1920s and 1930s led to an increased emphasis on light tanks also, since they were so much cheaper than medium or heavy tanks. However, the Spanish Civil War showed that tank-versus-tank engagements and tank-versus-towed antitank gun engagements would now be a major consideration. It became clear that future tanks would need to be heavily armoured and carry larger guns. Tank shape, previously guided purely by considerations of obstacle clearance, now became a trade-off, with a low profile desirable for stealth and weight savings.
Beyond the designs tanks became a political issue. In Britain, military opinion was divided on the future of tank warfare. J.F.C. Fuller was convinced that only the tank had a future on the battlefield. Basil Liddell Hart foresaw a war where all arms, infantry, tanks and artillery, would be mechanised, resembling fleets of 'land ships', and experiments in these fields did take place but were not adopted.
[edit] World War II
During World War II, the tank reached new heights of capability and sophistication. The early tanks of Nazi Germany were technologically inferior to many of their opponents' tanks in the areas of armour and firepower. It was in their tactical employment that German tanks dominated all rivals early in the war. The Germans blended the concept of armoured motorised combined-arms and air support with older strategies such as concentration of force (schwerpunkt), deep penetration, encirclements, independant decision making and above all fast movement. This lead to a need for armoured troop carriers, motorised assault guns and all other support arms to become mobile in order to keep up with and support the tanks. These tactics were dependent on the use of radio (wireless) communication between tanks, providing unmatched command and control. In contrast, almost all light French tanks lacked radios, essentially because their armoured doctrine was based on a more slow-paced, deliberate conformance to planned movements, which required fewer radios at all levels. French tanks generally outclassed German tanks in firepower and armor in the 1940 campaign, but poor command and control nullified these advantages.
Just as in World War I, the major combatants experimented with effective tank sizes. On the heavy side, the United States experimented with the T-28 at 95 tons and Nazi Germany developed the 188-metric ton Maus, though neither entered service. The trend towards heavier tanks was unmistakable as the war proceeded. In 1939, most tanks had maximum armor of 30 mm or less, with guns no heavier than 37-47 mm. Medium tanks of 1939 weighed around 20 tons. By 1945, typical medium tanks had maximum armor over 100 mm thick, with guns in the 75-85 mm range and weights of 30 to 45 tons. Light tanks, which dominated most Armies early in the war, gradually declined in importance and were used only in very limited roles.
Turrets, which had always been considered, but were not previously a universal feature on tanks, were recognised as essential. 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 one large gun with an all-round field of fire vital. Also, mounting the gun in a turret ensured that the tank could fire from behind some cover. Hull-mounted guns required that most of the vehicle be exposed to enemy fire. Multiple-turreted or multi-gun designs such as the Soviet T-35, US M3 Lee, French Char B or British A-9 Cruiser slowly became less common during World War II. It was recognized that the fire of several weapons could not effectively be controlled by a tank crew; also, newer dual-purpose guns eliminated the need for multiple weapons. Most tanks still retained a hull machine gun, and usually one or more machineguns in the turret, to protect them from infantry and provide suppressive fire for friendly infantry.
It was during this war that tanks began to be normally equipped with radios, vastly improving their command and control. By 1943, two-way radio was nearly universal. Tanks were adapted to a wide range of military jobs, including mine clearance and engineering tasks. Specialized models, such as flame-thrower tanks, recovery tanks for towing disabled tanks, and command tanks with extra radios and dummy turrets were also used. 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 - armoured vehicles carrying large calibre guns, but often no turrets. Turreted vehicles are expensive to manufacture compared to nonturreted vehicles. One trend seen in WW2 was the usage of older, lighter tank chassis to mount larger weapons in fixed casemates as tank destroyers or assault guns. For example, the Soviet T-34 could mount an 85 mm gun in the turret, but the same chassis could carry the much more effective 100 mm gun in a fixed casemate as the SU-100. Likewise, the obsolete German Panzer II light tank was modified to take a powerful 75 mm PAK-40 gun in an open-topped, fixed casement as the Marder II.
[edit] The Cold War
In the Cold War, the two opposing forces in Europe were the Warsaw Pact countries on the one side, and the NATO countries on the other side. The Warsaw Pact was seen by the West as having an aggressive force outnumbering the NATO forces.
Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact led to effective standardization on a few tank designs. In comparison, NATO adopted a defensive posture. The major contributing nations, France, Germany, the USA, and the UK developed their own tank designs, with little in common.
After World War II, tank development continued largely as it had been because of the Cold War. Tanks would not only continue to be produced in huge numbers, but the technology advanced dramatically as well. Tanks became larger and their armour became thicker and much more effective. Aspects of gun technology changed significantly as well, with big advances in shell design and terminal effectiveness. However, nowadays most tanks in service still have manually breech-loaded guns, a trait of the earliest tanks which is shared with most self-propelled and field guns.
Many of the changes in tank design have been refinements to targeting and ranging (fire control), gun stabilization, communications and crew comfort. Armour has evolved to keep pace with improvements in weaponry, and guns have gotten bigger. There have been no fundamental changes.
[edit] Entering the twenty-first century
The ongoing development of the tank is covered in more detail in the Tank research and development article.
With the end of the Cold War in 1991, questions once again started sprouting concerning the relevance of the traditional tank. Over the years, many nations cut back the number of their tanks or replaced most of them with lightweight armoured fighting vehicles with only minimal armour protection.
This period also brought an end to the superpower blocs, and the military industries of Russia and Ukraine are now vying to sell tanks worldwide. India and Pakistan have upgraded old tanks and bought new T-84s and T-90s from the former Soviet states. Both have demonstrated prototypes that the respective countries are not adopting for their own use, but are designed exclusively to compete with the latest western offerings on the open market.
Ukraine has developed the T-84-120 Oplot, which can fire both NATO 120 mm ammunition and ATGMs through the gun barrel. It has a new turret with auto-loader, but imitates western designs with an armoured ammunition compartment to improve crew survivability.
The Russian Chiorny Oriol ("Black Eagle") is based on a lengthened T-80 hull. An early mock-up, shown for the first time at the second VTTV-Omsk-97 International Exhibition of Armaments in 1997, appears to have dramatically heavier armour, and a completely new modern turret separating crew and ammunition. The prototype has a 125 mm tank gun, but is said to be able to mount a new 152 mm gun. Russia is also rumoured to be developing the Obiekt 775 MBT, sometimes called T-95, with a remote-controlled turret, for domestic service.
The Italian C1 Ariete MBT was among the latest all-new MBTs to be fielded, with deliveries running from 1995 to 2002. The tank is nearly the same size of the very first tank, both being 8 feet (2.5 m) high. The Mark I had a ~9.9 m long (hull) and the Ariete as a 7.6/9.52 m long (hull/hull+gun). However, the Ariete weighs over double and can travel ten times faster, 54,000 kg vs. 25,401 kg and 40 mph vs. 4 mph (60 v 6 km/h).
A number of armies have considered eliminating tanks completely, reverting to a mix of wheeled anti-tank guns and IFVs, though in general there is a great deal of resistance because all of the great powers still maintain large numbers of them, in active forces or in ready reserve. There has been no proven alternative, and tanks have had a relatively good track record in recent conflicts.
The tank continues to be vulnerable to many kinds of anti-tank weapons and is more logistically demanding than lighter vehicles, but these were traits that were true for the first tanks as well. In direct fire combat they offer an unmatched combination of higher survivability and firepower among ground-based warfare systems. Whether this combination is particularly useful in proportion to their cost is matter of debate, as there also exist very effective anti-tank systems, infantry fighting vehicles, and competition from air-based ground attack systems.
Possibly one of the main evolution sources for tanks in this century are the active protection systems. Until 15 years ago, armor (reactive or passive) was the only effective measure against anti-tank assets. The most recent active protection systems (including Israeli TROPHY and Iron Fist and Russian Arena) offer high survaivability even against volleys of RPG and missiles. If this kind of systems evolve further and are integrated in contemporary tank and armored vehicle fleets, the armor-antitank equation will change completely; therefore, 21st century tanks would experience a total revival in terms of operational capabilities.
[edit] Media
- Tanks of WWI (file info) — Watch in browser
- Video clip of WWI tanks helping the Allies with an advance in Langres, France (1918).
- Problems seeing the videos? See media help.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Kenneth Macksey and John H. Batchelor, Tank: A History of the Armoured Fighting Vehicle. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970
- Steven J. Zaloga and James Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1984. ISBN 0-85368-606-8
[edit] External links
- Achtung Panzer - The history of tanks and people of the Panzertruppe.
- OnWar's Second World War Armour
- Peter Wollen: Tankishness London Review of Books Vol. 22 No. 22, 16 November 2000. (A review of the book Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine by Patrick Wright, covering in detail some topics like the development of the first tank in Britain or the influence of the tank in culture)
