Talk:History of the tank

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this page is terrific. the writing, images and chart are top notch. that chart must have taken forever, and yet, i still have a request. can you include horse power in the chart? Kingturtle 10:04 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

The chart seems to be exactly the same as the one on this page.. [1] -- Jniemenmaa

I think horsepower is already here. I wonder how to make this start whith a whole sentence to comply to Wikipedia standards. Ericd 11:08 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

It is OK to start with just the heading when there isn't really a way to do the title in first sentence thing, Eric. Tannin

Hmm, I'am a bit confused by this page. The term "main battle tank" is not usually used on pre-korean war tanks, but the article is mostly about WW1 and WW2 tanks. Notice that the term "main battle tank" is not used at all in the article, not even in the first sentence! The first tanks I've seen it applied on were the T-64 and the Centurion. -- Jniemenmaa 11:44 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

It might very well be wrong to use the term MBT, as you say. I simply moved the text from the Main Battle Tank page, and came up with what I thought was an apropriate name. europrobe 12:01 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Apr 18, 2003 N 14:32 Main battle tank history (cur; hist) . . Patrick (Talk) (moved to "Tank_history")

There is also the article Tank, I guess there is little confusion with other meanings. - Patrick 12:35 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Some mention of Chobham armour might be appropriate

What is it ?
Ericd 17:51 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)
This seems to be adressed in armour

Ericd 18:15 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Were tere no tank-like projects or ideas before XX century? Leonardo Da Vinci or others? Nobody ever wielded iron plates on horse drawn wagons? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 12:44, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like the Matilda being specified as the most developed Infantry Tank. I would simply mention it alongside the Churchill and Valentine instead.

General Estienne's quote : "la victoire appartiendra à celui qui réussira à monter un canon sur une voiture capable de se mouvoir en tous terrains" Feel free to improve the translation Ericd 18:43, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, two points to make:

1.Estienne was a Colonel at the time. 2. Voiture literally means "road-vehicle", so the good Colonel's remark was a bit infelicitous (or perhaps ironic). He certainly didn't mean "car" in the modern sense. A literal translation is: "The victory will belong to him who will succeed in mounting a gun on a vehicle capacle of moving in all sorts of terrain" which is rather convoluted. "Me first tank: you lose" sums it up nicely.

MWAK--84.27.81.59 16:46, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK Estienne was still Colonel at least until 1916. I don't know when he became General. However by voiture he certainly meant car in the modern sense. As the Frenchs were (by far) the largest automobile manufacturers in World in 1914, he certainly knew what he was talking about. "Voiture capable de se mouvoir en tout terrains" is old fashionned pretty close to the more modern "voiture to terrain" (all-terrain car). OK in conteporary French both are somewhat obsoleted by "4x4" (4wd car). However Estienne said "voiture" (car) not "camion" (truck). IMO he was thinking to somùe kind of light engine while the British with their "landships" were thinking to an heavy engine, something like a land dreathnough. Estienne also said "canon" not "fusil" (rifle) or "mitrailleuse" (machine gun), this mean some kind of large gun like an artillery gun. As some concepts of armored cars using machine-guns were already used by the French (but pretty useless against trenches) he certainly envisionned some concept of tank. Ericd 21:54, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Estienne became Brigadier in about September 1916 [17 October :o)]. We can agree that he meant some motorised vehicle. The problem with translating voiture with "car" (though at the time there were still many horse-carriages around called the same, sustaining a connotation of "vehicle") is exactly that it suggests what you seem to be thinking: that he thought of something light. We know however that in 1915 he was in fact considering pretty heavy systems like armoured dozers pulling armoured sledges etc. The fact that he referred to a gun (in the context of AFV's this has the primary meaning of "cannon", so there's no need to qualify :o) only confirms this. Nevertheless, that being said, I have to admit that Estienne in general preferred lighter vehicles - produced in mass by the automobile industry - so you have a very good point there.

--MWAK 09:59, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Some more exact data. Estienne made his statement to the officers of his artillery regiment on 23 August 1914. He said: Messieurs, la victoire appartiendra dans cette guerre à celui des deux belligérants qui parviendra le premier à placer un canon de 75 sur une voiture capable de se mouvoir en tout terrain ( Ramspacher, Chars et Blindés Français p. 9). This clearly indicates he was indeed thinking of some truck-sized vehicle, as no mere passenger car would have been capable of carrying a 75 mm gun. It's remarkable how information can degenerate through time, as the previous quote was, I trust, correctly cited from a written source...

--MWAK 08:29, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] World War II

I've removed the paragraphs below from the WWII section as too specialised. --Martin Wisse 08:09, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

It was true that nothing larger than machine guns could be mounted in any turret that this vehicle could carry. But with this disadvantage, it could be made ready for action by 1934 and it would at least serve as a training tank until our real combat tanks began to appear. [...] Nobody in 1932 could have guessed that one day we should have to go into action with this little training tank.
—Heinz Guderian, Chief of German Army General Staff, on the Pz I.

The Panzer I was intended for training tank drivers and commanders, and was never meant to go into combat. The Panzer II was also designed as a training vehicle. Despite this, the Panzer I and Panzer II both saw service in the Spanish civil war, and were the primary tanks used in the invasions of Poland and France.

[edit] Lack of Info on WWII tanks from other nations

Although I realize that there is information in Wikipedia on Soviet and Amercian tanks, it is extremely limited as far as a overall summarry, and at times is a simple list of tanks produced. While at the same time, similiar information exists in wikipedia for germany and britain, but is elaborated on and mentioned within this article. I think that this is a major deficiency!

I mean, how can we include info on british tanks (arguably the worst tanks of WWII) and yet not include equally Soviet tanks. The T-34 is considered the single most important tank ever produced--for this reason the Military Channel and its parent company, the Discovery Channel, ranked it as the number one tank of all-time.[2] Infact I've heard of some british war veterans who to this day have demanded that british tank producers, if they had any decency, should've given back the medals they were awarded after the war.

I'm certain that the only reason that Soviet and American tank production is not written and included in this article with the British and Germans, is that someone just hasn't had time to write it. But i don't wanna screw up such a well written article, so I'm trying to refrain from adding anything to it. I just wanna know why the other nations that fought WWII aren't included, but the british and germans are? Doesn't make much sense to me.-Persianlor

You're right that the reason the histories haven't been included is that nobody's had the knowlege and time to write them. Feel free to add your own writeup of the histories. --Carnildo 05:10, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

thanks for answering my question, I will go to the library and do some research. I'll likely have all the information on Soviet and American tank devolpment in WWII by the end of today (easter standard time). Thank you again! --Persianlor

There are also some tidbits referring to the Soviet's general design strategies and trends in the T-70, T-34, KV-1, IS-2 tank articles, as well as some background in Tanks (1919-1939). —Michael Z. 2005-11-23 00:51 Z


Yes I know, but i thought it would only be fitting to complete the category. AND I FINALLY DID IT!!!!! It took me about four hours, but i tried to do the article justice and complete the US and Soviet sections of WWII. It's was wonderfully made article and I didn't want to ruin it, so i tried to make sure my research was as complete as possible. There is unfortunately, a lot of missing info in Wikipedia on some of the tank designs (more specifics on the shermans variants, and no articles that discussed them solely and seperately) as well as some missing bits such as the T-60 and T-40 soviet tanks, and no article at all on Mikhail Koshkin--I'll try one day to rememdy this if i have the time ^_~. But I did a lot of research, and I just hope its worthy of the overall article.

Plese let me know if it the Soviet and US categories of WWII are lacking in any way. --Persianlor

I've already fiddled with your addition some, but excellent work getting these sections started. Thanks. —Michael Z. 2005-11-23 04:58 Z
Yes, it's great that these sections are started, but they need a lot of work to come up to the standard of the rest of the (excellent)article. I will give it a go also.DMorpheus 13:39, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

WOW...you guys weren't kidding when you said you were gonna work on them.LOL....I didn't wanna make the Soviet and American sections larger than the others, because I thought that might show some bias on my part, but man you guys added information that was more concise than I could've hoped to find. Seriously, well done. I like that a more exact count was given of the number of Soviet tanks on the onset of Operation Barbarosa, and the details given of these tanks productions was great too--especially the fact that you guys managed to include something on the T-60 and T-40, which seemed to be rarely discussed wherever I looked. Unfortunately (or fotunately depending on your view) this might mean we would have to do some more work on the German and British ones.LOL The fact that my english tends to be overly-complicated and less suited for encyclopedic writing, might mean someone else would need to do it. ^_^

Oh...one more thing: I forgot to add this, but last I recall T-34 were still being used in poorer nations..I know Saddam had them...but I remember watching on TV that these tanks were still used. I didn't wanna add this, because i know it might be based on heresay and rumour on my part, but if anyone knows: please include that fact. -Persianlor

There are probably some T-34-85s in use somewhere in what used to be called the 'Third World' so I certainly wouldn't object if someone noted that fact, but I am not sure how significant it is. After all, I am pretty sure some South American countries retired their last few M-3 Stuarts in the last decade or so, and yesterday I saw a photo of a US M-36B1 tank destroyer in Iraqi service, captured in OIF...but we can't include everything ;)
I wouldn't add anything more on the T-40. It's a pretty insignificant, if well-photographed, vehicle. Since it has it's own page I think a mention is enough.
It would be cool if someone improved the entries on US tank destroyers though.
DMorpheus 17:16, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
In overview articles like this, what usually happens is that sections will grow until they start overwhelming the rest of the article, at which point someone will move the section to its own article and leave a summary behind. That's what happened with the section on German tanks, and why it's got a "main article" link when none of the other World War II sections do. For that matter, this article itself used to be part of Tank. It's a normal part of the Wikipedia process. --Carnildo 20:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


Re: the latest edit by MWAK 12-13-5: I am not sure what you mean by the Red Army adopting new doctrine in 1940. In the older article I was referring to PU-36 (the field service regulations of 1936) which preceeded the great purge and reflected Tuchachevsky's thoughts on deep battle. DMorpheus 15:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

In 1938 and 1939 on instigation of Pavlov the actual organisation was changed after analysis of the field experience during the Spanish Civil War and the invasion of Poland. Armoured units were made smaller; infantry divisions got an organic tank battalion to improve infantry-armour coordination. Measures that made a lot of sense. The events of May 1940 reversed that trend: imitating the presumed German tactics became very fashionable and policy emphasis shifted again from the defensive to the offensive. It was a return to the 1936 prescripts — and beyond: they basically tried to "out-blitz" the German Blitzkrieg. Once the new party line was firmly established in the (in)famous Moscow conference of December 1940, as usual everything became seriously exaggerated. Hence the formation of another 29 Mechanised Corps, each larger than an entire Panzerarmee; the neglect of linear defence and the concentration of troops at western border. The strategy to be inspired by German tactics and try to turn them into a viable defence concept was of course the worst possible and plausibly the main cause of the catastrophe — of course in combination with the faulty assumption intelligence was good enough to provide a warning time of twee weeks: had all divisions been brought up to strength and the second echelon into place, the fight would not have been such an easy one for the Germans. See for more detail e.g. http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/barbaros.htm . Whether the changes of 1940 could be described as an official change in doctrine is of course debatable. In a certain sense it's true Soviet doctrine was basically constant.--MWAK 14:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Da Vinci creator of the tank

Shouldn't we add Leonardo da Vinci as the remote inventor of the tank? there's concise evidence that he conceived the idea...... (Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DaVinciTankAtAmboise.jpeg )

- Manuel

No, not in my opion. Leonardo merely came up with an idea, as did many others, but it was not practical. Might as well credit him with the invention of the airplane and helicopter too, except those designs also wouldn't work. DMorpheus 01:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
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