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.
Modern tanks are versatile mobile land
Until the invention of the
Etymology
The word tank was first applied to British "landships" in 1915 to keep their nature secret before they entered service.[3]
Origins
On 24 December 1915, a meeting took place of the Inter-Departmental Conference (including representatives of the Director of Naval Construction's Committee, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Munitions, and the War Office). Its purpose was to discuss the progress of the plans for what were described as "Caterpillar Machine Gun Destroyers or Land Cruisers." In his autobiography, Albert Gerald Stern (Secretary to the Landship Committee, later head of the Mechanical Warfare Supply Department) says that at that meeting:
Mr. d'Eyncourt agreed that it was very desirable to retain secrecy by all means, and proposed to refer to the vessel as a "Water Carrier". In Government offices, committees and departments are always known by their initials. For this reason I, as Secretary, considered the proposed title totally unsuitable.[a]In our search for a synonymous term, we changed the word "Water Carrier" to "Tank," and became the "Tank Supply" or "T.S." Committee. That is how these weapons came to be called Tanks.
He incorrectly added, "and the name has now been adopted by all countries in the world."[5]
Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Swinton, who was secretary to the meeting, says that he was instructed to find a non-committal word when writing his report of the proceedings. In the evening he discussed it with a fellow officer, Lt-Col Walter Dally Jones, and they chose the word "tank". "That night, in the draft report of the conference, the word 'tank' was employed in its new sense for the first time."[6] Swinton's Notes on the Employment of Tanks, in which he uses the word throughout, was published in January 1916.
In July 1918, Popular Science Monthly reported:
Because a fellow of the
Sir William Tritton, who designed and built them, has published the real story of their name ... Since it was obviously inadvisable to herald "Little Willie's" reason for existence to the world he was known as the "Instructional Demonstration Unit." "Little Willie's" hull was called in the shop orders a "water carrier for Mesopotamia"; no one knew that the hull was intended to be mounted on a truck. Naturally, the water carrier began to be called a "tank". So the name came to be used by managers and foremen of the shop, until now it has a place in the army vocabulary and will probably be so known in history for all time.[7]
(*F.J. Gardiner, F.R.Hist.S.)
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. To justify their size we decided to call them 'water-carriers for Russia' —the idea being that they should be taken for some new method of taking water to forward troops in the battle areas. Lt.-Col. Swinton ... raised a humorous objection to this, remarking that the War Office pundits would probably contract the description to 'W.C.'s for Russia', and that we had better forestall this by merely labelling the packages 'Tanks'. So tanks they became, and tanks they have remained."[8]
This appears to be an imperfect recollection. He says that the name problem arose "when we shipped the first two vehicles to France the following year" (August 1916), but by that time the name "tank" had been in use for eight months. The tanks were labelled "With Care to Petrograd," but the belief was encouraged that they were a type of snowplough.
International
The term "tank" is used throughout the English speaking world, but other countries use different terminology. In France, the second country to use tanks in battle, the word tank or tanque was adopted initially, but was then, largely at the insistence of Colonel J.B.E. Estienne, rejected in favour of char d'assaut ("assault vehicle") or simply char ("vehicle"). During World War I, German sources tended to refer to British tanks as Tanks[9][10] and to their own as Kampfwagen.[11] Later, tanks became referred to as "Panzer" (lit. "armour"), a shortened form of the full term "Panzerkampfwagen", literally "armoured fighting vehicle". In the Arab world, tanks are called Dabbāba (after a type of siege engine). In Italian, a tank is a "carro armato" (lit. "armed wagon"), without reference to its armour. Norway uses the term stridsvogn and Sweden the similar stridsvagn (lit. "battle wagon", also used for "chariots"), whereas Denmark uses kampvogn (lit. fight wagon). Finland uses panssarivaunu (armoured wagon), although tankki is also used colloquially. The Polish name czołg, derived from verb czołgać się ("to crawl"), is used, depicting the way of machine's movement and its speed. In Hungarian the tank is called harckocsi (combat wagon), albeit tank is also common. In Japanese, the term sensha (戦車, lit. "battle vehicle") is taken from Chinese and used, 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.
Development overview
The modern tank is the result of a century of development from the first primitive armoured vehicles, due to improvements in technology such as the internal combustion engine, which allowed the rapid movement of heavy armoured vehicles. As a result of these advances, tanks underwent tremendous shifts in capability in the years since their first appearance.
The widespread introduction of high-explosive anti-tank warheads during the second half of World War II led to lightweight infantry-carried anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerfaust, which could destroy some types of tanks. Tanks in the Cold War were designed with these weapons in mind, and led to greatly improved armour types during the 1960s, especially composite armour. Improved engines, transmissions and suspensions allowed tanks of this period to grow larger. Aspects of gun technology changed significantly as well, with advances in shell design and aiming technology.
During the
History
Conceptions
The tank is the 20th-century realization of an ancient concept: that of providing troops with mobile protection and firepower. The
Many sources imply that Leonardo da Vinci and H. G. Wells in some way foresaw or "invented" the tank. Leonardo's late-15th-century drawings of what some describe as a "tank" show a man-powered, wheeled vehicle with cannons all around it. However the human crew would not have enough power to move it over larger distance, and usage of animals was problematic in a space so confined. In the 15th century, Jan Žižka built armoured wagons containing cannons and used them effectively in several battles. 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. Experiments can be traced back as far as the 17th century, and by the late nineteenth they existed in various recognizable and practical forms in several countries.
It is frequently claimed that Richard Lovell Edgeworth created a caterpillar track. It is true that in 1770 he patented a "machine, that should carry and lay down its own road", but this was Edgeworth's choice of words. His own account in his autobiography is of a horse-drawn wooden carriage on eight retractable legs, capable of lifting itself over high walls. The description bears no similarity to a caterpillar track.[16] Armoured trains appeared in the mid-19th century, and various armoured steam and petrol-engined vehicles were also proposed.
The machines described in Wells's 1903 short story The Land Ironclads are a step closer, insofar as they are armour-plated, have an internal power plant, and are able to cross trenches.[17] Some aspects of the story foresee the tactical use and impact of the tanks that later came into being. However, Wells's vehicles were driven by steam and moved on pedrail wheels, technologies that were already outdated at the time of writing. After seeing British tanks in 1916, Wells denied having "invented" them, writing, "Yet let me state at once that I was not their prime originator. I took up an idea, manipulated it slightly, and handed it on."[18] It is, though, possible that one of the British tank pioneers, Ernest Swinton, was subconsciously or otherwise influenced by Wells's tale.[19][20]
The first combinations of the three principal components of the tank appeared in the decade before World War One. In 1903, Captain Léon René Levavasseur of the French artillery proposed mounting a field gun in an armoured box on tracks. Major William E. Donohue, of the British Army's Mechanical Transport Committee, suggested fixing a gun and armoured shield on a British type of track-driven vehicle.[21] The first armoured car was produced in Austria in 1904. However, all were restricted to rails or reasonably passable terrain. It was the development of a practical caterpillar track that provided the necessary independent, all-terrain mobility.
In a memorandum of 1908, Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott presented his view that man-hauling to the South Pole was impossible and that motor traction was needed.[22] Snow vehicles did not yet exist, however, and so his engineer Reginald Skelton developed the idea of a caterpillar track for snow surfaces.[23] These tracked motors were built by the Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company in Birmingham and tested in Switzerland and Norway, and can be seen in action in Herbert Ponting's 1911 documentary film of Scott's Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition.[24] Scott died during the expedition in 1912, but expedition member and biographer Apsley Cherry-Garrard credited Scott's "motors" with the inspiration for the British World War I tanks, writing: "Scott never knew their true possibilities; for they were the direct ancestors of the 'tanks' in France".[25][page needed]
In 1911, a Lieutenant Engineer in the Austrian Army,
World War I
United Kingdom
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. It was also a huge boost to the civilians at home. After facing the Zeppelins, at last Britain had a wonder weapon. Tanks were taken on tours and treated almost like film stars.
— David Willey, curator at The Tank Museum, Bovington.[12]
From late 1914 a small number of middle-ranking British Army officers tried to persuade the War Office and the Government to consider the creation of armoured vehicles. Amongst their suggestions was the use of caterpillar tractors, but although the Army used many such vehicles for towing heavy guns, it could not be persuaded that they could be adapted as armoured vehicles. The consequence was that early tank development in the United Kingdom was carried out by the Royal Navy.
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.[29] The Director of Naval Construction for the Royal Navy, Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt, was appointed to head the Committee in view of his experience with the engineering methods it was felt might be required; the two other members were naval officers, and a number of industrialists were engaged as consultants. So many played a part in its long and complicated development that it is not possible to name any individual as the sole inventor of the tank.[29]
However leading roles were played by Lt
It is really to Mr Winston Churchill that the credit is due more than to anyone else. He took up with enthusiasm the idea of making them a long time ago, and he met with many difficulties. He converted me, and at the
Ministry of Munitions he went ahead and made them. The admiralty experts were invaluable, and gave the greatest possible assistance. They are, of course, experts in the matter of armour plating. 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. Col Swinton and others also did valuable work.— David Lloyd George, 19 September 1916.[36]
France
Whilst several experimental machines were investigated in France, it was a colonel of artillery,
The following year, the French pioneered the use of a full 360° rotation turret in a tank for the first time, with the creation of the Renault FT light tank, with the turret containing the tank's main armament. In addition to the traversable turret, another innovative feature of the FT was its engine located at the rear. This pattern, with the gun located in a mounted turret and the engine at the back, has become the standard for most succeeding tanks across the world even to this day.[37] The FT was the most numerous tank of the war; over 3,000 were made by late 1918.
Germany
Germany fielded very few tanks during World War I, and started development only after encountering British tanks on the Somme. The A7V, the only type made, was introduced in March 1918 with just 20 being produced during the war.[38] The first tank versus tank action took place on 24 April 1918 at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs met three German A7Vs. Captured British Mk IVs formed the bulk of Germany's tank forces during World War I; about 35 were in service at any one time. Plans to expand the tank programme were under way when the War ended.
Other nations
The United States
Although tank tactics developed rapidly during the war, piecemeal deployments, mechanical problems, and poor mobility limited the military significance of the tank in World War I, and the tank did not fulfil its promise of rendering trench warfare obsolete. Nonetheless, it was clear to military thinkers on both sides that tanks in some way could have a significant role in future conflicts.[40]
Interwar period
In the
In the
Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union all experimented heavily with tank warfare during their clandestine and "volunteer" involvement in the
The five-month-long war between the Soviet Union and the Japanese 6th Army at Khalkhin Gol (
Prior to World War II, the tactics and strategy of deploying tank forces underwent a revolution. In August 1939, Soviet General Georgy Zhukov used the combined force of tanks and airpower at Nomonhan against the Japanese 6th Army;[47] Heinz Guderian, a tactical theoretician who was heavily involved in the formation of the first independent German tank force, said "Where tanks are, the front is", and this concept became a reality in World War II.[48] Guderian's armoured warfare ideas, combined with Germany's existing doctrines of Bewegungskrieg ("maneuver warfare") and infiltration tactics from World War I, became the basis of blitzkrieg in the opening stages of World War II.
World War II
During
In accordance with blitzkrieg methods, German tanks bypassed enemy strongpoints and could radio for close air support to destroy them, or leave them to the infantry. A related development, motorized infantry, allowed some of the troops to keep up with the tanks and create highly mobile combined arms forces.[41] The defeat of a major military power within weeks shocked the rest of the world, spurring tank and anti-tank weapon development.
The
When Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets had a superior tank design, the T-34.[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. However, interference from Adolf Hitler,[52] the geographic scale of the conflict, the dogged resistance of the Soviet combat troops, and the Soviets' massive advantages in manpower and production capability prevented a repeat of the German successes of 1940.[53] Despite early successes against the Soviets, the Germans were forced to up-gun their Panzer IVs, and to design and build both the larger and more expensive Tiger heavy tank in 1942, and the Panther medium tank the following year. In doing so, the Wehrmacht denied the infantry and other support arms the production priorities that they needed to remain equal partners with the increasingly sophisticated tanks, in turn violating the principle of combined arms they had pioneered.[14] Soviet developments following the invasion included upgunning the T-34, development of self-propelled anti-tank guns such as the SU-152, and deployment of the IS-2 in the closing stages of the war, with the T-34 being the most produced tank of World War II, totalling up to some 65,000 examples by May 1945.
Much like the Soviets, when entering World War II six months later (December 1941), the United States'
Tank
Cold War
During the
Medium tanks of World War II evolved into the
In a trend started in World War II,
IV.Tanks and anti-tank weapons of the Cold War era saw action in a number of
21st century
The role of tank vs. tank combat is becoming diminished. Tanks work in concert with infantry in urban warfare by deploying them ahead of the platoon. When engaging enemy infantry, tanks can provide covering fire on the battlefield. Conversely, tanks can spearhead attacks when infantry are deployed in personnel carriers.[59]
Tanks were used to spearhead the initial US invasion of Iraq in 2003. As of 2005, there were 1,100
Research and development
In terms of firepower, the focus of 2010s-era
to prevent incoming projectiles (RPGs, missiles, etc.) from striking the tank.Mobility may be enhanced in future tanks by the use of
Design
The three traditional factors determining a tank's capability effectiveness are its firepower, protection, and mobility.[71][72] Firepower is the ability of a tank's crew to identify, engage, and destroy enemy tanks and other targets using its large-caliber cannon. Protection is the degree to which the tank's armour, profile and camouflage enables the tank crew to evade detection, protect themselves from enemy fire, and retain vehicle functionality during and after combat. Mobility includes how well the tank can be transported by rail, sea, or air to the operational staging area; from the staging area by road or over terrain towards the enemy; and tactical movement by the tank over the battlefield during combat, including traversing of obstacles and rough terrain. The variations of tank designs have been determined by the way these three fundamental features are blended. For instance, in 1937, the French doctrine focused on firepower and protection more than mobility because tanks worked in intimate liaison with the infantry.[73] There was also the case of the development of a heavy cruiser tank, which focused on armour and firepower to challenge Germany's Tiger and Panther tanks.[74]
Classification
Tanks have been classified by weight, role, or other criteria, that has changed over time and place. Classification is determined by the prevailing theories of armoured warfare, which have been altered in turn by rapid advances in technology. No one classification system works across all periods or all nations; in particular, weight-based classification is inconsistent between countries and eras.
In World War I, the first tank designs focused on crossing wide trenches, requiring very long and large vehicles, such as the British Mark I; these became classified as heavy tanks. Tanks that fulfilled other combat roles were smaller, like the French Renault FT; these were classified as light tanks or tankettes. Many late-war and inter-war tank designs diverged from these according to new, though mostly untried, concepts for future tank roles and tactics. Tank classifications varied considerably according to each nation's own tank development, such as "cavalry tanks", "fast tanks", and "breakthrough tanks".
During World War II, many tank concepts were found unsatisfactory and discarded, mostly leaving the more multi-role tanks; these became easier to classify. Tank classes based on weight (and the corresponding transport and logistical needs) led to new definitions of heavy and light tank classes, with medium tanks covering the balance of those between. The British maintained cruiser tanks, focused on speed, and infantry tanks that traded speed for more armour. Tank destroyers are tanks or other armoured fighting vehicles specifically designed to defeat enemy tanks. Assault guns are armoured fighting vehicles that could combine the roles of infantry tanks and tank destroyers. Some tanks were converted to flame tanks, specializing on close-in attacks on enemy strongholds with flamethrowers. As the war went on, tanks tended to become larger and more powerful, shifting some tank classifications and leading to super-heavy tanks.
Experience and technology advances during the Cold War continued to consolidate tank roles. With the worldwide adoption of the modern main battle tank designs, which favour a modular universal design, most other classifications are dropped from modern terminology. All main battle tanks tend to have a good balance of speed, armour, and firepower, even while technology continues to improve all three. Being fairly large, main battle tanks can be complemented with light tanks, armoured personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles or similar relatively lighter armoured fighting vehicles, typically in the roles of armoured reconnaissance, amphibious or air assault operations, or against enemies lacking main battle tanks.
Offensive capabilities
The
A gyroscope is used to stabilise the main gun, allowing it to be effectively aimed and fired at the "short halt" or on the move. Modern tank guns are also commonly fitted with insulating thermal sleeves to reduce gun-barrel warping caused by uneven thermal expansion, bore evacuators to minimise gun firing fumes entering the crew compartment and sometimes muzzle brakes to minimise the effect of recoil on accuracy and rate of fire.
Traditionally, target detection relied on visual identification. This was accomplished from within the tank through telescopic periscopes; often, however, tank commanders would open up the hatch to view the outside surroundings, which improved situational awareness but incurred the penalty of vulnerability to sniper fire. Though several developments in target detection have taken place, these methods are still common practice. In the 2010s, more electronic target detection methods are available.
In some cases spotting rifles were used to confirm proper trajectory and range to a target. These spotting rifles were mounted co-axially to the main gun, and fired tracer ammunition ballistically matched to the gun itself. 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. However this slow method has been mostly superseded by laser rangefinding equipment.
Modern tanks also use sophisticated
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
Protection and countermeasures
The measure of a tank's protection is the combination of its ability to avoid detection (due to having a low profile and through the use of camouflage), to avoid being hit by enemy fire, its resistance to the effects of enemy fire, and its capacity to sustain damage whilst still completing its objective, or at least protecting its crew. This is done by a variety of countermeasures, such as armour plating and reactive defenses, as well as more complex ones such as heat-emissions reduction.
In common with most unit types, tanks are subject to additional hazards in dense wooded and urban combat environments which largely negate the advantages of the tank's long-range firepower and mobility, limit the crew's detection capabilities and can restrict turret traverse. Despite these disadvantages, tanks retain high survivability against previous-generation rocket-propelled grenades aimed at the most-armoured sections.
However, as effective and advanced as armour plating has become, tank survivability against newer-generation
Avoiding detection
A tank avoids detection using the doctrine of countermeasures known as CCD: camouflage (looks the same as the surroundings), concealment (cannot be seen) and deception (looks like something else).
Camouflage
Camouflage can include disruptive painted shapes on the tank to break up the distinctive appearance and silhouette of a tank. Netting or actual branches from the surrounding landscape are also used. 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. A tank operating in wooded areas would typically get a green and brown paintjob; a tank in a winter environment would get white paint (often mixed with some darker colors); tanks in the desert often get khaki paintjobs.
The Russian
Concealment
Concealment can include hiding the tank among trees or digging in the tank by having a combat bulldozer dig out part of a hill, so that much of the tank will be hidden. A tank commander can conceal the tank by using "hull down" approaches to going over upward-sloping hills, so that she or he can look out the commander's cupola without the distinctive-looking main cannon cresting over the hill. Adopting a turret-down or
Working against efforts to avoid detection is the fact that a tank is a large metallic object with a distinctive, angular
Switched-off tanks are vulnerable to infra-red
Grenade launchers can rapidly deploy a smoke screen that is opaque to infrared light, to hide it from the thermal viewer of another tank. In addition to using its own grenade launchers, a tank commander could call in an artillery unit to provide smoke cover. Some tanks can produce a smoke screen.
Sometimes camouflage and concealment are used at the same time. For example, a camouflage-painted and branch-covered tank (camouflage) may be hidden in a behind a hill or in a dug-in-emplacement (concealment).
Deception
Some armoured recovery vehicles (often tracked, tank chassis-based "tow trucks" for tanks) have dummy turrets and cannons. This makes it less likely that enemy tanks will fire on these vehicles. Some armies have fake "dummy" tanks made of wood which troops can carry into position and hide behind obstacles. These "dummy" tanks may cause the enemy to think that there are more tanks than are actually possessed.
Armour
To effectively protect the tank and its crew, tank armour must counter a wide variety of antitank threats. Protection against
threats, any of which could disable or destroy a tank or its crew.British tank researchers took the next step with the development of Chobham armour, or more generally composite armour, incorporating ceramics and plastics in a resin matrix between steel plates, which provided good protection against HEAT weapons. High-explosive squash head warheads led to anti-spall armour linings, and kinetic energy penetrators led to the inclusion of exotic materials like a matrix of depleted uranium into a composite armour configuration.
Active protection system
The latest generation of protective measures for tanks are active protection systems. The term "active" is used to contrast these approaches with the armour used as the primary protective approach in earlier tanks.
- Shtoracountermeasure system, provide protection by interfering with enemy targeting and fire-control systems, thus making it harder for the enemy threats to lock onto the targeted tank.
- missiles, RPGs and potentially kinetic energy penetrator attacks, but concerns regarding a danger zone for nearby troops remain.[citation needed]
Mobility
The mobility of a tank is described by its battlefield or tactical mobility, its operational mobility, and its strategic mobility.
- Tactical mobility can be broken down firstly into agility, describing the tank's acceleration, braking, speed and rate of turn on various terrain, and secondly obstacle clearance: the tank's ability to travel over vertical obstacles like low walls or trenches or through water.
- Operational mobility is a function of manoeuvre range; but also of size and weight, and the resulting limitations on options for manoeuvre.
- Strategic mobility is the ability of the tanks of an armed force to arrive in a timely, cost effective, and synchronized fashion. For good strategic mobility transportability by air is important, which means that weight and volume must be kept within the designated transport aircraft capabilities. Nations often stockpile enough tanks to respond to any threat without having to make more tanks as many sophisticated designs can only be produced at a relatively low rate.[citation needed]
Suspension and running gear
Tank agility is a function of the weight of the tank due to its inertia while manoeuvring and its
Tracks
Tanks are highly mobile and able to travel over most types of terrain due to their continuous tracks and advanced suspension. The tracks disperse the weight of the vehicle over a large area, resulting in less ground pressure. A tank can travel at approximately 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph) across flat terrain and up to 70 kilometres per hour (43 mph) on roads, but due to the mechanical strain this places on the vehicle and the logistical strain on fuel delivery and tank maintenance, these must be considered "burst" speeds that invite mechanical failure of engine and transmission systems. Consequently, wheeled tank transporters and rail infrastructure is used wherever possible for long-distance tank transport. The limitations of long-range tank mobility can be viewed in sharp contrast to that of wheeled armoured fighting vehicles. The majority of blitzkrieg operations were conducted at the pedestrian pace of 5 kilometres per hour (3.1 mph), and that was only achieved on the roads of France.[80]
Engine
The tank's power plant supplies
The tank power plant evolved from predominantly petrol and adapted large-displacement aeronautical or automotive
The transition from petrol to diesel
Vehicle | Power output | Power/weight | Torque | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mid-sized car | Toyota Camry 2.4 L | 118 kW (158 hp) | 79 kW/t (106 hp/t) | 218 N⋅m (161 lbf⋅ft) |
Sports car | Lamborghini Murciélago 6.5 L | 471 kW (632 hp) | 286 kW/t (383 hp/t) | 660 N⋅m (490 lbf⋅ft) |
Racing car | Formula One car 3.0 L | 710 kW (950 hp) | 1,065 kW/t (1,428 hp/t) | 350 N⋅m (260 lbf⋅ft) |
Main battle tank | Leopard 2, M1 Abrams | 1,100 kW (1,500 hp) | 18.0 to 18.3 kW/t (24.2 to 24.5 hp/t) | 4,700 N⋅m (3,500 lbf⋅ft) |
Locomotive | SNCF Class T 2000 | 1,925 kW (2,581 hp) | 8.6 kW/t (11.5 hp/t) |
Fording
In the absence of combat engineers, most tanks are limited to fording small rivers. The typical fording depth for MBTs is approximately 1 m (3.3 ft), being limited by the height of the engine air intake and driver's position. Modern tanks such as the Russian T-90 and the German Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks can ford to a depth of 3 to 4 m (9.8 to 13.1 ft) when properly prepared and equipped with a snorkel to supply air for the crew and engine. Tank crews usually have a negative reaction towards deep fording but it adds considerable scope for surprise and tactical flexibility in water crossing operations by opening new and unexpected avenues of attack.
Crew
Most modern tanks most often have four crew members, or three if an
- Commander – The commander is responsible for commanding the tank, with all-round vision devices rather than the limited ones of the driver and gunner. He guides the gunner roughly onto target and guides the driver around turns and obstacles.
- Gunner – The gunner is responsible for laying the gun, the process of aiming an artillery piece at targets. It may be laying for direct fire, where the gun is aimed similarly to a rifle, or indirect fire, where firing data is calculated and applied to the sights. The term includes automated aiming using, for example, radar-derived target data and computer-controlled guns. Gun laying means moving the axis of the bore of the barrel in two planes, horizontal and vertical. A gun is "traversed" (rotated in a horizontal plane) to align it with the target, and "elevated" (moved in the vertical plane) to range it to the target.
- Loader – The loader loads the gun, with a round appropriate to the target (HEAT, smoke, etc.) as ordered by either the commander or the gunner. The loader is usually the lowest ranked member of the crew. In tanks with auto-loaders this position is omitted.
- Driver– The driver drives the tank, and also performs routine maintenance on the automotive features.
Operating a tank is a team effort. For example, the loader is assisted by the rest of the crew in stowing ammunition. The driver is assisted in maintaining the automotive features.[83]
Historically, crews have varied from just two members to a dozen. First World War tanks were developed with immature technologies; in addition to the crew needed to man the multiple guns and machine guns, up to four crewmen were needed to drive the tank: the driver, acting as the vehicle commander and manning the brakes, drove via orders to his gears-men; a co-driver operated the gearbox and throttle; and two gears-men, one on each track, steered by setting one side or the other to idle, allowing the track on the other side to slew the tank to one side. Pre-World War II French tanks were noted for having a two-man crew, in which the overworked commander had to load and fire the gun in addition to commanding the tank.
With World War II the multi-turreted tanks proved impracticable, and as the single turret on a low hull design became standard, crews became standardized around a crew of four or five. In those tanks with a fifth crew member, usually three were located in the turret (as described above) while the fifth was most often seated in the hull next to the driver, and operated the hull machine gun in addition to acting as a co-driver or radio operator. Well-designed crew stations, giving proper considerations to comfort and ergonomics, are an important factor in the combat effectiveness of a tank, as it limits fatigue and speeds up individual actions.
Engineering constraints
A noted author on the subject of tank design engineering, Richard Ogorkiewicz, outlined the following basic engineering sub-systems that are commonly incorporated into tank's technological development:[84][page needed]
- Mobility of tanks (through chassis design)
- Tank engines
- Tank transmissions
- running gear
- Soil-vehicle mechanics
- Tank guns and ammunition
- Ballistics and mechanics of tank guns
- Vision and sighting systems
- Illuminating and night visionsystems
- Fire control systems for main and auxiliary weapons
- Gun control systems
- Guided weapons
- armour protection
- Configuration of tanks
To the above can be added unit communication systems and electronic anti-tank countermeasures, crew ergonomic and survival systems (including flame suppression), and provision for technological upgrading. 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.
The characteristics of a tank are determined by the performance criteria required for the tank. The obstacles that must be traversed affect the vehicles front and rear profiles. The terrain that is expected to be traversed determines the track ground pressure that may be allowed to be exerted for that particular terrain.[85]
Tank design is a compromise between its technological and budgetary constraints and its tactical capability requirements. It is not possible to maximise firepower, protection and mobility simultaneously while incorporating the latest technology and retain affordability for sufficient procurement quantity to enter production. For example, in the case of tactical capability requirements, increasing protection by adding armour will result in an increase in weight and therefore decrease in mobility; increasing firepower by installing a larger gun will force the designer team to increase armour, the therefore weight of the tank by retaining same internal volume to ensure crew efficiency during combat. 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.
Since the Second World War, the economics of tank production governed by the complexity of manufacture and cost, and the impact of a given tank design on logistics and field maintenance capabilities, have also been accepted as important in determining how many tanks a nation can afford to field in its force structure.
Some tank designs that were fielded in significant numbers, such as
Since the Second World War, tank development has incorporated experimenting with significant mechanical changes to the tank design while focusing on technological advances in the tank's many subsystems to improve its performance. However, a number of novel designs have appeared throughout this period with mixed success, including the Soviet
Command, control, and communications
20th century
World War I and Interwar period
armoured bulkheads, engine noise, intervening terrain, dust and smoke, and the need to operate with hatches closed are severe detriments to communication and lead to a sense of isolation for small tank units, individual vehicles, and tank crew. Radios were not portable or robust enough to be mounted in a tank, although Morse code transmitters were installed in some Mark IVs at Cambrai as messaging vehicles.[86] The mounting of a field telephone to the rear was not a practice. During World War I when these failed or were unavailable, situation reports were sent back to headquarters by some crews releasing carrier pigeons through loopholes or hatches[87] and communications between vehicles was accomplished using hand signals, handheld semaphore flags which continued in use in the Red Army/Soviet Army through the Second and Cold wars, or by foot or horse-mounted messengers.[88]
World War II
From the beginning, the German military stressed wireless communications, equipping their combat vehicles with radios, and drilled all units to rely on disciplined radio use as a basic element of tactics. 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.[89] By mid-war, Western Allied tanks adopted full use of radios, although Russian use of radios remained relatively limited.
Cold War era
On the modern battlefield an
21st century
Performing situational awareness and communication is the one of four primary MBT functions in the 21st century.[90] To improve the crew's situational awareness MBTs use
Further advancements in tank defense systems have led to the development of active protection systems. These involve either one of two options:
- Soft-kill – The Soft-kill protection systems use integrated on-board radar warning receivers which can detect incoming anti-tank missiles and projectiles. Once detected, soft-kill measures will be deployed which involves deploying smoke screens or smoke grenades which interfere with the incoming missile's infra-red tracking system. This will cause the incoming missile to miss the tank or to deactivate entirely
- Hard-kill – The more advanced approach involves the Hard-kill measures. These involve directly destroying the incoming enemy missile or projectile by deploying the tank's own anti-missile projectile. This is seen as a more reliable approach due to its direct intervention measures rather than interference measures of the soft-kill systems. Both these active protection systems can be found on several main battle tanks including the K2 Black Panther, the Merkava and the Leopard 2A7.
Combat milestones
Conflict | Year | Total number of tanks |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Battle of the Somme | 1916 | 49 | Tanks first used in battle[92][93] |
Battle of Cambrai | 1917 | 378 | First successful use of tanks[94][clarification needed] |
Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux | 1918 | 23 | First tank vs. tank battle |
Spanish Civil War | 1936–1939 | ~700 | Interwar tanks in combat |
Invasion of Poland | 1939 | ~8,000 | Origin of "Blitzkrieg" term |
Battle of Hannut, Belgium | 1940 | ~1,200 | First large tank vs. tank battle |
Battle of France | 1940 | 5,828 | Weaker but better commanded tanks successful in combined arms operations[original research?] |
Battle of Kursk | 1943 | 10,610 | Most tanks in one battle |
Battle of the Sinai | 1973 | 1,200 | Combat between main battle tanks |
See also
- Armoured recovery vehicle – Armoured vehicle for towing in combat conditions
- Armoured vehicle-launched bridge – Military engineering vehicle
- Armoured warfare – Use of armored fighting vehicles in war
- Tanks in the Cold War
- Circular review system
- Comparison of early World War II tanks
- Comparison of World War I tanks
- History of the tank – Chronicle of armoured combat vehicles
- Hobart's Funnies – Modified tanks first used in the Normandy Landings
- Hull-down– Upper part of vehicle is visible, hull is not
- Infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) – Type of armored personnel carrier with direct-fire support
- List of main battle tanks by country
- List of main battle tanks by generation
- List of modern armoured fighting vehicles
- Lists of armoured fighting vehicles
- Main battle tank – Tank designed for all primary combat roles
- Military engineering vehicle – Battlefield support vehicle
- Shot trap – Tank armor deficiency
- Tank classification – Categorizing tanks by weight or role
- Tank desant – Military combined arms tactic
- Tank destroyer – Type of armoured fighting vehicle designed to engage and destroy enemy tanks
- Tankette – Small tracked armoured fighting vehicle
- Tanks in World War I – Aspect of military history
- Tanks in World War II – Overview of tanks in World War II
- Tanks of the interwar period
- Tanks of the post–Cold War era – major division of geological time
- War wagon
Notes
- ^ The initials W.C. are a British abbreviation for a water closet; in other words, a toilet. However, later in the War, a number of Mk IV Tanks were fitted with grapnels to remove barbed wire. They were designated "Wire Cutters" and had the large letters "W.C." painted on their rear armour.[4]
References
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- ^ Electric/Hybrid Electric Drive Vehicles for Military Applications, pp. 132–44
- ^ McDonald, Colin F., Gas Turbine Recuperator Renaissance, pp. 1–30
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External links
- OnWar's Tanks of World War II Comprehensive specifications and diagrams of World War II tanks.