Portal:Tanks

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The Tanks Portal

An M4 Sherman tank in Italy in 1943 during WWII

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 good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; usually their main armament is mounted in 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 weapons platforms whose main armament is a large-caliber tank gun mounted in a rotating gun turret, supplemented by machine guns or other ranged weapons such as anti-tank guided missiles or rocket launchers. They have heavy vehicle armour which provides protection for the crew, the vehicle's munition storage, fuel tank and propulsion systems. The use of tracks rather than wheels provides improved operational mobility which allows the tank to overcome rugged terrain and adverse conditions such as mud and ice/snow better than wheeled vehicles, and thus be more flexibly positioned at advantageous locations on the battlefield. These features enable the tank to perform well in a variety of intense combat situations, simultaneously both offensively (with direct fire from their powerful main gun) and defensively (as fire support and defilade for friendly troops due to the near invulnerability to common infantry small arms and good resistance against heavier weapons, although anti-tank weapons used in 2022, some of them man-portable, have demonstrated the ability to destroy older generations of tanks with single shots), all while maintaining the mobility needed to exploit changing tactical situations. Fully integrating tanks into modern military forces spawned a new era of combat: armoured warfare.

Until the arrival of the main battle tank, tanks were typically categorized either by weight class (light, medium, heavy or superheavy tanks) or doctrinal purpose (breakthrough-, cavalry-, infantry-, cruiser-, or reconnaissance tanks). Some being larger and very heavily armoured and with large guns, while others are smaller, lightly armoured, and equipped with a smaller caliber and lighter gun. These smaller tanks move over terrain with speed and agility and can perform a reconnaissance role in addition to engaging enemy targets. The smaller, faster tank would not normally engage in battle with a larger, heavily armoured tank, except during a surprise flanking manoeuvre. (Full article...)-

Selected article -

The LT vz. 34, formally designated as Lehký tank vzor 34 ("Light Tank Mark 34") was a Czechoslovak-designed light tank used mainly by Slovakia during World War II. Its suspension was based on that of the Carden-Loyd tankette, of which the Czechs had purchased three, plus a manufacturing license, in 1930. Dissatisfied with the prototypes of the Tančík vz. 33 tankette, the Czech Army decided that it would be easier to design a light tank from scratch rather than modify a tankette's chassis to carry a fully rotating armored turret. 50 were built, the last of which was delivered during 1936, of which the Germans captured 22 - including the prototype, when they occupied Bohemia-Moravia in March 1939, but they promptly scrapped them. The Slovaks seized the remaining 27 when they declared independence from Czechoslovakia at the same time. In Slovak service it only saw combat during the Slovak National Uprising. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Selected battle -

The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by Army Group South of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Red Army, around the city of Kharkov between 19 February and 15 March 1943. Known to the German side as the Donets Campaign, and in the Soviet Union as the Donbas and Kharkov operations, the German counterstrike led to the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod.

As the German 6th Army was encircled in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army undertook a series of wider attacks against the rest of Army Group South. These culminated on 2 January 1943 when the Red Army launched Operation Star and Operation Gallop, which between January and early February broke German defenses and led to the Soviet recapture of Kharkov, Belgorod, Kursk, as well as Voroshilovgrad and Izium. The Soviet victories caused participating Soviet units to over-extend themselves. Freed on 2 February by the surrender of the German 6th Army, the Red Army's Central Front turned its attention west and on 25 February expanded its offensive against both Army Group South and Army Group Center. Months of continuous operations had taken a heavy toll on the Soviet forces and some divisions were reduced to 1,000–2,000 combat effective soldiers. On 19 February, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein launched his Kharkov counterstrike, using the fresh II SS Panzer Corps and two panzer armies. Manstein benefited greatly from the massive air support of Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen's Luftflotte 4, whose 1,214 aircraft flew over 1,000 sorties per day from 20 February to 15 March to support the German Army, a level of airpower equal to that during the Case Blue strategic offensive a year earlier.

The Wehrmacht flanked, encircled, and defeated the Red Army's armored spearheads south of Kharkov. This enabled Manstein to renew his offensive against the city of Kharkov proper on 7 March. Despite orders to encircle Kharkov from the north, the SS Panzer Corps instead decided to directly engage Kharkov on 11 March. This led to four days of house-to-house fighting before Kharkov was recaptured by the SS Division Leibstandarte on 15 March. The German forces recaptured Belgorod two days later, creating the salient which in July 1943 would lead to the Battle of Kursk. The German offensive cost the Red Army an estimated 90,000 casualties. The house-to-house fighting in Kharkov was also particularly bloody for the German SS Panzer Corps, which had suffered approximately 4,300 men killed and wounded by the time operations ended in mid-March. (Full article...)

List of selected battle articles
Operation Epsom Battle of Arras (1917) Battle of Moscow Battle of Verrières Ridge Battle of Khafji Operation Uranus Operation Tractable Battle of Smolensk (1943) Yom Kippur War Battle of Gembloux (1940) Battle of Hannut Battle of Asal Uttar Battle of 73 Easting Battle of Norfolk Battle of Villers-Bocage Operation Bøllebank Battle of Medina Ridge Battle of Baguio (1945) Battle of Phillora

Selected picture

Image 1The Flying Elephant was a proposed super-heavy tank, planned but never built by the British during World War I. Pictured is a 1/48 scale model of the Flying Elephant Design B at The Tank Museum, U.K.
Image 2A front view of the sole surviving A7V (Mephisto) on display at the Australian War Memorial
Image 3An M10 tank destroyer in action near Saint-Lô, France, June/July 1944
Image 4U.S. Army soldiers on Bougainville (one of the Solomon Islands) in World War II. Japanese forces tried infiltrating the U.S. lines at night; at dawn, the U.S. soldiers would clear them out. In this picture, infantrymen are advancing in the cover of an M4 Sherman tank.
Image 5Diagram of a tank based on the M1 Abrams. Diagram showing the major parts of a modern main battle tank, including the turret, glacis plate and main gun.
Image 6The PT-76 is a Soviet amphibious light tank that was introduced in the early 1950s and soon became the standard reconnaissance tank of the Soviet Army and the other Warsaw Pact armed forces.
Image 7A M3 Lee. The Medium Tank M3 was an American tank used during World War II. In Britain the tank was called "General Lee" named after General Robert E. Lee, and its modified version built to British specification, with a new turret, was called "General Grant" named after General Ulysses S. Grant.
Image 8Map of the South Ossetia war, in which a considerable number of Georgia T-72's and assorted Russian armor were used.
Image 9A 3rd Marine Division – U.S. Marine Corps flame tank in action near Da Nang, Vietnam. The U.S. Army no longer had flamethrower tanks but the Marine Corps sent several to Vietnam. January 1966.

General images

The following are images from various tank-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A Holt tractor in the Vosges in early 1915 serving as an artillery tractor for a French army De Bange 155 mm cannon (from History of the tank)
Image 2Little Willie design, December 1915 (from History of the tank)
Image 3The electric Aubriot-Gabet "Fortress", mounted on a tractor chassis, 1915 (from History of the tank)
Image 4Merkava IIID Baz fires – the Baz Fire-control system increases the Merkava's accuracy and lethality (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 5The K-2 Black Panther model on display (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 6US Army recognition poster of T-54/T-55 series tanks (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 7Killen-Strait tractor fitted with a Delaunay-Belleville armoured car body, shortly after the 30 June 1915 experiments (from History of the tank)
Image 8Soviet T-35, a five-turreted heavy tank of the 1930s (from History of the tank)
Image 9A M1A1 Abrams in the Taunus Mountains north of Frankfurt during Exercise Ready Crucible in February 2005. (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 10Russian Vezdekhod tank prototype, 1915 (from History of the tank)
Image 11Russian T-90 (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 12Russian Chyorny Oryol or Black Eagle features (from History of the tank)
Image 13Pakistan main battle tank Al-Khalid MBT on display in November 2012. (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 14A Frot-Laffly landship was tested on 28 March 1915 in France. (from History of the tank)
Image 15An American M1 Abrams tank destroyed in Baghdad (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 16An A7V tank at Roye on 21 March 1918 (from History of the tank)
Image 17Final caterpillar test, on 21 February 1916, before the mass order of the Schneider CA1 tank on 25 February (from History of the tank)
Image 18A Waffen-SS Tiger I tank in France (from History of the tank)
Image 19Ukrainian T-84 (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 20Arjun-Mk.1A (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 21US M1 Abrams tanks from the 3rd Armored Division along the Line of Departure. (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 22Karrar MBT (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 23The Tsar Tank (from History of the tank)
Image 24Leonardo da Vinci sketch of his armored fighting vehicle (from History of the tank)
Image 25Arjun-Mk.1 (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 26British Challenger 2 Tank of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Squadron D). (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 27The Souain tank prototype crossing a trench at Souain on 9 December 1915 (from History of the tank)
Image 28Italian Ariete main battle tank of the Italian Army (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 29A Leclerc Main Battle Tank on manoeuvres. (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 30Turkish Altay MBT (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 31Tritton Trench-Crosser, May 1915 (from History of the tank)
Image 32A British Mark I tank in action on 26 September 1916 (moving left to right). Photo by Ernest Brooks. (from History of the tank)
Image 331904 illustration of H.G. Wells' December 1903 The Land Ironclads, showing huge ironclad land vessels, equipped with pedrail wheels (from History of the tank)
Image 34The Boirault machine used a huge rotating frame around a motorized center, early 1915 (from History of the tank)
Image 35An Asad Babil abandoned after facing the final US thrust into Baghdad (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 36Chinese Type 99 tank (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)
Image 37Char Renault FT, Les Invalides (from History of the tank)
Image 38The No1 Lincoln Machine, with lengthened Bullock tracks and Creeping Grip tractor suspension, September 1915 (from History of the tank)
Image 39Vickers Medium Mark Is on a manoeuvre somewhere in England, 1930 (from History of the tank)
Image 40JGSDF Type10 Tank of the 1st Armored Training Unit (from Tanks of the post–Cold War era)

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Sources

Kenneth W. Estes, 2014, Super-heavy Tanks of World War II, Osprey Publishing 48 pp

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[1] Kenneth W. Estes, 2014, Super-heavy Tanks of World War II, Osprey Publishing 48 pp