History of the tank

Emergence of the idea

The Greek had already built large towers of seat, the Helepolis. The Assyrie NS used mobile protections for their archers. The Romains had mobile turns protected by shields, moving on wheels and provided with catapults. The Czech and the Polish had with the Moyen-âge kinds of carriages with a metal envelope. In Italy, Léonard de Vinci drew the plan of a tank, left cone on wheels, equipped with guns and whose movement was ensured by the man power.

The majority of these ideas were deployed within the framework of the seats where the tactical displacement and operations had less importance. Technological advances of the Industrial revolution were likely to transform the war into a vast seat, which explained the use of the trenches. The Train S armor-plated could transport heavy loads but were limited in their displacements by the rails. Those were also very vulnerable. The Avion S could easily tackle positions on the ground but could not seize terrestrial objectives. The armored cars , built in first by the British , proved to be useful during the war but were not very handy and could not cross rough grounds or to cross Tranchée S, ditches with barbed wire, etc Their important weight and the surface of contact reduced between the Roue S and the ground limited their use.

The British found a solution by creating a new type of vehicle which combined caterpillars, shielding, turrets and various weapons.

H.G. Wells, in its news The Land Ironclads of December 1903, described the use of massive vehicles, strongly armor-plated and cross-country, armed with guns and machine-guns and which were able to cross a strengthened system of trenches to clean the ground and to facilitate the projection of the infantry.

First World War: birth of the armoured tanks

In 1912, an inventive civil Australia N, L.E of Mole, presented to the ministry for the British War the project of an armoured vehicle with caterpillars which could transport soldiers through the trenches and the barbed without fearing the shootings of the Mitrailleuse S. Although the project of this engineer arrived at the good moment, it was oddly rejected.

Armoured vehicles had however been used during the Guerre of Boers and of the tractors track-laying were with work, rendering invaluable services in American farms. H.G. Wells, in its work The Land Ironclads , had had the idea to combine these two concepts. The true problem of the project of Mole was the Mécanisation whereas the generals swore yet only by the Cavalerie.

A few months after the beginning of the First World War, in October 1914, an equivalent solution had been proposed by the Colonel Swinton of the British Army, a military tactician whose pen name was Ole-Luke-Goose. A visit with the face had convinced it that the combination of the Guerre of distinct the and the machine-gun required an armed vehicle, armoured tank and with caterpillars. One of the senior officials of the ministry for the Armies, colonel Hankey, supported the idea but Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State to the War, was against.

This project lands however on the desk of Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, which included/understood the interest and constituted of it a committee for the study of these prototypes of Ships Lands. Swinton renamed them Tank (tank) to make believe that the the United Kingdom produced water tanks autotractés bound for the France. In a completely independent way, the French, under the control of the general Jean-Baptiste Eugene Estienne, developed their own versions of an armoured vehicle, the Char Schneider CA1 tested in February 1916, then the Holy Char Chamond. In partnership with the companies Renault, then relatively modest, the tank equipped with a turret swivelling on 360° was then developed: the light tank FT-17, this architecture was since then recovery by the vast majority of the tanks.

When the ideal machine was finally developed, its production started. The idea was to use in mass these armoured tanks to cause a military dramatic turn of events. British side, the general Haig was so impatient to gain ground during the Bataille of the Sum, which he wanted to lay out of the first 60 machines available. Their appearance caused obviously the general surprise.

The tanks Mark I were conceived to cross a trench of almost 4 m of width and an obstacle of more than 1 m in height, they made 8 m of length and 4 m broad. Weighing nearly 30 tons, their top speed was hardly higher than that of a man to the step. The crew included/understood 8 men, including 2 in responsibility of operate each caterpillar. Their autonomy did not exceed 40 km and approximately every 80 km, the caterpillars were to be replaced. On the Somme, these armoured tanks did not bring anything decisive at the conclusion of the engagements. Moreover their disappointing performance did nothing but increase the contempt of the preserving officers.

“My poor Land Ships were released prematurely and on a too poor scale, there was however a true victory behind this Idée”, deplored Churchill.

Swinton was dislocated of its functions of chief of the British units of armoured tanks. After the Sum, the ministry for the War tried to cancel an order of 1 000 new armoured tanks and when some of them were envasèrent in the Marais of Passchendaele, it benefitted from it to lower the production of 4 000 with 1 300 tanks.

“Instead of questioning his own judgment, commented the British military historian to sir Basil Liddell Hart, the staff gradually lost any confidence in the tanks. ”

The Battle of Cambric, in November 1917, revealed finally the power of the armoured tanks to those which had eyes to see. But certain officers preferred to remain blind. And it still took a long year for the generals to realize that the tanks had definitively supplanted the Arme S, the principles and the Tactique S of at one time.

The German Armée was very late in this field and only 20 tanks A7V, of the armor-plated boxes not very manoeuvrable, were built in 1918. To note that at the time of its first great operation independent at the time of the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918, the US Army engaged 267 tanks, all of Frenchwomen manufacture of which FT-17 which was the tank more produced this time, under the command of the lieutenant-colonel George Patton who illustrated himself for his action during the Second world war.

Inter-war period: advances in the design and the strategies

The concept of the tanks being now standardized, of many nations designed and built new models between the two wars. During the Years 1920, the tanks Britanniques were most advanced. The France and the Germany were still in a precarious economic state following the war and of the application of the Traité of Versailles. These conditions did not make it possible these two countries to launch out in the development of effective tanks between the two-wars.

The the United States did little development for this period: traditional the Cavalerie absorbed the major part of the funds assigned to the development of the units of tanks which were only one under division. Even George S. Patton, character important for his experiment of the tanks during the First war, was transferred division armor-plated to join the cavalry. The American army had indeed decided not to finance units of tanks.

Throughout this period several classes of tanks were common, the major part of the advances taking place to the the United Kingdom. Light tanks, weighing ten tons or less, were used mainly for tasks of monitoring. They generally had a light and effective gun against of other machines of the same type. The average tanks or the fast tanks were slightly heavier, privileging displacement at high speed and on long distances. The heavy tanks or of infantry were strongly armoured and generally very slow. The total idea was to use tanks of infantry in the close combats with the infantry to carry out an opening, their heavy armor enabling them to box the Arme S anti-tank enemy. Once this combined force broke the enemy lines, of the fast groups of tanks were sent by the breach. They acted thus far behind the lines to tackle the infrastructure of provisioning and the units of command. This diagram ( one-two ) was the basic philosophy of British armor-plated divisions. It was adopted by the Germans like important component of the concept of the Blitzkrieg.

Doctrines of J.F.C. Fuller (British major-general of the First World War) was used as a basis for work of all the heads of armor-plated divisions: Hobart in Great Britain, Guderian in Germany, Chaffee with the the United States, De Gaulle in France, and Toukhatchevski in Soviet Union. Ironically, they are the Germans who followed more the theory of Fuller by applying it in the case of Blitzkrieg. Fuller recommended to circumvent the zones of strong enemy activity to encircle the adversary and to destroy it. The Red Army preferred as for it an approach with in-depth operations. Tukhachevsky developed these tactics during the Années 1920.

It is at this time that money in the development of tanks specialized in the anti-tank combat was invested. The main part of the means was concentrated on powerful weapons to fight against the tanks and others weapons of the same kind, including machines having for goal to destroy the tanks. In the United States one designed the tanks so that they are able to avoid the enemy shootings. Great Britain took the same way, and the two countries produced light tanks in optics that with speed, they could draw more quickly and avoid being struck, comparing their tanks with ducks.

In practice, these concepts proved to be dangerous. The increase in the number of tanks on the battle fields implied to have general-purpose machines. The tanks were at the same time to ensure their defense, to fight against the other tanks and to be able to launch attacks. The tanks only designed to face their counterparts were useless against the other threats. They were not appropriate for operations of support of the infantry. Vulnerability of the tank and capacity of destruction anti-tank device were quickly the leitmotivs of the originators of the time creating a true race with the “thickest shielding” and with “more French canon”. The shape of the tank, purely guided before by considerations of release of obstacles, changed much with a desirable low profile for discretion and stability.

The Second world war: Blitzkrieg and combined weapons

The Second world war saw a series of advanced in the design of the tanks. The Germany, for example, was specialized at the beginning in the slightly armor-plated and armed tanks, such as the Panzer I initially planned for the formation of the crews, the recognition and the support of the infantry. These fast tanks and other armored vehicles were important components of the lightning war. On the ground, they were however lower, in particular at the time of the direct combat with the British and Soviet tanks. The Soviet tank T-34 had a higher shielding, a more complete armament and offered an increased handiness for the same speed on any type of ground.

Towards the end of the war all the nations had considerably increased the firepower and the shielding of their tanks. Panzer I had only two machine gunners whereas Panzer IV had a gun at fallback speed of 75mm and weighed a little less than twenty tons. The average tank German standard towards the end of the conflict, the Panther, had a powerful gun at high-speed of a gauge of 75mm and weighed already 45 tons.

During the war, the tanks accepted systems improved of suspension what constituted a significant progress. The riding quality is the determining factor of the quality of a cross-country tank. Bad suspensions subject the crews to important jolts and limit the maximum speed of the tank. New systems like the Christie or the suspension with bar of torsion spectacularly improved the performances, making it possible for example the last generations of the Panther to move in any ground at speeds which were still unimaginable at the time of its design.

At that time the majority of the tanks were equipped with radios (all American and German tanks, certain Soviet tanks). The radios on the British tanks were of unequal quality but improved all the same enormously the command of the units. The frames of the tanks were adapted to a large range of military tasks, such as for example the mine clearance and military engineering following the example tanks of Percy Hobart, especially conceived for the unloading combined in Normandy. These specialized vehicles are more known under the name of Hobart' S Funnies .

All the principal fighting powers also developed anti-tank weapons specialized: artillery, tank destroyer, and tanks (armored vehicles carrying of the guns of large gauges). The guns of attack German and Soviet, simpler and better worked than of the tanks, had the heaviest gauges of all the vehicles of war, whereas hunters of the American and British tanks hardly differed from the traditional tanks.

The turrets from now on were regarded as the most effective site for the principal gun. In order to destroy armor-plated objectives, the tank needed a single and powerful gun to the difference in some models of pre-war period (like Soviet T-35). These old models distributed their firepower on several turrets, with an armament of low gauge or in other cases with only one fixed gun. The majority of the tanks kept at least a machine-gun.

See also: anti-tank specialists - 1939-1945

The cold war and afterwards

During the Cold war, the number of tanks in service in the rows of NATO and the Warsaw Pact was really impressive, with very a Net favors quantitative with dimensions Communist bloc in the years 1980 with step less 60 000 tanks in the Red Army (by far the first army of the world in this field) to which it is necessary to add of 2 for 5 000 tanks for each force of the satellite countries like the National popular army (NVA) East-German or the Bulgarian Armed . In the camps unfavourable, one counted 12 000 armoured tanks in the US Army, 4 000 in the Bundeswehr, 1 200 in the French Army , 900 in the British Army, 1 100 in the Greek Armed , etc

With the the Middle East and in North Africa, the wars Israeli-Arab and the wars of the gulf saw spreading thousands of armoured tanks in battles which can compete with those of the Second world war. The Israeli armed had between 2 and 3 000 tanks, the Iraq more 4 000, the Egypt and the Syria around 3 000. At the beginning of the 21e century, this area is militarized planet.

End of the cold war, the increasingly high cost of the new generations of tanks, need for having more flexible and projectable forces more quickly made that the park of tanks decreases in a brutal way in Europe and in North America. The European powers like the the United Kingdom, the France, the Italy or the Spain rest today on a park of less than 400 modern tanks while countries as the Belgium decided to occur some to the profit from lighter armoured tank-guns with wheels but the experiments of recent military operations always show the need for very protected machines and having large a Firepower.

The the United States which have currently approximately 7 000 M1 Abrams envisage to keep only 2 000 modernized M-1 which should be replaced by 2020-2025 by several lighter vehicles of the range of the 15-25 tons, the Drone S and the Robot S of combat resulting from the Future Fight System .

The Russia for its part continues to develop more economic tanks with the purchase than the Western models and largely exports them.

Several great powers Asiatique S design tanks:

the Japan having built some models of light tanks lasting the second world war, since the years 1960, produced proper models of tanks exclusively for the Japanese Armée, the Type 90 produces since the years 1990 is as powerful as the Léopard 2 but is also the tank expensive of the world.
the Popular republic of China has, since its foundation, product of the models under license of Soviet tanks and currently its production is still inspired by it.
the South Korea produces since the years 1980 its own models inspired of the American tank M-1.
the India tried to design its own tank, the Arjun, but the results are not currently convincing.

Tanks in the current world

The full number of operational tanks in 2002 would be of 106.000.

In the future

With the end of the cold war in 1991, one again started to put questions about the relevance of the traditional tank. During years, many nations reduced much the number of their tanks replaced for the majority by lighter fighting vehicles armor-plated with only one minimal shielding.

This period also brought an end to the blocks of super power, and military industries of Russia and the Ukraine fight now to sell their tanks abroad. India and Pakistan improved of old tanks and bought new T-84 and T-90 of the old Soviet states. Both showed that the prototypes that these countries develop are not used for their personal use, but are conceived exclusively to compete with the last offers of the Westerners on the market.

The Ukraine developed T-84-120 Oplot, which can draw from the ammunition anti-tank type NATO 120 millimetres and guided missiles (ATGM: Anti-tank guided missile) via the principal gun. It developed one a news with autochargor, but imitates the Western designs with an armor-plated compartment of the ammunition to optimize the chances of survival of the crew.

In Russia , the tank Chiorny Oriol (“black eagle”) is based on a lengthened T-80 hull. A first model, shown for the first time at VTTV-Omsk-97: second international exhibition of the armaments in 1997, seems to have clearly a heavier armor, and a modern separation completion new of turret crew and ammunition. The prototype has a gun of 125 millimetres, but would be able to carry new 152 millimetres. One thinks that Russia develops Obiekt 775, sometimes called T-95, with a remote-controlled turret, for their personal needs.

In Italy , C1 Ariete was the last all-new tank average with being put in operation, with the deliveries going from 1995 to 2002. The tank has almost the same size as the very first designed tank, both which 2,5 height m is. Mark I has a hull of ~9,9 m the long ones and Ariete has a hull of 7,6 m and 9,52 m with the gun. However, Ariete weighs the double (54 000 kilograms against 25.401 kilograms) and can move ten times more quickly (60 km/h against 6 km/h).

A certain number of armies thought of eliminating the tanks completely, turning over to a mixture of anti-tank guns rolling and fighting vehicles of infantry, however there is in general much reserve because all the great powers always maintain them in great number, in the active forces or the reserves ready with the combat. There is not moreover any proven alternative, and the tanks rather had good performances in recent conflicts.

The tank continues to be vulnerable to many kinds of weapons anti-tank device and requires logistiquement than lighter vehicles, but in fact features were as well true for the first. In the combat of direct fire they offer an unequalled combination of higher survival and firepower vis-a-vis the other systems of war. The fact that this combination is useful proportionally for their cost is matter with discussion, because there exist also systems, the fighting vehicles of infantry, and the very effective answer anti-tank device of the systems air drawn from the ground.

Probably one of the primary sources of evolution for tanks in this century will be the active protective systems. Until the years 1990, the armor (reactive or passivates) was the only effective measure against the attacks anti-tank device. The active protective systems most recent (including the TROPHY and Iron Fist Israelis or the Russian Arena) offer a high survability even against discharges of RPG and missiles. If this kind of systems evolve/move always more and are integrated by defect in the contemporary tank and the armor-plated fleets of vehicle, the equation armor-anti-tank device will change completely; therefore, the tanks of the 21e century would know a total rebirth in terms of operational possibilities.

The other big factor of evolution is the rarefaction of the availability out of gas oil in the near future, with perhaps with the key a change of motorization…

Evolution of the performance of the tanks

See too

Sources

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