A military tank is a specialized form of automobile, which is heavily armored and usually equipped with a cannon and other weapons. Rather than ordinary wheels and tires, it has continuous treads so it can easily travel off-road over many types of terrain. The British and French first developed tanks during World War I in the hope of breaking the stalemate of trench warfare. Troops on foot could not penetrate the heavy machine gun fire, but the Allies believed they could break through in armored cars. Although used in substantial numbers, mainly by the Allies in the last year of the war, technical problems made them less effective than their designers had hoped. By World War II, however, many of these problems had been solved and they became a major weapon. The Germans began World War II with an extremely successful “Blitzkreig” (lightning war) attack on Western Europe. Supported by aircraft assaults, German tanks rapidly cut through forests and entrenchments thought impenetrable. One secret was their tactics, such as installing advanced radio communication devices to allow tank commanders to exchange information and orders. The Germans also dominated the scene in North Africa using tanks and infantry, supported by air attacks and reconnaissance. General Rommel, appointed commander of the German troops in Africa in 1941, gained the nickname “Desert Fox” for his daring surprise attacks on the enemy. Facing the German Panzer and Tiger divisions were machines like the M-4 (or Sherman) tank, the primary battle tank of the U.S Army. The Sherman tank was less powerful than its German counterparts, but proved to be more mechanically reliable. Further, American tanks were mass-produced in such great numbers (over 49,000 for the Sherman models alone) that their numbers overwhelmed the enemy. The Sherman tank, was made first by Ford Motor Company and later by a government-owned factory run by the Chrysler Corporation. Automobile manufacturers were, and remain, the largest designers and producers of tanks. Even the famed designer of the Volkswagen Beetle and sports cars bearing his name, Ferdinand Porsche led the design of the largest German tank of World War II, the Maus. German tanks, even though manufactured by large German companies such as Daimler-Benz and Krupp Steel, were never made in quantities that approached American production. The German advantage in tank warfare began to end in 1942, when hundreds of British tanks under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery forced back the smaller German force under Rommel in North Africa. While Rommel’s tanks were especially useful in the open terrain of the desert, it was difficult to prevent the enemy from cutting his supplies of fuel, water, food, ammunition, and spare parts. Allied troops also prevented the Germans from taking Stalingrad, Russia by a counterattack of over 500 Soviet T-34 tanks, leading to the battle of Kursk in 1943, which is remembered as the largest tank battle of the war.
Tanks were less heavily used in some of the later wars of the 20th century, such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars. However, they came back into heavy use when the Soviet Union embarked on its ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan, and in the 1990 and 2002 Persian Gulf wars between the U.S and Iraq. They remain a staple of nearly every military force around the world.
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