Role Of Tank In Battle Field From 20th Century Into 21st Century

Today Air force plays a dominant part in any kind of warfare and having control of the sky is more vital than important to win any possible battle but that’s only half a part of picture for the whole situation. In battlefield if you have total Air superiority but you will still need an infantry to conquer the enemy positions by land without which whole concept of war can’t be completed.

When it comes to land warfare Today we know tank as an impregnable part of infantry because it provide the mobility , firepower and armor protection in one package and help the infantry to cut through enemy defenses more easily in less time and with fewer friendly casualties. The tank we know today was a brainchild of the British inventors and their first tank “British Mark 1” was introduced in September 15, 1916 in “First World War” to cut through the dead lock of German trench warfare stalemate on western front and to end years of bloodshed.It was equipped with Two 6 pdr guns and 12 mm of armor protection against Heavy machine guns used in German trenches.French was next to follow and introduced “Renault FT” tank in 1917 against the German And it is said to be the first prototype of the modern era tank which can move its turret housing its 37 mm Main gun at 360 degree angle to fire in any direction gunner want irrespective of the way the body of the tank is moving. Armor of Renault FT is 22 mm of armor to provide it with nice protection at that time.It was Germans are the one who lagged behind in armored warfare during First World War Finally they have introduced their own version of A7V tank at the end of 1916  to fight against the odds of enemy armor. German A7V is equipped with 57 mm main gun which was most powerful gun placed on tanks of that time and also have superior 30 mm of armor protection on sides and 20 mm on front .But Germans got only handful of them and those was not quite enough to do some good against their enemies.The tanks was proved to be mechanically unreliable and cabin conditions are even worse for the crew but they have become the only mean to cross trenches covered with barbed wire , battle field full of craters made by artillery shelling and to evade the enemy heavy fire.

It is during the Second World War when true potential of the tank have been put to use. Tank has been introduced in the Second World War as a mainstay of the infantry warfare. And this time it was Germans Third Reich which have raised as world leader in Tank design and Armored warfare .The German “Tiger Tanks” and “Panzer 4” tanks are not only the most advanced and lethal tanks but they are at the epitome of the tank design of that time and there is no tanks in the world at that which can stand against its capabilities. But Western Allies and Russians are the one who unlike Germans give more importance to quantity than quality of the tanks. Therefore during Second World War they decided to go with less superior tanks than Germans which are easy to mass produce and could get repaired on-field.And this decision prove to be a blessing for them because German’s while having most superior Tanks of the war they are over-engineered to get mass produced and difficult to get Repaired on-field and this is the reason they have got seriously outgunned by inferior “Sherman tank’s” of Western Allies and “T- 34” of Soviet Army by thousands of tanks and rest his history when German got defeated in 1945 ending the Second World War. Tank has been put under constant research and development and it evolved to a great extent after the Second World War to the Modern Era. Since the first tank has been rolled out in 1916 it is in the race of superiority against the anti-tank weaponry and other tanks. A tank of the modern era has been evaluated on benchmarks of Armor, Firepower and Mobility and there is no tank in the world which can get unlimited amount of one of these capability without sacrificing the other , To become a potent weapon of choice, every tanks have to achieve balance between these three benchmarks.

Below are the Main Battle Tanks of Five different nation's of the world which are considered to be having the most lethal and advance technical superiority  in the present world and they are also considered to be achieved best balance between Armor, Mobility and Firepower.