Tank

This page is in need of cleanup. Srsly. It's a fucking mess.

>

A French Renault FT-17 Tank, the first tank to have the rough layout that would be the norm for tanks (Crew in the front, top mounted 360 degree turret for main gun, engine in back)

A tank is a tracked, armored combat vehicle. The term is often limited to vehicles intended for direct combat, as opposed to e.g. self-propelled artillery (which stay to the rear) or armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles (which are on the front line but are primarily tasked with carrying soldiers as opposed to fighting directly). Their invention revolutionized warfare in the 20th century, and any wargame set in or after that time period (or in alternate universes with similar or more advanced technology levels) will have plenty of attention devoted to them -- or to whatever made them obsolete, as in e.g. BattleTech.

The idea of an armored fighting vehicle dates back at least to Leonardo da Vinci and H. G. Wells, but the modern tank was invented shortly before World War I, and was then spurred to production by the war itself. When the war on the Western Front got bogged down in trenches, the British Royal Navy had the idea to use tracked, armored vehicles with guns to break the stalemate. The name "tank" became attached to the vehicle as a codename to disguise the purpose of the large metal bodies being built. After the first tanks rolled onto the battlefield, other countries called them "battle wagons", "armors", "assault vehicles", and other more descriptive names, but the Anglosphere was stuck with calling them "tanks". (Interestingly, the original British Tank, which looked like a Leman Russ Battle Tank but without the turret, was called a "Little Willy".)

Tanks were built with pretty much any set of features you could imagine, but over time, the militaries of the world settled on several key features:

1. A large-caliber primary cannon for destroying enemy vehicles and defenses. This is partially why the Navy was the first branch of the British military to design and produce tanks during WWI, but mostly because the British army Derped out and did not see the value of tanks so the navy was forced to start development.
2. A turret to house the tank gun, to allow the tank to shoot at targets without having to pivot the entire vehicle. The French had this one figured out by 1918, and some tanks developed during the interwar period actually had more than one (though this proved impractical). Strictly speaking this one is not essential as the German Stug proves, and indeed the lack of a turret does have some advantages thanks to how it lowers the profile, but the advantages of a turret are strong enough to render the befits offered moot. A turret less tank is only really useful if you don't the money to make a turreted tank, or you don't the technology to mount a gun as big as you want in the turret.
3. A sloped, heavily-armored front face to absorb attacks, including those from enemy tanks. This in turn spurred the development of tank destroyers with even bigger guns at the cost of mobility, armour, or overall tactical flexibility (e.g. an inability to rotate their guns more than a few degrees to either side). It also led to the development of anti-tank weapons like missiles and mines specialized to attack more vulnerable rear, underside, and top armor. However Some times designers choose not to armor there tanks. If the thickest armor you can put on a tank is going to get penetrated anyway then your best bet is not to armor it at all and focus on speed to make sure you don't get hit to begin with. This was a very popular design during the cold war particularly by the French after the invention of high powered HEAT ammo but before Chobham armour, which is very good at stopping HEAT shells.
4. Tracks with a profile as low as possible while meeting all-terrain mobility needs. A stopped tank is a dead tank, and running the tracks over the top of the body is begging for a mobility kill, no matter how cool the British Mark I looked. (Though to be fair to the Mark I, it needed its high tracks to cross trenches, and since it came first, there weren't really any weapons that could take advantage of its exposed tracks at the time.)
5. A radio! It can not be understated how important a radio became to tanks. In both the battle for France and the early Operation Barbarossa the German tanks were under gunned and under armored compared to their opponents, but thanks to their radios, they were able to outmaneuver the enemy and take them apart. Radios also became important to tanks because, well, tanks are loud, and it's the only way for the crew to talk to each other without going hoarse yelling at each other.

Since Games Workshop seems to think that tank development in the Warhammer 40,000 universe stopped somewhere between the world wars, most of the iconic fighting vehicles of the Imperium lack some of these features. We can quibble that some of those vehicles are not really tanks but armored personnel carriers (e.g. the Land Raider) or other specialized classes of armored fighting vehicles, but GW's design team has a serious problem with looping their tracks all the way up and over the chassis for that 1918 flavor.

Types of Tanks

Whether it's real or fantasy, tanks are classified from their weight and/or armament profile. Here are the common ones:

• Not Actually Tanks- Despite having treads and a gun, the following vehicles are not considered tanks. The difference is that tanks are designed for frontline Combat", while other vehicles with treads are designed to carry and support infantry (APC/IFV), bombard enemy positions with heavy artillery (SPGs), or act as general support weapon systems.

• • Armored Personnel Carrier - APCs are light vehicles designed to carry infantry and not much else. They're usually given a heavy machine gun to support the infantry they're carrying into battle and to defend itself, and not much else. Unlike IFVs, APCs are not expected to fight on the front due to their lackluster protection and armaments. 40k examples: Rhino Transport, Devilfish.

• • Self-propelled gun (SPG) - Vehicles armed with artillery weapons designed to bomb the enemy back into the stone age, ranging from howitzers, mortars, or missile systems. Typically built similarly to tanks, but sacrifice armor for their heavy guns since in normal circumstances they should be too far away to get shot at directly. Not to mention that artillery pieces have a minimum range where they can drop their payload; thus, the tank needs to put some distance between them and their target so that they can be in effective range. 40K examples:Imperial_Ordnance_Pieces, Whirlwind, Skyray Missile Gunship, Night Spinner

• • Self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) - Tanks like vehicles armed with weaponry designed to shoot aircraft out of the sky to provide mobile anti air cover. There are only three real ways to shoot a very fast moving aircraft out of the sky. First you can use as many rapid fire guns as you can to fill the air with as many bullets as you can and hope for one hit. Second you can fire one big shell up into the air and at a certain height have it explode spraying shrapnel around it self to score the one hit you need, this are known as Anti Air Artillery, and are known in the English world by the name of the German world war 2 term, Flak. Both have been superseded by AA missiles which can track a target and put that shrapnel warhead closer to the target then just guess work and a slide ruler can. 40K examples: Hydra Flak Tank, Eldar Firestorm, Space Marine Hunter, Flakk Trukk

• • Infantry Fighting Vehicle - Known as IFVs, these tanks are capable of transporting infantry forces, while being armored and armed enough to be of support to the field, unlike light tanks. However unlike true tanks IFVs can't be expected to stand up to enemy armor. Modern IFV's can have anti tank missiles but with there tin can armor going toe to toe with a main battle tank is suicide and so it supports regular tanks or takes on enemy armor in emergencys. An IFV's goal is to deliver it's infantry and hang round use it's (at least) 20mm cannon to support the troops it drops off. 40k examples: Land Raider, Chimera, Wave Serpent, Battlewagon, heck most things the orks build would be IFV's since they love sticking weapons on their transports.

• • Tank Destroyer - Tank destroyers are specialist tanks designed for one thing in mind: knock outing other tanks and not much else, its essentially a metal box with a gun. Tank destroyers exist because early in World War II, Germany could not handle heavy British infantry tanks, and the technology to mount a gun as big as they needed onto a tank was not there yet so they built armored vehicles with big guns, no or little armor and the biggest guns they had to destroy enemy armor. Thanks to the lack of turret these tank destroyers were cheap and other nations such as the Soviet Union and England followed this design approach. America built it's tank destroyers on the other hand to deal with massed enemy tank attacks (the blitzkreig) and where built to move fast and attack the sides of tanks rather then just ambush the enemy, hence why they have turrets and German TD's do not. What makes them not tanks is a matter of technicality. Tanks are general purpose while Tank destroyers (When they existed) are for only one thing, destroying other tanks. After world war 2 we figured out that since tanks fought other tanks so often anyway tank destroyers don't really make sense so we just put tank destroyer guns on regular tanks. 40k examples Leman Russ Vanquisher,Doomsday Ark, Triarch Stalker (if armed with anti tank weapons) Warp Hunter

• • Assault guns, Similar to tank destroyers, assault guns differ in one important way: instead of a anti tank gun there armed with a anti building weapon. Most often, a howitzer. After world war 2 assault guns became light air dropped weapons to support airborne troops if they encountered armor. 40k examplesLeman Russ Demolisher, Vindicator.

• Proper tanks:

• • Light Tank - These are lightly armored tanks who sacrifice armor and firepower for maneuverability. They are not meant to be front-line combat tanks, as their armaments are usually too underpowered to go against heavier vehicles, rather they're usually relegated to reconnaissance duties and infantry support. 40k examplesGrot Tanks. . . that's about it not counting skimmers like Land Speeder or walkers like Sentinel.

• • Heavy tank - The big boys, armed with the biggest guns and the thickest armor heavy tanks are what you send to crack an enemy defensive line as they slowly rumble forward guns blazing destroying anything in sight. . . Except eventually Medium tanks, which split the difference between light and heavy tanks having more firepower then the latter and more mobility then the former, are just more cost effective and Heavy tanks are not to much better then improved mediums, which evolved into the main battle tank. 40k examples Leman Russ Battle Tank, Sicaran Battle Tank, maybe theMonolith.

• • Main Battle Tank/Medium tank - Medium tanks evolved into main battle tanks, which would become the primary tank for modern nations combining high speed, good armor and most of all a powerful gun. MBT's are not as heavy as we could theoretically make a tank, but there speed makes up for it and they act as the spearhead of an assault force designed to create and exploit a gap in enemy defenses to allow massed mechanized forces to rush though and the gap. 40k examplesPredator Tank, Hammerhead Gunship, Falcon.

• • Infantry/Cavalry tank - A British and French design doctrine, the theory for the design goes like this. Infantry tanks support infantry, (hence the name) and therefore they don't need to go fast and can heavy armor while there guns did not have to be terrible strong to support the infantry however they where too slow to use the line breaks they created (a problem in world war one) hence the need for the Calvary tank. Calvary or cruiser tanks where much, much lighter and are designed to move fast and rush though a gap the Infantry tanks made but could not use and create havoc behind enemy lines cutting communication, destroying supplies, etc. The idea was sound, however technology advanced so that Cruiser tanks could have the armor of a infantry tank with out the slowness, and infantry tanks could have the speed of the Cruiser's meaning the designations became meaningless. Before World War II, Russia had a similar idea for three different types of tanks, a breakthrough tank acting as an infantry tank, one tactical breakthrough tank, and a 'fast tank' to exploit gaps. 40k examples: n/a

• • Flame tank: a tank with a flamethrower, only used in world war two as they where quickly rendered obsolete.40k examples hellhound

• • Super Heavy Tank - Superheavies were conceived in World War I, basically as a battleship on tracks, armed with a giant cannon (some times multiple ones) and armor plating so heavy, you'd mistake it for a fortress. While some prototypes were fleshed out, none were put into service because they were too impractical; they were often too heavy to be supported by most roads, they moved too slow to be a threat while it consumed petrol like crazy as they usually needed a very powerful engine to even move at a snail's pace. So slowly, in fact, that infantry could outrun them and place demolition charges onto the tank before it could fight back. Still, because fantasy is fantasy, that didn't stop writers from including such weapons in the arsenal of their armies, just to show how powerful they are. 40k examples BEEEIINBLADE and its many variations, Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer, Macharius Heavy Tank,Cobra Lord of Skulls

Console RPG Character Role

In many role-playing video games, particularly the online ones, the term "tank" has also arisen to describe a character whose primary purpose is redirect all damage from enemies to himself. This was one of the primary purpose of actual tanks aswell; tanks, being as armored and threatening, are suppose to get most of the enemy's attention while the squishier units like infantry and light vehicles move into advantageous positions to deal more damage, without the threat of serious retaliation.

See, many enemies in RPGs have way too much health, deal way too much damage for most classes to withstand, and fights with them are unlikely to be decided in one round unless they're uncharacteristically vulnerable to save-or-die rays (which almost never happens). This is the usual case for boss-type, rare, and elite enemies.

Furthermore, many of the classes that are best at dealing damage (assassin and wizard types, for example) often have very little survivability when it comes to being punched in the face, in order to balance out classes (If a class can both tank damage and deal high damage at the same time, they either render other classes redundant or can do neither as well as a dedicated tank or damage dealer).

Thus, demand is created for a character whose job is to redirect enemies' aggression away from the squishy members of the party and towards them instead, usually using their mastery of mind-control, irritating sound effects, imposition of dangerous effects for attacking anyone else, or simply cutting insults and rude gestures which draw attention to themselves. They also tend to have abilities that help them in resisting, mitigating, avoiding, or regenerating from some of the damage they suffer (and on occasion act as a secondary damage dealer). In most cases, tanks are also often reliant on healer classes aswell to keep them alive while they do their thing, as enemies that require tanks can usually deplete a good chunk of their health in a few attacks. Making sure that chunk is constantly restored is required to make sure they can keep at it.

4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons refers to this role as the "defender," while Dawn of War 2 vets will recognize it as the "Tarkus", and later the "Diomedes."