History of the Tank
The tank was a British invention, designed and developed during the First World War, to combat the stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front. Its purpose was simple, to cross 'no mans land' with infantry troops walking behind it so they were protected from the German machine gun nests and to crush down the German barbed wire emplacements so the infantry troops could get into the German trench's.
Designated the 'Tank' by Winston Churchill, The Mk I made a great impact on the war in the summer of 1918 allowing British troops to capture German territory and eventually turn the war to the allies advantage, making trench warfare obsolete. After WWI, the tank was seen as a fad of the war by the British Army who reduced their tank battlions from 25 to 5 and in the USA, the US Army abolished its tank corps.
Despite armoured theorists such as Fuller and Liddell Hart writing books on armoured warfare, mechanization had been met with prejudice in Britain until the late 1920's when mechanization finally began, but had not reached sufficient strength by the outbreak of WWII. However the Germans had been reading Fuller and Liddell Hart's work and when Hitler came to power he saw the value of mechanization and in breach of the Versailles Treaty, tank production began in Germany in 1934. The first newly formed Panzer divisions 'volunteered' to fight in the Spanish Civil War, where they got to practise their new Blitzkrieg tactics, which were used through out WWII by the Germans and took full advantage of the tank. WWII saw heavy development and production of tanks by all sides including bigger, more powerful cannons, thicker armour, power packs and suspension. The use of the tank hull was also developed into different variants such as the AVRE and bridge builder and new classes of tanks, light, infantry support, medium, cruiser, heavy and even bigger ones were created.
After WWII a mutual distrust between the Allies and the Russians, who were both occupying Germany (Allies in the West and the Russians in the East) escalated until finally the Russians built a wall along the border through Berlin, known as the Berlin Wall or Iron Curtain, cutting themselves off from the West. The growing decades were called the Cold War. It saw the end of the different classes of tanks and development was concentrated upon an all in one tank known as the Main Battle Tank. The Western countries formed a coalition called NATO and the Russians on the East formed the WARSAW PACT. NATO countries generally developed their own respective MBT's (though some joint projects were attempted, but failed such as MBT-70) but the Russians developed for all WARSAW countries their T series, short for Type. Though not as technically advanced as NATO MBT's, the Russians were in far superior numbers of the T MBT's producing over 95 000 T-55's alone.
When Communism in Russia collapsed in the 1990's, so did the Cold War and with it the major requirement for the MBT. The numbers of MBT's in service with NATO countries was dramatically reduced. Whilst the Cold War had being going on, so had a number of Wars in the Middle-East/North Africa, mostly between Arab states and the Jewish Israeli state as well as Wars between Arab States. These Wars spilled over into the 1990's and the new Millennium and were all scenes for tank on tank engagements between Cold War MBT's like the M1 Abrams & T-72.
All of the major military powers, Great Britain, the USA, France and Germany are no longer developing any new MBT's, as they believe they will no longer be a requirement of a modern Army after 2040. However, IFV's are seen as the future for modern Armies and recent developments include the USA Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, M1126 Striker & LAV III, The German Puma, The Spanish ASCOD and of course the British Warrior's upgrade programme, will insure that the modern Infantry Fighting Vehicle will remain on the battle field for many decades to come.
Tank Doctrine & Design - what makes the best MBT?
When a nation's Army looks to adopt a Main Battle Tank, their main aim is that their tank is the one to survive an engagement with another tank and be the last one standing on the battlefield, so survivability is the key design feature of any Main Battle Tank.
Survivability is increased by three characteristics, protection (which type of armour), firepower (main cannon) and mobility (speed). Whilst trying to gain the best of all three characteristics, one will have a negative impact on another, for example, the use of heavy superior composite armour will increase the weight of the tank and therefore reduce its mobility. The best tanks are those that have managed to gain the best possible balance of all three. However most nations Armies doctrine will favour certain characteristics over others. The British Army favours firepower and armour over mobility where as the US & German Armies favour firepower and mobility over armour.
Since the end of the Cold War there are now other characteristics that nations take in to account before adopting a MBT. An important characteristic is its adaptability/up-gradeability. A good example is the M1 Abrams, which has gone through 6 major (including SEP V2) refits in less than 30 years and the German Leopard 2, which has had a new turret (A4) additional armour packages (A5) and a new larger cannon (A6).
Another characteristics is cost, which includes the purchase cost of the vehicle and its operational costs. For example 46% of the operational running cost of the US M1 Abrams is spent on fuel.
Another is produce ability. The design is looked at to see how complicated it is and how easy it is to produce that design in large numbers. A good example would be Russia who manufactured roughly ninety five thousand T-55's and fifty thousand T-72's, thanks to their non-complex designs.