Question

TUTORIAL: The history of armoured warfare

Answer 1

Prior to the First World War, so called 'armoured warfare' was mainly carried out by the cavalry, who provided constant support to the attacking infantry. However, this became an issue, as the use of machineguns and enclosed flanks endangered the cavalry more than necessary. Tanks were first developed by the British and French, in an attempt to create a machine which would be able to navigate through No Mans Land without getting blown to bits. The first 'tanks' to see action were the British Mark I tanks. On September 15, 1916, Mark I tanks began the first proper assault of modern mechanised warfare at the Battle of the Somme. Unfortunately, they failed to break the deadlock and this turned out rather disastrously. The Allies had invented multiple 'tanks' by the end of the First World War. These were mainly classed as cannons or machine guns. The French armoured vehicles had turrets while the British vehicles did not. In the 30s, the British began to convert cavalry to tanks. At the same time, the Soviets and the Germans had begun to develop their own lines of tanks, notably the Soviet BT fast light tank line. After the Soviets declared war with Japan, their armoured tactics were repeated by the Germans in the invasion of Poland.
The Second World War saw the mass production of new tanks: medium and heavy tanks, self propelled guns (SPGs) and Tank Destroyers. The German army had produced several lines of quality machines, notably the Tiger and the Stug lines. In comparion, the British developed tanks from the basic Medium Vickers, a rather weak fighting tank. This massive development of new fighting machines saw the invention of counter-tank equipment. The most notorious was the one-shot Panzerfaust, a disposable rocket launcher capable of wounding a tank severely. This Nazi invention was soon followed by the Allies, the Americans developing the M1 Bazooka as a general purpose rocket launcher. The Russians took this idea to a grander scale, inventing the Katyusha rocket propelled machine resembling a truck.

Every since the Second World War, armoured vehicles have spanned out from tanks. The War saw development of half-tracks, vehicles which were half truck, half tank. We now have armoured scout vehicles, armoured jeeps and even some submarines will come armour plated. Since its conception, the armoured vehicle, and mechanised warfare in general has become a rising concept in all armies. With the spark of a small hurried invention, we now have a worldwide trend which has made wars even deadlier.
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