First invented during the Great War, a tank is often perceived as a moving fortress. It is a tracked, armoured vehicle intended to protect its crew within, enabling them to overwhelm their enemy with impunity. Tank designs all feature a balance of firepower, protection and mobility. Tracks give the tank mobility and the armour a means of defence, with a typically turreted gun capable of destroying enemy troops, vehicles and fortifications. Tanks have been used in many differing combat strategies, both offensively and defensively.

Without tanks the history of warfare over the last century would be completely different, yet ever since their invention, predictions of their being obsolete have frequently recurred. Tanks have been in a constant contest of evolution with anti-tank weapons. Weapons designed to be able to destroy existing tanks leading to stronger, better protected tanks. Yet ever since the first tank drove across the trenches of the Great War's Western Front it has been apparent that tanks have weaknesses. Tanks can only work effectively when operating in close co-operation with other branches of the armed forces, such as infantry and air force, with each defending the other in combined arms operations.

Do you know the difference between being Armed and Armoured? Here is a glossary of some very necessary vocabulary terms used when describing tanks and their role and influence on the battlefield.

Tank Types and Assorted Armoured Vehicles

• A/A – Anti-Aircraft
  
  Weapons intended to destroy enemy aircraft. Tank hulls of various types have had ant-aircraft guns mounted on them, often but not always inside turrets.

• AFV – Armoured Fighting Vehicle
  
  A military vehicle, either wheeled or tracked, that incorporates a degree of armoured protection for the occupants.

• Amphibious
  
  A tank that can swim through water, either sea crossings or rivers, as well as drive on land. In the Second World War the Sherman DD (Duplex Drive) was developed, which had propellers that turned when the tracks turned and a rubber wall to help the tanks float. Russian tanks are often designed to be amphibious due to the water-logged terrain, with others equipped with snorkels.

• A/C – Armoured Car
  
  An AFV with a fully-wheeled chassis, armoured body, and often a turret. These were the first armoured vehicles to carry turrets. Despite the name, most armoured cars are based on a truck or lorry chassis. Light A/C's tend to be 4-wheeled; heavy A/C's 8 wheels or more; 6-wheelers, as might be guessed, class as medium. These are ideal for reconnaissance as they are smaller, quieter and faster than tanks.

• APC – Armoured Personnel Carrier
  
  Also nicknamed a 'Battle Taxi', an APC is a lightly armed and armoured AFV design to transport infantry to the battlefield where the soldiers are dropped off to fight on their own while the APC retreats to a safe distance. During the Second World War the Canadian army de-turreted surplus-to-requirement tanks to act as fully-tracked infantry carriers capable of going exactly where the tanks did: the Canadian Kangaroo were based on surplus Sherman chassis or on the obsolete Canadian Ram tank and could carry up to thirty fully-laden squaddies.

• ARV – Armoured Recovery Vehicle
  
  It is extremely difficult to destroy an AFV, especially a tank, so completely and utterly that it is fit for no purpose at all. In the heat of combat, many tanks were reported destroyed even though they had only taken light or temporarily incapacitating damage, or simply run out of fuel: if time and circumstances permitted, these could be retrieved, repaired and returned to combat¹. However, some means of retrieving an immobilised vehicle and safely returning it to safe repair workshop had to be devised, or at least move them out of the way.

  In the early part of the war, lorries or half-tracks, in conjunction with the ubiquitous tank transporter, sufficed to recover tanks weighing twenty tons or less. However, as the war progressed and tanks got heavier, something larger was needed. If, for instance, a fifty-ton Tiger broke down, it took three of the large Famo half-tracks, acting in unison, to tow it to safety. And the thirty-odd foot Famo, standing longer and larger than many tanks, was Germany's most powerful soft-skin!

  Therefore it was realised that the only vehicle that stood even half a chance of retrieving a broken-down tank was another tank: most nations use recovery vehicles on tank chassis for retrieving their casualties. On D-Day, BARV – Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicles were used to move broken tanks out of the way so they would not impede the progress of following vehicles.

• Breacher
  
  Armoured vehicles fitted with plough or bulldozer blade used to drive through and clear minefields, typically by pushing mines out of the way.

• Bridge Layer
  
  Vehicle that can deploy bridges to enable tanks, other AFVs etc to cross rivers and other obstacles.

• Flame Tank
  
  Tank equipped with flamethrowing equipment. The prime example is the Churchill Crocodile.

• Cavalry
  
  Interwar tanks intended to be used as fast, modernised armoured, and mechanised cavalry, the idea being that their speed and manoeuvrability would provide their own protection. These evolved into Cruiser tanks.

• Cruiser
  
  Second World War medium tank and development from the Cavalry tank concept, with better armour rather than reliance on speed and manoeuvrability, though still less armour than an Infantry tank. Cruiser tanks evolved into the MBT.

• Half-track
  
  An AFV which combines wheeled and tracked propulsion, generally wheeled and steered on the front axle but with tracks elsewhere. These vary in size and armoured half-tracks were often devised to convey infantry into battle. There was even a German half-track motorbike during the Second World War, the Sd.Kfz.2 Sonderkraftfahrzeug 2.

• Hobart's Funnies
  
  Tank variants developed by Major General Sir Percy Hobart² used by Britain's 79th Armoured Division during the Second World War, including bridge-laying tanks, mine ploughs, flails, mortars, the DD amphibious tank, carpet-laying tanks for soggy sand and ARK ramp.

• Infantry Tank
  
  During the Second War Infantry tanks were intended to be slow, well-armoured tanks that provided infantry support. They were armed heavily enough to be able to destroy enemy bunkers and pillboxes as well as tanks.

• IFV – Infantry Fighting Vehicle
  
  Like a APC in that they carry infantry but able to enter combat having heavier armour and armament, typically including anti-tank weapons.

• LVT – Landing Vehicle, Tracked
  
  Tracked amphibious vehicle used by the US during the Second World War particularly in the Pacific Theatre³ to allow goods and men to travel from ship to shore. Initially unarmoured, later LVT(A) Armoured versions were developed, some with turrets.

• MBT – Main Battle Tank
  
  Also called a Universal Tank, these have dominated tank development since the start of the Cold War in 1947. These are designed to combine the best elements of all previous types of tank; the armour and firepower of heavy tanks, the mobility of a light tank and yet have the weight of a medium tank to enable ease of transport. Britain's Chieftain (1959) is recognised as the first true MBT.

• Medium
  
  Tank that is almost as mobile as a light tank and almost as armoured as a heavy tank, developed into the MBT.

• MRAP – Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected
  
  Armoured vehicle used in counter-insurgency missions. These are typically wheeled AFVs and are armoured underneath to protect against mines and IED (Improvised Explosive Devices), usually with a V-shaped hull that angles mine blasts away from the vehicle.

• Prime Mover
  
  generic term for the vehicle which tows a field artillery piece, anti-aircraft or anti-tank gun. Generally a soft-skinned lorry or half-track, although by 1944-5, a massive items of ordnance such as the British 17 pounder, which weighed three tons, was towed by a modified (turretless) tank, which carried its ammo reserves and provided living accommodation for its crew. In the Second World War this was often done by an otherwise obsolete Crusader.

• Scout car
  
  Also called Light Reconnaissance cars, these are armoured cars intended purely for stealthy observation, intelligence-gathering and passive reconnaissance, used to probe forward and report on enemy positions via radio before conducting a hasty withdrawal.

• Soft-skin
  
  Generic term for any totally unarmoured vehicle, eg a standard lorry. This also includes unarmoured half-tracks. These are no longer used due to their vulnerability to BCN weapons.

• SPG – Self-Propelled Gun
  
  Generic term for a vehicle which is turretless and mounts its main armament in a fixed position in a casemate directly in the vehicle body. Also known as assault guns.

• Tankette
  
  generic term for a vehicle which is fully tracked, but which mounts a light weapon in a fixed superstructure and which is generally turretless.

• Tank
  
  generic term for a fully tracked armoured vehicle mounting its main armament in one or more turrets, each capable of rotating through 360°.

• Tank Destroyer
  
  generally an SPG carrying a specialised anti-tank gun in a fixed mounting. (although the American M10 was effectively a tank, as its main weapon was carried in a fully rotating turret) German: Panzerjager

Tank Parts

• Autoloader
  
  Device designed to insert shells into the tank gun's breech to replace the loader. Particularly adopted by Soviet and Russian tanks where the ammunition is stored in a carousel in the turret, which is particularly vulnerable to top-attack weapons.

• Ball Mount
  
  Ball-shaped or spherical machine-gun mount found in the front of a tank that can move independently of the turret. Used up until the Second World War as anti-infantry weapons.

• Barbette
  
  A shielded gun mount that is open at the top and/or back. Like a turret, but not fully enclosed and protected.

• Boiling Vessel
  
  Water heating system fitted to all British armoured fighting vehicles since the Second World War to allow the crew to heat or boil water inside the tank, used to make tea, cook food and warm water for washing without leaving the vehicle.

• Bolting
  
  A way of holding a tank together used up to and through the Second World War. Bolted armour is easy to assemble and the most easily repairable but potentially weak.

• Casemate
  
  A tank with its main gun mounted directly within the hull, not in a rotating turret or sponson. This makes tanks simpler, cheaper, lighter and lower and so this is often used for Tank Destroyers and assault vehicles.

• Casting
  
  The manufacturing process in which liquid metal is poured into a mould and allowed to solidify. One of the main methods of making tanks. Casting has higher strength but takes longer than riveting or welding.

• Co-axial
  
  That arrangement of weapons where a machine-gun is paired with the main armament so that the machine-gun fires in the same direction and at the same target as the main armament.

• Cupola
  
  A mini-turret on top of the main turret, used to give the tank commander a protected view.

• Diesel
  
  Fuel often used by tanks as less combustible than petrol.

• Engine compartment
  
  The area within an AFV where the engine is based.

• Fighting Compartment
  
  the area within an AFV where the Driver and Hull Machine Gunner (if applicable) are positioned.

• Firing Port
  
  A small port, more likely to be on a IFV than tank, that allows infantry or crew inside the vehicle to fire small arms at an enemy from inside the vehicle.

• Fume Extractor
  
  The vent on a gun barrel that prevents poisonous fumes from a fired round re-entering the crew compartment.

• Grousers
  
  Not trousers worn by grouse but studs or treads added to a tank's tracks to give it greater grip in snow or loose soil conditions.

• Hull
  
  Main body of the tank, excluding the turret.

• Hull-Up/Hull-Down
  
  When only the turret is visible above a hill it is hull down, when the whole tank is visible it is hull-up.

• Idler
  
  The non-driven wheel of a tracked vehicle on the opposite end from the sprocket (powered wheel) which is used to adjust track tension.

• Loader
  
  Crewman responsible for loading the main gun.

• Periscope
  
  What the driver and Commander often look through when the tank's hatches are closed. These allow a degree of protected observation of the surrounding environment. More recent periscopes may display digital images from a range of on-vehicle sensors and cameras, such as thermal and other information.

• Return Rollers
  
  Small wheels above a tank's road wheels that keep the top of the track straight between the sprocket and idler.

• Rivets
  
  The most practical method of holding a tank together up until the Second World War, though this requires large, flat plated armour. While strong, later in the war when weaponry became more powerful, when rivetted or bolted armour plating was struck by enemy fire, the kinetic energy could transfer to the rivets which could pop off inside at high velocities, often with lethal consequences.

• Road Wheels
  
  The tank's main wheels that rotate within the tracks between the idler and sprockets. Unpowered, they are there to distribute the tank's weight. The track serves as the tank's road which the tank picks up after it has gone by and reuses.

• Smoke
  
  A way to hide a vehicle's position or movements, which can be created either by smoke grenades or injecting fuel into a tank's exhaust.

• Spall
  
  Spalling occurs when flakes are broken off the tank's interior, such as armour plate, after the impact of a projectile.

• Sponson
  
  An alternative to a turret. Instead of the gun being mounted in the top, a sponson is a gun platform on the side of a tank. Easier to produce than a turret, sponsons were used on tanks during the Great War and some tanks in the Second World War.

• Superstructure
  
  Parts of the tank above the hull.

• Suspension
  
  Not every tank has suspension, with Great War tanks and the USSR's T-34 doing without. Suspension not only allows a smoother ride for the tank and crew but also allows tanks to accurately fire at an enemy while on the move. There are various different types:

  • Christie Suspension - developed by American engineer J Walter Christie in 1928 in which each wheel has its own suspension spring to allow the tank to travel at high speed over rough ground. Widely used by the USSR, as well as the UK in their Cruiser tanks.
  • Horstmann Suspension - developed by Sidney Hotsmann in 1922 using coil springs. Often found in British tanks, also called the Vickers-Horstmann Suspension⁴.
  • Hydropneumatic Suspension - suspension that is kept level by oil and pneumatic pressure.
  • Leaf Spring Suspension - Slender metal arcs stacked to form a springing mount an axle rests on.
  • Torsion Bar - Suspension system that 'cushions' a vehicle's movements by using a swinging metal bar.
  • Volute Spring - Suspension using a cone or 'volute' shaped spring mounted on pairs of wheels/

• Traverse
  
  The ability of a gun to rotate from its middle. A turret offers 360° but a gun mounted in a sponson or in a casemate would have limited traverse.

• Turret
  
  The top part of the tank that usually contains the main gun and sights and can rotate through 360°. The Commander, Gunner and Loader are typically positioned here.

• Turret basket
  
  Rotating floor connected to the turret that turns when the turret turns.

• Weld
  
  A way to seal metal together, used since the Second World War to join the constituent parts of a tank together, such as metal armour plating. Far stronger than riveting or bolting, though requiring more skill and more expensive, the use of welding increased and became more practical as the Second World War progressed.

Arms and Armour

• Appliqué armour
  
  Additional armour plates that can be mounted onto the tank to later increase its protection.

• AP – Armour Piercing
  
  Ammunition that relies on kinetic energy to penetrate armour.

  • APC – Armour Piercing Capped – AP round with soft cap to stop it shattering when impacting the enemy's armour.
  • APCBC – Armour Piercing Capped Ballistic Cap – APC round with thin aerodynamic nose to keep its velocity high during its flight.
  • APDS – Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot – Projectile smaller than the (usually rifled) barrel from which it is fired that is surrounded by a sabot or casing that falls away after leaving the barrel, allowing the projectile greater armour penetration.
  • APFSDS – Armour Piercing Fin Stabisled Discarding Sabot – Same principle as an APFD but uses a fin rather than spinning to give it a longer, faster and greater armour-penetrating ability.
  • APHE – Armour Piercing High Explosive – AP round containing an explosive charge that detonates after piercing the enemy armour to cause increased damage inside the enemy tank

• APS – Active Protection System
  
  Means of defending from anti-tank weapons intended to prevent them from reaching the tanks.

  • Soft-Kill or Passive measures use smoke and jamming to confuse missile guidance systems.
  • Hard-Kill uses missiles to shoot down incoming missiles.

• ATGM – Anti-Tank Guided Missile
  
  Also called ATGW – Anti-Tank Guided Weapons, these are anti-tank missiles that can be controlled in flight, with guidance using either wire-steering, radio, infra-red imaging or laser homing.

• Bar Armour
  
  Also called Slat Armour this consists of a series of slats or a cage outside an AFV to protect it from Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG)s. By making the slats narrower than the diameter of a RPG warhead, the RPG round is trapped and either fails to ignite or ignites at a distance away from the main body of the tank where its damage is vastly reduced. Bar armour is effective, but adds both weight and bulk.

• BCN – Bacteriological/Biological, Chemical, Nuclear weapons
  
  Weapons of Mass Destruction, leading to tanks and other vehicles to be much more self-contained and armoured in order to withstand these weapons. Sometimes called the BCRNE threat - Biological, Chemical, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive.

• Calibre
  
  The internal diameter of a gun barrel, usually measured in millimetres.

• Canister
  
  Round consisting of a large number of small projectiles that are intended to spread and incapacitate attacking infantry.

• Cannon
  
  A weapon firing rounds which are larger than infantry calibre, but too small to cause significant damage to an AFV. Example: the 20mm KwK cannon fitted to the German Panzer II. Later in the war, these small-calibre weapons were dedicated to local anti-aircraft defence, as for instance on the German Flakpanzer IV "Wirbelwind" series of A/A tanks.

• Ceramic
  
  A type of composite armour.

• Chobham Armour
  
  A highly effective and top-secret composite armour developed at Britain's tank research centre at Chobham Common, Surrey in 1960. More recent developments are called Burlington and Dorchester, but these are still collectively known as Cobham.

• Composite
  
  Layered armour using different materials, such as metal, ceramic and plastic.

• Depleted Uranium
  
  Extremely dense naturally-occurring uranium stripped of most of its radioactive material used in both armour and kinetic energy armour-piercing projectiles. Depleted uranium shells both ignite and sharpen on impact, which further increases their ability to bore through armour.

• ECM – Electronic Countermeasures
  
  Devices used to disrupt, deceive and puzzle the enemy's systems. They hide targets from sensors to prevent their detection, jam communication and prevent enemy weaponry from working.

• ERA – Explosive Reactive Armour
  
  Appliqué armour that explodes when an incoming projectile hits, damaging the latter and dissipating it away from the tank.

• Fire & Forget
  
  An ability for a missile to lock on and travel to a target without being needed to be steered by an operator.

• Glacis Plate
  
  Front, sloped armoured part of the tank hull intended to deflect projectiles and by sloping the plate's angle makes the armour thicker.

• HE – High Explosive
  
  Ammunition that uses explosive blasts against its target. While less effective against armoured vehicles than armour piercing ammunition, they are used against soft-skin vehicles and especially infantry.

• HE-Frag – High Explosive Fragmentation: uses explosive blast and fragmentation against lightly-armoured targets.
• HEAT – High Explosive Anti Tank: Uses a shaped-charge warhead that form a high-speed jet of molten metal to penetrate armour.
• HESH – High Explosive Squash Head: used against armour and fortification. A plastic explosive at the head of the round squashes against the target before exploding, causing a shockwave through the armour, causing high-velocity steel fragments inside the tank to form and potentially kill the crew
• HVAP – High Veloctiy Armour Piercing: armour-piercing round with a dense core and lighter exterior which reduces weight and allows greater velocity and armour-penetration.

• IED – Improvised Explosive Device
  
  A crude bomb made by insurgents, terrorists and freedom-fighters.

• KE – Kinetic Energy Rounds
  
  Non-explosive ammunition that relies purely on its mass and momentum to cause destruction. Kinetic energy weapons are typically used to penetrate enemy armour.

• MG – Machine-Gun
  
  Fully automatic weapon firing rounds of normal infantry bullet calibre.

• HMG – Heavy machine-gun
  
  generic term for a fully automatic weapon firing rounds of larger calibre.

• Mantlet
  
  Armour protecting where a tank's main gun projects from its turret.

• Molotov Cocktail
  
  An anti-tank weapon developed by the Finns against the invading Soviets during the Winter War (1939-40), consisting of a bottle of petrol and a lit wick. This was named after Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact fame.

• Ordnance
  
  Artillery weapons and ammunition.

• Pounder
  
  System used to identify British artillery and anti-tank rounds used from Napoleonic times to the Second World War base on the weight of the projectile.

• Round
  
  the complete weapon delivery system. This is not just a bullet, which strictly speaking is only the delivered projectile. Nor is it a shell, which is the outer casing only: a round consists of projectile, propellant, and firing cap, bound together in an outer casing.

• Shaped Charge
  
  Explosive charge that focuses the explosion's energy in a specific direction for maximum effect.

• Shrapnel
  
  Anti-personnel munition that explodes above the enemy position and showering it in steel or lead.

• Sloped Armour
  
  Armour with an angled armoured surface to help deflect projectile and use a greater thickness for incoming horizontal projectiles to penetrate. Particularly used for the Glacis plate but other areas of the tank, such as Turret, are often sloped also.

• Tandem Warhead
  
  Paired ATGMs intended to defeat tanks defended by ERA. The first warhead triggers and detonates the ERA and is followed shortly after by the second, which penetrates the armour no longer defended by ERA.

• Top Attack
  
  Modern ATGMs use this method to fly over the tank and detonate above it to direct the warhead where the armour is thinner and more vulnerable. Particularly effective against Russian tanks.

• Tracer
  
  Bullet with pyrotechnic charge that, when fired, shows its trajectory to help the gunner direct their fire at the enemy. Particularly useful at nighttime.

• UAV – Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
  
  A drone or aircraft without a pilot or other human onboard, used for both reconnaissance and offensive missions. Either flying autonomously or remotely piloted, they are used offensively against tanks either by attacking them with a carried payload of bombs or missiles, or be a remotely-piloted missile, a so-called 'kamikaze drone'. First used in 1849, when incendiary balloons were used during the Austrian siege of Vienna.

• RPA – Remotely Piloted Aircraft: A large UAV with a remote pilot that does not Use AI.
• RPAV – Remotely Piloted Aerial Vehicle: a UAV.
• RPAS – Remotely Piloted Aircraft System: see UAS
• UAS – Unmanned Aircraft System: the overall drone-controlling infrastructure which in addition to the drones themselves also includes a ground-based controller and a system of communications with the aircraft.
• UCAV – Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle: drone designed purely for warfare.

• Warhead
  
  The explosive part of a projectile.

Tactical Terms

• Deep Battle
  
  Soviet doctrine emphasising attacking the enemy throughout the depth of their position, not just their front line, by destroying support facilities such as supply facilities and command headquarters.

• Landships Committee
  
  Committee established by Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, in 1915 to develop 'landship' armoured fighting vehicles to break the Western Front stalemate. This led to the creation of the tank.

• Strategy
  
  The campaign's overall aim.

• Tactics
  
  The way in which a specific objective is achieved

• Trench
  
  A deeply dug line, defensively fortified infantry position and often in a vast network which also employs barbed wire, mines, machine-gun posts and possibly supported by artillery. The tank was developed to break the German trenches on the Western Front during the Great War.

Logistics

Everything you need to do to keep your tank in the field and in a fit condition to fight. For a typical tank, let's say a five-man crew, you would need support from:

• A field-kitchen to service the crew's food needs.
• A field workshop to do those overhauls and service jobs the crew could not do.
• The services of a fuel tanker to keep it moving.
• The services of an ammunition tender.
• Engineer troops to repair or create bridges or otherwise ford rivers.
• Recce troops to scout out the way ahead.
• Support from anti-aircraft units to neutralise the enemy's air force.

And the bigger your tank, the more resources it consumes and the larger and better provisioned these support echelons have to be.

• You need liaison staff to communicate orders.
• Various levels of field HQ.
• Liaison to the infantry, artillery and air force.
• All the paraphernalia of paymaster, military police, field-post services, chaplaincy, a bureaucratic administration to hold it all together, and a general staff headquarters to do militarily meaningful things with it.

It is estimated that the support train of a Panzer division stretched for up to seventy miles behind the 500 tanks and 15,000 men it kept in the field. If this support train stretches back to railheads through hostile territory, you need troops and tanks to be continually on patrol against partisan/Resistance attacks. THEN you need to feed and provision the men in the supply train... This is logistics.

In the 21st Century the importance of logistics in tank warfare has been proved as vital as ever during the early stages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. At the start of the conflict many Russian tanks were abandoned or towed by farmers' tractors after simply running out of fuel.