Tanks Encyclopedia

After the invasions of September 1939, Poland was occupied and split between Germany and the Soviet Union. However, the occupation did not stop the Polish people from continuing to resist. Soon after the occupation, the Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) was established, an underground resistance group.

Their most notable action would be during the Warsaw Uprising, which started on August 1st 1944 at 5 PM. The organizers of the Uprising hoped that the Soviets, who were near Warsaw, would help them, but the Red Army stopped just 10 km from the city. The first days of the Uprising went well for the Home Army, thanks, in part, to the capture of German vehicles, including two Panthers and a Jagdpanzer 38(t).

The Uprising tragically ended on October 2nd, 1944, leaving tens of thousands of civilians and thousands of troops on both sides dead. The city was razed to the ground by the Germans as a way to punish the Poles who had rebelled against them. The city would be rebuilt after the War by a new pro-Soviet Communist government.

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Hungary was after Italy, Germany’s European ally with the most significant domestic production of armored vehicles. While these vehicles were fine by the standards of the early war, unfortunately for the Hungarians, by the time these were fielded in larger numbers, they were already obsolete. To bolster their ally’s firepower, in 1942, the Germans supplied the Hungarians with a group of five Marder II tank destroyers.

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An article by Marko Pantelic 

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The armor of the Spanish Civil War (17th July 1936 - 1st April 1939) is a complex subject, which encompases both vehicles delivered from foreign powers – the Soviet Union in the Republican case and Italy and Germany for the Nationalist – and locally produced, often quite makeshift vehicles, nicknamed ‘tiznados’. While they and their use are, on their own, a quite obscure subject outside of Spanish-language sources, it is even less known that some of these vehicles left Spain's border and saw very limited service with Spain's northern neighbour, France.  

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An article by Marisa Belhote 

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In a single report, different figures for losses and damage are confusing enough and may be related to the period of time in which both groups are defining the terms of their analysis. This serves to illustrate a key problem with counting losses even by the winning side, even with few numbers in a relatively well defined space and time, but if that is not complex enough as ‘counting’. Consider the single largest loss of M1s which took place after the shooting war was over but was still in theater. The incident in question was a major fire at Doha, Kuwait, a fire which destroyed over 100 American military vehicles, including 4 M1 Abrams, and is likely the worst one-day loss of vehicles suffered by the US Army since WW2. It is worth noting that the war itself was over by the end of February 1991, so it is no surprise that events happening in July do not count in loss statistics for combat but this has also served to almost conceal this disaster in the aftermath of a successful war.  

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An article by Andrew Hills 

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The Citroën P28 is one of the most often ignored armored vehicles fielded by the French military in 1940. It was an obscure half-track armored car that only offered mediocre performances and was theoretically limited to a training and perhaps propaganda role at first. However, the vehicle did end up seeing very limited combat because of the general collapse of the French military, though most vehicles appear to have fallen into German hands unharmed. They were ignored by their new owners, who appear to have promptly sent them to be scrapped.  

Nonetheless, the vehicle has some interesting elements. It serves as the first armored vehicle of Uruguay, which would then go on to become a regular customer of American light tanks, acquiring M3A1s and then M24 Chaffees. The P28 is also one of the last combat vehicles using the Kégresse track system, an innovation originating from a French engineer in Imperial Russia, and which was experimented on heavily by the French in the 1920s, but somewhat fell aside, at least for armored vehicles, in the following decades, mostly because of the typical fragility of Kégresse tracks.  

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An article by Marisa Belhote 

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During WWII, the Hungarians were one of Germany’s allies which had a significant domestic production of armored vehicles. While these locally produced vehicles were fine by the standards of the early war, unfortunately for the Hungarians, by the time they were fielded in larger numbers, they were already obsolete. To bolster their ally’s firepower, in 1942, the Germans supplied the Hungarians with a selection of armored vehicles, including over 100 Panzer 38(t) tanks.   

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The early 20th century was dominated by new technologies being developed in large numbers. To capitalize on these rapid advancements, monthly magazines were published that focused on bringing these new technologies to the general public’s attention. This proved to be a great success. The most popular example of these magazines is Popular Mechanics, which published its first issue in 1902 and continues to be published today. Another popular example was Modern Mechanix, which went through several name changes since its first issue in 1928 before its final issue in 2001.

The technologies featured in these magazines varied greatly in their application. Power sources, home gadgets, farming equipment and flying machines are but a few examples of the kinds of inventions and concepts featured. Most notably, particularly during both World Wars, was the inclusion of conceptual weaponry and armored vehicles. These were rarely competently designed. Due to a total lack of practical insight into the use of military equipment, the end result was often a design more appropriate for a science fiction setting than a real battlefield. Some designs featured in these magazines are notable for their relative practicality however, at least when compared to the rest, and their intended usage is somewhat reasonable for being designed by illustrators as nothing more than magazine filler.

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An article by Mr. C. Ryan 

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The Vehículo de Combate Artillería (VCA) is an elongated Tanque Argentino Mediano (TAM) chassis that carries a large OTO Melara turret housing a powerful 155 mm gun. This has allowed the Ejército Argentino (Eng: Argentinian Army) to have its heaviest artillery piece on a mobile and tested platform that is able to cover the vast areas of terrain in the potentially conflictive southern tip of the country.

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An article by Gareth Lynn Montes 

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Even before the Second World War, the famous German tank commander Heinz Guderian had predicted the need for highly mobile self-propelled anti-tank vehicles, later known as Panzerjäger or Jagdpanzer (tank destroyer or hunter). However, in the early years of the war, beside the 4.7 cm PaK (t) (Sfl) auf Pz.Kpfw. I ohne turm, which was in essence just a 4.7 cm PaK (t) gun mounted on a modified Panzer I Ausf.B tank hull, the Germans did little to develop such vehicles. During the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht encountered tanks which they had trouble dealing with effectively due to their thick armor (T-34 and KV series) and were forced to introduce a number of different hastily built and developed Panzerjäger based on any chassis that was available. From this, a series of vehicles generally known today as the ‘Marder’ (Marten) was created. The first such vehicle was built by using a captured French Lorraine 37L fully-tracked armored tractor and arming it with the German 7.5 PaK 40 anti-tank gun.

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An article by Marko Pantelic 

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In the late 1940s, the British War Office (WO) was concerned that – after the debut of the IS-3 in 1945 – the Soviet Union would continue to develop heavily armored tanks. As such, the War Office filed a requirement for the development of a gun capable of defeating a 60-degree sloped plate, 6 inches (152 mm) thick, at up to 2,000 yards (1,830 meters), and a suitable vehicle to carry it. This requirement led to the development of the ‘Ordnance, Quick-Firing, 183 mm, Tank, L4 Gun’, the largest purpose-built anti-tank gun to have ever been created. It was intended that this gun would be mounted on a new ‘Heavy Gun Tank’ based on the FV200 series chassis. This was designated the ‘Tank, Heavy No. 2, 183 mm Gun, FV215’. A project was also launched to find a way to get the gun into action quickly on an existing hull. This could then be constructed quickly should the Cold War turn hot before the FV215 was ready. This is where the FV4005 project comes in.

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An article by Mark Nash 

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