The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of the 1970s emphasized a number of qualities: proactive leadership, heroism, and a recognition of the young life of their country that rose in the wake of great tragedy. These qualities weren't just given lip service, but imbued within enlisted service members and officers of all levels. So when their country was under attack in late 1973, it should come as no surprise that Zvi Greengold and the men of Task Force Zvika rode under those banners, even with a task force that was only four tanks strong.

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Nazi Germany fielded a military with many components designed to amaze as much as to destroy. While this philosophy meant that many designs never left the drawing board, one that did was the Tiger Tank—a relatively beastly model whose gun could rip through nearly every form of enemy armor before the ill-fated tank even had a chance to strike. The units comprised of these Tigers, heavy panzer battalions, saw some of their fiercest combat on the most treacherous of battlefields—the eastern front.

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The 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion, the first of its kind, was stood up in 1941. The theory governing their use had yet to be tested on the field of battle. In November of the following year, Lieutenant Colonel Hershel Baker and the men of the 601st found themselves on the Queen Mary departing for that ultimate of testing grounds. Only a few months later, they found themselves along Gabès Road in Tunisia with the 10th Panzer Division bearing down upon them.

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Well before the threat of World War II entered societies' collective minds, smaller regional conflicts gradually simmered away across Europe. One of these, the Spanish Civil War, might not have drawn much notice from leaders in the United States, but the same could not be said for those who ruled Germany and the Soviet Union. In it, they found the perfect testing ground for the future weapons that would come to define the 1940s and much of our world to this day.

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Near the end of 1917, a young captain by the name of George S. Patton received orders from the chief of the newly created U.S. Tank Corps, Colonel Samuel Rockenbach. His task was to launch the light tank school of the U.S. Army. However, it wasn't long before he had to take his lessons from the classroom and test them on the battlefield of the Saint-Mihiel Salient.

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In Northern France on July 14th, 1916, a cavalry unit from Hyderabad made what most consider to be the final cavalry charge of World War I before the invention of tanks. The unit, Deccan Horse, represented the last gasp of the old way of battle — a way upended by the grinding slog of the Great War. This is their story.