Armored Vehicles · 4:57am Mar 2nd, 2014
Heavy metal!
Ever since we’ve had wheels, people have been using vehicles for war. Siege engines are a historical example that used armor to protect the people inside.
Let’s look through the history and types of armored vehicles.
Having something to hide behind to stop the things that want to kill you is a basic human instinct. This started out as wearable armor or fortifications.
Cover = stops bullets. Concealment = stops people from seeing you. Cover is more important.
The first high profile armored vehicles were ironclad ships, first used in battle during the American Civil War. Cannonballs just bounced off. Warships have long been known for heavy armor. The turrets on the World War Two battleship Yamato had steel walls twenty six inches thick.
Of course, stuff like that weighs a whole bunch and there has always been a tradeoff between protection and mobility.
In early 1916, in what would become the first motorized attack in the history of U.S. warfare, then-Lieutenant George Patton drove into Mexico after Pancho Villa. The soldiers under his command had automobiles. The bad guys they killed were strapped to the hood of the cars and driven back to headquarters. The cars had limited protection, as no one had yet figured out how to build an armored land vehicle that would work and not overheat, break axles, or get stuck.
The first true tank saw combat use in World War One, in September 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. It was kind of crude but it changed the way the war was fought.
British Mark I tank. The triangular framework on top was covered in wire and kept grenades off the roof. The wheels at the back are for steering.
Fun fact: When tanks were first developed, they were disguised as water carrier vehicles to keep them secret. They were “water” tanks. The name stuck.
The first time armor made a huge difference on the battlefield was World War Two. The German blitzkrieg emphasized mobility and fast attacks. Tanks and fighting vehicles could provide both transportation and protection. Also, Patton was there again.
The Germans liked big, well-built tanks. The Americans and Russians liked smaller, cheaper tanks and a lot of them. For example, in 1943 Germany built 6,000 tanks. The US and USSR each built more than 20,000.
Fun fact: The largest tank battle in history occurred at the Battle of Prokhorovka in July, 1943. Fought between the Germans and Soviets, there were about 1000 tanks on the field. The largest tank battle the United States ever participated in was the Battle of Medina Ridge in Desert Storm, and was about half the size.
M4 Sherman. 49,000+ built during World War Two. Found on display in front of courthouses across the country.
The problem with many tanks is that they lose their usefulness in an urban or mountainous terrain, where their frontal and side armor is ignored and their top armor, which is typically the weakest area of armor, is more exposed. Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) typically do not have the capabilities to aim high enough to hit infantry above them, or the mobility to quickly maneuver to escape. Towns and cities become a tanker's worst nightmare, being a death trap to the unsupported MBT. To allow your infantry to keep up with the tanks, they need vehicles of their own. Thus, the Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) was born. They have lighter armor than tanks, sometimes just enough to stop machine gun bullets. The German halftrack is an early example of this concept that was an integral part of the blitzkrieg.
Armored Personal Carriers, Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV), and Infantry Combat Vehicles (ICV) all are similarly designed vehicles but all have different roles on the battlefield.
The APC is meant to transport troops to the battlefield safely, and then home again.
The ICV is meant to transport troops just like an APC, but is meant to be a mobile weapons platform supporting troops in their dismounted operations
The IFV is a generally heavier built vehicle than the APC or the IFV, and carrying troops is a more secondary role, but they are built more to support MBT’s, so they have heavier, longer ranged and heavier hitting weapons and more armor.
M1126 Stryker ICV. Some personnel carriers have wheels instead of tracks.
Self propelled artillery vehicles tend to have guns at least as large as tanks. Plus, their fire control systems are designed for distance, rather than pinpoint accuracy. They are typically not designed for fighting directly, but do tend to have some armor due to the fact that they are designed to be as close to the front line they are supporting as possible.
German Panzerhaubitze 2000 self propelled artillery. 155mm cannon on a tank chassis.
Tank destroyers tend to be lighter vehicles that take potshots at enemy armor and then run – “shoot and scoot.” They were not designed for straight up-combat. Instead, they were meant to slow or stop an enemy tank attack. These days, tank destroyers have largely been replaced with guided missiles. These can be mounted on regular vehicles.
Humvee shooting a TOW missile.
There are also armored trucks, like the up-armor Humvees. They weren’t built from the beginning to be armored, though. The new MRAP trucks were, although they were designed to be protected from IEDs on the ground. Their armor is on the bottom and shaped to direct the blast away.
Armor design is another important part of the vehicle. The slope of the armor lets bullets slide off it rather than absorbing all the kinetic energy. New kinds of armor incorporate ceramic or synthetics. Some have a kevlar blanket inside to stop fragments that flake off from hurting the crew.
Yes, a hard impact on one side of the armor can cause fragments to break off the other side. This is called “spalling.”
M1 Abrams. Reactive armor uses an explosive charge to negate the explosives of the incoming weapon. Slat armor is lightweight but detonates warheads before they reach the skin of the vehicle. Both of these things are appliqués, which go on over the standard armor.
So what else can we armor? Certain components of warplanes need protection. The A-10 Warthog has 1200 pounds of titanium to protect the pilot and flight controls. Even spacecraft can benefit from armor. Wouldn’t want to poke a hole in one of those.
The president’s limo is probably the most well protected car out there. It weighs eight tons. It has a blood bank onboard. The climate control is sealed from the outside air in case of chemical attack. The chassis is actually from a heavy truck, but with Cadillac bodywork. Just look at the thickness of one door.
Bulletproof windows are usually made of thick polycarbonate, a special kind of plastic.
“Tank in Equestria” stories are not unheard of (although Secret Service pony joyride in Obama’s limo would be interesting). Now you know a little more about armored vehicles and the nuances therein. Go forth and use enemy guts to grease the treads of your relentless steel advance.
The Mark I british tank is a piece of crap. It often broke down in the battlefield, the exhaust system pumped the gas directly in the cabin, infantry grenades could stop it, and it went at an agonizing 3 miles an hour on flat road. However, it was still revolutionary to the development of tanks.
Sometimes concealment is just as good as cover, if the enemy doesn't know you're there.
After all, they don't shoot at what they don't see, until they wander into your sights.
Ah. Tanks. My specialty.
(If anyone says the M4 was crap, I will gladly debunk any myths. Angrily and with liberal use of CAPS LOCK.)
1887079
M4 as in the shitty ass carbine that the Marines preferably use, and then bitch about not being able to hit shit, or the M4 Sherman that was totally destroyed by Germany's Panzer tanks, and their Panzerschreck?
1887079 The Firefly variant was the only one that could consistently dent German heavy armor.
1887211 Worked perfectly fine in Africa, only later with the Panther and the Tiger were they out matched, woefully so with the Tigers.
1887046 It was the first tank ever produced. You have to expect some teething problems.
Case in point, check out the German response to the Mark I, the A7V
wojenna.pl/public/userfiles/image/A7V2/11.jpg
This Behemoth was basically a bunker on wheels, with six machine guns and one canon but was regarded as a massive failure. Small wheels and an underpowered drive meant it couldn't navigate anything other than flat road, and mechanical failures were so common that of the five tanks deployed during its first taste of combat, three broke down before they even got there.
This would remain as the standard for the rest of the series, and in the end, of the 20 A7V's produced by wars end, less than half actually even saw combat.
Only one original A7V exists today, the Mephisto, which was captured by Australian forces and was until recently on display at Brisbane museum.
1887079 The M4 Sherman was good, and made an effective counter to the Panzer IV, or the Stug III/IV. Once the German forces started to deploy the Panther and the Tiger I&II, it just couldn't keep up, and was one of the reasons that the M10 Wolverine started to become more popular.
1887048 Your enemy always knows you're there. Maybe not with any exactitude, but they know that if they have something worth hiding then someone, eventually, will try to take as close a look as possible. Bereft of cover, speed and silence are as good as/better than concealment. Of course the safest option is to just stay in the fucking Bradley.
Funnily enough, the mark 1 was in no way shape or form the first armored vehicle on a battlefield. Battle wagons that were little more than armored wagons with a protected place for a team of horses have been used by the various eastern block countries for centuries before the advent of the mechanized tank. Leonardo Davinci himself designed an armored vehicle, which while impotent due to how the drive mechanism would have worked, was in fact a weapon of war.
Let me share something: The Atomic Tank
An Australian Army Mk 3 Centurion Type K, Army Registration Number 169041, was involved in a small nuclear test at Emu Field in Australia in 1953 as part of Operation Totem 1.
It was placed less than 500 yards (460 m) from the 9.1kt blast with its turret facing the epicentre, left with the engine running and a full ammunition load. Examination after detonation found it had been pushed away from the blast point by about 5 feet (1.5 m), pushed slightly left and that its engine had stopped working, only because it had run out of fuel. Antennae were missing, lights and periscopes were heavily sandblasted, the cloth mantlet cover was incinerated, and the armoured side plates had been blown off and carried up to 200 yards (180 m) from the tank. Remarkably, though, the tank could still be driven from the site. Had it been manned, the crew would probably have been killed by the shock wave.
169041, subsequently nicknamed The Atomic Tank, was later used in the Vietnam War. In May 1969, during firefight 169041 (call sign 24C) was hit by an rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). The crew of the turret were all wounded by shrapnel as the RPG entered the lower left side of the fighting compartment, travelled diagonally across the floor and lodged in the rear right corner. Trooper Carter was evacuated while the others remained on duty and the tank remained battleworthy.
The Atomic Tank is now located at Robertson Barracks in Palmerston, Northern Territory. Although other tanks were subjected to nuclear tests, 169041 is the only tank known to have withstood atomic tests and subsequently gone on for another 23 years of service, including 15 months on operational deployment in a war zone.
The Sherman pic you've got has a Jumbo Sherman in it. if my memory serves me right, Brits took it and up-armored it and stuck a bigger gun on it.
static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girls_und_panzer_4066.jpg
You made me do it, you have no one to blame but yourself, and tank in the picture is the German Panzer IV Ausf. D
Until you put a FGM-148 on target. Then you can just pull the trigger and wait with your "soon" face on.
1887216
Not the only. The 76mm M1 gun with HVAP (High Velocity Armor Piercing) could reliably get through the armor of the heavier German tanks with ease. The 17 Pounder could also comfortably get through, but I will go into why the USA didn't use it. The problem is that HVAP ammunition was primarily issued to the Tank Destroyers, with only rare stocks reaching tanks. Why the 75mm M3 was never totally replaced, I will explain later.
The Tank Destroyer Doctrine, and the tank destroyers themselves, were designed during the "Blitzkrieg" of Germany through Europe, and that the popular image was that masses of tanks were invincible. The TD Doctrine called for towed Anti-Tank guns and Self Propelled Guns (Or Gun Motor Carriages as they were called.) The Doctrine was tested in the Louisiana Maneuvers, and was eventually put into service. Unfortunately, by the time the destroyers would get onto the battlefield, there was no mass advance of tanks.
The reason the USA didn't mass produce and arm their tanks with the 17 Pounder was because of two reasons. Tank Destroyers and because they didn't need it. The British had it in their minds that tanks were what killed tank, while the Americans designated the tank as an infantry-support/anti-infantry vehicle, with the TDs being the ones to kill enemy armor.
In WWII, tank on tank battles were actually rare. The reason Prokhorovka is so well remembered is because of the sheer amount of tanks involved. Hence, even the TD's would be on infantry support and bunker busting duty. The High Explosive shell of the 17 Pounder and the 76mm M1 were actually inferior to the 75mm M3 gun, meaning the 75mm would be more useful, more often. In fact, the troops wanted even more firepower, hence the adoption of the 105mm M4 Howitzer.
But you have to remember, while the T-34 might've fought not ten miles from the factory it was produced, the M4 was shipped from across the Atlantic. To begin using the 17 Pounder on a mass scale would require months of testing, months of retooling the factories to make the guns, months of retooling ammunition factories, months of retraining workers, months of retraining tank crews, etc, etc, etc.
So by the time the American Firefly would be issued, the war would've been over. You might as well concentrate on what you already have. Sometimes progress isn't everything.
Here's something for you: the first tanks were called barrels, due to their shape.
1887812 love that show. Can you believethey slipped a few Kelly's Heroes references in there?
1887079 Amen! Hell, some (figuratively) carried ALCO, Lima, or Baldwin builders plates!
I hope you will cover armored trains soon?
you forgot about the Crab tank, it had a giant flail at the frotn to detonate mines, and render anyone who got too close to mince meat
1888012
I wouldn't be all surprised that various war movies are referenced and parodied in GuP. And still you have to admit the whole series is downright silly, but if you are really into tanks it is certainly a treat
1889196 Talk about loving detail and rivet counting!
1889808
... and I now know what that means, guess it was a good thing I'm taking the model making class. But yes the amount of detail they put into the tanks is something.
1889828
1889893
I know what "rivet counting" means, it was mentioned in a model making class I'm in
1889904 Ah. I'm not one of those. Some people take things too seriously. I understand the need to be completely accurate if it is a model for a museum, but people who have to have everything be exactly correct for EVERYTHING need to lighten up a little. To me, it's just a hobby, and I do it for fun.
1889959
Luckily no one in the class is as well
1889985 Amen! They can get pretty annoying!
May I dare ask the question of why is there a tank blog on Fimfiction my dear sirs?
1890148 The question is not why, but why not.
1887992 Here's something for you. The first tank was conceived by Leonardo Da Vinci. He also came up with the first plane, helicopter, and several other things that other people get the credit for 'inventing'.
As for something else, there are of course exceptions to almost everything you said in this. For instance, many German tank destroyers during WW2 were very heavily armored, and functioned more like assault guns to better suit the Blitzkrieg strategy. This means they were almost always in a head on fight, just not alone. Take the Hetzer for example. At the time, it was so well armored from the front due to base thickness, coupled with the slope, that you couldn't kill it from the front. The Russian heavy, KV-1, was similar. The Germans could only kill it with a point-blank shot to the rear until they developed the 88mm canon and the Pz. VI Tiger. And MBT's are modern, you should have clarified that. They weren't developed until the cold war. (well, modern-ish) And they were never designed to be able to take a hit like a WW2 heavy tank (Russian IS for example, or German Tiger). They were medium tank level armor and mobility, with heavy tank firepower. Though the Abrams is a bit of an exception. It has over 200mm of armor in the front. Something like 250 if memory serves.
I... know way too much about tanks. I could keep going, but for your sake, I'l stop here. Correct me if i got anything wrong. (just, do it without sounding like a condescending a-hole if you can
)
1890148 If you check out my page, you'll find a directory of all the military blogs I've done so far.
I must raise an important point, albeit minor in the greater context of your wonderfully written blog. Just a few things to do with the following statement,
I assume you mean the American civil war, as opposed to the British Civil War or the Three Kingdoms Civil War of China, or indeed any other of the many civil wars throughout world history, and that being the case I feel I should point out it is a rather factually incorrect statement.
The first iron clad was The Gloire, a French wooden hulled ironclad vessel launched in 1859, and closely followed by the first iron hulled warship HMS Warrior, launched in 1860, both several years before they were used during the American civil war in 1862. It would be more accurate to say that they were first used in battle during the American civil war, as it is true that there were no clashes between ironclads until the battle of Hampton Roads.
1892258 I wouldn't call three years many
I also said high profile, in that they were the first ironclads that most people remember.
But I will change the blog to read "the first ironclads used in battle"
Most people? I don't remember any American Ironclads. I am however half and hour down the road from the rather pretty HMS Warrior.
No offence to you sir, but please don't mar such good work with American Centricisms and assumptions.
1892271 Uh, yeah, I do occasionally need to be taken down a notch.
1892276
No worries. It was otherwise a fine treatise on armoured warfare
1891193 I'm going to be complete honest here: I'm not sure whether you've taken offense to what I've said or not.
1893263 Not at all. Though... where did you find that out at? Or were you making a very long-shotted joke?
1891193
The russian IS was(and is) a heavy tank, same with the German tiger
and as for the KV series, they were a flop, the russian t-34 out-preformed it in many aspects and was much much cheaper, thought that's didn't stop the russians from using it as the basis for the IS series.
As for ther German "Tank Destroyers" they were not in the most strictest of sense TD's, they were designed as ambush tanks(German tank doctrine and such, not my idea) and they preformed that role(and others) very well
BTW, the british started playing around with MBT's during WW2, and so did the Russians, but neither had a working concept or prototype until after WW2 (1960-70 time period)
Oddly enough, the Marine corp has written several books that are very detailed in tank (the one that sticks out in my mind is "Russian tank designs and practices, Post WW2 to 1998)
1893653 I heard it from my step-dad, who is usually a good source on instruments of war.
1893759 Never said the IS and Tiger weren't heavies, but I didn't know about the Brits and Russian working with MBT concepts during WW2. Thanks for that.
1894449
Always thought the very first tank was the British Little Willie.
Ain't he cute?encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT2o-S-E_VMgqb78PGTRlw0FhzNG878WSyxV_g9dUoqUPRo9DrYTw
1895748
Dawww...
1895737
yeah, no prob, mostly what the Russians and English did was trying to make a infantry support style tank move like a cruiser tank while maintaining the Infantry support style's armor and firepower, took them both far too long to realize that the transmission and the suspension need major overhauling
Yes, i am just a overwhelming spring of nearly useless knowledge, I blame that on many, many boring staff duties....
1887921
I'd quibble quite a bit at your comment of penetrating "with ease" using the 76, however I do agree with you in general.
But I always believe in hitting someone over the head with an expert where possible. Therefore next time someone starts crying about the firefly show them this: http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly3/
worldoftanks.com/dcont/fb/image/tmb/comparisons_808x887.jpg
(kinda hard to read, but note the 76mm placed 1st in the majority of tested categories)
Say what you will about World of Tanks, but The Chieftains Hatch series - both written like this one, and videos showing the actual tanks - are extremely good and well researched.
To summarize the lengthy series of articles:
17pounder: pen = good!, accuracy = bad at ranges > ~500m, Rate of fire = bad, crew comfort(not
a minor factor when buttoned up long periods) = somewhat better than Russian.
76mm firing AP (NOT HVAP - not much on-hand): pen = almost as good!, accuracy = good!, rate of
fire = good!, crew comfort = not terrible!
The American Tank Destroyer doctrine (the doctrine that TNAB used to describe ALL tank destroyers
) wasn't a huge factor in favoring the 76 over production of the Firefly partially because - as noted - the 17 pounder wasn't significantly better at anything, but also partially because especially after North Africa it was noted that designed for it or not tanks were consistently being used to engage other tanks.
This is because while your statement that tank battles were rare is true, this does not hold true for tank engagements. Small groups of tanks would normally come into contact while supporting the infantry both side's tanks were with. Since as much as infantry hate having to fight tanks on their own, tanks don't particularly enjoy having enemy infantry climbing all over them either. (German Elephants in particular were vulnerable to infantry; especially since the early models didn't have any machine guns![Patton would have so disapproved])
On all sides on all fronts tanks rarely were used in truly massed formations for a number of reasons. Logistics is the most obvious, but also maneuver space caused problems. Prokhorovka was nearly ideal tank ground. It had fairly flat ground so tanks could dictate the engagement range and keep infantry away, and since the ground was hard enough during that time of year tanks could drive at full speed without fear of bogging down.
(Sorry I can't provide sources for most of this. I'm working from years-old memory of books that are 750 miles from me.)
Edit:
Knew I recognized your name from somewhere, ISKV. Not often you see WoT related fics o7
1906252
Ah. I knew I was forgetting something. Good point.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Second_Phase_Campaign.jpg
Chinese Human Wave during the Korean War
It's like he knew...