0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page i TANKS 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page ii Other Titles in ABC-CLIO’s WEAPONS AND WARFARE SERIES Spencer C. Tucker, Series Editor Air Defense, Shannon A. Brown Aircraft Carriers, Hedley Wilmott Ancient Weapons, James T. Chambers Artillery, Jeff Kinard Ballistic Missiles, Kev Darling Battleships, Stanley Sandler Cruisers and Battle Cruisers, Eric W. Osborne Destroyers, Eric W. Osborne Helicopters, Stanley S. McGowen Machine Guns, James H. Willbanks Medieval Weapons, James T. Chambers Military Aircraft in the Jet Age, Justin D. Murphy Military Aircraft, 1919–1945, Justin D. Murphy Military Aircraft, Origins to 1918, Justin D. Murphy Pistols, Jeff Kinard Rifles, David Westwood Submarines, Hedley Paul Wilmott 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page iii TANKS AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THEIR IMPACT Spencer C. Tucker Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page iv Copyright © 2004 by Spencer C. Tucker All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tucker, Spencer, 1937– Tanks : an illustrated history of their impact / Spencer C. Tucker. p. cm. — (Weapons and warfare series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57607-995-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 1-57607-996-1 (e-book) 1. Tank warfare. 2. Tanks (Military science) I. Title. II. Series. UE159.T83 2004 623.7’4752—dc22 04 05 06 07 10 987654321 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an e-book. Visit abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page v CONTENTS Introduction to Weapons and Warfare Series, Spencer C. Tucker vii Preface ix chapter one Introduction of the Tank, 1914–1918 1 chapter two The Interwar Years, 1918–1939 41 chapter three World War II, 1939–1945 87 chapter four Tanks of the Cold War, 1945–1989 137 chapter five Contemporary Tanks, 1989 to the Present 181 Individual Tank Models 199 Glossary of Terms for Tanks and Their Ordnance 347 References 363 Index 371 v 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page vi 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page vii INTRODUCTION TO WEAPONS AND WARFARE SERIES Weapons both fascinate and repel. They are used to kill and maim individuals and to destroy states and societies, and occasion- ally whole civilizations, and with these the greatest of man’s cultural and artistic accomplishments. Throughout history tools of war have been the instruments of conquest, invasion, and enslavement, but they have also been used to check evil and to maintain peace. Weapons have evolved over time to become both more lethal and more complex. For the greater part of man’s existence, combat was fought at the length of an arm or at such short range as to represent no real difference; battle was fought within line of sight and seldom lasted more than the hours of daylight of a single day. Thus individ- ual weapons that began with the rock and the club proceeded through the sling and boomerang, bow and arrow, sword and axe, to gunpowder weapons of the rifle and machine gun of the late nine- teenth century. Study of the evolution of these weapons tell us much about human ingenuity, the technology of the time, and the societies that produced them. The greater part of technological de- velopment of weaponry has taken part in the last two centuries, es- pecially the twentieth century. In this process, plowshares have been beaten into swords; the tank, for example, evolved from the agricultural caterpillar tractor. Occasionally, the process is reversed and military technology has impacted society in a positive way. Thus modern civilian medicine has greatly benefitted from advances to save soldiers’ lives, and weapons technology has impacted such ar- eas as civilian transportation or atomic power. vii 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page viii viii SERIES INTRODUCTION Weapons can have a profound impact on society. Gunpowder weapons, for example, were an important factor in ending the era of the armed knight and the Feudal Age. They installed a kind of rough democracy on the battlefield, making “all men alike tall.” We can only wonder what effect weapons of mass destruction (WMD) might have on our own time and civilization. This series will trace the evolution of a variety of key weapons sys- tems, describe the major changes that occurred in each, and illus- trate and identify the key types. Each volume begins with a descrip- tion of the particular weapons system and traces its evolution, while discussing its historical, social, and political contexts. This is fol- lowed by a heavily illustrated section that is arranged more or less along chronological lines that provides more precise information on at least 80 key variants of that particular weapons system. Each vol- ume contains a glossary of terms, a bibliography of leading books on that particular subject, and an index. Individual volumes in the series, each written by a specialist in that particular area of expertise, are as follows: Ancient Weapons Medieval Weapons Pistols Rifles Machine Guns Artillery Tanks Battleships Cruisers and Battle Cruisers Aircraft Carriers Submarines Military Aircraft, Origins to 1918 Military Aircraft, 1919–1945 Military Aircraft in the Jet Age Helicopters Ballistic Missiles Air Defense Destroyers We hope that this series will be of wide interest to specialists, re- searchers, and even general readers. Spencer C. Tucker Series Editor 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page ix PREFACE And the Lord was with Judah; and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitant of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. The Book of Judges 1:19 Mention the word “tank” and most people think of an awe- somely powerful, seemingly unstoppable weapon. Tanks (often re- ferred to loosely as “armor”) may be defined as tracked, armored fighting vehicles armed with a high-velocity, flat-trajectory main gun designed for direct-fire engagement. This distinguishes them from artillery, which primarily employs indirect fire. Conceived in World War I as a means of ending the bloody stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front, tanks were first employed by the British in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Unfortunately for the British they were used in insufficient numbers and without suf- ficient thought or training in combined arms operations. The oppor- tunity, if indeed it had existed, to win the war with this new weapons system was thus lost. By the end of the war, however, both the British and French were utilizing tanks in large numbers in their military operations. Tanks reached their full potential only in World War II when, formed in entire divisions with infantry and artillery, they were the key element of the German blitzkrieg (literally, “lightning war”) and early military triumphs against Poland and France and the Low Countries. Tanks were also immensely important on the flat plains of the Eastern Front. In the Soviet Union, however, the German blitzkrieg ground to a halt, because of the vast distances involved, the poor Soviet transportation system, and the breakdown in the su- ix 0_tanks_fm.qxd 10/25/04 4:39 PM Page x x PREFACE perb German combined arms fighting combination. The Eastern Front was nonetheless the scene of the largest armor battles in world history. Tanks also proved vital in the fluid battles of North Africa and in the contest for France in 1944. They were less impor- tant when terrain and circumstance precluded their employment en masse, as in the mountainous terrain of Italy and in the jungle is- lands of the Pacific Theater. Since World War II tanks have been a part of almost every major armed conflict. They helped secure victory for the State of Israel in the many Arab-Israeli wars. Indeed, these wars saw some of the largest tank battles. Tanks fought in the Korean War, in the wars be- tween Pakistan and India, in the jungles of Vietnam, and in the long Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s, and they were a vital element of coali- tion victories in the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War. There are many images of tanks at war. They include the ponder- ous, lozenge-shaped British machines of World War I trapped in the mud of the Western Front, German panzers on the plains of Russia, and the M4 Sherman medium tanks of Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s Third Army racing across France. Most recently, there are the television images shown in real time of U.S. M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks advancing across the flat terrain of southern Iraq. Tanks are a powerful symbol of military force, but they are also an important sign of state power and authority. Thus in January 1996 the prime minister of India, P. V. Narasimha Rao, made a statement about India’s progress as a military power by climbing into his na- tion’s first indigenous-produced tank, the 56.5-ton Arjun. On occa- sion the reverse has been true, with the tank overwhelming the indi- vidual, as when the helmeted and smiling Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis waved to photographers from an M1A1 Abrams tank.