Tanks of WW 2 E-Book

John Patton

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 25

Beschreibung

This volume features the tanks that were employed during World War II in Europe and the Pacific.

Leseprobe

Content

American Tanks

German Tanks

Russian Tanks

British Tanks

Italian Tanks

Japanese Tanks

"If you want peace, prepare for war"

By purchasing this book, you support the search for missing soldiers.

Introduction

Vehicles were already used as a weapon of war in the early days. But of course one has to distinguish between the chariot of ancient times which were used by fighting warriors and actual armoured vehicles.

In the ancient world, chariots were used for both attack and defence, and their first mass deployment took place in 1285 BC, in the battle of Kadesh, on the Orontes River in what is today Syria. The Hittites confronted the Egyptians under Ramses II with 3,500 chariots. The chariots in those times had large wheels, box-shaped, high structures, a crew of three to four men, and they were usually pulled by more than two horses.

The Iliad as well as vase paintings from Greece and Ionia demonstrate that light chariots were used which were drawn by two horses and staffed by two men, a charioteer and a warrior. We are familiar with two- and four-wheel scythed chariots from this period; these had long and sharp blades on their wheel rims, which were designed to cause injuries to the enemy soldiers.

In addition to the scythed chariots, assault or siege wagons can be seen as the most likely forerunners of today's armoured tanks. The earliest example of these vehicles dates back to the ninth century BC and can be found in the British Museum in London.

New combat techniques made new solutions necessary to move these war vehicles: A greater flexibility than men pushing or horses pulling was required on the battlefield.

In 1855, J. Cowan introduced an armoured, steam-powered vehicle in the shape of a turtle, which he had designed using a tractor of the period. Cowan's idea was improved, and in 1890 an American named GH Edwards presented a steam-powered half-track vehicle featuring both wheels and chains at the same time.

The invention of the petrol motor played a crucial role in the development of armoured vehicles, which were initially designed with wheels for locomotion. The first prototypes appeared around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Today, we would classify them as armoured reconnaissance vehicles. They were normal wheeled vehicles equipped with firearms and protective metal plates. With these vehicles from the early years of the 20th century, the experimental stage with armoured vehicles practically ends.

In the early years of the First World War, these armoured wheeled vehicles were already deployed in considerable numbers, but soon their limitations became evident when infantrymen started to protected themselves against them with trenches and barbed wire. The result was a demand for vehicles that were capable of overcoming such obstacles.

As time went by, armoured vehicles had to be continuously improved and optimised because warring nations were always finding new means to defend themselves against them. Mines, bazookas and anti-tank barriers are just a few examples of the new developments that have dominated in the battlefield until today.