1916 debut
A type is born.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale50
Intensity45
Duration78
Tech shift80
Political impact48
Cultural memory70
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
Who "invented" it?
A British committee (Swinton, Tritton, Wilson and others) and parallel French work. There is no single Edison. The cover name came from industrial disguise.
Did tanks win the First World War?
They helped in 1918 combined arms. They did not win alone. Mechanical failure was common in 1916-17.
What is an MBT?
A Cold War idea that one "main" tank should replace light/medium/heavy splits. Centurion and T-54 are early exhibits.
Are tanks obsolete?
A headline since 1918, 1973, and the 2020s. History shows adaptation, not a funeral -- and this page will not umpire a current war.
How does Korea fit?
T-34s in 1950; then a ROK armour force and K1/K2 industry. See also the ROK military and Hanwha pages.
Cambrai, 1940, Kursk, Sinai 1973, Korea 1950 -- dated uses, not a campaign school.
Combined arms is the repeated historical sentence.
Principles
FT layout
A century's silhouette.
1973 missile shock
A staff-college date.
MBT
Cold War "one main type" idea. Read as a 1916-present (as a type) concept in From the Somme to every later armoured front.
ATGM
Missiles that recast 1973 staff talk -- named, not instructed. Not a present instruction.
Steps
- Flers-Courcelette
1916-09-15: Mark I debut.
A dated type-history beat of Tank (1916-present (as a type)). No employment, arming, or build steps.
- Cambrai
1917-11: First massed British tank attack; gains then lost.
A dated type-history beat of Tank (1916-present (as a type)). No employment, arming, or build steps.
- FT and 1918 battles
1918: Turret layout; combined arms.
A dated type-history beat of Tank (1916-present (as a type)). No employment, arming, or build steps.
- Doctrine fights
1930s: Fuller, Guderian, Tukhachevsky.
A dated type-history beat of Tank (1916-present (as a type)). No employment, arming, or build steps.
- Early WWII
1939-41: The type's political shock in Europe.
A dated type-history beat of Tank (1916-present (as a type)). No employment, arming, or build steps.
- Kursk caption
1943: Density and myth.
A dated type-history beat of Tank (1916-present (as a type)). No employment, arming, or build steps.
Diagrams
From Flers-Courcelette (1916-09-15) through Kursk caption (1943) to "Dead again" headlines (2000s-20s) in From the Somme to every later armoured front. One sequence, not a staff overlay.
Ernest Swinton (British theorist/officer) and Walter Gordon Wilson (Engineer) sit at the centre of most English accounts; Israel Tal and Gotthard Heinrici / etc. -- skip; use a Korean correct the usual photograph.
Limits
Source limits
Figures such as "not a war -- a system; human cost is in the wars that used it" stay in ranges because records are incomplete, political, or still closed. Who "invented" it? is answered as a band.
No how-to
Tank is systems history and employment as a past fact. This page does not teach manufacturing, arming, aiming, or attack procedures.
Memory bias
English-language fame of Tank and local memory in From the Somme to every later armoured front are not the same map. Gotthard Heinrici / etc. -- skip; use a Korean is often the correction the first photograph drops.
Manoeuvre stories are descriptions of past wars.
This is not an employment guide.