Mark I
1916 British rhomboid -- the debut. Ancestry or first type-name of Tank -- history of a class, not a build list.
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.
Historical types and the arms that used them -- British Tank Corps, panzer divisions, Soviet tank armies, ROK armour -- as past structures.
Not a current table of which brigade has what.
Systems
Renault FT
The layout ancestor: turret, rear engine.
Blitzkrieg (popular)
A later English label for 1939-41 -- overused.
ATGM
Missiles that recast 1973 staff talk -- named, not instructed. Treaty, crisis, or doctrine caption -- not a launch or employment guide.
Ernest Swinton
An early advocate of the armoured idea in 1914-16 -- one name among a committee.
FT layout
A century's silhouette.
Meters
Atlas scale (not a war)
50
Peak intensity
45
How long it defined a period
78
Doctrinal / technical shift
80
Borders, regimes, law, alliances
48
Film, school, ritual density
70
Hotspots
Invention
1916-18: Rhomboids to FT. Named as historical geography of Tank, not as a targeting list.
Theory
1919-39: Small wars and big arguments. Named as historical geography of Tank, not as a targeting list.
Industrial peak
1939-45: T-34, Sherman, Panther. Named as historical geography of Tank, not as a targeting list.
MBT Cold War
1945-91: Two alliances' types. Named as historical geography of Tank, not as a targeting list.
Questioned type
After 1991: Headlines vs inventories. Named as historical geography of Tank, not as a targeting list.
Materials
Chronology (1916-present (as a type))
Tank is bounded as 1916-present (as a type). 1916-09-15 opens the usual narrative (Flers-Courcelette); 2000s-20s closes it ("Dead again" headlines).
Theatre: From the Somme to every later armoured front
Place is evidence. From the Somme to every later armoured front is where Tank happened -- a map for readers, not a guide for repeating it.
Human-cost band
not a war -- a system; human cost is in the wars that used it Keep the figure as a range. Spectacle integers are not a census.
Blitzkrieg (popular)
A later English label for 1939-41 -- overused. A material of the Tank vocabulary, dated to 1916-present (as a type).
No weak-spot chart. No driving handbook.
Anti-tank guns and missiles appear as historical replies.