An armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) is an armed combat vehicle protected by armour, generally combining operational mobility with offensive and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked. Tanks, armoured cars, assault guns/armoured self-propelled guns, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers are all examples of AFVs.
A military armoredcar is a lightweight wheeled armored fighting vehicle, historically employed for reconnaissance, internal security, armed escort, and other subordinate battlefield tasks. With the gradual decline of mounted cavalry, armored cars were developed for carrying out duties formerly assigned to light cavalry. Following the invention of the tank, the armored car remained popular due to its faster speed, comparatively simplified maintenance and low production cost. It also found favor with several colonial armies as a cheaper weapon for use in underdeveloped regions. During World War II, most armored cars were engineered for reconnaissance and passive observation, while others were devoted to communications tasks. Some equipped with heavier armament could even substitute for tracked combat vehicles in favorable conditions—such as pursuit or flanking maneuvers during the North African Campaign.
Preston Thomas Tucker was an American automobile entrepreneur.
The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. It was also the basis of several successful tank destroyers, such as the M10, 17pdr SP Achilles and M36B1. Tens of thousands were distributed through the Lend-Lease program to the British Commonwealth and Soviet Union. The tank was named by the British for the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman.
The Tiger II is a German heavy tank of the Second World War. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B, often shortened to Tiger B. The ordnance inventory designation was Sd.Kfz. 182. It was known as King Tiger by Allied soldiers, and is also known under the informal name Königstiger. The name Königstiger was never used in contemporary German documentation, but was used extensively after the war.
The IS Tank was a series of heavy tanks developed as a successor to the KV-series by the Soviet Union during World War II. The IS acronym is the anglicized initialism of Joseph Stalin. The heavy tanks were designed with thick armor to counter German 88 mm guns and carried a main gun capable of defeating Panzer IV tanks. They were mainly designed as breakthrough tanks, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was useful against entrenchments and bunkers. The IS-2 went into service in April 1944 and was used as a spearhead by the Red Army in the final stage of the Battle of Berlin. The IS-3 served on the Chinese-Soviet border, the Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring and on both sides of the Six-Day War. The series eventually culminated in the T-10 heavy tank.
The MBT-70 was an American–West German joint project to develop a new main battle tank during the 1960s.
Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus was a German World War II super-heavy tank completed in late 1944. It is the heaviest fully enclosed armored fighting vehicle ever built. Five were ordered, but only two hulls and one turret were completed, the turret being attached, before the testing grounds were captured by advancing Soviet military forces.
The Panther is a German medium tank deployed during World War II on the Eastern and Western Fronts in Europe from mid-1943 to the war's end in 1945. It had the ordnance inventory designation of Sd.Kfz. 171. It was designated as the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther until 27 February 1944, when Hitler ordered that the Roman numeral "V" be deleted. Contemporary English-language reports sometimes refer to it as the "Mark V".
The Elefant was a heavy tank destroyer used by German Wehrmacht Panzerjäger during World War II. Ninety-one units were built in 1943 under the name Ferdinand, after its designer Ferdinand Porsche, using tank hulls produced for the Tiger I tank design abandoned in favour of a Henschel design.
The Tank, Cruiser, Mk I (A9) was a British cruiser tank of the interwar period. It was the first cruiser tank: a fast tank designed to bypass the main enemy lines and engage the enemy's lines of communication, as well as enemy tanks. The Cruiser Mk II was a more heavily armoured adaptation of the Mark I, developed at much the same time.
The M18 Hellcat is a tank destroyer used by the United States Army in World War II and the Korean War. It was the fastest U.S. armored fighting vehicle on the road. This speed was attained by keeping armor to a minimum, using the innovative Torqmatic automatic transmission, and by equipping the relatively light vehicle with the same main gun used on some variants of the much larger Sherman tank.
The Entwicklung series, more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Nazi Germany to produce a standardised series of tank designs. There were to be standard designs in five different weight classes from which several specialised variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The M8 Light Armored Car is a 6×6 armored car produced by the Ford Motor Company during World War II. It was used from 1943 by United States and British forces in Europe and the Pacific until the end of the war. The vehicle was widely exported and as of 2006 still remained in service with some countries.
The T-44 is a medium tank first developed and produced near the end of World War II by the Soviet Union. It was the successor to the T-34, offering improved ride and cross-country performance and much greater armor. Designed to be equipped with an 85 mm main gun, by the time it was fully tested the T-34 had also moved to this weapon. Both tanks offered similar performance, so introducing the T-44 was not considered as important as increasing T-34 production. Fewer than 2,000 T-44s were built, compared to about 58,000 T-34s. Although the T-44 was available by the end of the war, it was not used in combat. Its upper front plate could not be penetrated by the German 88mm guns found on the Tiger I and Tiger II respectively. It was 1 ton lighter than the T-34-85 and slightly faster. The T-44 was heavily influential on the design of the T-54/55 tanks, most notably the removal of side sloping, thick frontal armor, and a low profile. Also notably was the 100mm Prototype, which used the same 100mm gun, bar of some minor changes when fitted to the T-54/55 series.
The Heavy Tank M6 was an American heavy tank designed during World War II. The tank was produced in small numbers and never saw combat.
This article deals with the history and development of tanks of the Japanese Army from their first use after World War I, into the interwar period, during World War II, the Cold War and modern era.
The Tiger I was a German heavy tank of World War II that operated beginning in 1942 in Africa and in the Soviet Union, usually in independent heavy tank battalions. It gave the German Army its first armoured fighting vehicle that mounted the 8.8 cm KwK 36 gun. 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. After August 1944, production of the Tiger I was phased out in favour of the Tiger II.
The Tucker gun turret was a fast-traversing electrically powered gun turret widely described as having been mounted on World War II bombers and on some ground vehicles and small naval vessels like US Navy PT boats. American industrialist Preston Tucker first developed the turret for the experimental Tucker armored car in 1938.
The IS-2 is a Soviet heavy tank, the first of the IS tank series named after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It was developed and saw combat during World War II, and saw service in other Soviet allied countries after the war.
