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{{quote|"''Yea verily, though I charge through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am driving a house-sized mass of ''[[Precision F-Strike|fuck you.]]''"''
|'''Anonymous Mammoth Tank crewman'''
{{quote|"''Your foe is well-equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will. We have the tanks on ours.''"
|'''Colonel Joachim Pfeiff, 14th Krieg Panzer Regiment'''
In large modern warfare engagements, infantry may as well be [[Cannon Fodder]]. You want something that can [[Hold the Line]]. Something with a [[BFG]], crawler treads and tons of armor. You want a tank.
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[[Real Life]] tanks have large cannons to take on other tanks and fortifications, and (usually) secondary weapons to deal with infantry or aircraft. In fiction, other tanks may use anti-infantry or [[Anti-Air|anti-aircraft]] weapons instead of cannons.<ref>These do exist in [[Real Life]], but they're not called tanks. To make the distinction even more difficult, many of these are based on existing tank chassis, so they look like tanks that have had their turrets swapped out. Cue [[Viewers are Morons|journalists and the general public]] [[Tanks, But No Tanks|calling them "tanks" anyway]].</ref> The tank's size and mobility may also be used as a weapon to crush people, cars, and walls. The armor is thick enough to stop small arms fire, most of it in the front, with the weakest areas being the rear, bottom and top. Expect enemies to take advantage of this [[For Massive Damage]].
Of course, the above paragraph refers to tanks around the size of today's main battle tanks. Sometimes that's not enough. <big>[[Bigger Is Better|They need to be bigger!]] Big enough to crush the ''other tanks''! [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|And carry loads of weapons!]] While [[Multi-Track Drifting|
Other armored fighting vehicles, like [[Awesome Personnel Carrier|armored personnel carriers]], self-propelled artillery and tank destroyers may be called tanks. [[Tanks, But No Tanks|They're not. Don't be fooled!]] Likewise, don't listen to the [[Crazy Awesome|deranged lunatics]] who keep wanting to [[Walking Tank|put legs on them]]. [[It Will Never Catch On|Ridiculously impractical, that.]]
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* In later light novels of ''[[The Familiar of Zero]]'', Saito obtains a King Tiger II tank from second world war.
* In the ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' manga, Skuld builds a tank for a [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|rubber band fight.]]
* ''[[Girls und Panzer]]''. Tank battles can be awesome and ''adorable'' at the same time. Standard-size tanks, though.
== Comic Books ==
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* [[David Drake]]'s ''[[Hammer's Slammers]]'' stories.
* Michael Moorcock's ''The Land Leviathan''
* ''[[Discworld]]'' featured a steam tank of sorts in ''[[
* "[[Shout-Out|Bun]] [[Killer Rabbit|Bun]]" in [[John Ringo]]'s [[Posleen War Series]]. See also the Tiger IIIs from the [[Posleen War Series]] novel ''Watch on the Rhine'', by Tom Kratman.
** [[Bun Bun]] (and the rest of the [[She Va]] vehicles) are self-propelled artillery, not tanks. It may be ridiculously big, but it carries a battleship's gun and very little armor for its size.
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* [[H. G. Wells]], anyone? He laid out the concept of tanks ("landships") and their coming dominance in wars in his 1904 short-story "The Land Ironclads", widely believed the inspiration for subsequent development of the real thing over the next 4 decades. That's right: he wrote a story about tanks before there were tanks.
** Beaten to the pop by Da Vinci, although said tank was about as close to today's machines as a galleon is to the Bismark.
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s
** To get an idea of the "landships", think of a [[WW
* [[The Draka]] Hond tank is the king of the battlefield in the Eurasian War, and the Draka produce them in Soviet Union-like numbers from their massive transcontinental empire.
* The ''Sovremenyy''
* [[Fyodor Berezin]] is in love with this trope. As an example, the modern Soviet tanks from an alternate reality in his ''Red Stars'' duology (where the USSR dominates the world) are four-tracked monstrocities with huge cannons. This is explained by the fact that USSR struck first in [[World War Two]], destroying ''Germany'''s military-industrial complex instead of the Soviet one, allowing factories to keep building heavier and heavier tanks, like KV-3, and KV-4 (for reference, the [[Real Life]] KV-2 was armed with a howitzer cannon and 5 of these obliterated over 20 German tanks in one battle).
* While this seems to be the case with the [[Lizard Folk|Race]] landcruisers in [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''[[Worldwar]]'' series, they're no more (and probably less) advanced than modern-day tanks. However, they're monsters in the books' [[World War Two]] setting, compared to what the human "empire and not-empires" can put out. The shells are laser—sorry, skelkwank-guided and can punch through any human armor. As mentioned by several characters on both sides, had the Race arrived only a generation later (as some of them wanted), the humans would've wiped the floor with them.
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* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|takes this Trope and makes sweet, sweet love to it]]. All races have access to some form of armored death machine, with the exception of the Tyranids (who have a broad variety of armored death ''biomechanoids'', but they all walk, crawl, hover, fly or slither rather than rolling). But it is the [[Imperial Guard]] who have access to the widest range of vehicles - from the ubiquitous Leman Russ main battle tank and Chimera armored personnel carrier/infantry fighting vehicle to the Baneblade super-heavy tank, pictured above in all its glory. As for the other armies, the Space Marines and their Chaos counterparts (who can ''daemonically possess'' their tanks) have access to Predator tanks based on the Rhino APC along with the awesome [[Military Mashup Machine|troop transport/battle tank]] that is the Land Raider, while the Eldar and Tau use highly maneuverable skimmer tanks, although they tend to take their personnel carriers and turn them into tanks by adding an appropriately powerful gun that removes the capacity to carry troops. The Orks? Well, they use cobbled-together battlewagons and looted Imperial vehicles that shouldn't even be able to ''move'', let alone fight in combat. The Necrons have the titanic Monolith, a horribly-beweaponed flying tomb that is ludicrously hard to kill.
** Of the superheavies, Baneblade (yes, it [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Baneblade#Armament_and_Upgrades really does have] [[More Dakka|eleven barrels of hell]].<ref>If you want a quick breakdown: Baneblade battle cannon mounted in the turret, with a co-axial autocannon, Demolisher cannon mounted in the hull, two sponsons mounting twin-linked heavy bolters with two lascannons mounted on top of those, and a further twin-linked heavy bolter mounted in the hull</ref>) is the most widespread. But then there's the Shadowsword, which is basically a Baneblade chassis housing a [[Wave Motion Gun|Volcano cannon]]—usually the main armament of [[Humongous Mecha|Titans the size of buildings]]. And so on. See the [https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2020/06/40k-esoteric-baneblade-variants.html table of Baneblade variants] (not quite complete — there was also Deathhammer back in [[Horus Heresy]] era).
** See also the [https://web.archive.org/web/20110920195117/http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14209 treadhead thread].
*** A lot of the credit also has to go to [https://web.archive.org/web/20150809212706/http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/ Forge World], which is apparently what happens when you give Warhammer 40K fans/World War II buffs a Games Workshop license and a load of resin. Even counting old discontinued designs, they're responsible for about half the tanks of the [[Imperial Guard]], and up to 70% of the tanks for the Eldar and Tau.
** The Imperial Guard's Leman Russ has to be considered the most successful design of them all though, in terms of overall utility and practicality (Baneblades may be powerful, but are exceedingly rare and used sparingly). The vanilla Leman Russ is already an excellent vehicle that is powerful against infantry (even Space Marines) with a decent anti-vehicle punch, but it can be customized using a wide variety of variants. The long-barreled Vanquisher, for example, is an excellent tank killer, while the Exterminator mows through infantry like a scythe through wheat.
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** ''[[Valkyria Chronicles II]]'' gives you a fully customizable tank, as all classes get a tank, and you even get to name it. Different kinds of tank and APC chassis, choice from three turret types, various armor, shoulder and back parts and decal and sticker options.
** ''[[Valkyria Chronicles III]]'' uses the same mechanic as ''II'', but further refines it and adds more customization options, as well as making the heavy tank easier to move around.
* ''[[Armored Core]]'' would be the ultimate Tank Goodness poster child: most games offer the tank legs. Very slow, but usually very heavily armored, has very low energy drain, has built-in boosters, so it actually saves the main body weight, and carry loads like nothing else. With that in mind, most kinds of tanks can fulfill requirements of [[More Dakka]], [[Macross Missile Massacre]], [[Nuke'Em|Tactical Nukes]], or all of the above, ''with [[Stone Wall]] defenses''. [[There Is No Kill Like
** Also, ''Armored Core 4'' has regular modern tanks. [[Tanks for Nothing|They might as well be plushies for all the good they do.]]
*** AC 4A allows tank legs to store oversized backup weapons, like, oh, another set of Chain Guns. Or Bazookas. ''Or damn near anything else in the game.'' It's possible to make a mech that has [[More Dakka|6 Chain guns]], two of which are actually 4 rifles attached to each other. Said mech is usually very hard to kill, but can run out of ammo in about 2 minutes of concentrated fire. I've yet to see something stand up to a full 30 seconds though, as most NEXTs only have around 60K HP, tops.
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** Red Army has [[wikipedia:T-35|T-35]] (built in 1933-1939) with five turrets, mounting a total of three cannons and six machine guns. Wiith 7-11 crewmen [https://web.archive.org/web/20131015225147/http://www.wwiivehicles.com/ussr/tanks-heavy/t-35.asp depending on the model]. Even more of a Lego-machine, since first it got its four side-turrets from BT-2, later replaced with combination of BT-5 (slightly modded) and T-37 turrets.
*** And proved, like its predecessor, the [[wikipedia:Vickers A1E1 Independent|Vickers A1E1]], to be a flop. If you look on the list of how they were lost, most were to various malfunctions due to the combination of complicated machine and USSR tech/craftsmanship.
* [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=210 KV-2], which mounted a [[BFG|152mm howitzer]] (largest caliber weapon ''ever'' fitted on a production tank), but was virtually immobile and couldn't traverse its turret unless it was on perfectly level ground. Its intended role was an ''assault gun'', i.e. self-propelled bunker-buster, better compared with the German Jagdpanzers or StuGs. As such neither did it need much mobility, nor lack of ease of use would be all that detrimental for it. Of course, these lumbering behemots performed well enough [[Finns With Fearsome Forests|slowly chewing through Mannerheim's concrete]], in highly mobile warfare of the summer campaign of 41 they acted more as mobile fortifications—unable to hit anything that doesn't stand and wait for it, but armored heavier than [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=313 KV-1] that were able to [https://web.archive.org/web/20130412151323/http://books.google.com/books?id=5EA5LrwmP2UC&pg=PA36 survive over a hundred cannon hits] and beat lighter tanks by ''[[Ramming Always Works|ramming]]''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130412084305/http://books.google.com/books?id=5EA5LrwmP2UC&pg=PA18 One well-placed KV-2 was enough to stop a division]: tanks and anti-tank cannons failed to penetrate its armour, so Germans stuck until they brought in 88-mm anti-air guns. 105-mm howitzers were able to only to blow off tracks off these monsters, but not destroy them. KV's worst enemy were the Stukas (bombs were more practical against heavy armored but slow tanks) and Red Army's own logistical troubles. Still, the scheme was good enough to reuse production lines, upgrading both assault gun and tank branches, and later turn KV series into [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=191 IS] series.
** Talking about IS tanks ( '''I'''ossif '''S'''talin, by the way), don't forget the [[wikipedia:IS-2|IS-2]], a heavy, breakthrough tank developed to counter the German Panthers & Tigers whose main armament was a [[More Dakka|122mm gun]].
** Although the Soviets won the war by mass-producing the awesome-in-its-own-way T-34 and KVs, they were also prone to [[Crazy Awesome]] experiments, such as the unmanned, remote-controlled [[wikipedia:Teletank|Teletank]] and the [[wikipedia:Antonov A-40|Antonov A-40]] ''[[Rule of Cool|flying tank]]'' or strapping a pair of 245-mm rocket rails on top of [[Glass Cannon|BT-5 light tank]] (reappeared in more sane variant as side rockets on KV-1, but cancelled due to low accuracy).
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** The most massively ironic factor? Syria fielded, among more modern Soviet export tanks, surplus ''Panzer IVs''.
** The Sherman, despite being outgunned and out-armored by the Panther and Tiger, did have some real advantages. It was the very first tank to have a stabilized main gun, allowing a limited ability to fire on the move. It also was quite agile for a medium tank of its era and relatively compact, allowing it to go places a Panther or especially a [[Mighty Glacier|Tiger]] could never dream of.
* The Slovakian's have a Version of the T-72 that has a pair of 20MM Anti-air guns [https://web.archive.org/web/20131020033417/http://www.army-technology.com/projects/t72/t726.html attached to the side of the turret.]
* The very first tank battle took place at Villers-Bretonneaux in 1918. It involved a battle between 10 tanks on the British side (1 male Mark IV, 2 female Mark IVs, 7 Whippets){{spoiler|*:In [[World War I]] British parlance, a "female" tank was one armed solely with machine guns, while a "male" tank had cannons as its main armament. Later "tankette" was used for machinegun-only light tank as a separate subtype.}} and 3 German A7V Sturmpanzerwagens. None of them were very good tanks, yet the battle looked awesome, with both sides acquitting themselves quite well: the Germans lost their lead tank, [[I Call It "Vera"|Nixie]] (whose crew later stole her back), but knocked out 4 Whippets and forced the female Mark IVs to retreat, while the British and their Australian allies ultimately won the battle.
* British Infantry Tank II Matilda. Before late 1941 it completely outclassed anything the Germans and Italians could throw in, and the only weapon which had chances to destroy it was the [[Cool Gun|88 mm anti-aircraft gun]]. It gained the nickname ''Queen of the Desert'' during the Operation Compass in 1940. Obsolete at West by 1942, the surviving Matildas were shipped to Far East - where it proved superior against anything the Japanese had. The Australians dubbed Matilda as ''Queen of the Jungle''. One of the more whimsical modifications was to equip Matilda with Hedgehog ''depth charge'' launcher (not used against submarines, but Japanese bunkers). It had a weak engine for its weight, but on small flat islands it didn't matter that much.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Motor Vehicle Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Bigger Is Better]]
[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Motor Vehicle Tropes]]
[[Category:Travel Cool]]▼
[[Category:Vehicle Tropes]]
[[Category:Just for Pun]]
▲[[Category:Travel Cool]]
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