Tanks, But No Tanks: Difference between revisions

** Yes and no - they weren't tanks because they weren't water tanks, but at the time a rotating turret and "modern shape" had nothing at all to do with the definition of a tank in a military sense. The original tanks were just called "tanks" to hide their real nature. Besides, if a turret were really part of the definition, that would leave the Swedish S-Tank (Strv 103) MBT in a bit of a spot...

 

* The first troper to describe Audie Murphy's famous stand in the [[Draft Dodging]] article (under subversions) placed him in a burning tank instead of on an M10 tank destroyer - a tank-like vehicle with thin armor, an open turret, and a big gun. That said, the definition of "tank destroyer" gets complicated. The British had two classifications for tanks: "Infantry" and "Cruiser." Infantry tanks were heavily-armored yet slow and, as they were mainly intended for infantry support, only rarely equipped with armor-piercing ammunition. Cruiser tanks were fast, lightly armed vehicles intended to engage and destroy enemy armor. The US used the same distinctions but called them "tanks" and "tank destroyers" respectively. Gradually, as armor got heavier and engines got better, both were merged into the single "main battle tank" category that dominates the battlefield to this day. Categorisation gets even more complicated when Soviet and German tank destroyers are factored in. Vehicles such as the SU-85 and Jagdpanther (based on the T-34 and Panther respectively) were simply turretless and sometimes up-armoured versions of an existing tank chassis, mounting a limited-traverse gun in the hull that was typically bigger than the original tank could carry.