Verdex
Verdex
26 January 2023, 15:08

From the da Vinci project to the "leopards": tanks that change the course of the war

From the da Vinci project to the "leopards": tanks that change the course of the war
"Tank" is one of the most used words in the media space these days. Everyone is looking forward to when new deadly machines arrive at the front in order to finally crush the enemy. In anticipation of deliveries, let's take a look at the history of the appearance of the tank and recall a few famous models.

Since ancient times, when storming fortresses, high siege towers were used, inside which soldiers could hide from enemy arrows. Leonardo da Vinci worked on the prototype of a full-fledged shooting machine with a crew: the scientist designed a wooden-metal structure on wheels. However, the car would have turned out to be too big and heavy to budge, and da Vinci never realized his plan.
A few years before the First World War, the Austrian engineer Günther Burstein worked on the creation of a Motorgeschütz combat vehicle equipped with a rotating cannon. At first, he offered the German Empire to build a car, but they were not interested in it and refused to allocate resources. In 1912, the engineer patented the Motorgeschütz in Austria-Hungary. The concept of this project formed the basis of the later French Renault FT-17 light tank.
On September 15, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, the British first used full-fledged tanks in battle. We are talking about the British Mark I, developed in the same year. The diamond-shaped tank was the first in the family, subsequent versions were repeatedly upgraded. Although during the Battle of the Somme everything did not go according to plan (some vehicles got stuck in a swamp, others failed for other reasons), a few dozen tanks were enough to reduce the losses of the British troops by 20 times in the course of the offensive compared to previous battles.
During World War II, the American M4 Sherman tank played an important role. At the very beginning of the war, the United States had a serious shortage of medium and heavy tanks. I had to urgently establish the production of military vehicles, and in 1940 the M3 Lee tank entered service, which, however, did not satisfy the military leadership. M4 began to be produced in 1942, during the war more than 49 thousand tanks were produced, many of which were sent to Europe as part of lend-lease. Over 17,000 M4 tanks were delivered to Great Britain alone, and after the war, the British used some of the vehicles for their own developments.
An important addition to the Ukrainian army in the 21st century will be the German Leopard 2 tanks, the creation of which began in the 1970s. In 1979, the first vehicles entered service with Germany, and today Switzerland, Spain, Greece, and the Netherlands have them. Even Qatar is armed with several dozen "leopards". For half a century, Leopard 2 has been repeatedly upgraded, improving mine protection, communications system, equipping it with auxiliary weapons and modern ammunition. Judging by the latest developments presented at the Eurosatory 2022 exhibition, "leopards" will play a leading role on the battlefield for a long time to come.

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